Category: Work

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Beer Entertainment Music Work

End of the week & Bon Iver

Last night I was out with my brothers at Moon & Sixpence for some beers and dinner. Fortunately I got home at a reasonable hour, though I still ended getting to work late this morning, however it had nothing to do with last night. Kelly took today off from work (tomorrow is her last day of school for her MBA, and she has a big project to finish up) and as my alarm went off at around 6:30am, I shut it off, rolled over, and both Kelly and the cat were curled up all cute and warm. I remember thinking awww, and then must have fell back asleep because when I next opened my eyes another hour and a half had gone by. Drats!

After work I got to have a couple beers at the Rialto with my good friend MB. Afterwards he drove me homeward, dropping me of at the local grocery store.

After getting home and cleaning the house a bit, I remembered a song that caught my attention the other day. I subscribe to the RSS feed of MP3’s from Stereogum, and often discover ‘new to me’ bands I like. Earlier this week I ended up with a song by Bon Iver (an alias for musician Justin Vernon) that I liked quite a bit, so tonight I did a bit of hunting. I discovered a good writeup and a site where you can stream the album. After listening to a few tracks (including the one that originally caught my ear, Skinny Love) I decided to see if Amazon’s MP3 store had it available. And they did. So I bought it. It’s really really good.

The album was conceived in a cabin in the snowy woods of a wintry Wisconsin, and the songs seem to capture the setting. A lot of introspective, sad, and beautiful songs, all a bit muted and folky. Just the kind of thing for today’s rainy, cold weather. I can certainly imagine it being the perfect soundtrack to a drive in a snowy landscape, with no particular destination in mind. Check it out, it’s good stuff.

Categories
Beer Entertainment Movies Work

Mash Tun, and a quick recap

Met my good friend JB at the Mash Tun tonight after work. It’d been a bit since we last caught up, and had a good time hanging out, and I greatly enjoyed sipping on the cream ale the Tun is still pouring. I asked the server (nice fella named Tim) whether he knew if they were planning to keep that particular beer going (as it’s my favorite beer they’ve ever brewed) and he said he wasn’t sure, and didn’t suspect so. It’s the Tun’s habit to perpetually brew new things, and several times since they’ve started pouring their own brews have I found one I like that hasn’t returned. I hope that’s not the case with the cream ale. If you’re into fine (and not stupidly hoppy) ales, I suggest going and having a pint before it vanishes into beer history. (Beeristory? Bistory? whatever)

Quick recap of the past, oh, several days: Saturday Kelly and I spent the evening with some friends for dinner and had a great time. Sunday we got outside and did some yard work, including me climbing on the roof of my shed to trim dead / dying branches from my ailing (and non-fruit producing) apricot tree. Still sore from that day. Monday my Comcast-provided DVR died on me, fortunately, just after finishing last week’s LOST. I have to go swap it tomorrow morning (before LOST tomorrow night, because it’s all about LOST, you know). Watched Elizabeth: The Golden Age, which was good (pretty much as good as the first one, so if you liked that one, you’ll probably enjoy it). Work’s been very busy, but less so than a couple weeks back. Taking next Monday and Tuesday off (yup, the day of and after St. Patrick’s day, so I can really do it up and recover without worry). Whew! And now you’re all caught up.

Categories
Beer Food Work

Gold Dust and the Moon

Tonight Kelly and I joined several others to celebrate our friend D’s birthday at a relatively new bar in Southeast Portland called Gold Dust Meridian. Kelly and I shared the bus down Hawthorne, but were early for the birthday gathering, so we decided to swing into McMenamins Back Stage Bar for a drink before walking down the street.

Gold Dust Meridian is a dimly lit, moderately swanky bar that’s not overpriced and has good food and a decent beer selection (including the delicious Terminal Gravity ESG). The staff were friendly, and our server was both attentive and organized (he had the foresight to preemptively split up the bill for the table by people who’d arrived together, which meant the confusion usually associated with big groups was avoided).

My brother was sitting at Moon & Sixpence and I’d told him I’d stop by, and fortunately Miranda was with us and wanted to go that way herself, so she drove Kelly and I over there and we hung out for a few beers.

Fun night. Needed it pretty badly after the week… the fun of software development and release deadlines never ends. 🙂

Categories
Beer Entertainment Food Movies Work

Long week, good weekend, Legend

Since last weekend’s adventures, I had another long and fairly stressful work week. The weekend was pretty fun though, despite two things: 1) a possible resurgence of some sort of virus (sinus pressure, a sore throat and a cough, dammit), and 2) a friend coming into town on Friday (I say friend, though he’s a total bastard and I hate him, but not really, I just like to pretend I hate him). Started off by going to Mash Tun for some dinner and drinks Friday night along with Snooks and L. Saturday we all met up at Kennedy School in the early afternoon for some drinks, and then went to Delta Cafe (blogged before here) for dinner. I both love and loathe the Delta… the food is really good, but the greasy smell gets woven into both your clothes and your very being. It can be a bit overpowering. The last time I was there I had made the mistake of bringing my wool coat in, and the next morning on the bus I realized that I was ‘that stinky guy’, all because of the greasy scent. This time I wore clothes I could burn later. 🙂

Intersection near Kennedy SchoolToday the nice weather returned. I spent most of my day relaxing indoors, playing a bit of Call of Duty 4, and watching shows recorded on the DVR. Kelly went to a friends baby shower, and after she got home I drug her to Kennedy School to see I Am Legend at the theater. We’d arrived with just enough time to sit in the Cypress Room for a beer before heading to the theater. The movie was pretty good, and I enjoyed it quite a bit despite the, at times, poor CGI (some of it was pretty bad, though overall I was able to get past a lot of it and it didn’t distract me). The representation of a vacant and dead city (with nature taking back what’s ‘hers’ with grass coming through the streets, deer running free, etc), and the main character’s almost super-human ability to avoid insanity in the face of near total solitude was well done. Overall I though it was pretty good, and well worth seeing on the ‘big screen’ for a few dollars, with some beer and popcorn.

Categories
Work

On the mountain

Mt HoodToday SuperSweetCo took the whole company back up to the Mount Hood (read last year’s story). I woke up at 5:15am, got cleaned up, and walked to a coworker’s place to catch a ride into town by 6:30am. Last year there was one bus, however this year there were two due to SuperSweetCo’s explosive growth. Despite all the extra people and two busses, we drove away earlier than we did last year (7:15am) and arrived at Mt. Hood Meadows by 8:45am, and I got myself sat down in the same lodge room as last year. This year however, due to my week of sick, I opted not to go out and exert myself but to just hang out, so I brought my laptop and have been just surfing the net, attempting to play some games, and chatting with the other folks who weren’t hitting the slopes. The schedule is to get back into downtown by 5:30pm.