I've been busy the past several days. Work has been very stressful. I have a lot to get done prior to a new software release (coming in a couple weeks). On Wednesday I worked from home, and had an "Orkin Man" come over and look into the ant issue. To my great relief, we don't have carpenter ants (whew!) but instead have a non-destructive nuisance called oderous house ants. Apparently it's pretty common in the area, and while they can be hard to get rid of, they're not a destructive. We'll see what we can do with store-bought ant-killing pesticides first before paying for an extermination treatment that's usually reserved for carpenter ants. Apparently the inspection was free, at least, unless we get a bill in the mail later.
On Thursday my brother Travis and I got together for our weekly beer drinking session. Had a good time, though made it an early night (due to the aforementioned work stress).
Friday after work I met Kelly and our friend Miranda at the McMenamins Back Stage Bar (mentioned before) and had a delicious spicy mac 'n cheese dish with blackened chicken, and a couple pints of Terminator Stout. Later we drove Miranda home to hang out, but not before stopping at Belmont Station to buy a few beers for the weekend (Smithwick's, Coniston Bluebird Bitter, Old Speckled Hen, and a few other things).
Today was pretty productive, despite sleeping in a bit. Kelly and I finally booked a hotel for our upcoming trip London. We chose the Park Plaza 'Sherlock Holmes' Hotel. Despite the rather touristy name, and after digging around for probably 20 hours total in the past week (using a combination of Bookings.org, TripAdvisor, and a great Google Maps and hotel search mashup called MashedHotels) we found the Sherlock Holmes was in a good location for a "decent" price (I added quotes because pretty much everything in London is really expensive). After some knuckle-gnawing, I opted for the more expensive 'suite' room. I figured that since we will be there for 8 nights, I wanted to spend our nights in as nice a room as I could afford this time, rather than going for the low-end budget route we usually go for. After booking the hotel, and going to get a haircut, Kelly and I drove about a half-hour north into Washington to visit my longtime friend Sean and his family at their new house. They had just finished moving this morning to a house that sits on ten acres of land in a beautiful and secluded area. It was great seeing them again, and I'm glad they finally found the spot they'd been looking for (for the past several years). After getting back to Portland we hung out at the Mash Tun with our friend Jenn at the Mash Tun for a bit, before going home. What a day! 🙂