blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Category: General

  • The cutting of the tree

    I had another excellently productive Saturday.

    Woke up at about 8am, paid a few bills, cleaned up my office a bit, and then Kelly went with me to to John’s Market so I could pick up another keg of Guinness. I keep saying I’m going to get something else (I’ve had Guinness pouring non-stop since October), but, well, what with St. Patrick’s Day coming in a few weeks, I figured I may as well leave the special Guinness tap and faucet attached to my kegorator, and keep the goodness flowing. I am, however, going to resist tapping it for another week or so. If I can. It taunts me.

    After picking up the keg and doing some grocery shopping, Kelly and I tried to beat the rain to get some more pruning and yard work done. I’d picked up some lawn fertilizer / moss killer mix, to try and repair my moss-infested lawn. I spent some back-breaking time trying to rake the moss from the grass, and then spreading the mixture into what quickly became some large mud patches. I only got about half of the back yard done before I had to call it quits.

    Part of why I ceased my lawn enhancing activities is that my brother T came over with his chainsaw to help me cut down my falling apricot tree (mentioned previously). Within two hours the tree was reduced to a 5 foot tall stump. It was a bittersweet thing to have to do. I loved that tree, it was gangly and hadn’t produced fruit since moving in, but it provided some beautiful texture to our  yard. Sadly, it was beyond saving, and had started falling on another tree that was perfectly healthy. It had to go. A “cut off the foot to save the leg” kind of thing. Either way, I now have to get the stump removed and figure out what to replace it with.

    And now, for your viewing pleasure (and a first for my blog) here’s a video that’s not a YouTube ripoff. Filmed by Kelly while I struck the killing blow. That smile at the end? It’s just me trying to hide my tears over what I’d just done.

    [flashvideo file=wp-content/videos/2009-02-28_apricot-tree.flv image=wp-content/videos/2009-02-28_apricot-tree.jpg /]

    Ax Men, look out!

    Oh, and here’s a really nice shot Kelly took after the damage was done.

  • Productive day ’round the house

    Kelly and I spent our day at home, doing chores and generally being productive. I woke up around 10am, went downstairs and cleaned the kitchen up and made coffee. Kelly rewarded me by making delicious buttermilk waffles. Hooray!

    After that, while Kelly did some cleaning indoors, I took advantage of the semi-sunny early afternoon and washed our car. It’d been months, and it was filthy, inside and out. Gave it a good wash, took all the trash out of it, vaccumed, wiped the interior down and cleaned the windows. It’s all sparkly and shiny now. Almost like new, except for some paint chips and the odd new scrape / small dent I discover every time I wash the car. Grrr.

    Once the car was shiny, I joined Kelly in some yardwork. We need to get our pruning done, and there’s quite a bit to do. As I walk into the back yard, pruning shears in hand, and notice that our sickly/dying apricot tree is leaning backward a bit more than I remembered (something that’s hard to tell from inside the house). As I walk up to examine, I realize that it’s leaning a lot back, and the soil around one side is pulling up. The poor tree is now starting to fall over. Argh! Need to get it cut down, soon. I set a stick under it at an angle, so I can see how urgently I need to buy a chainsaw. If it digs into the dirt at all (and I’ll be checking tomorrow) then I need to go buy a chainsaw and get to cutting immediately. Dammit.

    Anyway, now I’ve got dinner cooking, and am enjoying a beer. Time to eat!

  • A week of man flu

    This week I came down with a nasty head cold (aka: man cold, or man flu). It was terrible. I almost died. No, seriously. I swear I’m not overreacting. Really.

    Here’s some valuable information about the scourge that is man flu:

    Exhibit A: A definition

    Exhibit B: Another definition

    Exhibit C:

    Exhibit D (though this one is a bit snarky and doesn’t accurately depict the true suffering of man flu, in my personal opinion):

    I’m starting to feel better now, meaning I can finally breathe freely through my nose, and my watery eyes, sore throat, and cough are nearly gone. I think I might just have survived man flu. THIS TIME.

  • The dreaded last day of vacation

    Well, it’s finally come, my last day of my two weeks off. And as usual, it seems to have flown by faster than seems possible. In that time there’s been a big snow storm, Christmas, and New Years, so it’s been an eventful couple weeks, yet somehow I still feel like I’ve only had a couple days off.

    My sadness is made somewhat worse because the next couple weeks at work are going to be pretty stressful (lots to get done, lots to wrap up for the next release, lots to start on for the next release). This probably means I’ll go silent on the blogging again for a bit. It’s nothing personal. 😉

    Right now I’m pretending I still have loads of time before tomorrow morning comes around, and chuckling that it’s snowing again.

  • Hey look, it’s 2009!

    Last night Kelly and I had a small group of frinds over for our annual New Years Eve party. It was smaller than expected, but that didn’t stop Kelly from making enough food for a small army (as usual). I was unable to get a keg of the beer I wanted (Guinness) in time, so the kegerator was sad, but it all worked out fine. We ended up spending a couple hours playing with our new Wii, and while we were playing Wii Bowling, I learned that my friend J is something of a Wii Bowling master, and that Ghost Dog has some nice spin technique. We had a great time, and thanks to those who were able to make it. For everybody else, Happy New Year.

  • Christmas at home

    Due to the unusual amount of snow that’s hit the greater Portland area this past week, Kelly and I were unable to make the usual trek out to my folks house today.

    My hometown, which is nestled in the foothills of the Oregon coast range, had more than two feet of snow. This is the most snow my folks have ever seen, and that’s saying something. When I was young we’d fairly regularly get about a foot of snow, though over the past 15 years getting more than six inches of snow, especially before Christmas, has been a rare thing.

    This meant that this was the first Christmas that my family hasn’t spent together opening gifts, eating breakfast, eating pies, and gorging ourselves on far too many cookies. It had my family pretty bummed out, especially my younger brothers.

    If it warms up and the snow continues to melt (which is the forecast) we’ll be out there in a few days (maybe Saturday) to celebrate Christmas. It’s only a few days delay, no big deal. Fortunately I have family who all live in the same area, and nobody has had to travel long distances. I can’t imagine the hell it must have been for people trying to get into (or out of) Portland the past few days. The inconvenience of postponing Christmas a few days isn’t that big a deal.

    Tonight Kelly and I met Snooks at Kennedy School for a couple beers, which was a nice break away from home. On the way back Kelly and I helped a cab get un-stuck. Poor fella tried to turn from a relatively cleared street onto a snow & slushy mess and got stuck. It’s still a mess out here.

    Anyway, Happy Holidays everyone. Hope you all had a great day. And only a week away from 2009. Maybe this year will be better than the last.

  • I’ve added a photo gallery of all the snow

    I’ve added a gallery of photos, documenting the snow storm that Portland has had over the past week. Most are of my house and the local area, including some photos I took while Kelly and I walked down to Kennedy School a few hours ago. It’s funny to see the progression from last week, when I was taking photos of a light dusting (as if it were a big deal), and then to see where it is now (12 inches or more of snow).

    I’m now sitting home, sipping on some beers, just having eaten a delicious chicken korma dish Kelly cooked up (yummy!) and listening to Christmas music. Nice.

    Anyway, enjoy the photos!

  • Crazy, it’s still snowing!

    Here’s some updated versions of the photos I took the other day.

    We’ve now got a LOT of snow. More than I’ve seen in this neighborhood since moving to northeast in 2004. More than I’ve seen in Portland in a long time. Apparently the amount of snowfall for Portland is reaching the previous record high for this time of year, which was in 1969. Golly.

    Yesterday was a bit crappier, in that there was a sheet of freezing rain from the early morning hours, which put an icy glaze over everything, including power lines and trees. Fortunately it was less than a half inch coating at our house, but other areas got hit pretty hard, major freeways were closed, and lots of people lost power (and/or tree limbs). However, by the afternoon it started snowing again, and it seemed to snow all night and continues now.

    So the strata of this winter blanket around my neighborhood goes something like this:

    • 5-8 inches of snow
    • .25 – .5 inch of ice
    • 3-4 inches of snow
    • + still snowing

    In some spots it’s deeper (due to the winds creating 1 to 2 foot deep piles). Either way, it’s just nutty, and very unusual, to get snow like this in Portland.

  • Still snowing

    Here’s some more snow pics from my house, taken at around 1 PM today.

    Had a nice, relaxing day. Slept in nice and late, got up and realized I didn’t have creamer for coffee (yeah, I use creamer, wanna fight?) so I got cleaned up and braved the snowy weather and walked to the local grocery store. The snow is that really fine, powdery stuff that you get when it’s very cold, and the wind was blowing, which meant that my clothes were covered white by the time I got home.

    The powdery snow makes it difficult to get a clear sense of how much snow we’ve gotten (it blows into piles as deep as a foot, and then blows some spots nearly clear), though I’d guess we’ve gotten about 4 inches so far. Maybe more. Not sure. Doesn’t matter because it’s still nice to look outside and see everything covered in a blanket of white.

  • Wintry weather, and some well earned vacation

    Snow in NE Portland, 2008The past week has been very wintry here in Portland, unusually so. We had snow over last weekend (as Kelly mentioned), some 24 degree days, and again over the past day or two, more snow! I always love the snow, makes the world feel a bit softer somehow. We had more yesterday, a bit of a warming today, and then more snow tonight. I got home to a white neighborhood again. Love it.

    Work has kept me insanely busy over the past few weeks, which explains why I’ve been ignoring the blog. I’ve been working late hours (more than a few 1 AM night, and one 16 hour up-til-4 AM code-fest, urgh), trying to get a bunch of feature work done for SuperSweetCo’s upcoming release. The late hours were partially because I really wanted to get something added that wasn’t officially planned for, so the only way to do it was to work late nights. We did a demo today, and the release is really coming together and looking fantastic. Mad props to everybody involved. I’m super excited to see this next version launch in a couple months.

    Fortunately (for my sanity) I’ve got the next two weeks off of work. I look forward to lots of sleeping in, gaming (Team Fortress 2 and Call of Duty, here I come!), and generally doing nothing (except the usual holiday season activities). Hopefully I can get some shopping done, finally.