I write about myself because I can.

Monthly archives for September, 2007

I have a chair!

Sep27
2007 Written by Andrew

I’m taking advantage of my chair right now. It’s in a place with beer, food, liquor, coffee, and free wifi. Completely worth the money.

My birthday turned out very well. The next day? Not so much. That was mostly my fault, though. It’s never wise to drink multiple beers above 10% ABV and then follow up with half a bottle of wine, not matter how much water you might have. I wasn’t hungover, per se, but rather, I was just tired from not being in REM sleep too much. I left work early, but I had a you-can-leave-early-because-you-worked-last-weekend credit coming to me and it wasn’t necessarily alcohol-related. I was just really, really tired.  The steak, however, was one of the–if not the–best steak I’ve ever had. I’ve already had requests to replicate my recipe.

Hanne gave me something I didn’t expect, but it’s like she read my mind. Last year before I joined Bally for the winter so I wouldn’t go exercise-less, I considered joining the Portland Rock Gym so that I could rock climb instead of run, but I decided I’d rather run instead. Hanne, apparently using her telepathy and reaching deep into my mind, bought me an intro course at the Rock Gym good for two people. It’s nothing like I expected. It’s unprecendented. It’s perfect.

Oops, my food is here. Gotta go.

Posted in Beer, Food, Hanne, Running

I bought a chair, and more

Sep25
2007 Written by Andrew

A very nice chair. I paid a lot of money for this chair. I can’t wait to see it.  When I do, I’ll make sure I talk about it, but since I started this entry a week and a half ago, I’m not keen on finishing that thought just yet.  Let’s just call it an early birthday present from me to me and leave it at that for now.

Speaking of birthday…happy birthday, me  Last year’s birthday wasn’t particularly exciting: I turned 27, I was single, living alone, and working in a job that mildly interested me.  Now I’m 28, I have a wonderful girlfriend, I’m still living alone, but my job is much, much better.  I’d say the last year has been quite an improvement over last year’s birthday, even if I did get a kickass meal at Ringside out of my family.  This year, I have no idea what I’ll be doing to celebrate with my family.  Tonight’s plans are pretty solid, though.

My plans for the evening involve leaving work early, going for a run (though I won’t come near the length of run I did last year when I celebrated my birthday after running 12 miles before dinner) , and then cooking myself a dinner fit for…well, me.  I have a bottle of Dogfish Head 120-Minute IPA that’s been aging for about a year now (which at 20% alcohl benefits from aging), a bottle of Stone 10th Anniversary Imperial IPA, a bottle of something-or-other Zinfandel (which will be shared, mind you), a 16 oz. ribeye, a potato to bake, and some broccoli to steam.  Why am I cooking my own dinner, you might ask?  Just because.  My birthday isn’t a day for other people to swoon over me and wait on me hand and foot, it’s a day to celebrate being alive by eating and drinking stuff that’ll kill you and getting free stuff.

The steak I’m particularly interested in.  It’s a big sucker at a full pound (though it’ll shrink a bit as I cook it), but I have it marinating in a mixture of basalmic vinegar, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, horseradish, olive oil, cayenne pepper, fresh-ground pepper, onion, and crushed garlic.  Oh, and 2 cups of Arrogant Bastard Ale.  After I remove the meat from the marinade, I’m going to boil it down and use it as thick sauce over my steak, which I plan on covering in sauteed onions.  Yes, this will be a delicious meal.  Good thing I’m running before dinner.

Posted in Beer, General, Hanne, Running, Work

What not to see in your air conditioner

Sep19
2007 Written by Andrew

Here’s a little hint: if you’re using an air conditioner to cool a server room, you don’t want to remove the filter and find this. The white stuff? That’s all ice.

Posted in Mobile

Sleeeepy…but not as much

Sep12
2007 Written by Andrew

Well, six hours of sleep is better than four, at least.  My plan didn’t work out exactly as I’d hoped, but I slept more than the night before.  I call that a victory.  I felt pretty good this morning as I was going to work, I felt good most of the day, but towards the end of the workday I really started fading.  As a matter of fact, the only thing from stopping me from curling up in the corner and taking a little nap is that the proprietors of the Barley Mill Pub probably wouldn’t appreciate it.  Plus, I just ordered a beer and I don’t want it to go to waste.

Hey, if I’m going down, at least I’m going down swinging.

Hanne had the first of her summer associate interviews today, so I thought I’d kill some time while I wait to hear how it went.  We had originally planned on going to Amnesia Brewing to take advantage of a Flexcar member event where we get two free pints of beer, but I asked her if we could do something a little closer, instead.  Better for going back to my apartment and falling sleep after a beer or two, you see.

What began as a “Oops, I should really connect this cable” turned into a fairly substantial recabling of some of the ethernet cabling connecting servers and workstations to our LAN.  It’s something I’ve wanted to do for awhile–it’s a rat’s nest back there–so this will at least stop me from going crazy looking at it.  Still not perfect, but better.  I was limited, of course, by the fact that I couldn’t unplug most of them because…well…people were using their connection, but there aren’t nearly as many cables draping over and hanging down in places they shouldn’t be.  Much better.  My boss was out today, so since I had no clear direction I took care of a few things I’d been meaning to do, plus some stuff I didn’t get to yesterday because I was so wiped out.

Ah, and I see Hanne.  Time to bail.

Other than that, it’s business as usual.  I’m sitting in McMenamins, drinking beer, and blogging.  Beer geek, 21st century style.

Posted in Beer, Geekery, Hanne, Work

Whew

Sep11
2007 Written by Andrew

I ended up being able to post my last entry from up at Lewis & Clark, after all.  I didn’t gain access to their wireless network, but I used my cell phone as a modem and connected to the Internet courtesy of AT&T.  I’m such a geek.

Another 90 degree day.  I was originally going to run home today, but when I saw the temperature forecast I changed my plans to have a drink after work with a former coworker, instead.  When I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, I changed my plans again so that I could just come home and relax, hopefully going to bed a little early tonight.

I have a six pack of Inversion IPA (that I don’t plan on drinking the whole of, perish the though–I haven’t done that since college!) and water boiling on the stove for pasta.  I didn’t really want pasta, partially because its so hot out and partially because I just didn’t want it tonight, but I didn’t want to drive somewhere.  Hanne came up with the idea, though, of cooking it, mixing in some olive oil, fresh basil, and lemon juice, and then chilling it a bit.  Sounds delicious to me.   I have some olives left over from last night’s trip to the store, too, so I’ll have an appetizer, as well.

All that leads up to the evening’s grand finale and ultimate plan: sleep.  Sleep through the night without getting up at 2:30 AM.  I can’t wait.

Posted in Beer, Food, Hanne, Running

Thoughts from a library bench

Sep09
2007 Written by Andrew

Occasionally I feel like I take Hanne for granted, so I thought it would be nice to have a “date night” this weekend.  We eat out a lot (hell, we ate out Friday night) but it’s so rarely a “nice” dinner where we get dressed up, have cocktails, etc.  I think the last time we did that was…hell, it can’t have been the holiday party last year for work.  That’s far too long ago.

In any case, Saturday night we got dressed up and went to the Jade Lounge to have a couple of drinks and then went next door to Il Piatto for dinner.  I’ve wanted to go there ever since the first time I ran past it, though I could just never find the perfect time to go.  No more!  The food was as delicious as I hoped it would be, though the interior wasn’t what I pictured it being all those times I ran past it.  Not bad, mind you, just different.

The evening went off without a hitch, though I did manage to set the napkin in the bread basket on fire.  My bad.  I thought I smelled something burning as I was eating my polenta.  I thought maybe they’d overdone the polenta or something, but I was a bit startled to see the napkin on fire.  Fortunately I acted quickly and put it out, but not before I felt like dying of embarrassment.  All that dissuaded that was an assurance from the waitstaff that it happens more often than I’d think and the cocktails I’d had previously.  All in all, quite a lovely evening aside from that bit of pyrotechnics.

Hanne’s in a Student Bar Association meeting at the moment, so I’m sitting outside and enjoying the weather.  I actually don’t have wireless access right now—it’s restricted to students and faculty only—but I do have my laptop.  And Nintendo DS.  And iPod.  And several issues of The Economist.  I have plenty to do for the next 45 minutes, though I keep wondering if the beer I plan on drinking with dinner (a bottle of Hair of the Dog “Blue Dot IPA” and a bottle of something by Lost Cost Brewing) is just getting warn sitting in my car.  That would make a lot of warm beer in my car right now—I have 18 22 oz. bottles and 6 12 oz. bottles of my 4th batch of beer in addition to my two 22 oz. bottles to have with dinner.

This has been a lazy weekend, but not nearly as lazy as last weekend.  Hanne is certainly the more productive of the two of us, but she has a lot of actual work to do while I can mostly relax on the weekends these days.  Yesterday during the day I spent most of the time watching season 2 of “Arrested Development” on DVD and doing random things on my laptop.  I bought Apple’s wireless “Mighty Mouse” the other day for use with my laptop, and it’s nice having a real mouse—albeit wireless, so even better—to use with my laptop.  I swear, I become more enamored with this thing as time goes by.  If I weren’t still playing games and had that desire to upgrade rather than repurchase, I’d consider going all-Apple.  At least then I’d know everything would work with each other, though that’s not yet worth spending $1500 over.

I shouldn’t bitch about spending money too much, though.  I’m about to invest in a new chair for myself.  More on that another time.

Hanne and I went for a run today, which was a nice way to break up the (well, my) monotony of the weekend.  Monotony of mostly sitting around, I mean, since I certainly wasn’t bored last night for our date night.  I needed a run, too.  Today was the day I would have run Pints to Pasta had I registered for it, but I knew that I was A) out of shape to break my time from last year’s run, and B) unwilling to get up that early after last night’s food binge.  I probably could have done the 10k run had I really put my mind to it, but I remember from last year that it wiped me for the rest of the day, and I needed to go to my Dad’s house to bottle my 4th batch of beer as well as bring Hanne here to campus for her meeting.  I was originally going to drop her off and head home, but I decided with everything I have capable of holding my attention for an hour, I could probably just hang out and make do.  Even without wireless.  I’m a trooper, I know.

I ran into four people from my old job on Friday after work, and while it’s nice seeing people I don’t normally see (I’ve gotten together with a couple of people from drinks), I also got more gossip.  Lots more people leaving, including one of the more influential lawyers who’s taking his assistant with him.  Tomorrow I’m going to the farewall party for another friend of mine who’s leaving the firm, so I’m sure I’ll bump into even more people there.

It wasn’t very convenient to keep running into people, though—I was scheduled to meet Hanne for dinner at the Lucky Lab Brewpub an hour after I got off work, which was just enough time to have a quick beer with a couple of people from my current job and catch a bus to the Lab.  I wanted to stay and talk for longer, but I guess it’ll have to be another time.

Ah, a five day work week.  I do love the four day weeks, but I guess I can deal.  I have a relatively busy week planned, though.  Tomorrow after work is the farewell party, so that’ll go for awhie.  Tuesday I plan on running after work, which means I’ll be pretty tired and useless (well, moreso) for the rest of the night.  I’ll probably hang out at Barley Mill Wedneday night, Thursday will be the same as Tuesday, and then the weekend (with a paycheck, no less) will be upon me once again.

Next weekend should be busier than this weekend, though.  My Dad has expressed interest in brewing beer for himself, apparently inspired by the last two batches of beer I did at his house, so he might come over to my neck of the woods to buy equipment, then maybe have lunch, and then back to his house to brew.  On Sunday, I’ve promised a trip to Saturday Market to Hanne so e can take in the sights and I can maybe buy some stuff for my apartment—almost two years, and it still feel pretty Spartan.

Think I’ll play some Bejeweled for awhile while I wait for Hanne.

Posted in Beer, Family, Food, Geekery, General, Hanne, Running, Work

Dream a little dream

Sep06
2007 Written by Andrew

You know how viscerally strange it is to dream in black and white?  I have a new one: comic book-style.  I woke up this morning after an extremely vivid dream made up of static panels.  They didn’t scroll left to right or anything like that, but they gradually morphed into each other and created the illusion of movement.  I think I even had chat bubbles and everything.

How incredibly odd and somewhat disturbing.

Posted in General

The great presenter

Sep05
2007 Written by Andrew

Apple is a truly remarkable company. I say that not because I own two iPods and I’m typing this on a MacBook (not to mention my desire to own an iPhone), but because of all the companies I can think of off the top of my head, they’re one of the few who can create such hype and make revised product introductions into not a press release, but a phenomenon.

I watched the Apple event today where Steve Jobs introduced new versions of the iPod nano and iPod (now the “iPod classic”), and it went something like this:

“We’re making it…smaller!”

(Audience cheers)

Yes, an audience. When was the last time Creative Labs introduced a new MP3 player and had press and enthusiasts attending? Probably awhile ago. I can’t fault Apple and Steve Jobs, though–despite the hype that surrounds the products, there’s a reason why people are so enthusiastic about them: they work, and they work well. Sure, people seem to be getting pretty out of hand regarding a device that just plays music, but Apple creates an almost mythos with what should be a press release. That, and Steve Jobs is one hell of a salesman and leader. Hell, I can think of several Apple products I’d like to own one day, the iPhone being chief on the list. I’m waiting to see if they give it a capacity bump in January during MacWorld 2008, though. I can see myself forking over $500 for a new phone-slash-MP3 player, but I want to make sure I can fit at least half of my collection on it. I have 32 GB of music (which if I reripped all my music at a lower quality would be significantly less), about 25 GB of which I sync to my 80 GB iPod. I could probably pare it down to 16 GB if I don’t sync stuff I rarely listen to, but isn’t the point of an iPod to have your music at hand? All your music?

I can live with that since I get a nice phone with wifi built in, to boot. But I’m not buying the 8 GB version, even with the $200 price drop announced on the iPhone today. I considered for a moment plunking down the cash to get the 16 GB iPod touch (an iPhone without the phone part), but I think I can probably wait to get the refreshed iPhone for that. Besides, knowing Apple they’ll probably throw some new stuff into the mix by then, as well.

I left work early today not because I was sick, but because I did some work over the weekend and didn’t want to charge them for overtime. I had planned the work I did this weekend, though in a moment of panic I went back into work at 10:30 PM last Friday night to fix something that went wrong. That wasn’t planned, nor was it fun. I did get a drink out of Paull, though, since he was at a bar on my way home. I knew he’d still be out, so I gave him a ring and got off my bus a few stops early. All’s well that ends well.

So I left a couple of hours early and went for a run in what will probably be one of the last beautiful days of the year.

This past weekend was probably one of the laziest weekends I’ve had in ages. I did practically nothing all weekend long, and it was glorious. Friday night Hanne and I went out to dinner at the Goodfoot and had a few drinks (pre-returning to work, I might add), Saturday we lazed around and watched TV for some of the day, I played games while Hanne did schooolwork, then rounded out the day with some beer, some wine, and a lovely homemade dinner. Sunday was about the same, just minus the homemade dinner.

I spent my Labor Day at my Dad’s house for part of the day, helping him to install a new set of attic stairs. Part of it required him to attach braces secured to the ceiling under the new stairs, effectively trapping him in the attic once he installed them. It was my job to unscrew the braces, though I half considered leaving him up in the attic for awhile. If it hadn’t been 100 degrees or so up there, I probably would have given it more thought, but alas, my conscience got the better of me and I let him out.

Now for dinner. I decided not to venture to Barley Mill tonight, so instead Hanne’s working and I’ll be playing with one thing or another. Maybe I’ll go drool over the iPhones for awhile longer.

Posted in Food, Geekery, Hanne, Running, Work

About me

Early 30's, Portlander, professional geek, runner, cook, beer drinker, beer brewer, gamer, occasional blogger.
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