Hacked by Trenggalek6etar

true love waits…

true love waits…
…in haunted attics.
and true love lives
on lolipops and crisps.

just don’t leave
…don’t leave.

radiohead on the iPod. it doesn’t get much better than that.

so, what’s new?

Midwest! Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria.

Midwest!

since last update, we took a bit of a vacation to Chicago and Milwaukee. much fun was had, i will detail the trip soon in the Sights & Travel section.

Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria.

more recently, we took 5 days off around columbus day, to relax and enjoy both the holiday, and the fact that i can now no longer ‘accidentally’ say i’m 29. yep, i turned 31 recently. yow!

and this past weekend, we drove up to bellingham to go to boundary bay brewery & bistro and to the Re Store – Bellingham.

RE Store was interesting — they recycle pretty much every part of a house/church/school/etc. most things were a little too worn for our tastes. but their value is probably not being used for their originally designed purpose; it seems a lot of people go there to get raw materials for art projects & whatnot.

a few of the things that looks good enough to be incorporated as-is for their designed purpose, were some very interesting light fixtures, and some very nice looking doors. doors of all shapes & sizes. with lites, without. and a set of solid mahogany 4-panel doors. they probably weigh more than the wall they might be hung from.

Boundary Bay was great, as expected. i’ll begin with a comment on the direction of brewing around here. the pacific northwest is quite famous for hoppy beers, and a lot of breweries are trying to push the envelope of bitterness so far that it loses everything you drink beer for. i had an IPA a few weeks ago that literally made me cry. it was the beer-culinary equivalent of drinking buffalo wings. not good.

Boundary Bay’s IPA had an amazing bouquet of hops, then the flavor and spiciness seemed to effervesce on your tongue, then evaporate. mezmerizing, not overpowering. i cannot find words eloquent enough to describe drinking this beer. i only wish the brewery wasn’t 60 miles away. go there. drink some. take a nap. be happy.

i think i’ll end on that note.

slow dancing on the boulevard…

slow dancing on the boulevard…
..in the quiet moments while the city’s still dark.

matchbox twenty on the ipod.

since it’s been a month, you’d expect i should have a lot to say. let’s see how much i remember.

so, what’s going on?

a little driving, a little drinking, a little dally, a little rally.

won't it be dull…

won’t it be dull, when we rid ourselves
of all these demons haunting us,
to keep us company?

won’t it be odd to be happy like we
always thought we’re s’posed to feel,
but never seem to be?

the BareNaked Ladies on the iPod.

so, what’s new?

Cats, Cats, and Cats!

i found a reason for me …

… to change who i used to be …

hoobastank on the ipod.

as much as the poppy-punk ballads are a hit with the kids, the grammar and/or logic is atrocious. how do you change who you used to be, exactly? do you have a time machine?

everybody knows that if you have a time machine you should go back and give yourself information that helps you win bets in the future.

an even bigger question than how you change who you used to be is: why would you? who you used to be isn’t who you are anymore. the past is the past, try changing who you currently ARE or who you WILL BE SOMEDAY, perhaps.

*shrug* kids these days, don’t even know how to effectively use a time machine. you think they would have learned (from themselves, from the future, maybe). oh well.

anyhow, what’s new? well…

kittens, autocross and thunder, oh my!

we can dance if we want to…

… we can leave your friends behind.

darn, i’ve had that song stuck in my head all day. not because i’ve been listening to my 80’s megamixes on the iPod, but because i recently watched the “80’s Guy” episode of Futurama (3ACV21: Futurestock).

so, what’s new?

Hot, Hot, Hot! BeerFest! and Movin’ Out!

Hillsboro, OR

a weekend trip to the Portland area.

a stop at Dick’s Brewing in centralia, WA for lunch on the way down. the adjacent Northwest Sausage & Deli had absolutely amazing food, and the beer couldn’t possibly be fresher. we were very disappointed that they were closed on our trip back (sunday), or we would have been obliged to fill the trunk of the focus up with beer & meat.

dinner at old chicago, a chain who claims to posess “110 taps.” on their website they maintain a laundry list of brews, nearly all of which were not available. (apparently that is the aggregate list for all their locations, not representative of any individual location). the beer menu we were presented with had about a dozen options on tap (and sorely missing the leinenkugel’s that we went there for in the first place!). food was somewhat unique chain-pub fare, with an italian-ish twist on everything. i say, skip it and go someplace more local (see ‘portland brewing’ below).

LaConner, WA

an afternoon road trip to one of our favorite brewpubs.

LaConner Brewing Company (site is ‘offline’ seemingly forever), LaConner, WA. drove out for lunch to see what was left of the Tulip Festival and have some good food and good beer. we weren’t disappointed. apparently everyone was drowning their sorrows that the Tulip season came (and went) early this year, in a pint of Tulip Festival ale. i can’t say i blamed them.

Leavenworth, WA

a jaunt through the mountains to a nice touristy town.

we’ve been to leavenworth before. this time, we went to find out if the Leavenworth Pub & Brewery still existed.

turns out, it doesn’t. the space that formerly housed it has been taken over by a respectable italian establishment called Visconti’s who happens to serve Leavenworth Brewery Beer. how’s that possible? well, apparently Leavenworth Brewery Beers are still being produced–in Olympia, Washington, at a brewery called Fish Brewing Co.

East Coast Tour 2003

a trip back east to see family & attend a wedding.

flew to Pittsburgh (as it was conveniently located between major waypoints for our trip, and closer to the last one). arrived at 6:30 EDT (that’s 3:30am PDT) and proceeded to drive to Fredericksburg, VA for the next stop of the leg. thankfully, breakfast at Eat & Park got us fueled up for the day in style. (well, okay, not in style, but in… a timely fashion).

all GPS navigation as we made our way south, too bad Washington DC was such a mess; big construction happening on the 495 beltway around the city. we thought that squeaking thru in the mid-late afternoon would spare us from the major traffic woes, but alas, we were wrong. oh well.

Portland, OR

a trip to portland to see the roses.

on this trip to Portland, we revisited the Portland Internation Rose Test Garden (PIRTG) and there were a lot more roses than our trip in february (when there were none whatsoever). we also visited the Peninsula Park Rose Garden which i read somewhere was larger in area than the other, but it’s not maintained as well and most of the flowers were in drought mode or past their prime. the PIRTG was definitely the best bet – so it was swamped with tourists on Sunday, and only slightly less swamped on Monday. show up early or prepare to walk from the car.

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