Vegas Airport

So Mol and I are headed into town... we have a 40 minute layover in Vegas. We're just kicking ourselves because we forgot a roll of quarters that Molly got for her birth/gluttony day gift from Heather and Jason with very specfic instructions to only use it for either booze or gambling.

Notice all of the slot machines! DAMN!

Getting ready for the christmas trip

There is nothing that depresses one in quite the same way as the week before Christmas... It just feels like it is the longest week that ever existed. It's ONLY Wednesday, and Friday evening just feels like an eternity away. Maybe depress is the wrong word here... maybe just never-ending anticipation, coupled with the fact that you have to work 6 times harder this week just to get caught up enough to take a couple of extra days off.

It's 4pm here... I'm waiting for Internet Explorer 7 on windows 2008 server to finish logging into our "single-sign-on" solution at HEI. Going on 4 minutes now. All I want to do is test to see if Firefox and IE look the same when I get logged in, then I can commit the code to this subversion branch and start working on something else... but my mind isn't really into it (can you tell, I'm writing a blog entry)

All I can think about it sleeping in at Max and Norma's place in Minnesota Saturday morning... anticipating the inevitable overeating of cookies and over drinking of cheap red wine. Of Katie May waking up way past the crack of noon, grumpy and disoriented. Of Max, trying so hard to keep the cats out of the kitchen. Norma singing Christmas carols until we're all sick of them. And the snow.

We don't get snow here in Portland, and I wouldn't say that I'm complaining. However, it just doesn't feel like Christmas.

Ah, it finally logged into the site. I guess I'll get back to work.

Not as Nerdy as Wes

Wes was a 78.

Hawaii anyone?

Why yes, please, I would like to go to Hawaii for spring break.

And so we are! Finally (as molly would say) after years of me promising, we have decided that there is no good time to drop that kind of cash to visit a location technically in the U.S. So we just did it. We need to get it out of the way, so Molly can start focusing on the big trips, like China, Australia and Africa.

We've booked our flights and our hotels... which really is only half the cost of a Hawaii vacation. The rest is food, beverages and crap to do.

We leave March 22nd and come back March 30th. Horray!

Superbad is bad ass

Molly got a wonderful gift from our friends in KC, Heather and Jason Phillips. It was a gluttony day gift pack, which included a mini sausage, peeps, popcorn & a movie (Superbad), a roll of quarters for gambling or drinking only and other misc stuff that is associated with Gluttony day!

We watched Superbad last night. If you haven't seen it, stop reading the blog right now... right now! and go rent/buy it. It is an instant classic, and I am in pain from laughter.

Molly's Birthday

Ok everyone... let's not drop the ball here! On Sunday Molly turns 31 and she is feeling a bit down because she is super busy at work, she has a sinus infection or a cold or something and she always feels a little depressed when she thinks about getting older. So, for those of you who are avid readers, please give her a call sometime this weekend and let her know that you're thinking about her. Her phone number hasn't changed yet from when we lived in Kansas.

Tonight is "grade card" night, so she has to wrap all of those up this evening, unfortunately. She probably won't be able to leave the school until 7-8pm here (9-10 Central) so we don't have much planned. I'm thinking about ordering a papa johns pizza or something for her dinner (we're on a diet so it is a real treat.)

Tomorrow we are going to celebrate her birthday (if she's feeling up to it) by going downtown for the saturday market and hitting this donut store called Voodoo donuts. We may stop into the Ski store and see if they are having any specials on ski boots for the two of us. Then we've got to drop her car off at Toyota because the inside handle of her corolla broke off a week or two ago. Then we're off to Best Buy where I am buying her a nice turntable (record player) for her birthday. Then for dinner we're having our friends Josh and Lindsey and Carrie over for KC steaks and shrimp and whatever else we can dream up. Still need to find a b-day cake of some sort... maybe an ICE CREAM CAKE!!!! And we'll hang out, drink some wine and listen to some of our old records.

Sunday if we're feeling up to it we're going to go out to the wine country and visit our favorite winery: Archery Summit... yummy. No real plans after that... maybe see a movie or something.

So, that's the deal, please call her this weekend if you think about it.

Thanks!

Very fun weekend

Molly and I had a great time this weekend... lots of stuff to write about.

First, so Molly's school is having the annual "canned food drive" or whatever, and she had told her class that if they would bring in 300 cans, she would give them a week without homework and dye her hair red. The kids loved the idea of the no-homework and their parents loved the idea of the hair-dye... so she ended up not with 300 cans, but 500. So friday night we dyed her hair red.... and it's pretty bright red too... like a medium auburn. Her school paper is going to feature her (and her hairdo) on the front page of the next edition.

Saturday morning we got up bright and early (5:15am) to go skiing. I've never been, but Molly took lessons in college, so she is pretty good. We also went with our friend Lindsey, who is also very decent. We went to Mt. Hood:


View Larger Map

Molly and Lindsey had neither been mountain skiing... where the snow is actual powder, rather than some man-made crap that is shot from a machine. I was going to take the lesson, but we ended up getting to the mountain about 30 minutes too late to catch the early one, and I didn't want to wait around all day to catch the later one, so Mol and Lindz decided to teach me to ski. They were both amazingly helpful, thoughtful and patient teachers. But I wasn't great. They'll both tell you (well maybe not behind my back) that I did really really well for my first time.

We started with the tow-rope and a bunny hill just so I can get used to sliding around on a piece of fiberglass on snow. I fell alot at first, but after about 10 runs I started getting the hang of it, and was able to do lazy turns and stop myself, and even keep from falling down when doing the little hill. So once I had managed not to fall in 3 of 4 turns, we decided it was time for me to try a green hill. (Really?!? ok, whatever... lets do it!)

So we got on the lift which took me up nearly 1800 ft up the mountain. I got off of the lift and started to go down the hill which would take you to the various trails... it was super steep, and of course I feel down. I managed to pick myself up and went on to the green hill... Green is kind of a misnomer for these runs, because it will be "Green" for 200 ft, then hit a light blue, then a harder blue... which runs parallel to a couple of blacks... so you really, really have to know what you're doing and where you're going in order to keep on the right trail. I fell at least 35 times and it took me an hour to do the whole run. I have to admit, I don't really have any problems just shooting the run... (balls to the wall, down the hill, going very fast), and it's very fun to do so. I did this two times during the run, the rest of the time I was either two scared or nervous to do anything but practice turning... which I suck at. By the end of the run I was sooo tired that I decided I needed to calm my nerves a bit... so we decided to stop for lunch. This was kind of a mistake because once my poor feet were off of the skis for a few minutes, they started protesting. An hour and a half later I was pretty much done. I let the ladies go on some runs and have a little fun, and I did the bunny hill another half dozen times or so, to try to get some more practice turning. Eventually my feet hurt so bad that I went back into the lodge and sat down for the duration of the day.

The ladies decided to go up one of the faster lifts to the top to see some of the other green hills that I could maybe do for next time. Well, they ended up on what they call "The Powder Keg" a double black diamond run. Neither Molly nor Lidsey is nearly good enough of a skiier to do something this difficult. They nearly skied right off of a cliff. They managed to get their skis off and slid down part-way on their butts... the powder was waist deep. Eventually, after a very long time and many tears, they managed to get to a point where an expert skiier found them and helped guide them back down the trails, the easiest way possible. They were on the run for over an hour. They came down 35 minutes after the lifts closed at 4pm, wind burned, shaken, ok and reiterating their harrowing tale of near-death skiing. Yikes!

Not to attempt to belittle their story at all... but this entire time I was in the lodge in severe pain (because I didn't know the locker combination to get my shoes out... so I was stuck in my ski boots) and worried sick. They had about 15 minutes before I was going to call the ski personnel to start looking for them. I waited as long as I did, because anybody that knows Molly can completly envision her having 30 seconds before 4, and sweet talking the lift instructor for one final lift to the top to get the last run in of the day. That's partially what I envisioned anyway... then I can see her getting a little bit lost, or losing a ski a couple of times and taking a little extra time to get down. So she had 15 minutes before every plausible explanation broke down except them being in trouble. I was very glad to see them, and very glad to get out of my ski boots. I know have very deep bruises around my ankles. Oh, and for those of you who have never skied before in your life... it is SOOOOOOO fun, but, seriously, every muscle in my body is screaming still two days later.

Saturday night we celebrated Josh Yoder's (Lindsey's husband) birthday. There is a winter ale festival downtown under the Pactific Northwest's largest christmas tree, in downtown portland at pioneer square. We (obviously) got down from Mount Hood about an hour later than we had expected that we would... so Josh was at the beer thing all by himself for about 45 minutes waiting for us. What's worse is that the festival was completly packed on a Saturday night. Josh told us that it took him 30 minutes to get through the line to get a single beer, so when we finally arrived (the gorge on the way back from the mountain was covered in thick snow), it was one person out-one person in for the festival. We just had Josh meet us outside of the festival tent, and we went to Rock Bottom Brewery, just down the street on 3rd and Morrison. It was packed too, but we got a seat at the bar. Managed to catch the tail-end of the Mizzou-Oklahoma game, and a lot of the Washington-Hawaii game. By 10:30 I was exhausted, and was finally in bed by midnight. Had a great time, though.

Sunday, I slept in. Lidsey had said that she wanted to come back to the beer festival when it wasn't so busy, so she I and rode "MAX" downtown to the festival at about noon. I had a few tastes of beer, and there were some really goods ones (some bad ones too). We saw a guy who was so drunk by 12:30 in the afternoon that he must have been drinking since 8AM (which is when the first of the football games starts here on sunday). He had to be escorted out by half a dozen security guards. We had 6-7 tastes total and decided to call it an afternoon. I got home at about 2pm, and Molly and I went and picked up some more hair dye, because we missed a few spots. Molly had gotten a haircut while I was gone. Its about shoulder length now, and very cute. We re-dyed her hair, and caught MAX downtown again for dinner at McCormick and Schmicks. We had a wonderful dinner, and caught the MAX once again for our concert of the evening....

TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA!!!!!

Yeah, we are those people. The last 45 minutes of the show was very cool. The second to last song was the one we bought the tickets for. If you haven't seen it yet, turn up your speakers and click on the link:

Trans-siberian christmas lights

All-in-all it wasn't worth the money we paid for it, but it was 2 and a half hours... but SO, SO, SO cheezy. If you ever manage to get free tickets, definately go, but don't pay good money for this shit... just watch the video above, its all you need.

Today, I am still sooooo sore still from my ski trip, but all-in-all a very fun, eventful weekend.

Ode to my Hefe

Oh my sweet Hefe, how I worried so,
I prematurely assumed that you would just blow.
But last evening I decided to check.
Bored and thirsty, I decided "What the heck?"
The cap came off with an audible "hiss"
At that moment I knew nothing was amiss.
Out of the bottle you poured oh so golden,
a reminder of great german beers of olden.
And finally, a taste; oh so cautious at first....
All Banana and clove to quench my thirst.

Another 7-8 days and it will be 100% ready. I don't want to say this too early, or too loudly, but this is one of the best beers that I've ever had. I shall not compare to other homebrewers in the world, because everyone's taste is different... which is why many of us get into it in the first place. But this is the first time I have been 100% satisified with the results of my home brewing experience.

Thanksgiving

Up here in the pacific nortwest we had a great Thanksgiving. Molly made a 5lb turkey, infused with Guwerztraminer (its a sweet, german white wine), and we bought a honey baked ham. The turkey was a little better than the ham, oddly enough. We also had camebert mashed potatoes, which were great, rolls, 3 different pies (apple, pecan and pumpkin). We had our friends Lindz and Josh over, and had a great time. We also had a nice brunch with a egg caserole, ham and pluck-its. Yum!

That evening we broke out the Guitar Hero and Dance Dance revolution which recently
came out for the WII.

For those who don't know, Thanksgiving is a wino (or wineaux if you're french) weekend up here in portland. Many of the wineries that are never open otherwise are open that weekend (also memorial weekend)... so we did wine tasting on Friday and Saturday... took it easy on sunday. It was much, much fun.

The wednesday before thanksgiving I bottled my Hefewizen. It didn't quite reach its "recommeded" terminal gravity of 1.012... but it came down from 1.055 to 1.022. So I'm a little concerned that I somehow killed off the yeast 80% through the fermentation cycle... but I swear it hadn't bubbled in like 3-4 days when I decided to bottle. Worst-case scenario... I'll reopen all the bottles, pour into my ale-pail and add some more yeast for another 3-4 days then rebottle. It's been over a week, so I may just open a bottle and see if it is carbonating at all. Suggestions, fellow homebrewers?

Finally

Can't eat off these plates!

Hold your tongue and describe this picture

If you came up with something like "IIG AAHHOOE" then you win the prize.

Big Apple

The Oregon Coast

Happened to be digging around the camera today and I found I had not posted these pictures yet. Sorry! It was a beautiful day... we even saw whales.

The Coast

Where to begin...

Well, I really don't have an excuse for not writing much lately, except the fact that I really haven't done anything too exciting. Nothing worthy of blogging.

I've been working a lot. I'm writing some very cool software right now, basically a message processing system. Sort of a message dispatcher, but its kind of "multi-cast" and could be synchronous or asynchronous. The uses of this application are not fully understood yet (even by me) but everytime I try to think of how I can use it, I come up with at least 5 new things. So that will be exciting to have this new tool to use. Probably have another week on that, then I'll be starting an application that lets you build dynamic forms online... either that or a file sharing tool, not sure which one I'll do first.

Here at home not too much has been going on. I still don't have tags for my car, so I'm homebound all day... which is good in a way. I do have the last form that needs to be completed then I can go pick up the tags, but I don't have a way to get to the DMV easily during operating hours, so I'm still stuck.

I've made a couple of beers... My pumpkin turned out very tasty, but just a tad bit flat. Next time I'll add more priming sugar. Last weekend I started a hard cider and a Hefewisien. The Hefe is brewing at about 80 degrees... have it sitting on a hotpad. I was told by a reliable source that the warmer temperature really brings out the banana and clove in them. It's bubbling like mad right now, so I guess I haven't killed the yeast :) The cider will take approx 6 months.

Upcoming trips? Yes, actually. For Molly's birthday, and/or possibly thanksgiving weekend we're going to Mt. Hood to go skiing. Yeah, those who know me well have heard many times that I would never go skiing. But I've changed my mind, bought some equipment, and I think I'll enjoy it. Wish me luck, and I hope I don't break a leg. If Mol takes out a huge life insurance policy on me a few weeks before, be suspicious.

Molly just got back from Chicago where she spend the weekend with her Mom and her step-sister-in-law: Sunny (or Sonny... not 100% sure), feel free to correct me. She said she had a wonderful time, except she had to split a double bed with her Mom. I barely would want to split a double bed with myself.

For thanksgiving Molly and I are staying here in town. We've planned a breakfast and a dinner... ALL of the wineries are open Thanksgiving weekend (there are many only open thanksgiving and memorial weekends) So we plan on visiting some that we've never seen before. We are all very excited about it. We're going to inject Gewurztraminer under the skin of the old turkey. We hear that it is to die for. We're also going to get a ham for thanksgiving morning. Yum. Then, large failure piles. :)

Thats all I got! Every body remember to wish Molly a happy birthday, December 9th.

Vote yes on "NUMBER FIFTY!"

Proposition #50 was on the recent Oregon ballot. Now seriously guys, who could vote "No" on French fries on top of cupcakes?

Pictures on the drive home from Crater Lake

After Crater Lake

Crater Lake

Last weekend we went to Crater Lake National Park... sort of a belated birthday thing for me. Got lots and lots of pictures that do not do the lake justice.

Crater Lake National Park

Oktoberfest!!!!

This was so fun. The weekend after my birthday Molly, Josh Yoder and I went to Mt. Angel, OR, which is south of Portland by about 45 minutes, near Salem, OR. Apparently that is the biggest Oktoberfest celebration in this area.



I drank a few beers, had a lot of fun. Here are the pictures!



Enjoy.

Oktoberfest

K-State beats Texas

Yeah, suck it!

Go K-STATE!

My Birthday Beer

I broke down. Decided, damn it, I'm having a birthday beer. And it was good...

Which one of the birthday 6 pack did I drink? Drum roll, please....

Yeah, the one with Marie's lovely visage on the top. The chocolate porter. Why, might you ask. I just don't know. It just seemed like the way to go at the time. Or maybe its because I've never had it, save the one time at the Royals game, where it was half warm, and *not quite* ready yet. I'm the kind of person who save's their favorite thing on the dinner plate for last. I know I love the others... especially that drunken dunkel (you will be last, my lovely, brown german frau!)

And, the answer to the Second Birthday Riddle, sent from Jason:

I only recieved one package as of yesterday. If you sent another, maybe it will be here today!

Josh

A Birthday Riddle

What's big and fat and is on a diet so he can't drink beer on his birthday?

Silver Falls

Thank you Jason and Heather... finally I get the beer I've been craving but can't drink a drop. I'll probably break down on Saturday for the Oktoberfest celebration here at Mt. Angel... so maybe if I take a lighter than normal dinner, I can have one :) for my birthday ? :)

I probably shouldn't break down... isn't how I got into this in the first place? Pizza and Beer? Well, between that and being a Computer Programmer... something's got to give, and I think its my gut.

Oh, yeah. Check out the picasa album. It's at a park about 1 hour south of Hillsboro (where we live). Apparently there are 10-11 different falls. Molly and I did about a 4 mile hike and saw 4 of them. Part of the hike was a killer, very few switch-backs, and what seemed like about a mile of walking to gain 1000 ft elevation. Molly and I were both a little bit tired after that one. We're likely going to go back and do the full 10 mile loop to see them all. We'd have to start early, and bring a picnic lunch, and some snacks... about a gallon of water... Sounds very tough.

Man I need to lose some weight.

The Diet

Yep, Molly and I are on a diet. We started yesterday, so this is our second day. I feel like I'm constantly eating on this diet, so I think that it may actually work. Of people that I have seen lose a lot of weight lately, a common theme is "I feel like I'm constantly eating".

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yep, I'll be 30. I don't think I'm going to freak out about it... so far, no problems. Sunday night Molly and I went to McCormick and Schmick's for dinner. Molly's sucked, but mine was very good... then the diet the next day. One of the hard parts is just having to really think about what you are eating. I don't realize how much I just eat little things during the day... or how I add extra things to my mean when I eat. The diet makes me think about those things, and I keep my caloric intake under 1500 per day. Its mostly lean protien that I am eating, but there are a few carbs here and there. I'll tell you... I don't feel very hungry, and I don't really miss anything (except beer) at this point. I don't see that changing either. This weekend is going to be tough. Octoberfest celebration up at Mt. Angel (south of here by about 30 minutes). I'll break the diet a little bit, but I won't gorge myself like gluttony day or Octoberfest in IA or downtown KC....then back on the diet.

BTW, Happy Birthday Heather D. (my birthday buddy... hers is today) I miss you a lot. I wish that I could open some wine in celebration...

Molly joins the employed!

Well, I had a "coming to Jesus" talk with Molly here a couple of days ago about how she doesn't have a job yet, and how we would have a tough time making it without here at least having *some* job. She was upset about it... who could blame her? I know I wouldn't want to take some pizza delivery job at this point in my life/career. So yesterday she started applying to various jobs around town... the temp agency, papa john's, Kohls, a couple of grocery stores, Hollywood Video, etc. About halfway through the day, she got a call. Yep... right after we give up hope, she gets a call from the Lake Oswego school district. I don't know all of the details, but apparently one of their teachers backed out at the last possible second, leaving a 1st-2nd grade split class without a teacher. I'm betting that Molly is one of the few highly qualified teachers left in the area that could have taken that posistion. They interviewed 3 people (molly's interview was yesterday), and they offered her the job this morning, which she immediately accepted. Right now she is headed to her new school to look at her new classroom. Later today is the "benefits fair" and the "new teacher orientation".... yeah, like I said, last minute.

Nice thing is, Lake Oswego is the "Blue Valley" of Portland. It is a small district, but pretty elite, and it pays better than just about any other district here. So we got a little bump up. Nice! I don't know how Molly will like working with this population of students. Maybe she'll hate it, but she may love it, too.

At least she has a job. I may try to convince her to get the Papa John's job anyway :)

Sigh...

I'm working tonight. Yep, its 7:30 pacific, so 9:30 central. These friday night deployments are a killer. We could have started the deployment this morning, but we just didn't... you know how busy you get when there are people around to distract you. It makes it almost impossible to get anything done in a timely manner. The result is that I'm here, working at 7:30 on a friday night, while Molly and her friends are enjoying the weather outside, drinking beer and wine, eating brats and fresh corn on the cob.

Nice thing is I got some more side work... about 10 hours total, which will most likely turn into 12-13 hours when its all done. Nice little bit of extra cash. I can use it too, with Molly still out of a job.

I'll post again real soon... Thanks for the great gluttony day photos!

Shhh....

I've secretly taken some photos of the house. Molly is in bed asleep, so she didn't know I was doing it. She wants to wait until the house is "done" before we upload photos.

See them at by clicking here:

Updated house photos

Hope you all enjoy!

So we came home this evening after picking up a bottle from the local wine store. Yes, that is Truckasaurus, and yes... he is in the box for our new iron. Something tells me that he will be terrible at getting wrinkles out of anything, especially considering how well he wrinkles everything that isn't put into a drawer. Oh... and the box is on the table (where he knows that he isn't supposed to be). He didn't even bother to jump off when we caught him. It's as if he knew he was bending the rule, but not quite breaking it.
"Ha ha... I'm in the box, not on the table". (as if we are to only assume that he teleported there)

Fun weekend

Molly, me, Lindz and Josh celebrated Lindz's birthday this last weekend. It ended up being very fun. It's going to continue to amaze me how many festivals and community events exist here during the summer.

So Saturday we went to "Bones and Brew" which is sponsored by the Rogue brewing company in downtown Portland. Its basically a BBQ and beer festival. There were only like 6-7 BBQ stands and only one beer stand. The one beer stand did have about 10-12 different beers. Molly made me try "Watermelon Wheat" which can only be described as watermelon ass. It was some nasty, funky shit. The other beer was just the wonderful stuff that has come to be a standard in Oregon. The BBQ was crap. BBQ is the one thing that KC just does better than anywhere else.

After that we drove up to a mansion on top of one of the many hills in Portland. It offers one of the best views of the city that you can get from anywhere. They also serve wine. :)

The rest of the evening consisted of watching Borne Identity/Supremacy and drinking margaritas and eating enchiladas. Yum.

Sunday we drove to the wine country where they had the "Walk in the Park" event... featuring a car show, wine tasting from 20 different wineries, food from 10-12 different gourmet eateries, and arts and crap. We enjoyed all it had to offer and then visited a couple of the local wineries afterward. We then came home, ate some pizza for dinner, rented "Zodiac" and had some birthday-carrot cake. Good times!

Friday at last

What a week.

First, let me tell you, working from home is pretty darn sweet. I thought I would hate it, and maybe I will in 2 months, but right now, it is everything I could have hoped for.

But Josh, what about the social aspects of being in an office?

Fuck that. This way nobody peers over my shoulder, and if somebody needs help or something needs to get done, they really have to formulate their request very well. If anything, I'm (personally) more productive now than I have ever been. Sure I miss seeing my friends every day, but the benefits far outweigh the downfalls right now.

Josh! Don't you feel that you are getting out of touch with your company this way?

Not if senior developers keep quitting like they have been. Man, I have to tell you, we've gone through 3 senior developers in 2 years... plus 2 junior developers, an ADM, an IT director and an intern. The longer I stay, the more valuable commodity I am. My company ensures that they do everything possible to maintain our relationship (for the time being, anyway).

But doesn't take a lot of self-discipline to work unsupervised like that? There's now WAY I could do that!

When it comes to programming (one of my greatest passions) I'm all-in. I have always loved getting up in the morning knowing that I'm going to do something amazing today. It really doesn't take much discipline at all to do what you love.

So, do you like, work in your underwear?

Mind your own damn business... Suffice it to say that I don't own a webcam for a reason.

Sorry, I have to go... somebody is at the door, and I need to go put on some pants.

Online, at LAST!

Well, the cable guy just left. Finally... Internet. It's actually quite maddening living without the Internet. I don't know how I managed without it prior to 1993.

The drive up was uneventful, which is exactly what I wanted. It took two days and we arrived in Portland at approximately 8:30 PM pacific time on Thursday. It sure was nice to sleep in my bed again. The cats were OK with the drive... OK, but not great. Bob was very unhappy at the beginning of both days, and calmed down after about 30 minutes. Truck, on the other hand, would be OK early on, and then get progressively worse throughout the day. By hour 15 of driving, he was meowing for 20 minutes, take a 10 minute break, then start back up. It was so bad the first day that gave him "kitty Valium", which helped significantly. We were reluctant to give it to him the second day, and so we suffered. We got through Harry Potter on CD. Great book. I felt that there were some unresolved things, but all in all a good book. Trust Snape.

The house is a mess, but Molly has done an excellent job of unpacking. We still have so much more to do. My goal is to be unpacked completely in the next two weeks, but that is a huge order. My office is mostly unpacked, since I do have to start working again tomorrow. I may even start this afternoon, because I'm a little worried about the amount of vacation time I have taken with the move.

We did the Portland Annual Beer festival. Wow... lots of fun. John E. said it best when he told me "Welcome Home". I'll post some pictures soon enough.

We have a flat panel TV now. 42" hi-def (1080p). Very, very pretty. We ordered the HD-DVR with our cable, but I haven't had the chance to play with it yet. Also bought a DVD player with HD upscaling. It makes the DVDs look near high-def, and you can totally tell the difference.

I miss KC a lot. I hope that somebody will email me some pictures of Donner's party. I'm really, really sorry that I couldn't be there to see that.

One thing that keeps blowing me away about Portland... I'm so used to a Kansas summer, that I'll walk out of a store and literally be AWARE of how it isn't blisteringly hot. I just assumed that the hot is something you never get used to and that once it wasn't there anymore you wouldn't immediately notice it. But it is so *not hot* here that you notice exactly how *not hot* it really is. Amazing.

This is enough for now. Like I said, we'll post some photos of the beer fest, and of the new house soon.

Last day in KC

My friend Stephany said it best yesterday when she mentioned that she couldn't believe how fast this day came up. I concur. It seems like only last month that Molly and I just moved to Kansas City from Manhattan.... but it has actually been 4 years. It seems like just yesterday when Molly and I made the final decision that we were definitely moving.... but it has actually been 4 months.

I often think about the times that we've had these past few years... the cork dorks, working on the house, the football games, making beer, Thursday night TV, Chestor Copperpot practice, gluttony day, watching your babies turn into toddlers... it makes me second guess everything we're doing. I want to continue doing all of those things. I have so much more gluttony to expound, more music to write, more beer to make and drink, and watching your children grow into adults.

My one great hope is that these friendships that Molly and I have helped to bridge just doesn't blink out because we have left. Why not continue doing cork dorks? One of these days, Chad is going to host one... and I guarantee it will be the best ever (If that can somehow happen then who knows.... maybe we'll come into town carrying a box of wine apiece.) Why not continue the gluttony day tradition? Why not do everything in your power to make your own October Fest? Why not start a new band. The world won't end because we are gone, and I hope that "the group" won't end either... it's radius will just expand a few thousand miles.

I want to thank everybody. I have never doubted who our friends are. Everybody has been amazingly supportive of our decision to leave. I hope you all understand how hard it is, and how much it hurts us to do so. But there are things to see in the world, and we're going to see them. It really has made this transition so much easier, knowing that we have had all of your support.

I'll see many of you one last time, this evening, at the Royals game. Saying goodbye is probably going to be the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I'm going to miss this place, this life and you guys so much I can't even express it in words. The only thing more I can say is:

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Wedding in Indianapolis

I just got back from the the wedding of Chris Long to Kate Musick. It was an amazing wedding, and I was very honored to be standing by Chris's side while he was taking this next step into his life.

The rehearsal dinner was excellent. We had a family style Italian dinner, not far from church. The canaloni and spaghetti were to die for. After the rehearsal, we went to the Rock Bottom brewery: http://www.rockbottom.com/RockBottomWeb/RBR/Home.aspx for a beer. I can't say that the beer was good, because it was not. But at least it was expensive.

The next day (Friday) was the day of the wedding, and I was pretty busy. I had to pick up Chad from the airport, then Tux fittings, haircuts, keeping Chris calm... lots of busy work. Got the church at 5 for the wedding pictures, then had the ceremony, which was beautiful. About 120 people (I am told) showed up, including a huge portion of the Norris clan which I haven't seen in ages. I probably haven't seen Amy (formerly Norris) in probably 15 years, at least.

The reception was awesome. It was at a German restaurant: http://www.rathskeller.com/ Incredible food, amazing beer, and relatively short. I (personally) don't care for receptions that last 4 hours, and people don't know what to do for the last 2 hours. This one was only about 2 and a half hours long. A perfect amount of time. We helped clean up some after the party, then it was off to the restaurants beer garden. I hope, hope hope I make it back to Indy, if for no other reason than to hit up this beer garden again. There were 10-12 imported German beers on tap, and they were all pretty damn amazing. We only managed to get one beer before the bars closed up. (but it was a 32 oz beer). Next stop was a little pub down the street from the church that wasn't great, and we didn't need. Only got a single beer there, and headed back to the hotel to party some more, but ended up going to bed instead... God we're old.

Anyway the next day was a complete blast. We started off by getting up and eating breakfast with Jenny, Travis and Lesley (their new baby) along with Erin and Tiffany at a little cafe close to Jenny and Travis's hotel. Next we got back to the hotel to enjoy the hot tub which was recently fixed. After that we participated in a paddle boat race. Apparently you can rent paddle boats for the downtown "river walk". So Jason, Heather, Bobby and Chad battled Heather, Betsy, Dathan and I. My team stomped their ever loving asses... but man, was it hard work. For lunch we went to a small Irish pub downtown, then to the hero's museum: http://www.heroesmuseum.com/... only two photos, sorry. Click image below:

Indianapolis - Chris's wedding

After that we played at Jillian's, which is like a Dave and buster's. We ended up winning 3275 tickets (approx) and exchanged them for a fountain that has a "floating" spigot, a remote-controlled fart machine, and two pirate outfits. Cool stuff! :)

For dinner, Heather, Heather, Jason, Jeff and I got some sushi downtown, and then grabbed a beer at the http://www.theram.com/. Excellent, and I mean excellent beer here. Their Hefe was to die for. Went back to the hotel afterward and went to bed.

Got back this afternoon at about 5 pm after playing hours and hours of radio roulette. For those who don't know this awful game here are the rules (some of which we made up)

A turn is defined as a player holding the seek button on the radio without looking at which station it may land on. When the player removes his finger from the radio, the next station that the radio lands on HAS to be listened to, no matter what. The turn ends when the song ends. If you hit the station during a commercial, you have to wait for the next song that plays to end or until you lose the station (unintelligible for 5 seconds). If the station is a "talk" station, then you have to wait until the next commercial, which could be hours.

We invented a point system for the game.

Points are granted as follows. Each player votes on how terrible the "content" of the turn was on a scale of 1 to 10, ten being the worst. Multiply that by the number of minutes (rounding up to 1) the content played on the radio. Then average the scores of all of the players.

For example, with 4 players on a commercial and then a song that lasted for a total time of 6 minutes 12 seconds.

Player 1 votes: 7
Player 2 votes: 5
Player 3 votes: 8
Player 4 votes: 6

7 (points from player 1) * 6 minutes = 42 points
5 * 6 minutes = 30
8 * 6 = 48
6 * 6 = 36

42 + 30 + 48 + 36 = 156 (total points)
156 / 4 (players) = 39 points awarded to that person.

At the end of the game the winner is the person with the most points.

Fun? No, not really... not at all.

We have a new home!

Molly just took possession of the new house yesterday 6:15pm Central time (4:15pm there). Apparently the lawn needs mowing and they took "everything". Even the batteries out of the garage door opener. It takes a serious combination of "cheap-ass" mixed with a large set of stones to do that. They did, however, leave us some of the light bulbs, so that's good.

Our realtor gave us a $100 gift certificate to Home Depot. I'm still deciding if that is a good thing... maybe she knows something about the house that I don't? :) Maybe I ought to spend it on structural bracing or something....

Today Molly is in "painting" mode. She has three rooms that she feels that she needs to paint. I certainly am not going to stop her. Painting new rooms is like catnip to her, especially it is her own house. She doesn't have the Internet or anything up there, so I can't post photos yet. I'll be up next Friday, and I'll have Internet the 30th, so I'll be sure to update as soon as I get the opportunity. Now, think about our old house... got the mental image? Ok, if you liked those colors in there, you are definitely going to like the colors in our new house? Oh yeah... (they are the same colors.)

Had the HEI party last night. It was fun. A dozen or so people came out, and we sat out on the patio at Mickey's drinking beer. I was home by about 10:30ish, played some video games and was asleep by midnight. All in all, a good evening. Thanks to everybody who came out. It meant a lot to me.

I heard that (c)rusty's last chance reopened. Anybody want to grab a beer on Monday, early evening? I just kind of want to see what it is like.

And she's off

Molly and her Dad left Sunday morning at about 6am. We stuffed her little Toyota to look like a clown car. The hope was that we wouldn't have to the exact same thing to my car when we drive up next week.

Speaking of which, only 8 days left before I'm out of here. Wooow. I mean, Wooow.

Chris's wedding is on Friday. I'm sure he is excited and nervous, although I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it. I remember that my wedding was crazy, and I didn't have a lot of time for socializing beforehand.

This week there is a lot going on. At work, Wes is wanting to beta release a giant software package that I have a hand in, but he is also wanting to release some maintenance software and new security modules. On top of all of that, I have to release a new version of the accounting software before I leave. So there is a small amount of stress... and I am gone Thursday and Friday.

At home I have quite a bit of stuff to do, such as clean up the last of the rooms, and pack some things... basically get it all ready to be loaded into my car. I also have to drop off a computer to Noel, and pick up my pirate flag (arrrgg) and my big headphones from his place. Then Tuesday evening I have my work party at Mickey's Irish pub from 5 to 7, and on Wednesday I have another little party with some of my pre-college friends, but I haven't heard where that is taking place yet. Then Thursday morning at like 5 AM, Jeff, Chad, Heather D. and I head to the wedding in Indianapolis, not to return until Sunday.

Then Sunday night, I release that accounting software.

Monday, I'm going out with some friends for dinner, and Tuesday night we go to the Royals game, and say good-bye to our friends, load the car, and get a good-nights sleep. We'll leave for Portland on Wednesday morning at 6:30 am(ish) not to arrive until Thursday evening (late).

It's all happening so fast now. I don't even have time to take a breath before I'm gone.

Empty, empty

It is so strange being in the house now. It feels almost like a prison. Its just so empty! We have the one table to sit at, but only two stools (for three people). I end up sitting on the small ice chest. My head barely reaches the table, but at least I'm not on the floor.

The cats are having a tough time adjusting. There just isn't a place to sit down and, of course, are cats are so spoiled they will only resort to sitting on the floor (EWWWW!) if there is nothing else. So I'm sitting at the table on my ice-chesty-stool when the phone rings. I stand up to answer it, and not ten seconds later, bob (the cat) jumps onto the ice chest, lays down, and looks up at me, as though to say: "You didn't call seat-backs". This is the repayment I get for feeding that monster.

Last night it was Molly and I's first evening on the air-mattress. The cats always sleep at our feet on the bed. Well, the air-mattress is a queen AT BEST, and we are used to our king bed. The air mattress barely gets us off the floor, maybe 4 inches from the carpet. Well, the damn spoiled cats can't possibly sleep on the carpet (EWWWW!) so they are trying to bully us around on the air mattress. They kept jumping on, about half the night, just to keep from lying down on the floor. When I got up this morning, I found Truckasaurus laying on a shirt on the floor and Bob was lying on my jeans, on the floor. They are just toooo good for the carpet.

Last night was also interesting because anybody that knows Truckasaurus would understand that he likes to howl in the night, at nothing.... just walk from room to room to see what his voice sounds like. And, it is annoying. Well, last night he tried doing that, which only lasted for 4 "meows" (about 293 fewer than a normal evening). His howl was soooo loud and echoey that I think he freaked himself out, and came running back up into the bedroom.

Lastly, I've been having a hell of a time figuring out how to get rid of my garage fridge. I had a guy drive in (a home brewer, I found out) to look at it. He wanted to convert it into a 8-keg beer fridge (5 1/2 gallon kegs). He needed something that was working perfectly (which I always assumed that it was) but when he put his thermometer in there, it didn't really get below 48 degrees, which I thought was normal. 48 degree beer tastes damn refreshing to me. But he was worried that it might be going out or something... and was looking for something in the 37 degree range. Whatever. So he didn't take it.

Posted it, once more here at the office bulletin board, and somebody is coming by on Saturday to pick it up.... YEAH! That was pretty much the last thing I needed to get out of the house. Its just cleaning from here on in. (Oh, and wine drinking... got 3 bottles of very, very nice wine... a '00 Margeaux, a '96 Chateau Lafite (which may be *just* past its prime), and an '02 Archery Summit Estate pinot noir. Oh yes... es veery nice!

Looking forward to the "party" at 75th street brewer tomorrow night. Hope to see everyone there!

Crazy day

The buyers close on the house today. Molly and I are very, very excited. They go in to sign paperwork at 3pm... so its 3:20, and I'm on pins and needles waiting to hear back. As soon as I do, I'm cracking open the Tosti Asti (of course).

The movers got all of our crap loaded into the truck by 1:30 PM today. Not bad at all. My regards to Mayflower.

With our house this empty, the cats don't know what to do. They just wander around from room to room looking for a place to sit down and meowing (I assume because they like the sound of the echo in the empty rooms). I can't be too hard on them, though. First thing I did when the movers were done is wander from room to room looking for a place to sit down, and singing tunes from The Wall, because I like the sound of the echo... then like 10 minutes later, Molly did the exact same thing... except hers was the Hallelujah chorus, with slightly altered lyrics which was used to insult the smell of bomb I dropped in the bathroom.

Good times.

Tonight, McCormick and Schmidt's for dinner. Yeah!

Unbelievable

Can you believe the weather today? The day the movers load my sh*t. 85 degrees... I assure you, had molly or I been loading that truck, it would have been 103... new record.

Damn.

Moving Company

It's going to be very strange for me, eating my failure pile from my sadness bowl on the cold kitchen floor, for the next two weeks.

Happy Birthday, I'm 43.

Anyway, the movers showed up at 7:10 AM. Yeah, A f*@kin' M. When I received the call yesterday, the moving company assured me that they would show up between 8 AM and 10 AM. So I have no idea in what alternate universe 7:10 AM falls in between 8 AM and 10 AM, but friends, I stumbled into it today. I go to sleep in dimension A and wake up in dimension B, where the only difference is delivery/service personnel are 50 minutes earlier than the specified time frame, rather than 50 minutes later than the specified time window. I just pray that this means that the movers will be out of my house by the time I get home after work.

However, one good thing about the movers doing all of the work here... I get to go home for lunch, drink three beers in my front lawn while I watch them load my stuff. I think I had to initial that requirement on the contract I signed with the moving company.

__ 3c. The client then reserves the right to bark orders while drinking beer in the front lawn during the time in which the movers are hauling the clients crap out of the house and putting it on the trunk in the 95 degree July weather. It is required that the client will either be shirtless/wearing a wife beater/pant less/nekked.

I may even get surly and urinate on the neighbors dogs through the fence. I've always wanted to do that.

So, I have to live in the house for another two weeks (approx) without a single stick of furniture. I'll have an air mattress, my PC, the cat's litter box.

So yeah... eating dinner on the cold kitchen floor. Anybody feel sorry for me? Please?

Molly's Second Job Interview

Today Molly called me while I was out at Maloney's. I guess she finally heard back from the Hillsboro school district. They offered her an interview. This would be nice because every school in Hillsboro is much closer to home than the other offer that she has (which is the Jewish academy). Of course last minute flights are like $1200. Good thing her Dad has a ton of frequent flyer miles. He gave up 50K for this one flight. Yikes!

So she'll fly in tomorrow, stay at a crappy hotel tomorrow night. Walk to the car rental place to pick up her SUV on Friday morning then drive to Hillsboro for the interview. After the interview she'll take the max from our home station to the Jewish academy to see how long the public transportation actually takes. Then she'll drive the car back to the rental place, and stay a second night at the crappy hotel, catch the shuttle to the airport in the morning, and I'll pick her up on Saturday. WOW, worldwind trip?!?!?!? Hope she gets the job!

Anyway, we also got our final bid on our movers. This one was over a thousand cheaper, and is a big name (Mayflower). So I just went with them.

White Wedding Rewind (cork dorks)

One of our last cork dork parties :( ....

Click the image below to see the photos:

White Wedding Rewind

Enjoy!

CarHenge!

(To the tune of "Oh my darling")

Oh my Carhenge,
Oh my Carhenge,
Uniformly painted grey!
Drove for hours,
Golden Showers?
On that sunny June Day.

...
Drove for miles,
Goofy smiles,
As we rode along the way.

...
Got some Runza
Out out our Bunza
Have to continue along our way.

...
Made of Junkers
By some F*$kers
On a drunken ruinion day.

...
Couldn't Linger
At the Finger
Had hurry up that day!

Check out the Photos!!!! (click the picture below)

Carhenge

So much fun, thanks Carhenge!

Old House Inspection

Hey gang. Our home buyers (David and Joelle) had our home inspected last night. I was so nervous. We've done a lot of things to the house, as you all are aware, and being amateurs when we started fixing it up, we were unsure how the inspection would actually go. We bought the house pretty much "AS IS", but we had it inspected anyway. There were so many things wrong with the house at the time, that it was pretty much a mute point. The appraiser at that time said that roof and the foundation were both great, but everything else pretty much sucked.

Anyway, back to last nights inspection... Of course there were things wrong with the house. The house is 40 years old. However the inspector gave it a 9/10 with 10 being the highest. The buyer said that he had never gotten anything over 7.5/10 on any house that he ever had inspected. Amazing. So, barring any major problems with their financing, we are good to go for our closing date of July 11th.

To help everyone remember the "good old days"... here are some of the pictures of our home before we moved in. Click below for the pics:

Old House (before)

And, for those of you who haven't seen the final product:

Old House (after)

We'll keep them there for posterity sake.