blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

  • Trouble at the mill

    This past week has been rough at (and for) SuperSweetCo. The struggling economy is starting to have an effect, and there were some tough decisions made. It hasn’t been a good week, but in the end, I believe the decisions and changes are for the best, and give the company the best chance to survive. I can’t really talk about it in any detail however. So instead, I give you something brilliant (the start of the vid is a bit funky, but it clears up).

    “I don’t know. Mr Wentworth just told me to come in here and say that there was trouble at the mill, that’s all – I didn’t expect a kind of Spanish Inquisition.”

    Kelly left today for New York. She arrived safe and sound. I’m sitting at the Moon & Sixpence at the moment, having a pint of Guinness. It’s helping. 🙂

  • Trumer Pils: get the glass, kill the keg

    Trumer Pils in a Trumer GlassTonight Kelly and I ran over to Belmont Station to pick up some beers. I was primarily going to pick up a bottle of Brugse Zot, and I also picked up a couple bottles of Paulaner Original Munich, and a Weihenstephan lager to try. While there, Kelly was browsing through the shelves of beer glasses and spotted a Trumer Pils glass (which is what I have, well, had on tap) so I figured I’d buy it. After picking up some groceries, I got home and figured I’d pour myself some Trumer in the strange shaped glass (which, according to a website or two, claim to enhance the aroma and flavor). Just as it got near the top of the 500mL line, the keg blew. Drats! I was able to just barely get it filled up, so the photo to the left is the glass, with the last of the keg. Oh well, I suspect that someday I’m going to get this beer in the kegerator again, it’s probably one of my favorites I’ve had pouring so far, second to Guinness… which will be my next keg I think. Hooray!

  • Take On Me – Literal Version

    A coworker sent this my way a couple days ago, thought I’d share.

    “I’m gonna kick some ass with my own pipe wrench”

  • Busy working & Run Fatboy Run

    This week I’ve been swamped with work, frantically trying to hone in some big design changes for the next version of SuperSweetCo’s web app. A bunch of work has been done, both by myself and my team, but there’s a lot of details to work out, and development starts, like, now. It’s going well, but just a bunch of stress. Taking some time off in a couple weeks, looking forward to that.

    Kelly and I set our preferences on Netflix to ship movies from our queue in Bluray (since we now have a player) and our first one arrived yesterday… Run Fatboy Run, which we promptly watched. The movie itself is funny, if a bit overly slapstick at times, but it was a joy to watch in hi-def. I get the feeling I could watch the worst movie ever right now, and still enjoy it just because of the picture clarity. 🙂

    In kegerator-related news, I think it’s about Guinness time again, now that the weather here has suddenly turned from summer to almost winter-like cold. And just in time for my birthday. Hooray!

  • Happy birthday Ty

    Tonight Kelly and I went over to our friends Ty and Aymie’s place for Ty’s birthday party thingy. Happy birthday man! Had a great time hanging out and catching up with all the crew.

    Been a while since the last post, so since then:

    • Saw Hellboy II: The Golden Army (finally), liked it quite a bit
    • Been working my ass off, lots going on
    • Been fighting a sickness this past week, ughhh
    • Saw Dogville, what a depressing flick
    • Saw Doomsday, what rubbish
    • Went to the Goose last night with Mr & Mrs Ghost Dog, brilliant!
    • Bought a Blu-ray player today, brilliant!
    • Bought Iron Man on Blu-ray, also brilliant!
    • Still pouring Trumer Pilsner in the kegerator, alsø alsø brilliant!

  • Lazy day, Goose night

    Today I had all kinds of plans to get outside and get something done in the yard. However, none of that worked out, as I ended up spending (wasting?) my day at the computer, browsing music, playing games, and generally not getting much done.

    Tonight Kelly and I went to the Goose Hollow Inn to have dinner with some friends. On our way we visited one of my coworker’s for a little bit (who was having a small BBQ gathering). We had a fun time even though we were only there for about an hour… the Goose and their delicious sandwiches beckoned.

    The friends we were meeting had never been to the Goose before, so the evening was largely planned due to my raving about their reuben sandwich. Had a fantastic time, and our friends were soon praising the Goose reuben as well. I think I won the Goose a couple more converts. Amen! Goose Hollow reuben be praised!

  • The vault at my new offices

    I’ve already mentioned how my work moved to a new office (near the deliciously evil Kenny & Zuke’s, and Powell’s Books), but what I don’t think I mentioned is that the building was the former location of a federal reserve bank (a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco). The building is big, and SuperSweetCo will, once the build-out is completed, have 3 floors (two standard floors and a penthouse with some outdoor patio space). One cool bonus though was something I saw a couple months back on a tour of the building, only at the time I didn’t have my camera with me. The basement level has this massive vault, the kind of thing you’d typically only ever see in movies. Last Friday I had my camera with me so I snapped a few photos.

    In the process of taking this shot, I had to unhook the door from the wall and swing it out a bit, and that got a little scary for a moment. The door, being so massive, didn’t want to budge, so I had to put all my weight into it to move it. However once it got going, I suddenly realized that it wasn’t going to stop, so I had to dig my heels in and pull with all I could to stop it before it swung closed, crushing the ventilation that has been added into the door frame over the past month or two. I got a couple more photos of it so you can see the how thick the door is, and what the inside of the door looks when it’s fully opened and latched to the wall. Pretty effin’ cool.

    I think my employers should arrange my office inside the vault, complete with banks of levers, buttons, little blinking lights, absorption wavemeters, tesla coils, assorted chemistry equipment (things that smoke and bubble are a must), and dark spooky music. My mad/brilliant scientist dream would be complete. “We must now descend to the vaults, and see what Doktor Designer has stumbed upon.”

  • By command of Snooks

    Me See Snooks post.

    Now, the instructions

    Take a picture of yourself right now.
    Don’t change your clothes. Don’t fix your hair. Just take a picture.
    Post that picture with no editing.
    Post these instructions with your picture.

    So here you have it.

  • Hancock and Three Sheets

    After last night’s successful Quest (for the Holy Grail), this afternoon Kelly and I decided to get out of our un-air conditioned house and head to the McMenamins Bagdad Theater and watch Hancock. It was a pretty fun popcorn flick, and better than either of us expected. It had it’s weak points, but all-in-all it was a fun superhero movie to pass the time with.

    Oh, and earlier today I hooked my laptop up to my TV and watched some Three Sheets streaming from hulu.com. What a great show. So far I’ve only seen the Belgium, Ireland, Wales, and Munich episodes, but watching a guy go around drinking is oddly therapeutic. He’s become my hero. I want his job.

  • Work week recap, and some Holy Grail action

    This past week was my first in the SuperSweetCo’s new office building (mentioned here). It’s a very nice building, and the location (while further away from mass transit and whatnot) is cool. Been to Kenny & Zuke’s now twice, and already I need to put a stop to that as it’s both expensive to both the pocketbook and the waistline. I have, however, combatted it a bit with some walks through the Pearl District and up into the west hills… some old territory I used to walk daily when I was at my previous job. It’s a really good walk/workout, a lot moreso than the flat waterfront’s 3 miles I’m used to. So I probably worked off, oh, half of one of the pastrami reuben sandwiches from Kenny & Zuke’s. heh.

    Spent some time today doing yard work again. The back yard is still looking relatively decent for this late in the summer (meaning, the lawn is still mostly green, and the plants are fairly well pruned). Sitting here now with a nice Belgian blonde ale from Val-Dieu. It’s very delicious on such a warm day.

    Tonight Mr. & Mrs. Ghost Dog are joining Miranda & Brian for some hot wings at Fire on the Mountain, and then catching Monty Python and the Holy Grail at Laurelhurst Theater. Hooray! There will be peril. And knnnnigits. Ni!