June 22, 2009
Trips to John’s Marketplace always defy my imagination not just for the sheer amount of available beer, but also because I’m becoming increasingly aware that the massive selection is beginning to be less awe-inspiring and more ho-hum. That, my friends, is what happens when you find yourself swimming in available beer options. You go to a store that sells 1000 different beers and nothing catches your eye. You go to a pub with 20 taps and nothing appeals. Regardless of this growing problem, I still found myself walking out with eleven 22 oz. bottles of beer to take over to my Dad’s house for Father’s Day, so I’d say that in the end it worked out just fine. It might just be my imagination, and it truth, I hope it’s still just a deer-in-headlights feeling when faced with so many choices and not becoming jaded.
Aside from the case of beer, I also stopped by the grocery store and picked up ingredients for not one but two pizzas. The first was a Dad-friendly pizza with a tomato sauce base, mozarella, salume, italian sausage, mushrooms, green peppers, green olives, tomato and onion. I threw some feta, fontina and white cheddar on it, though, so I managed to class it up a bit. The other pizza was more Hanne-friendly, with olive oil and crushed garlic as the base, feta cheese, spinach, red onion, green olives and tomato. I had some red bell pepper, too, but I forgot to slice it up. Now, these two delicious pizzas would have been…well, delicious, but I was thwarted by a malfunctioning oven that refused perform its one job and get hot. We ended up having to put it on broil to heat it up enough, but it didn’t want to maintain the temperature so dinner preparation became a tightrope walk of turning broil on and off so as to not cook the toppings before the crust was finished baking.
FAIL.
So, everything tasted good but the crust never really finished cooking properly. I really dislike eating pizza with a knife and fork but occasionally technology fails in such a way that makes it necessary. Otherwise it was a nice day over at my Dad’s house, and I was able to fully enjoy the time thanks to my kind girlfriend who allowed herself to get roped into coming over with promise of a specific beer that was ultimately forgotten. My bad. I think that forgotten beer was what ultimately compelled her to elbow me in my nose so hard later that it still hurts now, 24 hours later, but she says it was an “accident” and that she didn’t mean to do it. Uh huh. I’m on to her.
Posted in Beer, Family, Food, General, Hanne 
1 Comment »
June 18, 2009
I got my new laptop Monday, and boy is it a beauty. That’s not usually a word I use to describe technology, but when something’s fast, powerful and as much effort was put into the outside as the inside, what else am I supposed to say? I mean, ever since Apple introduced laptops made out of brushed aluminum ten years ago, I’ve been lusting after one (with no thanks to Dan and his propaganda machine I’m convinced is responsible for this purchase, anyway), but this thing isn’t brushed aluminum–it’s a solid piece of aluminum they laser-cut into shape. No seams, only a few screws. Awesome. Hell, even the LED on the front that shows if the system is on or asleep is behind the aluminum and you can only see it when it’s illuminated. When it’s off, you can’t see where the light would come from. Lots of little things like that. They engineered the hell out of that thing.
It took me a few hours and a few tries to get everything transferred over from my old laptop to my new one, but I should have known better than try to doing it over wireless. Hell, I had 60 GB of data to move, how long exactly did I expect it to take? At least the process itself was rather painless once I got it going properly (over the wired network, incidentally–I forgot I have one of those). Anyone who’s ever tried to use Microsoft’s migration tools knows that A) they don’t work, and B)…well, actually that’s it. I’ve never once successfully gotten it to work properly. Even using the same operating system, for some reasons the versions are incompatible, and since you naturally can’t download it separately you basically have to gamble that once you export everything you’ll be able to import it again on the new system. And of course, that’s files and settings only–applications have to be installed on the new system and don’t get migrated over.
But with Apple’s migration tool, it moved over every file, every program, and every setting I had installed from the old system to the new one. Spectacular. It almost makes me want to buy another one just to try it again and see if it works down the chain. And to further rub it in Microsoft’s face, I was migrating from a computer running an older version of OS X to the latest version of OS X. So while Microsoft’s migration tools are incompatible with each other on the same OS…I moved from OS X 10.4 to 10.5 with ease. I think I’m beginning to see why people dig “the Apple experience” so much.
Of course, I also had to buy accessories that I hadn’t thought about ahead of time. The firewire port on the new laptop is a different connector than the cable I’ve been using with my external hard drive, so I had to buy a new cable. I had to buy a new laptop case to put in my bag, and if I decide to use the monitor I already have, I have to buy a new connector. Booo. I knew that would have to be purchased, but I’m still undecided as to whether to use the LCD that’s on the laptop or continue to use my monitor. The LCD is 15.4″ and is probably about as good of quality as I’m going to get. That’s a pro. Saving some energy is another pro. The external monitor is 22″ and fairly significantly bigger, but the quality isn’t anywhere near as good as the built-in screen. Eh, I guess I’ll just use my system for awhile and decide on that merit. So far, so good.
It’s definitely bigger than my last laptop–which was the intended purpose, mind you–and it’s not nearly as portable. It’s pretty much a desk machine that be taken somewhere when required, but I wouldn’t want to travel with it. That brought up an interesting conundrum, since I’d love to take a laptop with me to England next month, but I’m leary of taking my new laptop with me. So, after some hemming and hawing and a few rounds of buyer’s remorse (that I tend to get before my purchase, if that makes sense) I decided to just go ahead with it and I bought a Dell netbook. It only has a 9″ screen and has limited storage, but from a portability standpoint it’s unbeatable. Well, except for the MacBook Air, but I’m on a budget here, and I’m already waaaaay over it. I needed something inexpensive and small, not just thin and light.
But it’s light, it’s small, and best of all it’s one of the models that with a bit of wrangling I can install OS X on to run what’s called a “Hackintosh”–a computer with OS X but wasn’t made by Apple. It comes with Windows out of the box, but I plan on pretty much just getting rid of that right off the bat. If I have trouble I can always install Ubuntu Linux, but I plan on spending the next couple of weeks getting it set up so that I have a machine to accompany me to England. So why am I so hell-bent on having a laptop with me? My desire to check my email isn’t so great that I couldn’t go without it for two weeks, but in truth I’d like to be able to writer down some of my experiences. Hanne tells me that public wifi is pretty rare acorss the pond, but I can always write and save it to my hard drive. Plus, in a pinch I can transfer pictures from my digital camera and clear off the memory card if I”m snapping too many photos.
My netbook purchase must have finally raised a flag with my credit card provider, too, since my purchase got flagged and required me to call in to verify that yes, I had actually made three laptop purchases in the last week and a half. No sweat.
Aside from the toys I have and that are on the way, things are going well. Hanne’s still really busy studying for the Bar, and the other day she said it was time to stop fooling around and really get down to it. Wait…she wants to work harder? She’s been going to class in the mornings, then off to work in the afternoons, then home and studying until dinner, then studying after dinner, and then maybe she wants to watch some TV or a movie at 8:30 or 9. And that, in her mind, is not working hard enough. Yikes. But on the othe rhand, it’s given me a lot of time to myself and given me lots of opportunities to cook for her, which I always enjoy doing. She’s really dedicated to the whole process, though.
The other day I noticed a hole in my khakis caused by where my wallet sits, so I bought a new pair at the Nordstrom Rack in my building. They were snug, but not ill-fitting (in truth they were the same size and brand of the pair I was retiring), so I wore them for the rest of the day and the next day. I got home from work on Tuesday, set the mail down on the table, and rrrrrrrrrip. I had my headphones on and I was listening to my iPhone at the time so I more felt it than heard it, but that sound was the ass of my new khakis tearing down the middle. Now, I’m not the skinniest guy in the world (and I’ve gained weight in the last year or so), but neither am I such a fatass that I’m causing clothes to tear from my bulk. I’m so glad that they didn’t tear while I was at work or on the bus, but then again, maybe the tear had started and I just didn’t notice before then. There’s a scary thought, that I was walking around with a huge tear in the ass of my khakis.
Then again, I’m retiring a pair of khakis precisely because they have a tear on the ass…but it’s not as noticeable as a split down the middle seam. Needless to say, I exchanged them for a new pair that seem to have held up today, but if anyone saw me walking around they might have wondered why I kept feeling my butt. I’m weird, but not that weird.
Posted in Geekery, General, Hanne 1 Comment »
June 8, 2009
It’s not that I forget that I have a blog, most of the time I just don’t care. Man, I pay a monthly hosting bill to act as my diary and a lot of the time I just can’t be bothered to sit down and write. That either goes to show you that I’m otherwise occupied or that my level of vanity has dramatically decreased.
This afternoon I decided to mortgage my future a bit and I ordered myself a new laptop. I’d been waiting for Apple to release a new MacBook Pro having decided to stick with a Mac for the immediate future, but I’d been holding off on buying one because I knew they had a new version of OS X coming out and I didn’t want to fork over an extra $130 on top of the laptop price for a new operating system a few months after buying a laptop when I could just wait and get he new OS for free. Well today they not only released new laptops but said that the price of the new operating system in September will be a mere $30 for users of the current OS, so instead of waiting until September I decided that $30 was a fair price. So I bought myself a shiny new aluminum laptop to replace my shiny plastic laptop, but it’ll be a pretty significant upgrade for me, especially considering it will be my main machine for years to come.
The progression of hand-me-downs will be humorous to watch, too. I get the new laptop, Hanne gets my current laptop, and Hanne’s old laptop could conceivably go to my sister, as it would be a significant upgrade from the hand-me-down she’s using now. My Mom, on the other hand, decided to buy a new laptop for her needs–or rather, had me buy her a new laptop for which she’ll reimburse me upon delivery. I picked out a nice simple Dell for her yesterday and placed the order, so between that purchase and my purchase today I won’t be surprised if I get a call from my credit card company inquiring about the increase in high-value electronics being purchased on my card. As a side note, when did Dell start including 3 GB standard on their consumer models? That’s a lot of RAM. I can’t think of anything they’d need 3 GB for except for Vista, in which case shame on Microsoft.
In less geeky news, Hanne is officially a law school graduate and is now neck-deep in studying for the bar exam, which will completely occupy her time until the end of July. We met not long after she started her fist term of her first year, so it’s been quite an adventure seeing the whole process from beginning to end. I just hope that she knows what she’s getting herself into, but then again, at this point in time she doesn’t have much of an alternative. Her graduation was very nice for those of us in the shaded stands, but murder for all the graduates sitting in their black velvet robes in the sun. Afterward both our families got together at my Dad’s house and toasted her success with champagne, wine, beer and enough food to choke an elephant. I didn’t each anything else that day until around 11 PM. I think I’m still full from that afternoon.
Aside from that, things have been pretty standard at home. Come home, have a beer or two, cook dinner, relax and watch some TV. Or go out an have a beer or two, go home and relax and watch some TV. Hanne and I live less than exciting lives, but they’re enough that we enjoy collapsing on the couch in the evening and watching something that holds our interest for awhile. We finally finished up “Battlestar Galactica” and “Doctor Who” and “Nip/Tuck,” and we’re currently working our way through “Breaking Bad,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philidelphia” and “Torchwood.” Plus, of course, selections from my library of movies when Hanne has the attention span to watch more than 45 minutes at a time.
At work, though, things have been pretty busy. We recently changed our firm’s name, and all the mechanics of that have been keeping me occupied for the last couple of months. I ddn’t have to deal with notifying clients or ordering new letterhead or anything like that, but we did have to make sure that new email addresses worked without interruption, new logos filtered down into all the electronic leterhead and anywhere people could see, the new website worked, etc. etc. etc. That was a long and arduous procedure, but we finally got everything worked out and made the switch fairly seamlessly on May 31. Of course, that seamless change took 12 hours of that Sunday, but hey, it got me a day and a half off later in the week.
Of course, that was changing everything that clients and most of the firm could see, and we’re going to have to build a new internal network from the ground up in order to complete the name change. Fortunately we have another year to get that done (at least, that’s the time frame we quoted), so at the very least I’ll likely have gainful employment for another year. Huzzah! Well, unless I get fired for gross incompetence, but I’m hoping to avoid that at the very least until Hanne’s gainfully employed herself in September. That will provide a good opportunity to not only get things right from the get-go, but to document the hell out of the process at the same time. I don’t relish that idea, but as someone who has worked at places where literally nothing was documented and it took me ages to figure out how things worked and where they were, I can at least make things easier for someone else down the road.
I’m blogging old-school tonight: from Barley Mill. Hanne and I haven’t been here in ages. Dinner’s on it’s way, so I think I’ll leave it there.
Posted in Beer, Family, Food, Geekery, General, Hanne, Movies, Work 1 Comment »
May 11, 2009
1) I have a passport (application).
My previous kid-sized passport expired in 1997, and though I’m not 100% certain where the original is I have a photocopy that reminded me just how much of a goober I was back then. So I filled out the form, got a picture taken, and I turned in my passport information and somehow managed to not only write checks my checking account couldn’t cover, but simultaneously remembered where both my parents were born on the passport application. It was a magic confluence of WIN and FAIL at the same time. Quite remarkable. The only thing that saved my unintentional check kiting was that Hanne owed me money because…
2) We booked tickets to England.
London’s calling, and we answered the call. We’re spending two weeks in London, Leeds, the Yorkshire area, and Cardiff, all post-bar exam. Hanne’s now done with clases and finals, and this abuse of my vacation time is our reward for her taking the bar. She’ll be visiting relatives, I’ll be visiting relatives and abusing England’s bars, and the two of us will be having a grand time overall. We’re flying Air Canada there, so hopefully we won’t be beaten and drugged, as are common practice with American airlines in my experience. Hanne is concerned I’ll be grouchy for days, but I think that the non-American airline will break that tradition.
3) We walked to and from FredFest 2009.
Fred Ekhardt is a Portland beer writer, a contemporary of (the beer writer) Michael Jackson, and a hell of a character. For a few years now there’s been FredFest each May, something that began as a surprise birthday party and turned into and exclusive who’s-who of the regional beer crowd because the entire thing is limited to 250 people, is entirely for charity, has a steep price of admission (relatively for other brewfests) and has a tendency to attract special beers, all donated.
Hanne, my Dad and I all went last year and had a hell of a time, and the weather was a bit nicer this year and we managed to repeat the experience. Good beer all around, sightings of Portland beer brewers, pub owners, bottles shop owners, characters and bloggers. It was a great time, and due to last year’s experiences Hanne and I were wise enough to have a big lunch beforehand, so we weren’t quite as…toasted…as we were last year.
The whole shebang was held out at thr Hair of the Dog brewery, which is a good three mile walk for us each way. Not a bad walk for a day of pretty much exclusively drinking beer. 23 beers available, most of those sampled, 2 beers won in raffles. We walked away with a small 7 oz. bottle of Rogue I2PA and a large 750 ml. bottle of Widmer Imperial Red Ale, all from drawn tickets. We didn’t win the grand prize smoker grill, but hey, there’s always next year.
4) Work is hell.
Maybe “hell” is too strong a word. Let’s just say that there’s a lot going on because hypothetically, there’s a law firm that’s changing its name, and hypothetically I have a lot of responsibility in that project. This hypothetical firm has a lot of a work ahead of it in the next three weeks.
5) I had a beer judged by professionals.
21/50 and 25/50 from two professional brewers. I knew it was lacking due to circumstances beyond my control, but it was nice to see some professional opinion.
6) Dan and Kristine will be here in Portland for the fall/winter.
My college roomate and his girlfriend will be auditioning Portland for their permanent home from September to December. I think we’ll convince them to stay given that Portland is the shiznit and we just rule the universe.
7) Hanne’s done with school.
No more classes, no more books, no more teachers asking inane questions and using a cheat sheet to remember names while still sticking to a strict schedule of who to call on. We popped the cork on a bottle of champagne Friday night, but have decided we need another half-case of champagne to celebrate graduation, taking the bar exam, her first day of work in the fall, etc. etc. It’s amazing how far she’s come since I met her.
Without further ado or exposition into additional events, I shall retire.
Posted in Beer, Beloit, Family, Food, General, Hanne, Work 1 Comment »
April 21, 2009
I swear to God, I’ve used every variation of “musings” or “rumblings” or some claptrap over the years, but really, it’s just because I can’t think of anything. Today it’s justified, though–my brain is still kind of off. I went for a run after work (which I have to admit, is the first time I ran since last time I wrote…I think) in the nice–very nice, actually–weather and I forgot what heat + exercise does to a body. I stumbled home and drank about three pints of water in a row, but that and a cold shower hasn’t been enough to flip the switch on my brain back on. Of course, it also might be the beer I have, but I’m only a few sips in.
On days like today (81 degrees att he peak) it’s tough to fight every urge I have that says “Go and sit in the sun, Andrew! Have a beer or two and soak up some sunlight!” and instead lace up my running shoes and plod around the neighborhood. If I were in better shape, maybe, but I just don’t have as much in me anymore. Well, not yet at least. I hope to change that at some point. In any case, I’m not in the sun, but at least I’ve got the beer.
On the other hand, at this time of day when don’t I?
Yesterday I crcked open the first bottle of my Belgian-style IPA that I’ll be entering in the homebrew competition, and it was quite good. I’m not sure about how well it will stack up against my competition, but I certainly enjoyed it enough that I don’t feel bad entering it on Friday. I have sort of a bonus for entering it, too–not only do I get a tasting glass and some tickets for the non-homebrew brewfest that the competition is attached to, but since I have to drop my beer off on Friday at Hopworks Urban Brewery, that means a trip to Hopworks is in order. Awesome. I love that place, and I feel a night of good beer and a nice long stumble home in my future this Friday evening.
OK, my brain’s just not up to writing level. Shutting down.
Posted in Beer, General, Running 1 Comment »
April 7, 2009
Well maybe not “den” exactly. Backyard of a mad scientist? Dammit, let me start over. I’m at the Green Dragon and the mad scientist in question is Ron Gansberg, brewer at Cascade Brewing here in Portland (technically Hillsdale I suppose) who has something of a reputation for…shall we say, experimentation. Sure, he brews an IPA and a pale and a wheat and a stout, but I’ve always gotten the impression that his brewery is like a mafia front or a speakeasy–the outside is just for show, but say the passphrase and you go in the back where all the good stuff is. For example, right now I’m drinking a sour double Belgian ale fermented with cherries. In he past he’s brewed watermellon ales, apricot krieks, sour Flanders-style reds, and pretty much every combination therein. He loves fruit, and his specialty ales are certainly worth the effort he puts in. I’m sure if he could get by only brewing the specialty stuff he would, but you have to occasionally cater to the masses. Hanne’s been on a sour beer kick lately and she’s pretty disappointed she can’t be here tonight. I told her to ditch class, but since she did that last night, I think she decided not to become a complete truant her last term of law school.
Perhaps a trip to Raccoon Lodge, home of Cascade Brewing, is in short order. We’ll bus it there. Or get a ride. Either way, no way either Hanne or I will be driving that evening if his tap selection is decent.
I decided that it was all right to treat myself to a couple of beers tonight since I went for a run after work, but then again, days I don’t run certainly don’t really stop me from having a beer or two. I was fully aware that it had been a few weeks since my last run, too, and I have a feeling I’ll be stiff tomorrow. It’s not that I’m out of shape (which I kind of am), but those muscles tend to lose something if you don’t use them frequently enough–faster than other muscles, it feels like. I was also very aware of muscles in my back that I didn’t know I had.
The weather’s been so gorgeous here for the last few days that it’s almost made me forget the snowy winter and rainy last few weeks. A couple of days of sun tend to do that. On Saturday, Hanne and I went up to the Portland Farmer’s Market and walked away with some herbs and a few veggies in our possession. I took the opportunity to buy a boneless leg of lamb and some fresh rosemary, and I made a nice roast for dinner that night along with some roasted veggies. On Sunday we went over to my Dad’s house and had a good visit with my ailing grandmother and drank some beer with the family in the, but since Hanne had some work to do that night we had to beg out of dinner and head home early. No worries–we went to Lucky Lab for some beer, chips and salsa and then picked up a Thai curry to enjoy for dinner. Absolutely wonderful weather helped us along the way. I have a feeling this summer is going to be a lot of fun now that we better know how to use our grill and make good use of our backyard space.
As a finale for the weekend’s lovely weather (although technically not weekend anymore, I’ll accept Monday’s weather as a weekend extension), yesterday Hanne blew off her evening class so that we might sit outside and have sandwiches and beer, but I convinced her we should fire up the BBQ and grill some dinner instead–which we did very successfully, as a matter of fact. A grilled veggie and cheddar sandwich for her, a lamb burger on an olive ciabatta roll with hummus, red pepper, onion and feta for me. Grilled asparagus on the side. And beer of course, but what did you expect?
Hmmm. Half a mug gone, perhaps I should look into pairing it with some food.
Posted in Beer, Family, Food, General, Hanne, Running 1 Comment »
March 31, 2009
I was “agonizing” over what to do tonight–and I use the word loosely mostly because it’s like agonizing over gold shoes being too tight–because I had so many options open to me. Part of me thought I should probably get some exercise in the form of a run or walking…somewhere…since I’ve been lax about it for the last couple of weeks, but the lengthiest walk I was willing to undertake was to Belmont Station to buy some beer, which negates the walk for the most part. That option would have ended with a sandwich in my hands and playing City of Heroes until Hanne came home and started bugging me to entertain her and watch something with her.
Option 2 was to go for a run and then go to the Green Dragon for tonight’s “Meet the Brewer.” The beer isn’t terribly inspired tonight–Alameda Brewing in NE Portland, and I’ve had all their offerings–but I would have gotten a run in and some free beer. I didn’t feel like eating there, though, so that threw a kink into that plan.
So, I find myself at the Lucky Lab on Hawthorne for something ompletely different, drinking a Super Duper Dog imperial IPA and waiting on soup and a sandwich. Once I’m done here, maybe I’m mosey on over to the Green Dragon and see what’s pouring so I can still abuse my free beer. Green Dragon has recently started pouring a single cask-conditioned beer there in addition to their 18 or so other taps, so perhaps something hoppy and cirtusy will be on cask for me.
I’ve started playing a game on my iPhone that I bought last week called “Fieldrunners,” and it has me absolutely hooked. It’s all I can do to not pick it up at work and start playing, because I know if I did two hours of my day would just evaporate in front of my eyes without me even realizing it. I mean, it’s that addictive. It’s in the genre of “tower defense” games, where your only goal is to prevent enemy forces from reaching the other side of a map, and all you can do is to build defenses to keep them out. The trick, though, is that you can never completely block off the route to the other side–there always has to be an open path–so you can’t just turtle yourself in and prevent them from breaking through. No, you have to create a maze of gun towers and upgrade them against the increasingly powerful enemy forces trying to get to the other side. It’s amazingly simple, and yet somehow amazingly difficult to keep up with.
…as my 20-minute break to play clearly says.
Now I find myself back at the Green Dragon, but at least I’m not choosing among the scant food menu to scrap up some dinner. I guess that’s not really fair–the food is decent here, but there’s a lot of heavy stuff on the menu I can do without, and the lighter dishes I’ve eaten a lot of in the last year and change, whenever it opened. Last I was here was a couple of weekends ago for the Firkfin Fest, and I had once again found myself at a brewfest at the unfortuate hour of 11 AM thus ruining the rest of my day.
I have little else to write about. I could probably write for hours, but I really don’t want to. I want to take my phone out of my pocket and play Fieldrunners until I’m defeated. I’m such a nerd.
Posted in Beer, Geekery, General, Hanne, Running 1 Comment »
March 28, 2009
So many miscellaneous things to write about.
I racked my Belgian-style ale into a secondary fermenter earlier this week in order to clear some of the sediment out of the bottom, and I took the opportunity to taste a little bit so that I might put my mind at ease to how it was coming along. As my first Belgian beer I’ve brewed, I was a little worried that it might be a bit funky or off, but I was relieved. One of the attorneys at my office asks me about my brewing every now and then, and when I told him this he asked how it was coming along and I could think of no better way to put it than while I don’t know how competitive I’ll be in the homebrew competition, I have no qualms about entering it now. Just the right amount of Belgian flavor with a fair amount of hoppiness that’s definitely more reminiscent of a northwest IPA. This might be the most interesting beer I’ve brewed yet, and it makes me want to branch out a bit from the hop monsters I’ve been brewing. Hanne’s requested a nice light pale ale next so that we have a stock of beers that she might have when the weather gets nice or she just wants one bottle of beer after a day of studying. I might try and whip up something new since I don’t think I’ve brewed a nice light pale yet. Or maybe I have–I just don’t remember. I’m on batch #22 or so by now, and the early batches have slipped away from my memory. I have no desire to recreate some of them because they were mostly generic and I was just getting started, but I might have to browse my booklet and see if anything gives me a flash of insight.
Hanne was out of class this week for Spring Break, so she was home every evening. It’s definitely easier to come up with dinner ideas when it’s just me (because I can do whatever I want), but I’m so used to only having four nights in any given week in which Hanne and I need to make plans (usually three, since Fridays we typically go out somewhere) that I found that my mind was coming up blank for ideas to cook. We ended up going out a few times, but that was nice, too–we don’t go out very often anymore both to save money and to cook healthier things.
Today we were supposed to go to the Portland Farmer’s Market and pick up some fresh produce or whatnot, but it’s raining pretty steadily and I tell you, I just don’t see that happening. I was looking forward to browsing what they have for sale because I find that often times the ingredients I have drive the meal and not vice versa, and we’ve already gone through most of last week’s Organics to You box.
As an aside, I’m listening to an album I just bought–”Simple Things” by Zero 7–and it’s fantastic. Amazon.com has been suggesting it as something I might like to buy given the other music I’ve bought from them over the years, but I didn’t know anything about the band. I finally just decided to spend $9 and buy a digital copy from them, and it’s right up my alley so far. It reminds me of a lot of different music I listen to, and trying to cram it into any one style would be disrespecting the music.
Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, cooking. So no Farmer’s Market for us today. Given the weather today it certainly seems like a day to just laze around for awhile, maybe do some cleaning this afternoon, but there’s a block get-together at 1 PM today. I can see us blowing that off. The block get-togethers on this block aren’t one where there’s someone BBQing and people hang out and drink beer, but it’s a short appetizers-and-introduce-yourself-and-update-your-neighborhood-watch sort of thing. Pretty boring. The kitchen needs a good clean, anyhow and we plan on taking everything out of the cupboards and giving them a good scrub since we’ve seen the appearance of a few ants over the last few days. It’s been a slow trickle and not the feeding trails that always get me so perturbed, but mostly I’m just thinking “Is it that time already?” I hate this time of year, with every little black speck I see forcing me to investigate to make sure that ants aren’t crawling around everywhere and getting into things. Last summer we got a lot in our kitchen, a lot in our bathroom (though not as bad as my last summer in my old apartment where all I got were the flying ones), and even by the front door. I’ve already picked up a bottle of the liquid poison you put out for them to eat and take back to the nest since I had such good luck with it last year, but I hope to be able to head them off at the pass with a thorough cleaning first.
Hanne and I have been watching the last few episodes of the final season of “Battlestar Galactica,” and I’m so confused. It’s still a show with one of the highest production values and excellent writing of any hourlong drama of the last ten years, but it’s like the writers have been watching too much “LOST” and have decided to just make shit up as they go along. Some of it’s believable, but they’ve been making a lot of references to the events of the first season lately, and all I could do was sigh and remember how incredibly good that show was when it started. Where did that show go? Between then and now they explored a lot of themes that made the show so compelling to watch, but it’s just not the same show anymore. It started off as an action sci-fi drama (yes, those three genres can successfully be combined) and it’s ended up as a quasi-mystic sci-fi drama. Not a whole lot of action anymore, but then again, I guess the war is over. Blah. Maybe it’ll peak at the end of the show, but I head that the final episode wasn’t all that great. Sigh. Maybe I’ll just have to go back and watch the first episodes again to wipe the mediocre end from my brain.
Ahhh…lazy Saturday mornings are lazy. Good times.
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March 8, 2009
It’s a beautiful day outside, the sun is shining, it’s fairly warm in the sun, but both Hanne and I find ourselves inside not feeling too well. Hanne I suspect more than myself, and I just have a headache that doesn’t seem to want to go away, and Hanne with a general sense of malaise. The sort of headache I woke up with is usually brought on by not enough water before bed after one too many drinks, but while I did drink a fair amount yesterday, most of it was at lunchtime and I had plenty of water between then and bedtime. More on that in a bit. Generally that sort of headache goes away after some food and water and coffee unless I had far more than one drink too many, but again, that’s not the case. It’s the headache that won’t die, despite treating with food, water, coffee, fresh air, and time away from the computer. Grrr.
But let’s first return to Friday, in which Hanne and I planned to go to the weekly wine tasting and then check out a local wine bar that moved to new digs with a great view. Well, it was dark by the time we were to go to the wine bar and I wasn’t really in the mood for their sparse–but delicious–food menu, so instead we wandered over to Division to check out a Mexican restaurant that we’ve both heard is good. The hour wait with no bar seating put us off a bit, however, so we crossed the street to a different wine bar and enjoyed a few drinks and dinner. All in all, a very nice evening.
Saturday I knew was going to be “one of those days,” though, given the day’s plans. Over at the Lucky Lab Brewpub in NW Portland was the second day of the Barleywine and Big Beer Festival, and I had my fair share of samples of those high-alcohol beers during lunch with my Dad and grandmother and Hanne’s parents. But naturally, when you start drinking at 11:30 AM–even with food–it makes for a long day. Our 3-mile walk home helped to sober me up, and by the time we walked back downtown to meet her parents for dinner at the Deschutes Brewpub in the Pearl, I was feeling right as rain. And I didn’t order too much beer at Deschutes, to boot.
So yes, I definitely had enough beer that, if all consumed in one evening would have hd me lament opening my eyes in the morning, but spread out over two meals it worked out well. So why am I not feeling well? Maybe I’m coming down with the same malaise that’s made Hanne so sluggish today. Ug. I hope not.
With Saint Patrick’s Day a little over a week away, I’ve decided to get my Irish on and make a meal of corned beef and cabbage. I’ve never made the dish before–I’m not sure I’ve even ever had corned beef and cabbage before–so I’m hoping that it’s not just another reason for me to despise cabbage as I already do. Meat and veggies sounds pretty solid, especially something prepared by boiling the veggies in a beer-based liquid. So far the centerpiece of the meal doesn’t seem too disgusting, though. I have a little over three pounds of beef brisket brining in a mixture of homebrew, water, kosher salt, brown sugar, and pickling spices, and it’s going to stay that way for another week or so before I actually cook the meal. I don’t usually have the patience for meal preparation that takes a long time, but heck, marinating something for a week? Sounds good to me. Slow-prepared, slow-cooked. That’s how the best meat is prepared, anyway.
Tonight I promised Hanne I’d make her something simple for dinner: soup and sandwich. By which I mean Tunisian Soup with Chard and Egg Noodles and Warm Chicken Sandwiches with Mushrooms, Spinach and Cheese, but I didn’t exactly promise grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.
My Belgian-style ale brewing on Wednesday seems to have come out well, though I won’t be able to sample it for another couple of week at the minimum to tell for sure. It’s not as if I noticed any blaring mistakes in my brewing process though. In fact, the only snag was that I used my fermenter that doesn’t have a themometer strip on the side, which is annoying but no crisis. Someone I know suggested I call my ale “Hopping Monk” which sounds pretty good for a Belgian ale hopped like an IPA. But no, I can’t call it an “India Pale Ale” because that doesn’t make sense.
I can call it Hopping Monk CPA: “Congolese Pale Ale.” Ha!
Posted in Beer, Family, Food, General, Hanne 1 Comment »
March 3, 2009
There’s actually a group here in Portland called “Beer and Blog” that I’ve been meaning to check out. It’s a bunch of people who get together and…well, I don’t want to ruint he surprise for you. They always seem to get together so early, though! I mean I have been known on occasion to have a beer or two at 4 PM, but really, at that time I’m just getting off work and usually have something in mind that I want to do, like go for a run or something of the sort. Granted I think it’s once a week or so…but there goes the rest of the day if I fill my mug a couple of times.
“But Andrew!” you say, “Why don’t you just have one beer or not fill your mug?” Pssh. This mug demands to be filled. It needs to be filled. Whenever I get just a half mug of beer I think that somewhere a beer angel loses its wings.
This weekend was pretty interesting, to say the least. Friday evening Hanne was a bit burnt out from her paper she’d been working on for a few weeks, so we just stayed in and had a generally lazy evening of Thai food and television. Saturday Hanne found herself up on campus to work on her paper some more, and I stayed home and played some City of Heroes, cleaned up a bit, and generally had the sort of day I’d been missing out on when my computer died. More on that later.
At some point in the afternoon, though, I heard sirens. That’s nothing too uncommon, but then I realized there were a lot of sirens. Huh. Then it sruck me that they were getting pretty loud. I decided that I’d better investigate, and I went over to a window and looked out. What I saw was my next door neighbor and a number of other people standing on the other side of the street and looking back across. Of course, I had the sort of rational thought that everyone in that scenario thinks: “Oh shit.” I went outside to see what the hubbub was about, and I was presented with quite the sight.
OK, so I actually have pictures, but my blogging software is being annoying and it won’t let me rotate an image once I’ve uploaded it, and it’s seemingly oblivious to rotating it on my computer first. I did what any concerned citizen would do and I ran inside to get my camera.
What I photographed was the house two doors down with the upper floor engulfed in flames. There were fire trucks pulling up, and there was thick smoke everywhere. We ended up with six or seven fire trucks on the street and a parade of firemen dragging hoses into the house to put out the fire. There was no one home, fortunately, but man…that sucks. I certainly wouldn’t want to come home to that at the end of the day.
That was pretty much the most exciting thing that happened all weekend. Saturday night I made a small roast chicken with mashed potatoes and roasted broccoli for dinner, and Hanne and I split bottles of two of last year’s brewed gems: Bridgeport “Stumptown Tart” and Deschutes “The Dissident,” both sour beers that we enjoyed when they were new. We’ve kept a few bottles for later consumption, and we’d both read an article about how they weren’t aging well. I don’t know why the author wrote that–they both had lost a bit of the sour zing, but both were still delicious.
The chicken made some lovely stock that will become the base to a risotto tomorrow night, I think. I don’t have any particular recipe in mind, but rissotos are a little like omlettes–just toss in whatever’s fresh that you have. I have potatoes that need to be cooked, too, but something tells me that rissoto and potatoes might be a bit too much starch for one evening. Maybe I’ll cook ‘em anyway, and eat them as leftovers. Better cooked and cold than thrown out, I say. Cooking fod “resets” a food’s expiration date, as far as I’m concerned. I have chard to use up, too, but since I still don’t have a very good recipe for chard, I’ll probably just throw it in the same polenta dish I made last time. Thursday night, perhaps, when Hanne’s in class until 8 and I have the time to putter about the kitchen and generaly make a mess of things.
Speaking of making a mess of things, tomorrow I’m going to brew beer for the first time in a number of months. I still have a whole batch that is as of yet untasted, but I have a unique opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. There’s a brewfest coming up in a coupel of months called “Portland Cheers to Belgian Beers” where a number of local breweries all brew different Belgian-style beers using the same yeast strain. It’s an interesting way to level the playing field, as it is, and let beer consumers such as myself taste the variety that can happen with just changing up a few ingredients. That’s the main brewfest.
This year, however, the organizers decided to throw in a homebrew competition as well, so I can brew using the same yeast strain that the pros are using. Only 40 yeast packs were made, so I thought this would be a once in a lifetime (or once in this year, at least) event that I thought I should participate in. I have all my ingredients, and tomorrow I’m knocking off work early (with permission, of course) and brewing my entry. I should have just enough time for it to ferment and bottle condition before the entry deadline. And hey! With my entry I get a free tasting glass and several free drink tickets, so I’m already saving money!
Belgian style ales are usually defined by a particular flavor and aroma, despite the wide variety of styles in the category. I remember when I first discovered that I could identify a Belgian or Belgian-style ale just by the aroma. I thought I was so awesome! Yeah, that’s easy now. My entry, however, is going to blend the traditionally lightly-hopped Belgian ale with the over-hopped West Coast IPA. Stone Brewing has a beer like this, called the Cali-Belgique IPA. Green Flash Brewing has another called Le Freak. I’m making my own version of this, a hybrid of a Belgian pale ale with the hop profile of a beer I made that I was especially proud of. I don’t have a name yet, nor do I even know if it will be palatable, but I do know that it’s going to be a hell of a first Belgian ale brewed for me. I like experimenting. There’s always a place for your standard ales, but the real challenge comes from testing out a theory. Here’s hoping it’s not completely undrinkable.
Well, so far only one batch has come out that way…but that was an error that I don’t think I could ever repeat.
The Green Dragon tonight is bustling. Part of that is because of tonight’s Meet the Brewer with the McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse brewer who’s products I always enjoy, but as I look around I realize that I don’t recognize a lot of the people here. The Rogue buyout has affected a few things–they sell shirts and growlers to go now, and there’s an American flag hanging behind the bar, and there’s definitely more floor space–but it’s still the same dark pub.
Oh well. Time for some food, I think. And another beer.
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February 22, 2009
Having my desktop computer go kaput may end up being fortunate in the long run for me, because I was pretty much just waiting for it to happen so I could go ahead and switch to a Mac full time. Of course, it had to happen in between product releases when something better is just around the corner (something better is always around the corner, but in this case it’s a matter of weeks), but that’s just how things go. I’m undecided as to whether I will purchase an iMac, a Mac Mini or a MacBook Pro, but I figure if I decided on an iMac I might as well go with the comparably-priced to my specs MacBook Pro and just sell this laptop. Hanne expressed interest in it to replace her aged HP laptop with 5 minutes of battery life, so at least I’d be able to offset the upgrade cost a bit if she bought it.
Regardless of how soon Apple will be releasing new products, at least I have my laptop to work with for now. I managed to hook up my desktop’s hard drive to my media center PC and pull data off it (my iTunes library in particular), so at least I can sync my iPhone with my laptop and have all my music and daily podcasts. So far, so good. I managed to practically fill up my laptop’s hard drive in the process (80 GB drive, 45 GB iTunes library), but I won’t be really putting anything else on here for now so it’s not a huge deal. Thus far all I’m really missing is the ability to play the occasional games, and that’s pretty much the sole reason for upgrading to a more powerful Mac. Of course, if I can somehow get my desktop working again I might hold off for awhile on a new computer and just use my desktop for gaming, but I think I’ll toss Linux on it instead of Windows. For the first time in nearly 20 years, it looks like I’m going Windows-free on my primary machine.
I could do some sort of retrospective and wax poetic on my experiences with Windows, but instead I think I’ll just say this: I always hated you. I hated the blue screens of death, I hated DOS, I hated the registry, I hated the viruses and spyware, I hated the frequent updates, I hated software that left junk all over the hard drive and I hated how each version got bigger and slower. Thanks for letting my play games for all these years, but for now I’m done with you.
Yesterday’s brewfest was fun, but there weren’t any really exceptional standout beers. A lot of nice drinkable ones, a few odd ducks that were worth trying, but nothing that made me say “Wow!” I walked downtown to catch my bus there to strtch my legs a bit, and I ended up walking home from downtown, too. Factoring in my walk to the store and back, I think I walked about 6 miles yesterday. Not bad for a day filled with drinking beer.
Hanne spent all day yesterday up on campus writing a paper, so when she got home I presented her with wine and the previously-written about penne, cheddar, and leeks. It was quite a nice recipe, and she went back for more a couple of times. I think I’ll definitely be making that recipe again if we come upon some more leeks in our Organics to You box.
Hanne’s up at campus again today, which means I’m rattling around the house by myself. Without any computer games to play and now that I’m finished making sure all my info can sync to and from my iPhone, I think maybe I’ll try and get some stuff done around here…like cleaning up this room, which has a bunch of computer parts strewn all over. I’m pretty tired already, though–I was up before 6 AM to do some scheduled work from 6-8 AM this morning–so maybe I’ll take a nap this afternoon.
First, I gotta warm up somehow, though. It’s only 50F out, but I’m cold all of a sudden.
Posted in Beer, Geekery, General, Hanne, Work No Comments »
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