blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

  • Turkey day

    Yesterday I had the day off of work, and had the downstairs carpets cleaned by a local service. What a difference! After only three years in the house (and a few dozen parties, cat hairballs, and random spills) we had managed to build up quite the number of nasty stains. Now it looks like new. Wonder how long it’ll be before the first spill?

    Today Kelly and I went out to my parents place for Thanksgiving. I was able to exert some restraint and didn’t leave the house feeling uncomfortably full. I had a small-ish plate of dinner, and despite the 5 delicious pies (including two that Kelly baked today and brought along) I only had 2.5 slices worth. A record low all around.

    Right now I’m having a pint of Guinness from the kegerator. Mmmmm.

    Today I’m thankful for great friends, family, food, and beer. 🙂

  • An afternoon at the park

    Laurelhurst ParkThis afternoon Kelly and I decided to take advantage of the sunny afternoon and go visit a nearby park we’ve never been to before, Laurelhurst Park.

    We spent about an hour walking around the park, circling the lake, walking to the far end before circling back around (with a short detour when we noticed some spires that looked intriguing, ended up being the Old Laurelhurst Church). One thing we noticed at the park, there were a lot of very chubby squirrels running around, all fattened up for winter. Cute, and chubby. 🙂

    More photos can be found here (including chubby squirrels).

  • Goose Hollow, and a long ride home

    This evening Kelly and some friends of ours had tickets to see 80’s goth-rock gods Sisters of Mercy play downtown on a reunion tour. I opted not to go. I like them fine, and wore my Floodland cassette out decades ago, but just not enough to pay for the rather spendy ticket.

    I did go along to dinner with everybody at the Goose Hollow Inn (mmm, reuben sandwich). Afterwards I drove Kelly to the venue, parked, made sure she was safe in the company of our friends, and then took the bus home so Kelly could drive home afterwards.

    On the way down to the bus stop I realized that I had to pee. Nothing urgent, just a bit of forewarning from the ol’ bladder. I pressed on thinking that maybe fortune would smile on me and a bus would arrive as I got to the bus stop. As I got there and checked the schedule I learned I had a good 30 minutes until the bus was scheduled to arrive. “Okay,” I thought, “I can do this” and then loaded up some music on my iPod and began my wait.

    Within about five minutes some tweaker girl (who introduced herself as Tony) started talking rapidly to me about how she was just up at another bar with friends and just had to leave because she wasn’t in a good place and had to catch a bus to Southeast to go to some party and how she was feeling punchy and blah blah blah blah blah… I just stood there listening to her (because she looked like she needed it) and smiling and responding with “uh huh” and “oh yeah?” and “ahh” a lot. It was a very long 30 minutes. Oh, and by this time, the bladder wasn’t hinting anymore, but starting to complain, loudly.

    Once I finally got on a bus I had another 25 minutes to wait, and because I got impatient (and wasn’t thinking clearly) I hopped on a bus that drops me off about 7 blocks further away from home than the one I’d wanted. Once off the bus I began the 14 block walk home, very quickly. It was a long walk, and every dark corner and row of shrubbery mocked me as I passed, daring me to do the wrong thing.

    I however succeeded in not urinating in a public (or in my pants). I am now comfortably sitting here sipping on a Guinness. Hooray!

  • Weekend recap

    Saturday after Kelly got home we had a night in (as poor Kelly was exhausted from partying ’til the break of dawn). So I went to the local Thai place and picked up some dinner, and then we watched some television before Kelly went to bed.

    Yesterday we went over to our neighbors to get the details on what we need to do to watch their dog next weekend while they’re out of town. We even went to the local park and played a bit with all the other neighborhood dogs before going to Concordia Ale House for dinner. Oh, I also played quite a bit of Team Fortress 2 yesterday. Hooray!

    Last night we watched a couple movies. First was the rom-com Blind Dating, which was my first exposure to the upcoming Captain Kirk actor Christopher Pine, who was actually pretty good despite the relatively cheesy flick. It also got me even more excited for the upcoming Star Trek film. After that we watched the British gangster flick Layer Cake, which I’d seen on a plane w/o Kelly and had forgotten how good it was.

    Back to work today. I think I’m coming down with something, or fighting something off at least. I felt exhausted all day, with a tiny bit of a stuffy head and sore throat. I think I’m just going to continue to ignore it, and hope it goes away without direct intervention on my part. Stupid fall.

  • Kelly’s in Vegas, and I have more Guinness

    Tonight Kelly left for Las Vegas, for one whole night. She had to fly out early this morning for an event this evening, and then comes home tomorrow afternoon. What a crazy thing to have to do. Wishing her luck!

    Today I went to pick up a fresh keg of Guinness. Yeah, the previous keg is empty already. Actually it’s been empty for a week, making it a record-breaking 1.5 weeks. To be honest, between Kelly, Snooks, my brother, and the party on the 24th, I had a lot of help but I was still pretty surprised. I drove to work today, packing the empty Guinness keg with me so after I could go get a fresh one. It’s home and tapped and happy in it’s little fridge. And the pints are happy in my belly.

    Tonight I’ve been trying out the new, Mac-friendly plugin from Netflix to watch sreaming movies. Works really well, and I’m pretty jazzed. I just watched Superman: Doomsday and am now watching Big Trouble in Little China which I haven’t seen in well over a decade, but it’s still a great cheesy 80’s John Carpenter flick.

  • Obama Wins!

    Barack Hussein Obama is the next President of the United States of America! I’m still amazed, honestly. I expected more shenanigans. I expected it to be really close. I expected the ‘good ol’ boy’ network to win again, having used the tactics that they know best; fear, paranoia, and (sadly) even hate. But tonight the voices of the people have spoken. I’m surprised, and very pleased.

    The fervor and hate that was whipped up over the past several months kept me from thinking that there could be the landslide there was tonight. That through all the fear and the hate, that someone consistently positive, someone who stands the best chance to heal not only the nation, but the nation’s standing on the world stage, could win, still stuns me. I’m amazed, shocked, and pleased beyond reason. I sincerely hope that it marks a turning point for our country, and for the world.

  • The past week or so…

    I keep meaning to post, I really do! I just keep getting distracted and putting it off. Here’s yet another recap of the past week or so…

    Tues – Fri
    Worked. Lots of meetings, lots of planning, little actual work got done.

    Friday night (Halloween)
    Kelly and I went to Concordia Ale House for a beer, and then headed over to Kennedy School to witness the Halloween festivities. We arrived just in time to see some little kids all decked out (saw a tiny dinosaur, the kid couldn’t have been more than a year old — looked like a stuffed animal with a small child stuffed inside, very cute). We got pints and went to the front fire pit and watched the adults arrive for the evening party. There were a number of good costumes, including some zombies, 80’s style rockers, a thin and buxom Wonder Woman, a Sarah Palin (the scariest costume all night), and my personal favorite… Cousin Eddie, Christmas Vacation style.

    Rest of weekend
    Chilled out, watched some TV and movies. Had plans and they fell through so it was a generally lazy weekend. Perfect! One cool thing, my friend Eric sent me the invite code for the Call of Duty: World at War demo, which I downloaded and played for a bit. Awesome and loads of fun, though it did tax my two year old video card. Time to buy another I guess.

    Last night
    Met Snooks at Horse Brass for a couple beers last night, before returning home to have a salad and doze off on the couch. I think I’m fighting off a flu or something. Urgh.

    Today
    Worked from home and managed to get a lot of real work done. Hooray!

    Tonight (election night)
    Trying to ignore the results as they come in. Nothing can be gained by fretting over the numbers as they come in, moving upward and (sadly) closer together. I can only hope. And pray. And wait. In the meantime I’m gonna continue to play with my new shiny iPod Touch. Maybe play some Call of Duty, or Team Fortress 2 (oh yeah, thanks again for gifting that to me, Ghost Dog!).

  • Time off ends.

    I didn’t blog quite as often as I thought I would over the past few days… distractions distractions. So here’s a recap of my short holiday.

    Thursday was Kelly’s big Mac & Cheese contest finale at Kells, and I ate way too much food. Some of the finalists recipes were really good, and the ones I thought should have won top awards didn’t. Hrmph!

    Friday Kelly and I had a small party at our house for my birthday, had a good time hanging out with friends and neighbors, snacking and sharing my keg of Guinness with everybody. I suspect that night made a dent. 🙂

    Saturday I went to dinner with my family at the Ringside Steakhouse. Mmm, meats.

    Sunday (yesterday) I was lazy, but I did go and pick up an iPod Touch. Shiny.

    Today I was very lazy. The most exciting thing I did was to get the oil changed in the car, and play some Call of Duty 4. Oh, and of course play with the new iPod.

    Anyway, tomorrow I go back to the office. *sigh*

  • Guinness, and some fall color

    So today I went and picked up a keg of Guinness. Naturally this makes me a happy man. After getting the keg home and unloaded I swapped out the gas tanks, cleaned the lines, and swapped the faucet. Had a bit of an adventure with that, it’d been a while since I’d used that faucet and I didn’t clean it properly so when I first went to tap the keg, beer exploded from the faucet, but in really wrong places. After taking it apart and cleaning it like mad, got it tapped and it’s sitting, ready to go.

    Tonight my brother T came into town, destined for Moon & Sixpence so he could do some writing. I decided that it’d be a good opportunity to get out and enjoy the decent weather (65 degrees or so), so I walked the roughly 2 miles to the pub. On the way I snapped some photos of the deciduous trees that are now punctuating the streets. I’m not usually a fan of fall anything, fall colors, fall holidays (well, except the food at Thanksgiving), and my birthday (which is coming up, drats!). However today they looked, well, kinda cool. Even though they’re all dying. 🙂

  • Time off begins…

    So after a rough week last week, tonight I begin some well-earned time off. Starting now, I will NOT be working again until next Tuesday. Hooray!

    Kelly got back from New York yesterday. Last night we made dinner and nearly got caught up on Heroes before Kelly passed out, since she was so exhausted. Tonight (and tomorrow night) she’s staying in a hotel in downtown Portland with her coworkers leading up to her big work event on Thursday night. Basically I’ve seen her once since last Wednesday, and I probably won’t see her again until Thursday night. Hrmph!

    Oh well, the important part is that I’m at home, chillin’ out listening to music, sipping on beers, and generally relaxing. Ahhhhh…