Category: Travel
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Pacific City, and some cars
It’s been an eventful few weeks since my last post, so here’s the recap.
For anyone who read the last post, I’m recovering nicely from my surgery. And I’m going to have a wicked cool scar. I’m going to tell people I got in a knife fight with a gang of baddies.
I’ve been diagnosed with diabetes (oh joy), so I’ve been working hard to lose some pounds (combination of a low calorie and low carb diet with a bunch of exercise) and taking my meds in the hopes that there’s a chance of reversing it. Time will tell I guess. I’m just falling apart. Stupid frail human bodies. Time to look into transferring my consciousness into a robot body. A strong one with metal claws.
A couple weeks ago Kelly, Max and I spent a weekend in Pacific City for our anniversary and had a fabulous time. We stayed at the Inn at Cape Kiwanda which was very nice (not exactly inexpensive, but worth it). The Inn was excellent for a few reasons; The rooms were very nice, the balcony with it’s ocean view, and most importantly it’s proximity to my favorite beach-front brewpub, Pelican Pub & Brewery, where we spent an good amount of time. Got some time in hiking around the beach and the peninsula, watched the dory boats cruise back onto the beach, spent a bit of time with Max on the beach (as much as he could handle anyway), and generally had a very relaxing weekend. It was hard to come back home. More photos here.
This past weekend we went to the Portland Art Museum‘s exhibit The Allure of the Automobile where we got to see over a dozen really beautiful old cars. You can see the list of cars at this OregonLive article. My favorites were the 1937 Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza, the 1933 Pierce-Arrow, the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR “Uhlenhaut” Coupe (pictured right), and the 1959 Chevy Corvette Sting Ray. After ogling at the cars for a bit we ran upstairs to look at the collection which, while not huge, is really nice. Anyway, more photos here.Also, I recently updated my server, so hopefully everything works correctly. Anyone who knows how to get in touch via non-blog fashion, let me know if you have trouble commenting or whatever.
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Winter solstice (hooray) and more important stuff
Winter solstice is finally upon us (the end is nigh for these lame early nights/short days) and since it’s been such a long time between posts, here’s an update of what’s been going on the past few months.
Kelly and I went to the coast again in late October with a group of friends (split the rent on an awesome house in Lincoln City near Roads End State Park that Aymie found, thanks again Aymie!) and had a blast, despite the stormy weather that weekend.
Around the same time, I turned 36. Hooray or whatever. The big news from this was that I finally took the plunge (with a big, helpful push from Kelly and the rest of my family) and got an iPhone (4). No more cheap, crappy Virgin Mobile ‘pay as you go’ phone for me. Now I can retire my iPod Touch and post inane crap to Twitter anytime I want without having to hunt for a WiFi signal. Yay for everyone!
In late November I had an awning installed on my back patio (pic here), which will be nice come spring when it’s rainy but warm-ish again. Kelly and I also painted the dining room and several other rooms in the house (keep reading).
Work has been extra hectic the past few months, which is one reason I haven’t written in a while. I’m off work for a few weeks though, for reasons that will become apparent shortly.
Last night was a lunar eclipse, which we couldn’t see due to the cloud cover and rain.
Today we got hardwoods installed in the dining room, and they look awesome (pic here). If you’re in the market, Floor Factors does excellent work.
Another big reason I’m finally writing after such a long gap, Kelly and I are expecting our first child (a boy!) to be born any moment. Due date is/was today! So far the little man has remained content in Kelly’s tummy and isn’t in a hurry to join us in the world. I can’t blame him to be honest. It’s probably very nice in the womb, all warm and squishy. However, Kelly (and I) are getting ready for him to come out and say hello.Over the past few months we’ve got his room cleared out, painted and decorated, and got the crib and co-sleeper set up. Also, due to the extreme generosity of friends and family, we’ve received a load of clothes, diapers, toys, a rocker chair for Kelly to nurse with, two strollers and an infant car seat which we barely we squeezed into our Scion xA. We’re ready to go!
Any day now (hopefully before Christmas) he’ll decide he’s fully cooked. Otherwise we go in to start the induction process at midnight on December 26th.
I’ll be writing again soon. Stay tuned!
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Weekend at the coast
This weekend Kelly took me to the coast for a surprise weekend getaway. She’d rented a house near Manzanita, and we spent a couple days driving around, visiting nearby spots including spending some of Saturday at Cannon Beach, hiking through Oswald West State Park, and on Sunday checking out Hug Point (my new favorite stretch of Oregon beach).Had a really tasty burger and a few pints of Guinness at the Sand Dune Pub on Friday night, and a delicious Shrimp Scampi dinner at the Terra Cotta Cafe on Saturday evening, right before racing down to see what little sunset there was left.
It was really great to get away for a couple nights, and we got back with a Monday holiday day off to spare (so I could chill out around the house before returning to work). Thanks so much Kelly, it was fantastic!
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Camping trip to Wahtum Lake
This past weekend I joined some friends on a camping trip (to celebrate my friend S’s upcoming 40th birthday) at Wahtum Lake in the Mount Hood National Forest, a drive of about two hours from Portland.We arrived around 2pm Friday, set up camp, and set about sipping on beers and roasting hot dogs over the fire. Saturday morning we took a two mile hike up Chinidere Mountain for an incredible 360 view of the mountain range and snow-covered peaks including Hood, Rainier, St. Helens, Adams and Jefferson.
The hike about destroyed me however, and I hit the tent early Saturday night. Sunday morning we all got up early, made coffee and relaxed for a few hours before breaking down camp and headed home, stopping at Double Mountain brewpub in Hood River for some delicious pizza and beer. Great camping trip. However my calf muscles still hate me.
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Tahoe, and server surgery
Last week I was sent to South Lake Tahoe for a work ‘summit’, where several peeps from SuperSweetCo were sent to plan the next release (and beyond) of the app. It was quite the adventure, and an exhausting few days that taxed both my ability to focus on 12+ hour work sessions, and to deal with the elevation (I suffered from symptoms similar to altitude sickness, the headaches were pretty nasty). Despite the cold nighttime temperatures, it was beautiful up there.
I arrived back in Portland Thursday afternoon, and spent Friday working until ~3am trying get caught up and fix bugs in my queue that had built up over the week.
Over the weekend, after doing some yard work, I had to perform some emergency Linux server surgery (for circusgeek.com). The server had been acting up over the past few months, but nothing specific had gone wrong. Over the weekend I rebooted a few times and every few cycles it wouldn’t boot up. After taking the case apart, I heard a ‘hissing’ whiny sound. After some part replacement (including the power supply) I discovered it was the motherboard that must have had a faulty capacitor. Fortunately I had a ‘spare parts’ machine in the garage I wasn’t using so I was able to replace the innards and boot it back up with everything intact. Linux has come a long way; I remember when I couldn’t swap out much hardware w/o a kernel rebuild. Long story short, the server was back up in a couple hours (with a slightly faster processor) and all is well. Crisis averted. And, it means I can continue to serve up this little-read blog. Hooray!
Also this weekend Kelly cooked up a delicious dinner out at my folks place for Mother’s Day. I also got to help my dad cut up some wood for an upcoming hunting trip of his, and play with my nephews (even the wee one, who’s just old enough now to play with in between pooping and crying sessions).
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Surprise Astoria weekend (with Decemberists show)
This weekend I surprised Kelly with a trip to Astoria. Before leaving all Kelly knew was that we were going out of town. Later I hinted that there would be “a show” but that was all I’d told her. Friday we left home (a bit past noon) and as I was driving she was guessing “we’re going to Seattle”, and when I didn’t drive north on I-5 she guessed “we’re going to Eugene?”. Once I drove over the Fremont bridge and started driving north on Highway 30 she correctly guessed that we were going to Astoria.We arrived around 3pm, checked into our hotel, and then wandered around town for a bit (including having some nibbles at both Fort George and the Wet Dog).
That night, we went to the Liberty Theater and shortly after entering Kelly saw a poster (there was no obvious marquee) for the Decemberists benefit show for Jessica Schleif. This was a one-time show (the only scheduled Decemberists show for 2010 thus far) for a friend of the band who “recently suffered a tragedy that left her with unmanageable medical debt.” The show was a lot of fun. The opening act Michael Hurley was really really good, and the Decemberists were great as usual. It was a fun night.Saturday, after checking out the Flavel House, we drove over the Astoria Megler bridge and went to Cape Disappointment (visiting an old lighthouse) and Fort Columbia. Today on the way home we stopped at a friends place for a fortuitously planned birthday gathering before heading home.
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OMG it’s 2010
OK, so, I gave up for the past 3 months. Guess I lost the love. It’s not that I don’t love the 3 or 4 of you who actually read my blog, but I just lost the love for spewing out nonsense for no particular reason. It affected my Twitter-ing too. I just felt no need for it. I could barely keep up with consuming everything coming my way (outside of my work-related duties), and just didn’t care to add the burden to myself or anyone else.
But I’m back, baby. (for now)
Here’s a recap since my last post (when I was happily relaxed on the Big Island).
At the end of October I had a birthday, and I turned 25 (again), and had the good fortune of having friends and family over to celebrate. I had a great time (I think, can’t quite remember since it was so long ago). Looking at the photographic evidence there was a lot of time spent bowling on the Wii, drinking beers, and eating fondu and other delicious treats that Kelly (and others) had made. Again, let me reiterate, I turned 25. Not 35. Nosirree. Nope.
Around mid-November, my company sent the Engineering team down to Napa Valley and San Francisco for a day/night to celebrate the latest release of our software. Had a fun time, despite the fact that I don’t have any love for wine. However, some awesome coworkers had my back, and picked up some cans of Guinness and Boddingtons for me to gulp while on the bus. Thanks guys!Shortly after the trip to Napa, I got sick with what I can only assume to be the dreaded pigmanflu (given the fever, aches, etc). It wasn’t much fun.
Guinness is back on tap on the Kegerator (yay!).
Christmas time! Kelly and I got a nice tree this year from a daycare up the street from our house (proceeds go to help the daycare, so that makes it extra festive). Our evil cat Arthur Guinness took to climbing it repeatedly. Stupid cat. We went out to my folks place on Christmas day (as is tradition) and ate too much and opened gifts. A couple days later we went to my aunts and exchanged white elephant gifts and again ate a bit too much, and got to hang out with some of my cousins.A couple days later I got sick again, this time with a more common cold (I blame this on Kelly, since she had it first). Sniffles, cough, bleh.
The other day, out of nowhere, it snowed a bit in PDX. And this one was unexpected and caught everyone off guard. It started around 2pm or so, and by 5pm, there was a little over 2 inches of snow in our neighborhood. Watching the news of the rush-hour traffic, the roads were a mess, especially since nobody was prepared for the conditions and loads of people got stuck trying to get in or out of town. People, including my brother, spent 8 hours or more trying to get from point A to B.
That same night, Kelly and I attended a Squirrel Nut Zippers concert in Southeast Portland (at the Aladdin Theater) which she had bought for me as a Christmas gift. We weren’t sure if we were going to bother going out or not up until an hour before the show, however I’m glad we braved the roads because it was a really fun show. We hadn’t seen them in about 5 years (since their hiatus), and they put on a really good show, putting some stylistic twists some of their old songs, and performing them all with all the fun that I expected from a SNZ show.Tonight we celebrated New Years at our good friends T & S’s place (who fortunately live just over a mile away from us) which meant for the first time in many years we didn’t host the party. This was good primarily since both Kelly and I are still recovering from our illnesses. However we came home pretty quickly after midnight, and here I am.
Here’s to hoping that 2010 will be a better year all around than 2009.
And for some Way Back Machine-ing, here’s a quote from the Counting Crows song ‘A Long December‘ (watch the video for a younger Courteney Cox, back when she dated Adam Duritz in 1997):
And it’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the lastHappy New Years all!
