Categories
Beer Music Work

Fancypants Fri, work Sat, yard Sun

Friday after work I joined Kelly for an Oregon Symphony event called ‘Party of Note‘ where people can hear small ensembles/quartets of Oregon Symphony performers play in a more relaxed setting. The one on Friday was held at a house in Portland’s west hills (where the upper echelon live) and this house was insane. It was like walking into an Italian-inspired palace, complete with columns, tapestries, wood-paneled dining rooms, chandeliers, and fancy furniture. It reminded me of visiting some of the palaces in Europe, only smaller. I was clearly out of place, having come from work in my usual jeans and shirt outfit, everyone else were dressed to the nines, sipping wine and nibbling hors d’oeurves. It was a bizarre experience, but the string quartet that played some Mozart and Hayden was great. Even Kelly said that the previous one she attended was much more casual, so hopefully (if I go again) it won’t be so stuffy. That said, I got to see how the other 1% live.

Yesterday I got up around 8am and spent the whole day and most of the night working, trying to put the finishing touches on some features I’m on the hook for. Kelly got me away long enough to take a nearly 5 mile walk though, so that was good. She also got me out to Moon & Sixpence for a couple pints of Kilkenny. Mmm.

Today I relaxed a bit, watched several episodes of this British comedy The Inbetweeners, and then got out and mowed my lawn (first time for the year), aerated the front and threw & watered a bunch of grass seed (in an attempt to revive the sad little strip of mostly mud).

Categories
Beer Entertainment Food Movies Work

Recap: work, movies, games, etc

Returning to work after 2 weeks of time off always means a lot of catching up to do. That means, as always, I fail to post. Sheesh. So here we go with more recappy goodness of the past couple weeks…

Kelly and I have watched a few decent films; the animated film 9, Charlie Wilson’s War, and just this evening, Michael Clayton. We’ve also continued to hang out from time to time at a recently discovered bar a few blocks from my house, NePo 42. They’ve got a decent beer selection, good grub, and free pool on a table in the back. The only downside are game nights when the Portland Trailblazers are playing (the place fills up with dudes that get drunk and like to loudly holler at the TV).

And today I freed up enough hard drive space on my PC to finally pick up Call of Duty: World at War off of Steam. Since I refuse to buy Modern Warfare 2 (no dedicated servers, no lean, etc – read more if you care), and I enjoyed the demo of World at War, I dropped my $39 on it and am currently gobbling up my bandwidth waiting for it to download and install. Game on!

Categories
Beer Food Music Travel Work

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 last

Happy New Years all!

Categories
General Work

Family weekends done & an afternoon at the Zoo

Last weekend was a relatively relaxed weekend, sandwiched between some very busy weeks of work, and we continue to plan for our upcoming trip to Hawaii. I even picked up a waterproof camera (the Canon PowerShot D10, waterproof to 33 ft! Pretty happy with the test shots so far).

This past weekend (starting Thursday) we had some of Kelly’s family in town (her Father and his new ladyfriend who stayed at a nearby hotel, and an Aunt and Cousin who stayed with us). As a result, it was a hectic few days, not only disrupting our usual routines, but also trying to keep them all entertained while here.

Today, after the family left, we went to the Oregon Zoo for my work’s summer (or end of summer) picnic. I hadn’t been to the zoo in many years, and had a pretty fun time wandering around seeing all the animals. The highlights for me were seeing Samudra (the baby elephant),  and the big cats (lions and cheetahs) at the Predators of the Sarengeti exhibit. Also, the company picnic was good fun, had a nice late-lunch/early dinner, a beer, and a chat with coworkers before Kelly and I continued our tour of the Zoo.

See the photos from the Zoo here.

Categories
Travel Work

August recap & we’re going to Hawaii

Yup, another month, and despite all my hopes to write more frequently, I keep using Twitter to spout my nonsense, rather than writing to my blog.

To keep it quick:

  • Early August Kelly and I joined our friends in Eagle Crest (photos)
  • Worked a ton (late nights and weekends)
  • The weather has gone from stupid hot to cold to hot again
  • Had the mother-in-law in town from Arizona
  • Continued yardwork action, trying to keep the place in order
  • Planned a trip to Hawaii

The last bullet is the important one. Kelly and I are going to Hawaii at the end of the month, and I’m really excited about it. We’re renting an oceanfront house south of Kona on the big island for 6 nights. Since 2001, all our travels have been to Europe, which I love, but that means a lot of cathedrals, museums, pubs, and big cities. I’m looking forward to spending a few days swimming in the ocean, and doing (hopefully) not too much in a tropical environment.

The house we’re renting has WiFi, so I expect to be blogging and posting photos while there. Doubt I’ll write too much more between now and then since we have have more family visiting next weekend, and I have even more work to do. So for the 2 of you who follow my blog (I assume it’s down to two, since my posts have been so infrequent), expect more at the end of the month.