So, how’s…stuff?
July 11, 2008
Cripes. Has it really been a month since I last posted a “real” blog entry? My Twitters show just a slice of what I’m doing at the moment, but I’ve just been too lazy to sit down and write a real entry, I guess. I haven’t been this lazy about writing since I was in college.
The bad news is that I have no huge news to recount. I still have all my limbs, I still have a job, and my relationship with my live-in girlfriend is, as far as I know, still on solid ground. I’ve been very happy with our arrangement, and aside from a few sporadic clashes about cleaning things up that everyone has, as well as one last night about baiting ants…I don’t really know what that was about…living with Hanne is going swimmingly. We’ve recently signed up for the Organics to You program on a biweekly basis, so we get a box of organic fruits and veggies delivered every other week. It’s not a bad deal, really. We got our first delivery on Tuesday, and it has a couple of pounds of red potatoes, some chard, lettuce, grapes, nectarines, peaches, corn, and a number of other things in it. Hanne and I have both decided that not only do we need to cook our own meals more often as opposed to going out, but that they should be a little smaller and less…intense. Calorically, that is. This is a good start, as I have trouble buying food for a week at a time and instead count on last-minute inspiration or one-meal grocery store trips. Oh relax! I walk most of the time so it’s not like I’m burning gas to get there.
Last weekend was one long weekend of food, booze, and debauchery, and I would expect nothing less than such things to ring in the 232nd birthday of this great nation. Thursday was my sister’s eleventy-first birthday, and she chose the venue of Gustav’s to celebrate. Gustav’s is a German restaurant, so the lager and schnitzel was flowing. Since neither of us had to be at work the next day, afterwards Hanne and I swung by a bar in our neighborhood and had a couple more drinks. Thursdays after 9 PM they have specials on tequila drinks, so I had a couple of drinks and Hanne had a beer. Happy birthday, sis.
On Friday we did the BBQ thing at our apartment, and fortunately the weather held. Much food and beer and sangria was consumed by all, and it was a great time. Saturday was pretty much the same thing, as Hanne’s Dad had brought far too much stuff with him, so we had leftovers yet to be cooked. Since he’d brought them, we invited him back over and cooked the extra food. The rest of the weekend was spent pretty much just lounging around. Three day weekends have a tendency to instill that feeling in me.
Work’s been going well. I just started a project that’s going to ramp up and get pretty big, and I’m very happy with how well it’s started out. Summer is the slow time here at work, so I’m hoping that we can get a bunch of projects knocked out while we don’t have a lot of deadlines and other more time-critical projects looming over us. I still have a couple of projects left looming on their own, so I should probably finish those, too. Reviews are coming up shortly, and while I’m sure there are a few legitimate complaints to be had about my work ethic (for example, “You let some projects go on too long without fully finishing them,” comes to mind), I’m expecting a good review. Well, maybe “hoping” is a better word. I’d be happy with a “you didn’t screw anything big up” and call it even.
The weekend before that…um…let me look at my calendar…oh yes! The North American Organic Brewer’s Festival. In terms of the number of breweries it pales to the big dogs like the Oregon Brewer’s Festival, but since they let breweries bring multiple beers with them, it makes up for that with the same number of beers as the big festivals. It was a great day for a brewfest, though: sunny and hot, cheap beer, all-organic beers from around the country and world, and good company. Hanne’s and my Dad joined us for the afternoon, and we didn’t have to fight too many crowds at all. I’m definitely making some friends in the Portland beer scene, as I bumped into at least a half-dozen people I knew there from a variety of places.
On that front, I haven’t been brewing as much as I would have liked, both because I moved into all-grain brewing that takes around five hours to fully complete as well as the fact that I’m left with ~12 pounds of grain after that which I am forced to do something with. A lot of people just toss or compost it, but I’m determined to not waste it. The first batch I was up until 11 PM baking spent grain bread, and the second batch Hanne made a couple of big batches of granola. We saved several more quarts of spent grain and froze it, but we still had to toss a few pounds into the bushes for the animals to find. And now our oven’s broken, so we can’t make either bread or granola. The stove works, as does the broil function, but everything between “Off” and “Broil” is non-functional. So much for that. I’ll just have to hold off for a bit before I start stocking up on grain again.
But, the all-grain brewing has been fun. The first batch I kind of screwed up and it turned out to be only 2% alcohol–if even that–and the second batch should be a much more reasonable 5.5% if my math is right. I kept the 2% one just because it might still be drinkable. It was pretty hoppy without any maltiness when I tried it out of fermenter, but maybe it’ll settle out in a few weeks and be a good light, hot day sort of beer. Keep your fingers crossed, though, as otherwise I’m going to have five gallons of hopwater. Hmmm. Hopwater. That’s a pretty good name, actually.
There’s no way that I can possibly recount everything that’s happened in the last month, but there was some computer breakage involved, some additional apartment organization, and the purchase of both a bed frame as well as a couch, both of which make our apartment look much, much better. Hanne’s Mom will be arriving for a few weeks on Monday, so there will most likely be a much-needed push to get a few more things organized. No problem here. This weekend will be pretty light, so there should be plenty of time to do so. That is, assuming I don’t get sucked into a game on my computer or playing with the apps I can now load on my iPhone. Although if the subject is broached, I’m quite certain that it will not be optional that I assist with cleanup.
So, here I am, 2:45 on a Friday afternoon. The weekend can’t arrive fast enough.
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