blog.circusgeek

a personal blog with nerdy bits thrown in

  • Shout Out Louds

    Tonight Kelly and I went to see the brilliant Shout Out Louds at Berbati’s Pan. We started off the evening going to Huber’s for a drink, then moving on to Shanghai Tunnel for some food before heading into Berbati’s.

    Unlike the Editors show, it was pretty empty when we arrived, so we were able to sit in the back and relax while the two opening acts played. The first was Johnossi, a duo (who, like Shout Out Louds, also hail from Sweden) who’s sound was pretty hard rock, with a couple near-pop songs thrown in. Sadly, about halfway through their set the guitarist’s sound dropped out so there was a forced intermission while they scrambled to fix the problem, poor guys. The second opener was a group called Nico Vega, who were also pretty loud and heavy. They were (to me) an odd pairing for Shout Out Louds, unlike in just about every way, but I was impressed the female singer’s powerful voice. She had some serious pipes!

    Shout Out Louds at Berbati's PanShout Out Louds went on sometime around 10:45pm, and put on a fantastic show. They sounded great, hitting every beat and note perfectly. They opened with The Comeback from their first album, and finished with the brilliant Tonight I Have To Leave It before an encore-like final few songs. The singer had mentioned how exhausted they were, not getting any sleep for the past two days and were about to call it a night after Tonight I Have To Leave It, but then somewhat last-minute they decided to play a few more songs before finally leaving the stage. They put on a great show, and if they were as exhausted as they’d said, it didn’t come across in the sound at all, I could only tell by watching the faces of individual members, they looked tired, but were pro’s the whole show.

    There was a downside however, the rudeness of certain idiots in the crowd. I’ve heard stories before that Portland is, sadly, somewhat known for it’s rude audiences. It’s something I’ve only recently began to notice, but tonight I couldn’t help but feel both angry and embarrassed by some of the fuckers in the crowd. If you’re not there to support the band, then get the fuck out! Stop being rude. I tried to let it pass and just enjoy the show, but there were a handful of morons who ended up ruining the mood for me at times. Argh! All of this aside, it was still a great show.

  • Time at the Tun

    Met my good friend JB at the Mash Tun for some beer & conversation after work. Had a great time hanging out with my lil’ sis! Later Kelly met me there and we had some dinner before walking home. Fun night. Tired. It’s only Wednesday. Urgh.

  • Order of the Phoenix

    Today Kelly and I went back to Kennedy School a little past noon to catch the 1pm show of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. It was good, though seeings how I’m currently about 100 pages from re-reading the book (and no, I haven’t read books 6 or 7 yet) I was a bit annoyed at all the differences between the book and the film. I understand why most of the changes were made, I mean, the book is 850+ pages, and in order to really capture it properly the movie would have been 5 hours long. However, it was so badly truncated in spots, and whole character sub-plots were cut out that it made it feel like it was somewhat hollowed out. It was still good, just not as true to the book as the other four films have been. Oh well.

    We got home and watched more Heroes. Such a fantastic show. I’m going to be sad when I’m caught up and go from DVD marathons to waiting week to week for new episodes.

  • Home, Simpsons, Moon

    Since yesterday’s post, I attended most of the rest of the conference, sadly missing the last speaker in order to catch the flight home. The flight took a bit longer than was scheduled, arriving a bit after 8:30pm (instead of 8:10), though thanks to a co-worker (and his wife, actually) I got a ride home rather than having to take mass transit. I was able to spend the evening catching up on Kelly’s last couple days, as well as sharing my experiences of my trip.

    Today was, thankfully, pretty mellow. Kelly had class, so I was able to sleep in a little bit (with the cat at my side). I woke up around 10:30am, made coffee and had some cereal, and finished the rest of my unpacking, doing laundry, and generally getting things back in order.

    After Kelly’s day of class, I met her at Kennedy School around 5:30pm. We sat in one of the bars, had a couple drinks, and then went down the hall to the theater to watch The Simpsons Movie, which was fun and worth seeing (a few scenes had me nearly wetting myself with laughter). After that, we went to the local grocery store before heading home.

    As I set in to play some Call of Duty 2 online I got a call from my brother T who wanted to come into town to the Moon & Sixpence for a few pints, so I ended up there hanging out with him for the remainder of the evening. Good night out, though I hope tomorrow Kelly and I can relax around the house a bit. Of course, if it doesn’t rain too badly, I might just get in some yardwork. The curse of homeownership. 🙂

  • San Francisco report

    I arrived in San Francisco on Wednesday just fine (though late) and thanks to a coworker’s brother who lives in the area made it to the hotel. The hotel itself is very nice, though I’ve got some gripes (no free WiFi in a four-star hotel? bah!). We then went to a creperie restaurant called Ti Couz for dinner (I had a savory crepe with sausage, cheese, and tomatoes, yum!). That night my coworkers were babies and went to bed around 10pm, but I was eager to walk around a little bit so I went up to this pub called Johnny Foley’s for a couple beers before going back to the hotel to sleep.

    Yesterday I had to get up pretty early, as registration started at 7am. Got up, got registered and got breakfast nice and early. Then we filtered into the event hall and got sat down up close for the first half of the day. The first half of the day was great, with great speakers and interesting topics. After a lunch break, the last half the day was a bit less interesting to me, but ended good.

    After the conference was the hosted after party at a wine bar up the street. Had a fun time meeting people, including a customer of the product I work on for SuperSweetCo. After spending a couple hours there, I left to visit another pub I wanted to stop by (Elephant & Castle) and had a couple pints and a meal before walking back to my hotel.

    On the way home however I decided to stop into a spot across the street from the hotel, House of Shields, which was a great old spot, and there were several other people who were attending the conference there that I got to meet and hang out with. After being there a little later than I’d hoped I went to the hotel and to bed.

    Today my phone decided to thwart my plans. I woke up at 9am (the same time the first speaker goes on). I woke up at 9am because my phone (which I use for my alarm clock) decided to power itself off overnight. Urgh. So I missed breakfast, and was starving by lunch. The day has been a mixed bag of good presentations and some that are less interesting, but overall it’s a good conference.

    I’m set to fly out at 6:45pm, getting home around 8:15 or so. Hopefully it’s not late departing like the flight here was. This means I have to leave shortly so I can use mass-transit for an hour to get to the airport.

  • Goose Hollow & travel prep

    Today after work I met Ghost Dog at the Goose Hollow Inn for sandwiches and beers, since both our ladies were going out to see Lou Diamond Phillips star in Camelot. Had a good time out, and got home early enough to start getting things organized for tomorrow’s flight. Not sure when I’ll post next exactly, perhaps tomorrow night from the hotel (unless, of course, the hotel doesn’t offer free WiFi). Otherwise, sometime soon-ish.

  • If you’re going to San Francisco…

    just say no.. be sure to wear… oh hell with that. 🙂 I found out today that my manager at SuperSweetCo really wanted me to go to a web designer conference, An Event Apart, held in San Francisco. The event is in 3 days. So at the end of the day, with the help of a coworker, we got everything all booked up. I fly out of Portland this Wednesday afternoon, arriving in SF at about 7:30, with 4 other fellow designers from the company. The conference is held both Thursday and Friday at The Palace Hotel, where I’ll be staying. I arranged to fly out on Friday afternoon (perhaps missing the very end of the conference) so I could have the weekend at home. Should be a fun, and at least very interesting and informative, time. I’m sure I’ll be writing about it while I’m there, providing the hotel room has some damned signal.

  • A day with family & friends

    Kelly with HenryToday was sort of a busy day. It started off with a drive out to Forest Grove to visit with my Grandma (meeting my brother Travis, his wife Mrs T and my nephew Henry there). Had a good couple hours visiting there before Kelly and I followed Travis back to his house to hang out for a bit before driving home. I snapped several photos of Kelly holding Henry, to the left is one of ’em. Awww, so precious!

    The Pagoda restaurant, Portland ORAfter leaving my bro’s house we headed back into Portland to go over to Miranda & Brian’s place for a small gathering of friends before they flew off on a three week visit to Peru… the friends were those who had agreed to keep an eye on their house and cats. On our way over we thought we’d stop and get dinner, and finally decided to try out an old Portland staple, the Pagoda, a ‘Chinese-American’ restaurant and lounge that has been around since 1940. The food was, frankly, exactly what I’d been craving… that kind of good bad Chinese food. Chow mein, pork fried rice, fried shrimp, egg rolls, etc. It was delicious, even if highly unhealthy. The atmosphere is really fun and over the top. The service was very very good. Kelly and I will definitely be back. Just not too soon. 🙂

    After stuffing ourselves we went to Miranda and Brian’s and had a good hour or so hanging out before going home to relax on the couch, continuing to watch the first season of Heroes on DVD.

  • Household productivity & Goose Hollow Inn

    Today was a productive day. While it wasn’t exciting, it was the kind of day that makes you feel a little bit better nonetheless. One of those days where you put things in their right place. You know, balancing the accounts, paying bills, taking back bottles & cans followed by a big grocery run, and getting to spend time doing a bit of pruning & cleaning up the yard. See? Very boring. But it was good because all of the above tasks had been in the back of my mind for a couple weeks now.

    This evening we met up with our good friends Ty & Aymie (and Ean and a friend of his) at our old haunt, the Goose Hollow Inn, for dinner and drinks to celebrate Ty’s birthday (Happy Birthday Ty!).

    Kelly & I decided to take mass-transit to the Goose, which involves a similar route I take to work every day (short bus ride to the MAX train, and on into downtown). However, we got into downtown and discovered there was construction on the line, similar to the one mentioned a couple months back, only on the next street up. This meant getting off the train, walking 8 blocks, and then catching the train again to go on to the Goose Hollow stop. Because of this Kelly & I were a little bit late. However, it was a great time, and I got to have a few pints of Guinness and the Goose’s fantastic reuben sandwich.

    After spending many hours chatting away, Kelly & I decided to get going homeward, and got on the MAX. Naturally, we ran into the same construction mess going home, only with longer delays. Between waiting for the connecting train, and then waiting for our bus, it took us a shocking hour and 40 minutes to get home. Urgh. Stupid construction.

  • Night at the Tun

    After a long, but productive week at work, I got off the bus and met my friend Ghost Dog at the Mash Tun for some beers and dinner. Kelly, who was out at a dinner event related to her internship, met us a little after 9pm, and Ghost Dog had a photographer buddy of his in town to shoot a wedding and who meet up a little later. Had a fun time out, even though I was out later than I thought I’d be. Barely awake now. (falls asleep at the keyboard…)