Category: Travel

Categories
Beer Travel

Liver reprieve, and Kelly’s Travel Hell

After getting a new Keg on Saturday I decided to give my liver a bit of a reprieve. It needed it, even though the liver is evil. However, tonight I’m left on my own (Kelly left for a work trip to Texas for the next 5 nights) and the keg of Terminal Gravity ESG beckoned. I could no longer resist it’s call.

I’ve been getting texts from Kelly throughout the day, and sadly, she’s been caught up in the American Airlines flight cancellations that have been plaguing airports the past several days. She and a coworker made it to Seattle, planning on catching a connecting flight to Austin, which ended up canceled. As a result, they had to re-route to Salt Lake City, then catch a flight to Houston, where they’ll have to drive the nearly 3 hours to Austin. Last thing I heard is that they weren’t scheduled to arrive in Houston until 11:30pm Houston time. Egads, what a mess!

Oh, and we learned yesterday that Kelly’s sister and her family are moving to Salisbury, England for the next two years. Kelly’s brother-in-law is in the military, and is getting stationed there (one of four possible locations, most a great deal less interesting) and they are all very excited about it. And so are we, I think we already know where our next trip will be (after the one we’ll be taking next month). It’s probably going to be a very interesting struggle, moving a family of four (including two boys) to another country. However, I’m a bit jealous of the eldest son, he’ll probably turn 18 over there. PUBS!

UPDATE: Kelly and her coworker have landed in Houston. Now they just face a long-ass drive to Austin.

Categories
Art Beer Entertainment Food Travel

Goose, work, beer & travel plans

OK, it’s been a bit since my last post, here’s what I’ve been up to:

  • Kelly and I have been to the Goose Hollow Inn a couple weekends in a row, first just Kelly and I, a second time with our friends T & Aymie and Miranda. Good lord I love their reuben sandwich. Mmmmmm….
  • Had an afternoon outing with some co-workers last Friday. The development team at SuperSweetCo were given a few hours reprieve to celebrate the the next big release of SuperSweetCo’s flagship app, and were taken to Grand Central Bowl. And despite my embarrassing high score of 86, I had a good time. Oh, Grand Central is definitely the fanciest bowling alley you’ll ever go to.
  • Still digging on the kegerator, my brother dropped by over the weekend, we hung out in my garage (aka: ‘Ryan N Kelly’s Pub’), had pizza delivered, and generally had fun chatting and sipping beers.
  • Kelly and I have been planning another trip to Europe (Belgium and Netherlands, taking advantage of the direct flights from Portland to Amsterdam)… looking forward to another vacation.

I’ll close with a video I found yesterday, by Trey Parker & Matt Stone (of South Park fame) featuring an audio clip by Alan Watts.

You can watch more of these here.

Categories
Beer General Travel

Vista House & Edgefield

After getting back from the mountain yesterday safe and sound, getting home by 7, and being really tired and going to bed around 9:30pm (my sick still having some sway over me), Kelly and I woke up just before 8am this morning. We both sat around a bit, I cleaned my office a bit, played some Call of Duty 4, and then around 1pm Kelly and I decided to go do something.

Vista HouseWe left the house and drove to the Vista House at Crown Point, a spot I’ve been wanting to visit for several years now. The drive was pretty quick (I think it only took us about 45 minutes) and it was a gorgeous day (yes, there is a pun in there). Arriving to Crown Point is great, you turn this corner on the old highway and suddenly there is this great old building overlooking the gorge. Looking north from Vista HouseThe view is really quite stunning, especially on a clear day like today, looking down onto the Columbia river and over to Washington state. Vista House itself is also worth seeing. Built in 1918 as a rest stop along the old highway, it both manages to blend in with it’s surrounding environment and serve as a platform to take in the surrounding beauty. It was VERY windy and cold up there however, so Kelly and I didn’t spend a lot of time gazing at the scenery. We did enjoy wandering around the gallery area underneath though, where there were several old photos of the building from days past.

After leaving Crown Point, Kelly and I drove along the old Historic Columbia River Highway to Troutdale (rather than going back to I-84) and went to McMenamins Edgefield for some drinks. Had a really nice time walking around the property, sipping on beers (at one point I encouraged Kelly go get a nice wine at the wine cellar bar). We wandered around / sat around for a couple hours before heading back homeward. We’re now sitting in another McMenamins establishment (Kennedy School) as I write this post. Had a great day, and am feeling a lot better, however I’m pretty sure beer has a lot to do with that.

Categories
Beer Entertainment Movies Travel Work

Home, Simpsons, Moon

Since yesterday’s post, I attended most of the rest of the conference, sadly missing the last speaker in order to catch the flight home. The flight took a bit longer than was scheduled, arriving a bit after 8:30pm (instead of 8:10), though thanks to a co-worker (and his wife, actually) I got a ride home rather than having to take mass transit. I was able to spend the evening catching up on Kelly’s last couple days, as well as sharing my experiences of my trip.

Today was, thankfully, pretty mellow. Kelly had class, so I was able to sleep in a little bit (with the cat at my side). I woke up around 10:30am, made coffee and had some cereal, and finished the rest of my unpacking, doing laundry, and generally getting things back in order.

After Kelly’s day of class, I met her at Kennedy School around 5:30pm. We sat in one of the bars, had a couple drinks, and then went down the hall to the theater to watch The Simpsons Movie, which was fun and worth seeing (a few scenes had me nearly wetting myself with laughter). After that, we went to the local grocery store before heading home.

As I set in to play some Call of Duty 2 online I got a call from my brother T who wanted to come into town to the Moon & Sixpence for a few pints, so I ended up there hanging out with him for the remainder of the evening. Good night out, though I hope tomorrow Kelly and I can relax around the house a bit. Of course, if it doesn’t rain too badly, I might just get in some yardwork. The curse of homeownership. 🙂

Categories
Beer Food Travel Work

San Francisco report

I arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday just fine (though late) and thanks to a coworker’s brother who lives in the area made it to the hotel. The hotel itself is very nice, though I’ve got some gripes (no free WiFi in a four-star hotel? bah!). We then went to a creperie restaurant called Ti Couz for dinner (I had a savory crepe with sausage, cheese, and tomatoes, yum!). That night my coworkers were babies and went to bed around 10pm, but I was eager to walk around a little bit so I went up to this pub called Johnny Foley’s for a couple beers before going back to the hotel to sleep.

Yesterday I had to get up pretty early, as registration started at 7am. Got up, got registered and got breakfast nice and early. Then we filtered into the event hall and got sat down up close for the first half of the day. The first half of the day was great, with great speakers and interesting topics. After a lunch break, the last half the day was a bit less interesting to me, but ended good.

After the conference was the hosted after party at a wine bar up the street. Had a fun time meeting people, including a customer of the product I work on for SuperSweetCo. After spending a couple hours there, I left to visit another pub I wanted to stop by (Elephant & Castle) and had a couple pints and a meal before walking back to my hotel.

On the way home however I decided to stop into a spot across the street from the hotel, House of Shields, which was a great old spot, and there were several other people who were attending the conference there that I got to meet and hang out with. After being there a little later than I’d hoped I went to the hotel and to bed.

Today my phone decided to thwart my plans. I woke up at 9am (the same time the first speaker goes on). I woke up at 9am because my phone (which I use for my alarm clock) decided to power itself off overnight. Urgh. So I missed breakfast, and was starving by lunch. The day has been a mixed bag of good presentations and some that are less interesting, but overall it’s a good conference.

I’m set to fly out at 6:45pm, getting home around 8:15 or so. Hopefully it’s not late departing like the flight here was. This means I have to leave shortly so I can use mass-transit for an hour to get to the airport.