Friends Ben and C.J. were both in town for interviews. Ben was interviewing for a web design position in Vancouver with the school district (He’s very qualified, if you’re HR out looking :), and C.J. was interviewing for entrance to the local culinary school. It was fun to see friends from both high school and college again. We went out for dinner and beer at the New Old Lompoc, which was pretty dern good. Best of luck guys.
Tour de Fat
New Belgium (the brewery) sponsored a crazy bike festival & alternative transportation fund raiser in Portland today. They’ve been doing them all over the country, but this was the first I’d heard of it here. With Michelle out of town, rode on over. What a sight to behold.
There was a stage on which bands of varying talent played. There were bikes welded together from miscellaneous bikes and other things that might have been lying around the scrap yard. (See Here for samples) And these bikes were available to ride.
While there I spent several hours riding around the park on tall bikes (made by stretching a bike vertically, or simply welding one on top of another), lawn mower bikes, razor scooter bikes, hinged-bikes (my favorite – the back end swung freely from the front, so you could ride beside your front tire if you felt like it. ), Choppers, Cruisers, trikes, and other contraptions that defy description.
It was a blast to ride these things around. Once I finished and got back on my bike, I was quite disoriented. I wish Andrew could have been there, it reminded me of the crap we used to do in middle/high school.
Oh, and the beer was good. Then I had to shower and make a quick trip north to see Alan’s new place. Wonderful place, and cool people. First time meeting most of these people in a social setting rather than work, but it was very nice.
Singles Dining
Even though I know how to eat propperly, I’ve been relishing in my relapse into single’s dining. Here are some sample menu items from the last couple days:
1) Rosarita Frozen Bean & Cheese Burrito: Microwave 4 minutes, flip halfway through and put cheese on top. Serve with salsa.
2) Quesadilla: Two flour tortillas with mixture of Irish Castle cheese and Gruyere. Melt in microwave and serve with salsa.
3) Frozen Gardenburger Chick patties parmesan: Heat patties in oiled pan, melt Gruyere on top. Heat up canned marinara sauce, put on top of chick patties, sprinkle parmesan on top.
4) Curry Mashed Potatos Burritos: Microwave Tasty Bites foil package contents in a pyrex. Spread on the leftover corn tortillas because all the flour is gone. Skip the cheese this time. Eat over sink as to minimize dishes. Run disposal to rid of the drippings.
As you can see, there’s a running theme. Thanks to Darren for the gift of cheeses. They have been a life saver. And they’re on the menu for tonight :)
Beard Itches
I’ve got the 10 day no-shave itches something fierce. Make it stop already!
Guilty Pleasures
Michelle is in Yakima, so I let Barley sleep on the bed with me. Certainly a guilty pleasure. Here are 6 more:
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Disposal
Michelle and I picked up a used garbage disposal from the ReBuilding Center, and I finally got around to installing it yesterday. After the $12 in parts, we can now grind up waste like there’s no tomorrow. Fortunately my parents were chronic home-improvers, so I learned enough to fake it. The only question left is why there wasn’t a disposal there already, when it was wired for it. Oh well, what’s the point in asking questions?
Two-Wheeled Terrorists
The bicycle is one of mankind’s greatest inventions. To build one requires so little. To operate one requires very few skills, and consumes few resources. So what is this guy’s problem?
Fiber Out
Yesterday was the Technical Staff Retreat at work. Almost all the Tech staff and managers were at a local park talking about projects and future technologies. Shortly after lunch, several managers’ phones started ringing because a Verizon Contractor had put a Backhoe blade through the fiber optic line that connected one of the campuses to the outside world. The entire campus had no voice or data connection. Little could be done, so we continued our game of croquet.
Minor Changes
After brewing a batch with Cordle, I decided to move some stuff around on the site. I’ve completely separated the rooftop and rooftop brew sites so I could get an accurate picture of who is visiting what.
I also finally changed the /etc/hosts file so that I can type in the proper URL for my two sites and it goes there. Mac OS 10.2 finally consults the /etc/hosts file, so the change was easy. Now I don’t know why I’ve put up with it for so long. Things are so tidy now.
Norah Jones, Anniversary
Yesterday was Michelle and my second anniversary. As a surprise, I was able to get tickets to the Norah Jones show at the Albert Schnitzer Hall. We had a wonderful time, and despite the really poor acoustics, bizarre guitar player antics, and women who forget what being in public is about, was quite enjoyable. But really though, the guitar player had the most fantastic orgasm every time he played, and they were quite simple bits. As soon as I used the gentleman in front of me’s head to block him out, it was much more enjoyable. But the sound guy hardly improved. He should be relocated to the Gulag. It was startlingly bad.