They love me! They really love me!
July 29, 2008
Sunday night’s concert at the Crystal Ballroom was quite good. The Hold Steady are a New York-based band that Hanne likes partially because most of them are originally from the Twin Cities, and partially because well, they’re good. They have a good rock sound, but the lead singer fits a lot of words into his lyrics, sometimes resorting to talking instead of signing. That style reminds me a little bit of how Jack Johnson’s music and lyrics are very fluid, though The Hold Steady are a bit harder than Johnson, obviously. It sounds good when you’re playing it on an iPod or computer, but it doesn’t translate well into concert form where you can’t understand half of what’s being said. Or maybe they needed to raise the voice levels at the venue, either way. It also could have been our location, as we were up in the balcony, though not that far away from the stage. It was still a good concert, but we left before the encore so that we could catch a bus. Fortunately we could still hear the music as we were waiting outside, and it seemed to wrap up just as our bus pulled up.
I climbed into bed at midnight, but I didn’t fall asleep until closer to 1 AM, which doesn’t lend itself too well to surviving the first day of the work week with one’s sanity intact. Not that there’s too much to hold on to, mind you.
I’ve switched my blog so that Twitter updates (”Tweets”) don’t make new blog posts every time I send one, but that rather a digest will be sent at the end of the day so that if I’ve posted multiple ones, it’s just one update and not a string of them. I also extended the number of posts available for viewing on the front page from 5 to 15 so that real writing doesn’t get pushed off the main page in lieu of 140 characters-or-less Tweet.
I had my first review yesterday, and though I wasn’t expecting anything bad I also wasn’t expecting much opposite, either. Sometimes I’m happy just to go unnoticed so I can do what I need to do. I came down hard on myself in my self review about some things I know I need improvements on, and the same things were identified by my boss as areas that need improvement. They have an odd way of reviewing here, though, so in addition to my own review and my immediate supervisor, they solicit reviews from everyone. Well, at least the attorneys. In short, they seem to love me, save for one rogue comment about how I appear unhelpful when the problem in uninteresting to me. Hmmm. I thought I hid that better. Oh well.
So, the good news is that I’m well-liked, respected, and that I get to keep my job. The better news is that I got a raise and what I consider to be a substantial bonus for my hard work here. I have grand plans for that bonus. Most of it will go towards paying off my credit card which isn’t carrying a high balance, but does have my half of the couch and bed frame purchase still on it in addition to a select amount of purchases from when things got tight a couple of months ago. The rest of it will get set aside to pay my student loan payments in the upcoming months instead of from my checking account. There’s a part of me that’s a bit disappointed I’m not going to just blow it on something like a trip, but I think in the long run this will be better.
After work yesterday, Hanne and I went on a 12-ish mile bike ride, and it felt really good to whip down the Springwater Corridor in top gear for awhile. We made it all the way to a stream that’s part of the Johnson Creek Watershed before we turned back, but if we’d had more time (and I hadn’t been both hungry, thirsty, and tired) I would have liked to have gone on. Hanne has her sights set on us doing this year’s medium Bridge Pedal, a 24-mile ride that takes us across eight Portland bridges, including ones that you can’t ever ride across save for this one event. Frankly, the idea of coasting across the Willamette River on the Marquam Bridge (which is where I-5 crosses) sounds pretty cool, as does riding across the Fremont Bridge. The 24 miles the route will take has me a little nervous since I haven’t riden that far in the better part of a decade–probably longer, really–but it shouldn’t be too bad as long as there isn’t a tremendous amount of elevation changes. I mean, I’m in pretty decent shape when it comes to stamina and leg muscles (as for everything else, round is a shape) and did OK yesterday, but I would be going twice as far.
I wasn’t really excited to make dinner last night after the bike ride and partially wanted to go out, but we had food to make before things spoiled so I whipped up the onion, chard, garbanzo bean, and tomato dish I found online. It’s even better when it’s mixed with something like cous-cous to give it a bit of extra texture. Left in our fridge right now is celery, carrots and corn, and we have some potatoes and onion as well. Hey. That sounds familiar. Where have I seen a recipe like that before? Oh yes, that’s right, my badass shepherd’s pie. I think I’m going to pick up some fresh ground lamb at the Eastside Farmer’s Market this Thursday, acquire some additional potatoes, and then whip up some Shepherd’s Pie for the two of us this week, maybe even cracking open a bottle of Syrah we’ve had sitting around for just such an occasion. She admits that my shpherd’s pie is good, but not as good as her Dad’s, but I still stand by my product. I haven’t made it since Valentine’s Day and it doesn’t really seem like a summer dish, but hey, I gotta use those ingredients before they spoil.
Last weekend was the 21st annual Oregon Brewer’s Festival, and it didn’t disappoint. On tap were 72 beers, and between the two of us Hanne and I had 40 tokens. One token gets you a 2 or 3 oz. taste (I can’t remember which it is) and four tokens gets you a full mug. I had found a great deal for two mugs, 37 tokens, a program, and a pen for $30 and I had 3 tokens left over from last year, so I was ready to rock. I took Friday off in exchange for my after-hours work the previous weekend, and I made sure I got there plenty early, or at least what I thought was plenty early. Hanne and I arrived at 2 PM, and the place was already packed. Don’t you people have jobs? Sheesh. I mean, I’m all for people trying craft beers and drinking them instead of the mass market lagers, but I just don’t like it when they stand between me and my beer.
I tried too many beers to remember them all, but here’s a quick sample. Roots Brewing had a delicious beer called Calypso Ale that was brewing with Oregon apricots as well as Scotch bonnet peppers. It tasted like chips and salsa and had a bit of a kick to it, but was quite tasty. Russian River brought their ever-popular Pliny the Elder Imperial IPA that blew by Friday evening after only two days. Full Sail had an Imperial IPA called Full Nelson, brewed with Nelson hops from New Zealand. Very different, almost sweet. The snell was described by one person asreminiscent of cat pee, but I disagreed and actually enjoyed it.
Hanne’s Mom and Dad joined us and we had a number of good beers, but even after a big lunch, even “wasting” my tokens on full mugs (you get more bang for your buck by only drinking samples), I was getting pretty tipsy and I had a huge pile of tokens left in my pocket. I lost count of how many beers I tried, but at the end of the day and after Hanne’s Dad giving me his leftover tokens, I still had 19 more to use. Well, guess I’ll save ‘em for next year.
Speaking of Hanne’s Mom and Dad, we did a big BBQ this last weekend at our place so that our two families could meet everyone for the first time. Hanne’s Dad had been over before and met my family, but Hanne’s Mom had not. We went all out, too: beef cubelets, Walla Walla sweet onion rings, bell pepper and broccoli tempura, grilled corn, shrimp skewers, veggie kabobs, pasta salad, green salad, and grilled pineapple. We had a lot of food, and a lot of it disappeared. This was the first time I really did beef cubelets from start to finish on my own (though my Dad did the frying while I fried the onion rings), and they turned out really well. Might have even been the best yet! All in all, a good time seemed to be had by all.
And now, I think I’ll grab some additional coffee….
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