Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Friday, March 31, 2006
Last night I finished Patrick O'Brian's 20th and last Aubrey/Maturin novel, "Blue at the Mizzen", as well as the 3 chapters of the unfinished 21st Aubrey/Maturin novel. Bridget had bought me the boxed set of all 20 novels in five volumes for Christmas 2004, and I've spent the last 15 months plowing through them. Over 6,500 pages. Excellent, excellent books. He was an amazing author. Turning away from 18th century nautical fiction, I've moved on to 18th century alternate nautical science fiction, with "His Majesty's Dragon", by Naomi Novik. It's supposed to be Aubrey/Maturin meets Dragonriders of Pern, basically the Napoleonic Wars except there are dragons for air power. No magic, nothing else changed other than what would change if there were ridable intelligent dragons. So far its fine, but I'm only two chapters into it. Interestingly, she's a new author, but instead of releasing this book, seeing how it does, then putting out a sequel in a year or so, they've optioned her for 3 novels, had her write a trilogy, and they're publishing them one a month for 3 months. Not a bad idea, I won't have forgotten about her by not reading anything about her for a year. Since the rest of the trilogy is due in the next few months, I feel OK breaking my normal standard of not reading a series until it's done. On Sunday a friend of mine from Boise came over with his two kids. His daughter is 3.5, almost Harry's age, and his son is 18 months old, and ridiculously cute. The kids had a grand old time playing. I pulled out my trick of playing a "game" with Isabel by having her touch the couch in the living room, count 1, then the one in the family room, count 2, until she gets to 10. Then do it the other direction. This has her running 5 or so laps (depending on if she loses count or not) around the main floor of the house, which causes a Pied Piper like attraction to all other children in the house, forcing them to run after her. I had her doing this so often she was starting to run with one hand pressed against her side where it hurt. Hahahaha. I was dying laughing. Eventually we had to boot them out and get ready to go to WOPR's birthday party up at his folk's place in Everett. He picked ribs for the dinner, and his mom did her usual awesome job. She had a 18 quart roaster over on the counter filled with beef ribs. These suckers were so tender that when you used the tongs to reach in for one, you as often as not pulled jus the rib bone out. I kept saying they were ribs so tender you could eat them with a spoon, so one of our buddies there took away my fork and gave me a spoon. I was 100% correct, the spoon worked just fine. Damn tasty ribs. To give an example of the craziness of my life (and wife), B sent me email earlier this week saying "Oh we don't have anything planned for this weekend except all day Saturday, how about we throw a brunch on Sunday morning?" Sure honey. Whatever you want. Love you! Thursday, March 30, 2006
So yesterday when I was taking my shower I noticed that the hottest the water would get was somewhere below lukewarm. Gah! I hurry through my shower, wondering what could be wrong with the hot water heater, the damn thing is only 2 years old. After I got dressed I go down there, and sure enough, the water heater is off. In fact, looking closely, I see that the gas valve leading to the water heater is off. WTF?!? Anyway, I've had enough experiences lighting gas furnaces that lighting the gas water heater wasn't that big a deal, just a minor pain in the ass. I was lucky I have a long BBQ lighting lighter, because the pilot light on that sucker is way far inside. I finally got it torched off. Going through my mind was who could possibly have reached over and turned the gas valve off. I knew it had to be one of the kids. When I got home, I asked Isabel and Harry down and showed them the valve, Isabel proclaimed her innocence, and Harry immediately fessed up. I asked them both not to touch it, and if they see anyone touching it to tell them NO! and to tell Daddy about it. Brrr stupid cold showers. Who would ever think a 3 year old would shut off the gas to the water heater? Sunday, March 26, 2006
My mistake yesterday, the lodge at Snoqualmie Falls is the Salish Lodge, not the Snoqualmie Falls lodge. After we got home yesterday, we had to feed the kids a quick lunch then I rushed Isabel off to her dance class. I had a pint of Hoppy Frog IPA at the Wedgewood Ale House next to the dance studio, then we went home and fast fast fast changed Isabels clothes. We were meeting up with B's aunt and uncle and their two daughters way the hell down in Tukwila at the mall there, to have lunch (err, dinner, or maybe dunch or linner, whatever you call a 3pm meal) at the Rainforest Cafe, a favorite of one of their daughters. Ugh. What a place. The animatronic animals growling scared the crap out of my kids, and the fake thunderstorms freaked them out as well. The food was mediocre at best, and the service was slow as crap. Crickey. They did have Thunderhead IPA, which was delicious. It was nice seeing B's relatives. After that was done we drove back to Seattle and I was dropped off at a bar in Capital Hill to meet up with my youngest brother and his friend. We had four $2 pints and a $4 happy hour order of nachoes and our bill totaled $9. I had the Rogue Chocolate Stout which was phenomenal. We then went to see my brother's apartment which I had yet to visit, it was a very nicely redone old building. We then took the bus across town to the Seattle Center. I suspect I was the only person who woke up at the Salish lodge that morning and was on public transportation that afternoon. At Seattle Center we proceeded to the Hops on Equinox beer festival. It's definately my least favorite beer festival, but like bad sex or bad pizza, it's still pretty damn good. The three of us had a great time, even though it being the end of the festival (it ran Friday night and all day Saturday) almost a third of the taps were blown, including many of the beers we wanted to try. I must say, the Scuttlebut Porter, dry hopped and aged in oak, was easily Best In Show. Easily twice as nice as the second best beer we tasted. We were running out of things to try at that point anyway, so once we found it we kept drinking just that until we killed the last keg of it. I was cracking us up with my statements that I was as sober as a monk, and to prove it I would look around and say, "Yep, there are still lots of homely women around, I must be cold sober!". After we ran out of tasting tokens I called up B, told her I was sober as a monk, to which she replied I must be drunk as a skunk. Anyway, we made an arrangement to meet her outside the Experience Music Project. We went out there, and my brother's friend decided to try bush surfing, jumping onto a hedge backwards like he was stage diving. The bushes held him up fine, and then my brother, but when I tried it I landed on Stabby The Impaler, tearing a gash in my nice shirt, undershirt, and a six inch gash across my back. D'oh! At least it wasn't a UDI (unexplained drinking injury) since I know exactly how it happened. We of course had a barf bag on hand for my brother, not letting him live down puking in our oldest' brother's wife's Durango at the beer judging a few weeks earlier. I woke up feeling fine. Good clean living is rewarded. Saturday, March 25, 2006
Wow! Ok, so a while back B told me that last night was reserved, not to schedule anything, and when I asked her why she said it was a secret. Ok, fine. I didn't really think about it, so had no idea. When I got home from work we kissed the kids goodbye and Isabel was all singing "I've know a seeeecreeeet" but we got out of there before the kids could spill the beans. B drove us out to Snoqualmie Falls lodge, a fancy schmancy hotel over a beautiful waterfall. We'd been out there to hike down to the base of the waterfall before, I think most recently last summer with the kids, but we'd never stayed at the hotel nor eaten at the locally renowned restaurant. It's a little shocking to be at work one minute, and two hours later totally unexpectedly you're on a romantic overnight getaway. B had packed everything we'd need and stashed it in the back of the truck. We got there just in time, dropping the truck off with the valet, getting checked in, and dropping our stuff off in our room before heading to the spa. B had bought a package deal at Costco, it was $300 for a night at the hotel and two 50 minute spa treatments. She'd signed us up for a couples' massage. Mind you, I've never had a massage before. It was alright, I suppose, but not this fabulous thing that everyone says massages are. B thought hers was wonderful. Whatever. Anyhoo, afterwards we went back to our room, changed into nice clothes, and went to dinner. Our choices were the fancy restaurant at $40+ a plate or the "attic bistro", which is a bar tucked up into the rafters. We choose the bar. B had a great caesar salad and the sole, with fingerling potatoes. I had an amazing meatloaf open faced sandwich with some balsalmic vinegar reduction glaze that was almost too rich, and brussels sprouts with montmorancy cherries and bacon. Mmmm, I wouldn't have thought to add bacon to brussels sprouts, but lord knows it's an obvious one. We also had a $50 bottle of Chardonnay from some Napa valley winery, which humorously had a screw cap. The waitress says they've got 2 or 3 selections in their cellar that have gone that way for whatever reason, but it sure ruins the presentation. It was one damn fine wine, however. I'm not much for whites, but this was worthy. I had a Lagavulin 16-yr single malt scotch for dessert, B was too full. Our room had a wood-burning fireplace in it, so you better believe I was going to make fire. It had a prestolog in it, but there was seasoned dry wood and kindling below so I put the prestolog aside, opened the damper, and quickly got a lovely blaze going. We watched the end of my Huskies sweet 16 run, leading the UConn Huskies most of the way only to get stupid at the end, with basically the whole team fouling out, and going for a 3 point shot instead of a game-winning two, letting UConn sink a 3 with 1 second left to time the game and send it to OT. Of course, since our team had already fouled out, we got squicked in OT, so there goes that. The worst part of our whole trip was at 6:45am, when the pigfucking alarm fucking clock fucking went fucking off. What the fuck?!?! Jesus wept, but half the fucking point of an overnight fucking getaway is to get to sleep in to say 9am instead of having the kids wake us up at 6:45am. Gaaaaaaaaaaa!!! I'll be writing them a letter bitching about that, let me tell you. I mean, if the maids dont catch that, the turndown service sure as hell should have. Fuck me. Since we were up, we used the two-person jetted soaking tub for a nice hot soak, then we were going to walk down to the base of the falls, but the whole thing was socked in with fog, so we went for breakfast instead. The weekend breakfasts at Snoqualmie Falls are locally famous, in fact we buy Snoqualmie Falls pancake mix by the 5lb bag, probably one a month. Anyway, it was super fancy. B was regretting that with her migraines she can't have orange juice, and I said she could have apple juice, and her reply was "yeah but it's not like it'll be fresh-squeezed". Sure enough, all their juices were fresh-squeezed. My coffee came with a tray of condiments for it, including a pot of half-n-half, a little bowl of sugar, one filled with artifical sweeteners, one filled with whipped cream, and one filled with broken up chocolate bits. I had a grapefruit juice and their "infused mary", they take Absolute vodka and infuse it with rosemary, basil, jalepenos, and some other spices to make their bloody marys. It was bloody marvelous. B ordered a stack of pancakes with berries, and I ordered their signature 4-course breakfast. The first course was a cup of fruit, yogurt, and granola, with a blueberry muffin and sweet orange roll. The second course was oatmeal with bits of dried fruit and brown sugar, the third course was 3 eggs, bacon, sausage, ham, and fancy hash browns, and the last course was pancakes. Uff, I was so freakin' stuffed, and still am. During breakfast the fog cleared, it was amazing. The waiter said it cleared *fast*, but I was looking out the window, looked down to eat a bite of pancake, looked up again and instead of a wall of white, the fog was *gone*. After breakfast we took the half mile trail down to the bottom, smooched, and came back, checked out, and drove home. A lot has happened this weekend already, and it's only just after noon on Saturday. A ton more is planned, but I'll blog about that afterwards. Thursday, March 23, 2006
Man do I feel great when I walk into work. A brisk three miles on a chilly morning with blue skies just feels right. Funny custom license plate I saw this morning on a convertible: ZEROSPF You know you live in an upscale neighborhood when the sign board on the local gas station advertises "GREAT WINE SELECTION". Ok, I'm laughing and crying. Back in 1989, there was a citizen initiative that had huge support, with the catchy name CAP, to restrict the height of buildings built downtown. My friend and I called it "Citizens Against Progress". Anyway, it passed by a huge margin, and we haven't been able to build skyscrapers since. Yesterday the city council just unanimously revoked it. In the past 17 years people finally figured out it's better to concentrate growth downtown rather than just sprawl more. Duh! 18 story building, 38 story building, 78 story building, if it's more than 3 stories it's going to be imposing regardless, so I'd rather they just get it over with. Plus the views from up high are pretty spectacular, my friend works on the 71st floor of the Columbia Center and from up there all the hills seem downright flat. Wednesday, March 22, 2006
We chopped the leftover bits of beef tenderloin up into chunks, fried them with some cumin and cayenne, and made awesome fajitas last night. Super duper tender. At $13/lb, the 4.5lb tenderloin was $63, but made a dozen filet mignons, a pair of small roasts, and an awesome fajita dinner. Well worth it as an occasional treat. My World of Warcraft character reached level 60 last night, the top level until the expansion comes out. Now I guess I'm on the Diablo ride, just trying to get better and better gear. We'll see how long this lasts. Monday, March 20, 2006
Yesterday was a nice lazy day. I spent two hours in the morning playing World of Warcraft with Harry, then since the weather was nice B wanted to go to the zoo after lunch. I suggested we do a picnic at the zoo instead, and the kids loved that idea. I sliced up the leftover filet mignon and corned beef for a filet mignon and corned beef sandwich with horseradish, mmmmm! For dinner we went out to Ray's Boathouse with some of B's friends, taking advantage of the 25 for $25 deal. Each November and March the paper picks 25 restaurants to offer $25 price-fixed 3 course meals on Sunday-Thursday. It was a good time, but took over two hours, so part of our group had to leave early to free their babysitter. Sunday, March 19, 2006
Man oh man. A few weeks ago we watched the Good Eats episode "Tender is the Loin", and after watching it we went to Costco and bought a beef tenderloin. Yesterday I cut it up into almost a dozen filet mignons, and we had a dinner party last night where B cooked them up using Alton's recipe for "steak au poivre". You cook them up, then use cognac to deglaze the pan, torch the alcohol off, then add a cup of heavy cream. Man oh man those were friggin' awesome tender steaks, with the most amazing sauce. Add in B's homemade cresent rolls, roasted asparagus and garlic, and cauliflour baked with swiss cheese. I think B outdid herself, and it was probably the most restaurant-like meal I've ever had at home. We've got a bunch of tenderloin left over, a small roast and another meal's worth of odd bits that would make great philly cheesesteak or fajitas. Saturday, March 18, 2006
Nine adults, nine kids, 12lbs of corned beef, 2lbs of british bangers (so sue me), 3 lbs of beans, many pounds of carrots and potatoes, and 4 heads of cabbage. Washed down with lots of Guinness. Another great St. Patrick's Day. Of course, B has us set up for *another* 3 dinner party weekend, with one tonight and one tomorrow night. For those readers who like knitting, check out this, a complete knitted digestive tract. Friday, March 17, 2006
So tonight I hear that WOPR and NotMe's mom reads my blog. Owowowow. Hi Mom! D'oh! Speaking of WOPR, I forced him to start blogging. You can find him at Almost-true.blogspot.com. Some of what he reports might actually happen! I was tickling the crap out of Isabel the other night when she sang out "BA NA NA! See Daddy? I remembered my safe word." I am SO going to hell. Thursday, March 16, 2006
Woo! We actually had poker last night (one of our main players is in the UK for 3+ months) and I was en fuego, winning $40. That nicely offsets all my losses in Vegas. Ah, back to Vegas. Let's see if I can even remember now. Tuesday morning I slept in like crazy, not waking until 8:15am. That's nearly a record for me. I would have lazed in bed for a while but I had to shower if I wanted to make the 9am $40 buy-in no limit texas hold'em tourney downstairs. I did better in this one, in that I lost on a bad beat instead of a bad call. Heh. I joined a $2-$4 limit hold'em table and played until after noon when the rest of the gang was finally up. There was a crazy 97 year old guy at our table sitting in seat 10, he was blind in his left eye so the dealer had to tell him what cards were on the table each time. He was super crotchety, sort of channeling a Popeye vibe. One of the dealers told us he was a golden gloves champion boxer in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Fiesty sonofabitch. He'd talk a little old-man smack whenever he won a pot. At this point since I hadn't eaten anything since we were waiting for our friends, I was friggin' starving. All I'd had was a beer to mark noon, yet when we finally got going the driver took us to Leatherby's, an ice cream parlor to get peanut butter milkshakes. He's got a real thing for them, and very few places will make them. Super. Beer and milkshake is not the best way to break one's fast. Finally we went to Arizona Charlie's West for steak-and-eggs, the proper Vegas breakfast. As we were coming back, I got a call on my cell phone. My server at work had exploded, basically. Red Hat enterprise linux. Kept locking up tight, not reporting or logging one damn thing. My student helper tried all new hardware, same exact result. Worthless friggin' OS. Gah! There wasn't anything I could do from Vegas, so he built a new one from scratch using Debian this time. It's been pretty stable. He was up until 4am doing that. Since there wasn't anything I could do about that, I went back to the poker room, playing more hold'em until about 5pm. At that point we all stopped gambling and all six got together to begin a night of drinking. Three of us wanted to go ride the roller coaster at New York New York, so we walked over there and while they were doing that the other three sat in the Big Apple bar and had some drinks. Once they rejoined us we had a debate over where to eat. Some were saying they weren't hungry, but I knew if we didn't eat we'd be doomed from all the drinkin'. Finally we decided to walk over and see if the MGM Grand had any halfway decent bars with food. Turned out that they did not, so we took a vote between the expensive Fusia in the Luxor or the cheaper, closer brewpub in the Monte Carlo, and the brewpub won. We'd had an awesome time at Fusia two years ago, but not such a great time last year, and it's hard for lightning to strike twice. We had about a 15 minute wait for a table in the brewpub, but being Vegas we could walk up to the bar next to the hostess stand, order a beer, and walk out with it. We ended up spending about $300 in the bar between food (mostly bar snacks), beer, and booze. Somebody may have taken his wedding ring off to chat up some girls at the next table, and afterwards the ring may have gotten lost causing widespread panic in said idiot until finally after moving every table within 20' radius a waitress found it earning $20 tip, but I can neither confirm nor deny any such hilarity, for what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. We did get drunk enough to where WOPR was calling up B to ask her bizarre questions and ask her to send us a camera-phone picture of her boobs. B doesn't have a camera phone but my friend's wife lives just 300' away, and we were trying to take her into going over to my house with her phone. My mother-in-law, bless her evil heart, decided the way to fix our wagon was to send us a picture of *her* 63-yr-old boobs, thank goodness the camera phone never arrived. The horrors. (shudder) Finally around midnight people were wandering off in various directions. WORP had been drinking Myers rum on the rocks all day and night and was barely coherent, so he figured it was time for bed. I said "Fuck that, blotto drunk is the best time to play poker!" so we staggered over to the poker room. I got the last seat at a 2-4 hold'em table, and he said fuck it and bought a rack of white $1 chips to sit down at the $1-$2 buy-in no-limit table. There was a pair of really funny guys at my table drinking bloody marys, so I said "oh I didn't know that was the table drink" and ordered one myself. Turns out they both own bars and were in town for a alcoholic beverages convention. They had to spend their day at the convention center full of booths of vendors trying to get them to buy new liquers.(sp?) We were having blast laughing and talking and playing poker. Poker is so much more fun when there are characters at the table. Eventually our table kept losing players and we ended up with 5, so they merged us with another table. Me and those two guys were still riffin' off each other, making everyone laugh. At one point I look over and there is WOPR buying out, his rack at this point was almost full of red $5 chips. Yes, he'd turned $100 into about $450, playing no-limit hold'em while drunk off his ass. Well done! Around 2am I finally was getting worn out and called it quits after forcing one of the funny guys all-in and beating him. He was laughingly indignant as he re-bought in, saying I had to stay so he could win his money back. I was all like "oh no, your money is the sweetest, see ya". His buddy was making a phone call, and we talked for a bit afterwards. He apparently owns the bar as a sideline, and cuts graphics code for some Ultima Online sequel that he thinks will blow the doors off World of Warcraft. Yeah, good luck with that one! Still, really cool couple of guys. When I got back to my room, my buddy was not there. I knew those motherfuckers were doing something, but they were acting all cagey when they'd deign to answer their cell phones. Finally I got out of them that they were going by fake names and chatting up a pair of 21 year old Aussie chicks who were on a 3-month world trip and had just arrived in Vegas a few hours earlier. I went to join them, and it was pretty funny. Three 38 year old guys and a pair of 21 year old Aussie chicks. We got along pretty well since we both prefer to talk in Simpson's quotes. "Ok brain, I don't like you and you don't like me, so let's get this over with so I can go back to killing you with beer." "Ah, alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems". They also taugh us how to swear in Aussie, "Bloody Oath" being their big one. I laughed at my friend's use of fake names. Crickey. I'm glad B doesn't give a shit if I talk to another woman, it's not like I was making out with them or anything. Some people's wives are simply irrational. I ended up getting to sleep around 4:30am, and getting up at 7am. 2.5 hours sleep sucks. Not much happened on Wednesday, we went to In-and-Out burger for breakfast, turned in the car, and flew home. I bought the kids each a book at the airport gift shop, and they were thrilled. It was sure nice to see B and the kids again. Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Harry Report: He was perfectly normal last night, no pain, no issues at all. My cold seems to be winding down as well, thankfully. I was supposed to finally buy myself a bike for Christmas, but put it off since the bike I wanted (the Novara Fusion) was from REI, and I remembered that last year they sent me a discount coupon with my patronage refund in March and if I was going to buy a $750 bike, I was willing to wait for a 10% discount. I've been using my current bike for over six years, I could wait another few months. Well, the coupon was for 20% off any one item, so I saved $150. I went to the flagship REI store downtown yesterday, test-rode the bike, loved the internal gears, and bought it. Too bad it doesn't have a drive shaft, getting rid of the chain entirely would rule. Isabel was having a grand old time role-playing last night. She used a pad of paper and a pen to pretend she was a waitress, reading off her menu (caesar salad and I forget the entree), writing down our orders, then bringing us plastic play food from her kitchen in the family room. The dessert menu cracked me up, "apple cookies, main tortilla cake, and apple fritters. The main tortilla cake is our special, it's made with tortillas hence the name main tortilla cake, and we put whipped cream with chocolate over it, and oh of course a cherry on top." Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Harry was very unhappy this morning at not being able to eat or drink anything, so I didn't eat or drink anything either. We left Isabel with Grandma and took Harry to the clinic where his procedure was going to be. We didn't quite leave in time and got stuck in traffic so ended up being 10 minutes late. They start at 7:30am, and schedule them youngest first, so with our 9:30am slot there must have been a lot of kids before us. Harry whine about not wanting to go the whole way there, the poor guy. He did decide that he deserved a Slurpee and a "treat" afterwards. Once we got him there and checked him they had him change into tiger-patterned hospital jammies, but he said he didn't like tigers and refused, so he just wore his undies and was wrapped in a heated blanket. I took him into the surgery room leaving B in the waiting room and they had Harry smear his choice of flavored lip balm on the breathing mask, he choose watermelon. Then they put it on pure O2 and had me breath on it a few times, inflating and deflating a balloon. They gave the mask to Harry and he started to breathe it so they switched the gas to nitrous oxide, and after maybe 30 seconds he passed out. Very cute, his little eyes rolled up in his head. At that point I was politely booted out for the procedure. Less than 10 minutes later we got to rejoin him in the recovery room. Both tubes were inserted and the fluid behind his eardrums was drained. The doctor said the fluid behind one ear wasn't even a fluid, really, more of a thick goo. This should certainly help improve his hearing, we'll get that tested in 3 weeks. After he woke up I held him in a chair for a while and we got him a few sips of apple juice. He wanted to go home so we got him dressed and loaded back into the van. We stopped at a 7-11 to get him a slurpee, there was a repair guy with one of the machines all taken apart, fortunately the cherry one still worked, I didn't want to get a caffeine one (Black Mountain Dew Slurpee EXTREEEEME!) or a diet artificial sweetener one. He took a few sips off that and complained that B was driving too fast. The roads were a bit bumpy and windy. Sure enough a few minutes later he pukes up the juice, fortunately I was sitting in the back with him and had a towel and a bowl for just such an occasion. He perked right up afterwards and angrily demanded his "treat". We told him he had to wait until his tummy settled down. We got him home, got his shirt changed, and sat him on the couch watching FoodTV with grandma and his sister. At that point I was planning on going back to work, but my server had gone to hell so I had to fix things from home before making it into work. B reports Harry is acting perfectly normal now. We've got drops to put in his ears twice a day for a week, and they don't want water to get in his ears for that week, but after that they say anything goes. We're still planning on getting him some silicone fitted earplugs for when we go to Cabo. And thus, his second surgery and anethesia went MUCH better than his first.
This morning I'm at home, keeping Harry from eating or drinking anything. He's got an appointment at 9:30am for surgery to get tubes put in his ears and get the fluid drained out from inside them. Hopefully it will be quick and easy. Sigh. Ok, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, unless I happen to blog about it. Sunday my flight from Spokane to Seattle was on time, giving me two hours in Seattle before my flight to Vegas took off. I'd checked in for both flights in Spokane, which caused a bit of confusion since apparently there were *two* passengers with my name on the Vegas flight. I may have come close to meeting my evil twin! (There is another guy in Seattle with my name and an unlisted number, I've gotten all kinds of calls over the years, drunk pissed off dumped girls, drunk horny girls, collection agencies, restaurant hostesses with 'my' lost wallet, etc.) The stupid plane to Vegas was broken, however, so we were delayed 90 minutes. Our friends in Spokane and Boise were meeting us around the same time we were supposed to land, so they had to wait for us there. Once we all arrived, they bitched and moaned about the delay then we proceeded to the rental car place. With six guys we need a large vehicle, and the guy who arranges it is morally opposed to minivans as not being 'cool' enough for him, so we rented a Dodge Durango. He also had reserveration for a Ford Expedition and a Ford Excursion as well in case the Durango wasn't big enough. Fortunately just like rental car companies can screw you by not having the car you reserverd, it works both ways you can screw them by not using a reservation you make, it doesn't cost you anything. We proceeded to the Monte Carlo, the same hotel we stayed in last year. There had been a really good deal on a vacation package through Alaska airlines, so we'd gone that route. It's a nice hotel and nicely located, with a great poker room and a great pool, but sadly the weather precluded pool usage. It was 65 and overcast on Monday, and windy as hell on Tuesday. Since the flights were late we were pretty hungry when we checked in, so taking the path of least resistance we went to the brewpub in the Monte Carlo for dinner. (Another plus for the hotel, they brew their own beer!). We had some drinks and nachos, then decided to get a "giraffe" of beer, a tall tube with a tap holding 3 liters of hoppy goodness. Mmm, beer on tap at the table. After that the poker players went to play poker (2-4 limit hold 'em) and the others went wherever. I played until I lost my rack of 100 $1 chips and called it a night. On Monday I woke up early (well, 7am) as I always do, and went down to watch WOPR play some craps. At 9am there was a $40 buy-in no-limit tourney that we entered. I got beat out quick on a marginal call, then it was time to go to Arizona Charlies West for $3 steak-n-egg breakfast. After breakfast we went to a strip mall donut shop that has been awarded "best donut in Vegas" a few times for some kick-ass coconut donuts. After that we proceeded to an outlet mall that had a Van's store because our driver wanted to get some Vans for his little boy. I ended up buying my first pair of Vans ever, in purple. They're pretty nice, I like them. Our friend has been wearing them constantly since high school or before, and in fact when Vans said they were discontinuing their red-and-white checked style he bought up 20 pairs to last him 20 years. He still has a ton in his attic. Of course Vans started making that pattern again a few years later. After we left the mall, our friend from Boise was on the phone with his wife and we were hooting about going to a strip club trying to get him in trouble, then I took the phone from him and explained to her that personally, I'd rather tell my wife that I'd gone to a strip club than admit that I'd been in a shopping mall on my vacation, which got everyone laughing. I spent the rest of the afternoon playing 2-4 limit hold'em in the poker room. I was down to about $15 (I always buy in for a full rack of 100) when I finally won a few hands, putting me back to $93 when it was time for dinner. So far I was down $147. Before dinner we walked over to the old San Remo hotel and casino which is now a Hooters. It was tiny as it always was, but the table games have Hooters girls for dealers if that's your thing. I was amazed at the groups of 2-4 girls that were hanging around various places, I wouldn't think anyone would pick Hooters unless you want to oogle the staff. There was also some crusty old dude with his white-haired wife who was practically drooling on himself. Lovely. We walked down to the Aladdin for their buffet dinner. It's $24 but very highly rated, and includes king crab legs. We feasted, I had my typical 5 plates of food, eschewing all forms of starch. After dinner we were really bloated so the poker players just rolled upstairs to the Aladdin's poker room where we were enough with the wait list to start a $3-$6 limit hold'em table. There was a loose funny guy in seat 1 drinking coronas and Jaegermiester shots, a loose grumpy guy in seat 3 wearing an Angels hoodie, WOPR in seat 4, NotMe in seat 5, I was in seat 6, various people in 7-9, and a good tight player in seat 10 watching his iPod video most of the night. The guy in Seat 1 was on a tear at first, winning several hundred dollars on lucky river cards. The guy in Seat 3 was a pay station, he'd have crap cards and always bitch about getting a bad beat when he was playing stupid. He kept making the walk of shame to the ATM to get $50 to buy back in. WOPR and NotMe were both doing well, up, and I was down to like $22 when finally my time came. I started to go on a lovely tear, just demolishing #1's chip stack. I got back to even, then finally got my stack to $260 by midnight when #1 finally left with like $40 in chips. At that point I figured I'd call it a night. Monday, March 13, 2006
Damnit. This has got to be like the 700th time I've had a cold this winter. Ridiculous. I've generated several pounds of mucus in the past 36 hours. My World of Warcraft main character Nurg (on Bonechewer) has reached level 57. 2.5 levels to go and he'll be maxed out. I'm not sure what I'll do then, spending years grinding for better gear doesn't seem like that much fun. The other week Isabel went to a birthday party for a friend at Build-A-Bear. Yesterday she took the frilly pink dress off her bear and put it on a stuffed polar bear that Harry owns. Now Harry has gone from paying zero attention to this stuffed animal to insisting it's with him at all times. Yeah, that's all the bear needed was a pink dress and a hair bow. That kid cracks me up. Sunday, March 12, 2006
Alright. I've been back since Wednesday, but too busy and lazy to blog about my trip. Last Saturday I flew to Spokane on the 9am Horizon shuttle flight in a turboprop puddle jumper, landing at 10am. It's always a little strange to fly in an airplane with propellers, since you get so used to jets. My older brother Steve (#2, I'm #3) picked me up at the airport, then quoted the famous beer and scotch drinker, Michael Jackson (not the freaky pedophile) something to the extent that whenever one is to sail upon rough waters, it's always best to lay in some ballast. Knowing we'd be tasting many beers that afternoon, we went to a bar with good food to lay in a large breakfast. I had eggs benedict with slices of prime rib on them, very frickin' tasty and a good solid ballast for a day of drinking. Just before 2pm, my parents arrived with brothers Johnny (#1) and Kurt (#6). They were driving Johnny's wife's Durango, the only vehicle available that seated six. We drove out to the greyhound park at stateline idaho where the event was held. The greyhound racing there was shut down years ago due to a series of newspaper reports of sickening abuse to the dogs there, but the facility is used for auctions and events of all sorts. This event was the annual Post Falls Wine, Dine, and Stein. It's a fundraiser for the Post Falls school district, and a most successful one at that. They raised over $50k in one night, which beats hell out of a bunch of raffles, candy bar sales, and bake sales all year long. The event had a huge number of wines and beer donated, as well as a number of restaurants who donated food and cooks to prepare it in little "taste" samples. A contingent from the North Idaho Enological Society (aka wine snobs) were judging the wine, some students from a local cooking academy were judging the food, and my brothers and I with a "VIP judge" from a vendor were the beer judges. My mom is an officer in the wine society and knows one of the main distributors who helps put this event on, and that's how we all became beer judges. The distributor was neck deep in details to take care of, so he was very happy for us to totally take control of the beer judging and just give him a result by 6pm. The event opened at 7pm and was sold out. ($40 per ticket in advance, all the wine/beer/food you could eat/drink). We immediately set out to grab a bucket of ice, some tubs, and to aquire one of each of the beers there. Most were bottled, and some of the product from other distributors wasn't there yet. Apparently there was some confusion as to when they needed to have the stuff that would be judged arrive. Unfortunately, the catagories we had to work with were terrible. There were four, "Best Dark Import", "Best Light Import", "Best Dark Micro", and "Best Light Micro", plus a trophy for "Best in Show". What the fuck?!? The event was very wine-centric, obviously. They would have flipped if we suggested red, white, and pink as appropriate wine categories. Next year we'll have the beers broken down by style, as they should be. Kurt and I and the VIP judge took on the "Light Micros", which included the IPAs, since there were more in that category than the other three combined. We'd open a bottle, pour a bit into our three tasting mugs, take a sip, take another sip to judge, and possibly a third if we needed it. The rest got dumped into a bucket, rinsed with water, and we had soda crackers to cleanse our palate. The beer was rated on how it compared to it's style and given a 1-10 score. The top 4 in each category were then fed blind to the other section of judges to decide upon a top two, then the top one from each category was judged together to form a "Best in show". Unfortunately I can't find my sheet right now that lists all the winners, but I can state that the excellent "Hop Henge" from Deschutes won Best Light Micro as well as Best In Show. One problem with tastings like this is you never know how long a bottle has been in the distribution channel, and any one bottle might be slightly off. Deschutes Obsidian Stout, which we refer to as alternately "OS", "Nectar of the Gods", or just "Mother's Milk" didn't even place in the dark micro category, which was sad. My mom kept bringing wine society folks by to meet her kids, she was very proud of our palates. I of course told them that instead of milk and graham crackers, she made us drink beer and eat nachoes as kids. Everyone busted up laughing. The rest of the evening we got to pick up our event beer glass (attendees get their choice of beer or wine glass) and start raiding all the food vendors. We also tried a bunch of beers that showed up late, and we all had fun wearing our official Beer Judge badges. LOTS of people wanted to talk to us about beer. "How do you get to be a beer judge?!?" "Like everything else in life, it's all about connections." I talked to some guys who'd probably make great beer judges, but then my brother Steve and I got accosted by a gal who was irate that all the judges were men. She said she had a dual-tap CO2 beer system at home and thus should be a judge. We asked her what she had on tap, and she said "Alaskan Amber and Fat Tire, sometimes Coors Light". Steve immediately said "YOU'RE FIRED!" We had fun chatting with the local brewers who came. One made a pretty decent IPA and great stout, but the rest of their beers were terrible. Another had a Huckleberry and Honey ale that we gave an unofficial award as "Best 'Beer' for Convincing 15-yr-olds to put out", aka the Atomic Thigh-Spreader. (Shudder) One of the brewers had a bunch of temporary tattoos that he spent most of the evening applying to drunk girls' breasts. He'd have to rub it in, the blow on them. Very smooth, and lots of drunk trashy yet well-dressed north idaho girls. There were a bunch of silent auctions, including this huge 4-level wine tree. My two older brothers and I each bought $10 worth of tickets for that one... (We're drinking for the kids. It's for the kids, see. We're not drunks, it's just for the kids...) The sad thing is the ticket 8 after ours won, one more set of tickets and we'd have taken home 3+ cases of expensive wine. D'oh! About that point my mom pointed out that Kurt, aka #6, was too damn drunk for his own good. I went up, told him that we needed to leave, and he was like "Oh really? Oh shit, you're probably right. Let's go." We put him in the front passenger seat then headed home. First we dropped off Johnny since he lived closest, then on the way to Steve's house, Kurt leaned over and started hurling all over himself and the car. D'OH!! Gaaaah. NOT GOOD. When we got to Steves they cleaned it up as best they could, then we went to my folks place. We gave Kurt a barf bucket (the best my folks had in their apartment in town was a silver champagne cooler with a trash bag as liner) and all went to bed. Sunday morning a suitably-chagrined Kurt was calling up detail places in town to see how much it'd cost to get Johnny's wife's car de-barfed. We went out to breakfast (I had the steak-n-eggs special in honor of going to Vegas later that day), they dropped my off at the airport, and I proceeded to fly to Seattle, meet up with by buddies, and fly to Vegas. Saturday, March 04, 2006
This morning B is taking me to the airport. I fly to Spokane to go judge a beer festival with my brothers. Yep, me as a beer judge. Funny. Tomorrow morning, I fly back to Seattle, wait in the airport for two hours, then hop a flight with my buddies to Vegas for my annual jaunt with the boys. Three days of gambling, drinking, and laughing. Once again I am bringing exactly $666 in cash to gamble with. I'll be back on Wednesday. For Christmas, B gave me a coupon to buy a new bike. She wanted me to do it back in January, but the bike I wanted (a Novara Fusion) was sold by REI, and I remembered last year at the beginning of March I got my member dividend from them with a coupon for 10% any item in the store if I used my dividend on it. I asked to delay the purchase to see if I'd get something similar this year. Sure enough, I did, but this year it's 20% off. My dividend was 4 cents. The bike is $750, so I'll save $150, plus my 4 cent dividend from last year. Woo! Plus I'll get like a $60 dividend from the next year. Thursday, March 02, 2006
I can now state for the record that 25lbs of corn nuts is a lot. It filled a 12qt plastic tub, and 7 one-gallon ziplock bags. I need to get a picture of the mound. The kids love them. B's not so happy. I need to get a vacuum packer. Wednesday, March 01, 2006
B took Harry to see a speech therapist with Seattle Public Schools yesterday. I was concerned that he was being a "lazy" talker, but the therapist said that most of what he has problems with are things he's not supposed to be able to do until 5 or 6 anyway. He'll be 4 in May. His comprehension tested at a 5-6yr old level as well. His one main problem is his right ear has fluid built up so he can't hear great there. We'll be taking him to the doc for that, I'm guessing he'll get a tube in that ear, which will suck for swimming. Sigh. I guess that means that most of the kids I deal with are way above average when it comes to speech skills. Isabel is amazing, when she's not pretending to be a baby. Last night for B's birthday she made herself pot roast. Damn it was good. I stuck a fork in the middle of it to life it out of the pan and got a fork-sized chunk instead of the roast, that's how tender it was. In case anyone doesn't know how to make pot roast, it's dead simple. Take a baking tray, line it with aluminum foil, stick the roast in (a "7-bone" roast if you can find one, they taste awesome!), add a packet of dry onion soup mix, and a pound of carrot chunks or baby carrots if desired. If you have room you can toss potatoes in as well. Seal with more aluminum foil, making a pouch by crimping around the edges. This way the pan will be clean at the end, and the juices won't escape. Cook 4-6 hours at 275F. After the kids went to bed B and I put on some Mardi Gras beads and went downtown. The Pioneer Square Fat Tuesday event is a sadly reduced thing ever since the one five years ago when the cops let a riot start and a kid got killed. They've since learned how to deal with crowds, at least somewhat, but there were probably 10% of the crowds of the 1990s. Still, we had a great time. We went into the New Orlean's Cafe, I drank beer, B had a Hurricane made with Southern Comfort (ugga, southern discomfort). B gave some young guy beads for flashing his tits for her, but she wouldn't flash in return. Some chick flashed me for beads outside the restroom. A guy was on his cell phone in the men's room, talking to his girlfriend, and another guy kept yelling "I LOVE YOU HONEY! MAN YOU SHOULD SEE THE TITS HERE! THEY'RE NOT AS GOOD AS YOURS HONEY! I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" until the first guy finally hung up, and then proceeded to explain, "Man you *can't* talk to your girlfriend in the men's room, it's against the rules!!" I was laughing so hard it was difficult to pee. B ended up dancing with the young guy who'd flashed her, he couldn't believe she was 38. He told me I better watch out or he'd put the moves on her, and I laughed and told him you can't drive a nail where a stake has been. A good time was had by all. |
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