It’s been a crazy busy week, so I haven’t really been able to write. I’m having a relaxing night at home while Kelly is at class. Last night I went out to Moon & Sixpence with my brother T, and later were joined by a coworker (who was celebrating his birthday) and his wife. I Had a great night out, perhaps a bit TOO great (if you know what I mean).
Category: Work
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Werkin haard
I spent my day today working (yes, Saturday). It all started when I woke up at 8:30, sat down at the computer with my coffee and thought “maybe I’ll get a couple hours of work in”, and it ended up a full 8 hour day… I kind of got ‘in the zone‘. The reason I got started was because this last week wasn’t anywhere near as productive as I’d hoped (or needed) due to various interruptions (meetings, last minute design tweaks, etc). Today didn’t end up quite as I had intended, I was going play some Call of Duty 4, maybe watch a movie, go run some errands, etc, but once I got cranking on work I just couldn’t stop. I’M A MACHINE.
What finally stopped me was BEER. Just as it started to get dark out (about 5pm) my friend Miranda called me and invited me to join her at Moon & Sixpence. I ended up walking most of the way (since the bus I was going to take never arrived or had shown up early) but ended up finally getting there, and we were met by Snooks & L shortly after I arrived. Had a good time chatting, and it was good getting out of the house for a few hours. After I got home I talked to Kelly for a little bit (who’s in Arizona until Monday afternoon… you can read about her adventures).
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Kelly leaves town, I play a bit hard
Yesterday early afternoon Kelly picked me up from my work so I could driver her to the airport. After dropping her her off, I got halfway home before noticing her phone sitting on the passenger seat. Drats! So I turn around and speed back to the airport, park, rush in and find a paging phone. I hoped she would hear it, I never ever pay attention to those things myself. Fortunately a few minutes later she came walking out of the crowd. Crisis averted.
I went home from there (figured it’d be quicker for me to get back working if I didn’t drive all the way back into downtown.
Later I took the bus to Greater Trumps to hang out with Snooks on his birthday along some some other friends. Later my brother T showed up and we buzzed over to Rose & Thistle for a couple more pints and some food (mmm… sausage roll).
Felt a bit, ahem, delicate all day long. It was a long day.
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4 gigabyte Horse Brass
Last Friday I ordered some RAM for both Kelly and my laptops (through my work’s IT department, saving about $40 from what I’d have paid otherwise). After ordering I was told it would be 3 to 5 business days. I arrived to work this morning and had the RAM already. Woohoo! So I borrowed the tiny screwdriver required and upgraded my MacBook Pro from 2 GB to 4GB (the maximum), and later tonight upgraded Kelly’s MacBook too. So now we’re both maxed out on what we can do to these machines, and it was massively cheaper than adding such an upgrade through Apple (each 4 GB kit I just bought came to just under $100, the same upgrade when ordering the laptop at Apple’s site is a whopping $700!)
Before going home I met Snooks at Horse Brass for some beers, joined later by Kelly. Mmmmm… delicious Beamish on nitro.
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Working for the weekend
After two whole days of work I’m already pooped, however it was a good couple days. My energy level was at 11 (versus the usual wavering between 6 and 9) from all the time off. I wish I could have a week off every couple weeks to re-energize. It does the brain good.
For some late Friday fun, be sure to check out this post by my friend Snooks. It will make you smile. No, seriously. It WILL make you smile. Unless there’s something wrong with you.
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Sick, dammit all to hell
Hrmph. This figures. I have a nasty head & chest cold. It started the day after Christmas (Boxing day), and hasn’t let up yet. I’ve spent the last 3 days in the house coughing and blowing my nose. This SUCKS. I take time off from work… valuable, precious time off work… and I get sick. Argh!
I’ve watched a bunch of TV (more Law & Order: Criminal Intent than most people see in an entire year), some movies (including finally watching Blood Diamond, good film), and playing Call of Duty 4 when my head feels up to it.
I’m starting to get antsy. Mid-day today I felt pretty decent, but by 4pm it all started going wrong again, and now, even after Kelly went and picked up Thai take-out (mmmm… spicey fried rice from Tuk Tuk), I’m completely stuffed up. I am, however, saying ‘to hell with it’ and am sipping on a beer. I figure, it’ll probably help me sleep, so whatever. And it’s Friday.
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End of a week, Night at the Goose
After a fairly long and mentally exhausting work week, Kelly and I went back to our old haunt, the Goose Hollow Inn, for dinner with our good friends Jason & Jen. Been a while since I’d been to back to the Goose, and even longer since we’d seen J & J. Had a great night catching up with them. I had a few pints of Guinness and the Goose’s famous reuben sandwich. Delicious, and filling. I’m feeling quite drowsy as I write this. Looking forward to my week and a half off, which starts… NOW! *passes out*
*wakes up briefly* while linking to the Guinness website I discovered they have some new strange contraption called the Surger, some kind of sonic burst delivered to a flat-looking pour from a can that activates the nitro bubbles forming the cascade and head associated with a keg pour (videos on guinness.com). Huh. I want to try one someday, hopefully a bar around Portland has one at some point. I’m interested in comparing it to a real keg pour. *passes back out*
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The Bourne Potter Hobbit
After another long days work I met Kelly and our friend Miranda at Kennedy School at around 6pm for some dinner and then to the theater to watch The Bourne Ultimatum. The movie was good, however I find it hard to give a fair review of it for a couple reasons. First, we met early enough to eat dinner and have a few beers, which made me a little ‘relaxed’, and second, the theater was heated to about 100 degrees, only adding to my generally sleepiness… so I found myself fighting drowsiness during some of the film. Not to say the film lacked any action. It was packed with it. Just that the combination of everything didn’t put me in an attentive state. Without seeing a seeing it a second time I can’t say for sure, but I liked it, just not quite as much as the first one of the series.
After getting home around 10pm I headed straight for bed to finish the last 20 or so pages of the last Harry Potter book, The Deathly Hollows. I’d been trying to finish it for a few days, and early this morning I was reading it while sipping on coffee before I had to force myself to get cleaned up and go to work. It meant stopping during the big finale. I think I want to re-read the last chapter or two straight through this next weekend, but it was a good finish to the series. Also, I’m glad to finally be done with those seven books. Time to move on.
In other news, The Hobbit is finally getting made! (queue a little Hobbit-like jig from me) The spat between New Line and Peter Jackson has apparently been resolved so he will be executive producing what will be two more films (still unclear exactly as to whether it’s going to be simply splitting The Hobbit in two, or if it will attempt to broaden the story to include some of the other, related stories. Either way, I’m very excited about being able to watch more of PJ’s interpretation of Tolkien’s world.
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Monday, and more Radiohead
Mondays are never very fun. Work was fine, just, you know, Monday. For the 2nd Monday in a row I had a new designer in for the day (who will be helping me with the product I work on). The designer (Amy) won’t start until January 2, but it’s been good to get her in and get her up-to-speed a bit before she formally starts.. After work I met Snooks at Kennedy School for a bit, chatting largely about music. Had fun. Got home around 10pm and read for a bit before the blissful sleeping. Oh, also, I finally got my Radiohead “In Rainbows” box set in the mail. Hooray! Beautiful packaging, smartly assembled, and I finally got to hear the 2nd disc of music that wasn’t available as the digital download a few months back. Very nice. I’m just not sure where I’m going to put the box itself yet. Bookshelf? Too big for that. Hrm.
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Gaming, and the Company Party
Today Kelly had class all day, and that meant I had the day to myself. I had grand plans to continue organizing my office, but instead spent most of the day playing video games. Played some Call of Duty 2 online for a bit, and then spent some time playing OpenArena, the free Quake 3 Arena game (based on Q3A’s open-sourced engine). It had been a number of years since I’d played Q3A, and had forgotten how even though the graphics are pretty ‘lo-fi’ compared to modern games, it’s still a blast to play (literally, KABOOM). There are several really fun maps to play, and it’s just as fast and furious as Q3A was. Neat!
Tonight Kelly and I went to my company’s holiday party, held at Holocene. It was a good time; open bar, tons of snacky foods, a live band, and an excellent speech from the CEO. Here are a few photos from the party, taken by a coworker). After hanging out until 10pm Kelly and I stopped briefly at Moon & Sixpence on our way home before calling it a night (Kelly has class tomorrow).