blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

Category: Work

  • Nerds, Beers & Pubs

    After a long and hectic work week (including some big news for SuperSweetCo), I had a day to myself.

    Actually, it kind of started last night with my friend Miranda coming by to hang out, stopping me from working until the wee hours. She and Brian are in the process of buying a house just a few blocks away (hooray!) and she didn’t want to go home and pack (again) so she came by for a bit. Later last night I tried to watch some of the backlog of shows we’ve recorded on our PVR but I fell asleep around 11pm or so. I was pooped.

    This weekend was Kelly’s ‘school weekend’ (classes on Friday night and all day Saturday) which generally means I sleep in late on Saturdays. Today however I woke up around 8:30am to the sounds of hammering, sawing, pounding, and yelling by the construction workers building a new house across the street. Fortunately I’d gotten a fair amount of sleep and wasn’t too cranky at being so rudely awakened on a Saturday morning. I got out of bed and made coffee before proceeding to do a bunch of little things around the house, like paying bills online, hanging some blinds in the master bath, cleaning the kitchen, etc.

    Macforce Summer Blast 07Around 2:00pm I got out of the house to run some errands before Kelly got home. Prior to leaving town for our little vacation last week, I’d seen a flier for a nerdy computer expo in town held by a local Apple specialist shop MacForce, with a grand prize drawing for an iPhone, so I figured I’d go down there. Wasn’t very exciting, but it was free, and they were serving free BBQ. Since I’d arrived later in the day I had already missed the drawings for some software I’d have liked, but oh well, I had better things to go do…

    Belmont StationAfter leaving the Mac expo thing, I went to one of Portland’s two “Beer Heaven’s”, Belmont Station, to pick up some beers for the weekend. I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t have a few things I was looking for (like Adnam’s SSB) but still picked up a Black Sheep Ale and some Abbot Ale. Such a great store, and I was glad to see it was pretty busy. Was able to snap one shot w/o a bunch of people in it.

    County Cork, Portland ORI got home around 4pm and finished cleaning the kitchen before Kelly got home from her class. A bit after Kelly got home we decided to go check out an Irish pub that we’d been meaning to go to for a couple years now, the County Cork. Not a bad little spot, though when you first walk in it doesn’t seem too impressive, the bar area is rather plain, but the rest of the main room is nice enough. There’s also a little patio area out back, all enclosed with tables and umbrellas. Kelly got a Lagunitas Censored on cask (which was really really good) and I got a Murphy’s stout (it’d been a long time since I’d had that on tap anywhere). Overall a pretty decent spot, though we opted to move on.

    Kelly and I both had a hankering for the Welsh Rarebit at Moon & Sixpence, so we headed on up there for some food. Had a nice time hanging out there, and the food hit the spot. After that we decided to get home, Kelly was tired from her day at class and wanted to relax in front of the television.

    Oh, also, this post goes out to Aaron. You asked for it. 🙂

  • Recapiness

    Craziness, business, stressiness (yes, like Stephen Colbert coining truthiness, I hereby lay claim to stressiness)… that describes my week. After meeting my new nephew Hank (who is doing well) last week, Kelly and I have been busy. The work week was a crazed blur, with the first half of the week spent designing some new / enhanced features for SuperSweetCo’s flagship product, and most evenings spent either going out or doing things around the house.

    Last night Kelly and I went out to the pubs, starting off at Rose & Thistle after I left the office. After that we went home to drop off the car and then took the bus to Moon & Sixpence to continue punishing our livers. Had a great time chatting, eating and sipping on beers.

    Tonight I went over to a BBQ / party at my friend Jen’s house for an out-of-town guest/old friend and had a really fun time hanging out and meeting new people.

    Tomorrow Kelly and I are getting up early and going to Lincoln City for the night. I’m looking forward to both getting out of town (even if only for one night) and going to the coast, which is something I don’t think I do often enough considering I live so close to such a major ocean. I hope to write about it on Sunday.

  • Lion and Shanghai

    Went to the Thirsty Lion pub for a work event (same one as last year, see this post) after work. Ran into both some ex-coworkers as well as some ex-employers (from the first web nerd job I got, way back in 1996). Also spent time hanging out with a couple coworkers that I don’t know quite as well, which was fun. Overall I had a fun time.

    Kelly met me at the Thirsty Lion towards the end of the event, just as my brother Chad sent me a text saying he and his girlfriend were nearby at the Shanghai Tunnel (again, the pattern is almost the same as last year, just without the concert). So we went down there and were met by a couple of coworkers. Had a blast hanging out. Happy birthday Katie!

  • Saturday through today

    So yeah, I didn’t get around to blogging about events from last week / weekend until recently (like, past couple days). Between being busy and just plain lazy, it just didn’t get done. So I apologize if any of you were reading my posts in your feed reader where I’d say “today” when I was writing for the days in question. What can I say, I’m lazy. To recap from Saturday through today, here’s what I’ve been up to.

    Saturday my brother and sis-in-law threw a party at their house. They’re about to be parents, and figured they’d throw one last big bash before the little’un arrives. Had a good time out there, even though I ended up having to grill up a pile of sausages because my brother is even more lazy than I and couldn’t be bothered to feed his guests. Hrmph! 🙂

    Sunday I did nothing, absolutely nothing, and it was glorious. I spent the day watching the Netflix movies that Kelly had already seen, watching a lot of television, and just generally lounging around ignoring all the productive stuff I could have been doing (including blogging).

    From then on, it’s been work work work. There’s a helluva lot to get done this week, and it’s stressing me out man! That aside, last night Kelly and I met with Kelly’s ex-coworker and her boyfriend at the Lucky Lab in Multnomah Village. I think I prefer the one on Hawthorne, but it was still a good time, and their pizza is good.

    And tonight (right now, actually) Kelly and I are sitting here at the Mash Tun brewpub, both armed with our laptops, nerding the night away and having a good time doing it. 🙂

    The weather has been VERY nice the past few days… cooler (in the 70’s) and rainy. After the nearly 100 degree heat from a couple weeks ago, it’s a welcome change. Anyway, that’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll be slightly less of a slacker… but don’t count on it… not until the workload lightens up.

  • Brews, Dogs, & Demons

    Yoda at the Portland International BrewfestWhat a day. What a week! Work was crazy busy. On top of many other tasks however, I did get to do things like finalize a logo design, and then use that logo to design a t-shirt and a website… all for a developer community that’s set to launch in a couple weeks. Today however, the team I work with and I all fled the office early to go to the Portland International Brewfest to sample some beers. I was pleasantly surprised with the Sick Duck Imperial Stout, and was quite happy to see Coniston Brewing‘s Bluebird Bitter on tap. I spent most of my two hours there bouncing between those two beers, straying here and there to try out a few things.

    Kelly picked me up just after 6pm, because we were set to meet some friends at the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne for dinner before going to a concert. Had a good time hanging out outside chatting, eating, and seeing all the cute dogs running around. Always a fun (though often loud) time at the Lucky Lab.

    Point Juncture, WA at the Aladdin TheaterWe then went on to the Aladdin Theater, which I hadn’t been inside of for over 12 years. The opening band was Point Juncture, WA (yes, that’s the band name, and they’re from Portland), who were entertaining to watch. It was pretty clear while watching them that the quintet was having a good time, pretty much all smiles the whole show. Also, several members rotated instruments during the show. While at times they sounded a bit rough, I definitely enjoyed their show.

    Talkdemonic at the Aladdin TheaterAfter the break, came the band that we were there to see, Talkdemonic. They put on a fantastic show, and introduced a LOT of new material. The crowd who’d all remained seated during Point Juncture, WA, were quickly on their feet, and the floor was filled with people swaying to the sounds that drummer / composer Kevin O’Connor and violist Lisa Molinaro poured into the theater. Fun show and a great way to end a great afternoon / evening.

  • The Big Recap

    Yes, it’s been a bit, mainly due to the house guests mentioned in my last post, and my new toy. I won’t recap the whole thing, as Kelly did a good job of that, but here’s some bits from the last few days:

    Friday: The BBQ at Snooks place was fun, though I was feeling a bit ‘out of it’ from the work week, so I don’t remember feeling massively social. My brain just needed some "switch off" time I guess. I did however have an excellent hamburger. Along with the other food items Kelly mentions in her post, Snooks had also picked up some patties from the Sapphire (raised naturally, containing a mixture of spices other veggies, and about two inches thick) which he grilled to perfection.

    Saturday: Went to Ground Kontrol with Sean (one half of our house guests) and Brian, and got our classic arcade on. I had fun playing some old pinball machines, including this very old Star Trek machine. After a few hours, we went over to the infamous Low Brow Lounge for some beers. Afterwards we met up at Khun Pic’s for dinner, which was, as Kelly mentions, fantastic.

    Sunday: Sean, Brian, Snooks and I spent a few hours at Mash Tun while the baby shower thing was going on at my house. Had a blast playing pool, throwing darts, and drinking beer. After that we (minus Brian) went to Kennedy school for a bit, and were met there for dinner by the ladies.

    Monday: Worked all day and then went home. Kelly brought me some delicious spicy mac & cheese from the Montage though. Spent my last night with Sean out in the garage, chatting away, sipping on beers, and listening to music. Went to bed WAY too late, but oh well.

    Today: Said my goodbye to Sean (his wife was still asleep by the time I left the house) and worked all day. On the way home Kelly met me at the Mash Tun for a quick pint, before arriving to a relatively empty house. Had a fun time over the past few days, but I’m pooped. 🙂

    There you have it, all caught up. Also, I’ve been playing a lot with my new Mac. It’s been running great. I got Windows XP installed on it (on a second partition) and it runs great. Also tried out VMWare Fusion, allowing me to run my Windows apps (from the second partition) inside of the Mac desktop. Pretty slick! I’ve also been able to narrow down the crashing issues I mentioned previously. There is something very specific happening with the OS X drivers for the new WiFi hardware this new machine has. At the office, when I enter the range of one of the two WiFi access points, I get the crash. Also, while at the Mash Tun, something about it’s access point won’t let me connect, though while booted into XP, I was able to connect. It’s become apparent that it’s the OS X drivers, and I’m sure that Apple will release an update for it sometime soon. But until then, my WiFi may be a bit spotty depending on where I am. Kind of sucks, but it doesn’t outweigh all the other benefits of the machine. I’m still very happy with my decision. 🙂

  • My new toy, and house guests arrive

    During my lunch break at work today I bought what I’d been (not so secretly) craving for months… I bought one of the new MacBook Pro‘s. I’ve been coveting them for a while now, however I’ve known for a while now that Apple was about to release a new model, so I waited. And waited. And waited some more. However, yesterday Apple finally released the new models (faster processors, better video cards, etc) so today I broke down and bought one.

    First impression: beautiful, elegant, easy to use. All the things I’ve come to expect (especially after using the MacBook that Kelly bought a while back)

    Second impression: slightly disappointed due to some nasty system crashes that I experienced at SuperSweetCo. With the assistance of a coworker I was able to narrow down the problem to some bug with the new hardware and the WiFi encryption that my office uses (WPA). It seems like something that a software update from Apple would fix, though the store I bought the machine from is willing to replace the laptop if the problem persists. Not sure if I’m going to go ahead and replace it yet or just give it some time.

    Third impression: I get the new toy home (and on a slightly more standard WiFi encryption scheme) and everything has worked flawlessly. My guess is that this is one of those "early adopter" issues with a brand new piece of hardware that Apple will surely fix with some upcoming software update. It’s a great machine that I’ll (hopefully) get years and years of use out of.

    All this aside, we have house guests who arrived today from "back east" (Jersey). Had a great time hanging out with them this evening, even though I had to skip out on a dinner thing with them due to work and work-related stress… I just needed some time at home alone, relaxing, and playing with my new toy. Looking forward to spending time with ’em over the next several days.

  • The Fountain, the Walking, & the Garage

    To follow up from Saturday, I spent most of yesterday playing with my photo gallery software, in an attempt to better link it with the blog. Kelly and I also watched The Fountain, which Snooks had recently metioned. It was indeed a beautiful film, and one that left me pondering afterwards (even now), and led me to some rather interesting dreams. At least I think so. I never seem to remember my dreams, but I distinctly remember waking up feeling rather introspective. Woah, that’s heavy man!

    Work today was filled with meetings, mostly around upcoming work and planning the next release of the software I’ve been working on at SuperSweetCo. The next few weeks are going to be pretty nuts.

    Fortunately I was able to get a good amount of walking in today, as the temperature has finally dropped to more sane levels. Early this morning I got few miles in walking from my house to a bus stop a bit further than I’d normally go to. During my lunch break I was finally able to do my three mile walk around the waterfront. Again, the weather (and workload) last week prevented me from my usual lunchtime walks. After work I went to my friend Jenn’s place (same spot as Memorial Day), to have some beers (Mount Hood Brewing’s Ice Axe IPA) off of her new kegerator (which she was supposed to have had by her party last week). After that I walked another few miles from her house to mine. In total I walked a bit over 7 miles today. Hooray!

    Once I got home I helped Kelly unpack the espresso machine I got her for her birthday (which finally arrived today), and then tidied up my garage a bit. Kelly and I have some friends coming to stay with us in a few day (for about 6 days). Kelly has been doing a lot of work on the house itself, but the manly area that is the garage was a mess. It’s a bit better now. The looming guests have been a good exuse to finally get in and clean like I’ve been meaning to do for a while. There’s talk of renting a projector so we can play classic arcade games on a wall in said garage, while sipping on beers and talking about manly things. The garage is now a bit better set up for such manly / nerdy activities. 🙂

  • Weekend Report: Backyard edition

    Been a very busy week. So let me start off with…

    Monday (Memorial Day): as Kelly wrote, my friend Jenn threw a big BBQ / Housewarming. I was there far too late and had far too much beer (from a keg of IPA from Pelican Brewery), but it was a blast. Though I paid for it on…

    Tuesday: the final push week for a development cycle at work. The company has engaged in something known as a ‘release train’ model, whereby every 6 weeks the company will release a new versions of it’s products. In this model there are three weeks of development followed by three weeks of quality assurance testing. This means that at the end of the dev. cycle, the developers begin work on the next release, while supporting any bugs that QA finds. So basically, development and QA happen at the same time, just for different releases. Since we’re just now getting on this model, it’s been hectic. ANYway, it was a mad rush to try and get everything done by the end of the week. Fast forward to…

    Friday: barely got everything done for a 4pm demo to the company. Following that, the company held a big happy hour bash. Since the company has gotten so big, it’s been decided that once in a while each department sponsors a happy hour, complete with a small budget for whatever it is they want to do. This first time out, the engineering department got the task, and decided to go with the theme "ice". The break room windows were blacked out, there were blue glowing things (both to wear, as well as set around the room), buckets of dry ice pouring vapor all over the floor, and images cycling on the big TV of glaciers, snow-covered mountains, and Vanilla Ice. Hehe. It was pretty fun, and I didn’t get out of the office until a bit after 7:15pm. Waited a painful 40 minutes for a bus to arrive and finally made it home a little after 8pm. Kelly and I sat in the back yard for a bit before I grilled up chicken (both real for me, and fake stuff for Kelly) and ate dinner. Then I fell asleep on the couch shortly after 11pm. This leads me to…

    Saturday: Woke up just before 8am and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I shuffled downstairs, made coffee, and though of all the things I was going to try and get done today. Once I had a cup ‘o joe in hand, I went upstairs to my office and sat at the computer to read some news for a bit. Well, I got heavily distracted (mostly with this blog) and didn’t end up doing anything I thought I might get done. Oh well I guess, it was a fun nerdy day. You might notice one new feature of the blog, there’s now a ‘Random Image’ sidebar item that’s pulling images from my new photo gallery software (Gallery2). One thing I was trying to figure out was how to more tightly integrate that application with my blog. I’m a bit frustrated with one of the blog plugins (it’s not working quite as well as I want it to) but that led me to do all kinds of other things (more behind-the-scenes) to the blog software iteself. Still tinkering, but thought I’d write a bit here before I lose myself in nerdiness again. I’m finally sitting outside (now that it’s not so damned hot out), beer in hand. Ahhhh.

    Other interesting tidbits: It’s been hot this week, very hot. It hit 90 once already, and it was still May at the time. Even today the temperature was about 13 degrees F above normal. We basically went from winter to summer with only a couple weeks of sprint-like weather inbetween. *sigh*. InfoWorld posted a positive review of the product I’ve been focusing on for the past several months. Also, as of next week, I’ll have been employed at SuperSweetCo for a year. Man how time flies!

  • The holiday weekend begins

    It's Memorial Day weekend, and I'm glad I've got an extra day off, as the past week has been pretty exhausting.

    Thursday (Kelly's birthday) Kelly spent the afternoon downtown. We went and had a delicious lunch at Mother's Bistro & Bar and then I went back to work while she wandered around town and shopped until I was free. After work we drove out to my parents house for a little birthday dinner for her, and then at around 9pm we left for home (about a 45 minute drive) so we could watch the season finale of Lost finally. However, we get home and discover somewhere between 30 and 50 little ants on our kitchen counter, specifically (and oddly) in and around the coffee maker. This meant about an hour of killing and cleaning, including a trick a friend of mine told me about; put liquid dish washing detergent on your finger and mark a line, they won't cross it. I was able to trap a few near where I thought I saw a hole by marking a circle with detergent, and then I placed some Terro within the barrier I'd created, hoping they'd be forced towards than and then retreat to their lair, unwittingly carrying their deadly package with them… cue evil laughter. A little after 11pm we were finally able to put on the 2 hour Lost season finale, which was really really excellent.

    Yesterday I was a bit tired all day. Kelly had made dinner plans with some friends at around 7pm, so after work I took the bus to Belmont Station to meet up with Kelly and pick up some things for the weekend. Dinner was at Wild Abandon, where I had a really top-notch hamburger (a thick, half-pound patty of free-range beef, with a lemon-garlic aioli, mmmm). Dinner was long though, my patience level for sitting at a restaurant for three and a half hours watching courses come and go is a little low. This is because I'm a very simple and direct person when it comes to eating: go to place, order meal, eat meal, done. 🙂 That said, it was a nice place, and the food really is excellent. We sat out on the patio which was nice, until dusk settled in and the mosquito's and spiders came out.

    After dinner a few of us went up the street to the Horse Brass for a pint or two. I was designated driver, so I was taking it easy all night, though I did have to have 2 pints at the pub, especially when I discovered what they have on tap now: Old Speckled Hen, and Bluebird Bitter, two really delicious English beers. Oddly, I'd picked up bottles of these while at Belmont Station earlier in the evening, but on tap they're so much better. Anyway, it was a nice end to a nice evening out.