Babes and Beer |
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Drinking beer, being married, and raising kids.  A Nosuch affiliate. 
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Sunday, March 30, 2008
Mmm, the weather in Cabo is supposed to be in the high 80s and sunny all week. Woo! We leave in the morning. On Friday night one of my poker buddies called up at 7:45pm to ask if I knew that "The Habit" was playing downtown at 8pm, with special guest from LA Jeff Schell. No, that rat-bastard didn't tell me. They also played Saturday night so we made plans to go see them. They were playing at a strange little club down in Beltown, a bar with a tiny 50-person theater inside that they rent out for shows. It was a little bit of a boondoggle, since B needed to eat dinner and we thought we'd be sitting at tables watching the show, but it turned out we couldn't get food in the theater, just booze. Luckily we managed to grab one of the booths in the back that sat 5, and we squeezed our six in. Instead of doing sketch comedy, they each just stood up and told a funny story, while the rest of them heckled the storyteller. It was pretty funny. Good to see them again. Today was a mad rush of packing and last-minute aquisitions. Friday, March 28, 2008
Man, as if I needed yet another reason to look forward to going to Cabo on Monday, it was freakin' SNOWING in Seattle today. Uff-da. B and I watched the John Carpenter movie, "They Live" the other night because we were out of Netflix DVDVDVDVDs, and it was on free-per-view in HD. I've got some friends who are fans of this movie, and I bet if I saw it in college I'd have loved it. I *am* a big fan of the quote "I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubblegum", not knowing it came from this movie. B and I both noticed that even for 1988, this qualifies as a "pre-Die Hard" movie. Very slow start, and I don't think he even finds the glasses until about the 1 hour mark, leaving 30 minutes for all the action and resolution. Post Die Hard, movies had to have an explosion in the first 120 seconds. Last night B went to her hairstylist, so after I put the kids to bed I watched "Dazed and Confused", also on free-per-view. It was OK, mostly funny seeing later-famous actors when they were super young. I learned that Austin has Moontowers, which seems freaky. Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Bought B a Roomba off Woot.com this morning. She's been wanting one for a while. The kids are excited about it, we'll see how excited they are when it comes time to pick up their toys. My hops are growing like crazy, each plant putting out many more vines than last year. Wooo! I stopped by last night to visit my new nephew again. He's still not named, but they say they're getting pretty close. We just call him Squeaker for now. Super duper cutie. I also stopped off at a local drugstore to buy a pile of half-price Easter candy. MMmm. Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Last night B and I watched "No Country For Old Men". Wow, what a really boring movie. Very little dialog. Lame ending. I'm totally not sure why people have such a hard-on for it. Oh well. I'm now very glad we didn't see it in the theater. Sunday, March 23, 2008
The kids were super excited about Easter. Harry was nearly hyperventilating running around the living room yelling out "egg! Egg! EGG!!!!" Very amusing. Last night I went to the Washington Brewers Cask Beer Festival. There were seven of us in the group, much larger than just me and my brother last year. We wisely grabbed a table at the start so we had a base of operations and didn't have to stand the entire time. Many damn fine IPAs, Imperial IPAs, Porters, Stouts, and Imperial Stouts. Harmon brewing down in Tacoma brought their Sasquatch Stout which was hands-down the best in show for us, we all voted for it early and often. My brother drew a sasquatch on his ballot, and gave it a talk bubble saying "ME LIKE SASQUATCH!" Heh. After I tried all the beers I wanted to sample I went back for 5-6 more glasses of the 'squatch. Mmmmmm. On Friday night B and I finally watched Borat. There were some seriously funny moments in that movie. B claims she hated it, but she was laughing nearly the entire time. We had a ham dinner last night with B's sister and my not-brother-in-law, so I had leftover ham for breakfast, and will have leftover ham for lunch, and we're going over to a friend's house for easter dinner tonight, featuring you-guessed-it: Ham! Mmmm, sweet salty pig legs. I think I'll go snack on some ham. Friday, March 21, 2008
I worked with the kids last weekend to get their vegetable garden ready. We've got a 4'x12' raised bed over in one corner of the back yard that they used some of for garden last year, but the soil packs down pretty hard. The three of us weeded it out, then I used a shovel to manually turn all the soil, then we added a bag of peat moss and a bag of composted bat guano and seaweed to add more organics to the soil and make it hold water better. I also moved some spare cinder blocks to make a 2' wall on the north side of the bed, the tomatoes and peppers will be against there enjoying the extra heat. (Which is something to consider growing hot climate plants in a moderate climate) We've got carrots, radishes, onions, basils, lettuce, spinach, brussel's sprouts, cabbages, peas, and green beans planted. The kids also helped me plant the marigold seeds we'd harvested from the flowers last fall. Hopefully those will take and I won't have to transplant new ones in. Last night was WOPR's 40th birthday, so we took him out for a steak dinner at Jak's Grill. He got their 42oz Porterhouse, which was a lot closer to a roast than a steak. Heh. It was a very tasty meal. Afterwards we went to my place and played The Order of the Stick Adventure Game. Vaarsuvius won. I was playing Durkon, which makes offense hard but he can defend like nobody's business. Haley did terrible. None of us knew how the rules went very well, I'm sure it'll work better next time. Thursday, March 20, 2008
The kids and I finished all seven books in The Chronicles of Narnia, it took 10 months. Now we're reading Swiss Family Robinson. B and I went to see 10,000 BC when it opened the other week. Big stupid movie, but fun enough to enjoy. We're watching Rome and The Wire on Netflix. Had 3 defective DVDs in the past two weeks, grrrr. They need some reader they can slap disks into when they're returned to test for skipping defects. We took the kids skiing. Isabel took B up to "Monster Alley", a kid "adventure zone" that turns out to be a cat track that leads into some chutes in the trees. B wiped out a ton of times. I was with Harry on the bunny slope chair, and he was doing great, 3 runs in a row without falling. When B and Isabel came back, B wanted me to go back up to Monster Alley with Isabel without warning me. I did fine on it, but narrow chutes and ungroomed stuff isn't something I enjoy, so the second time we went up we went down a regular groomed blue run. Our school auction was fun. We drank a ton, I heard they raised $213k at the auction, and it's over $250k now with employer matching funds. Afterwards we went to the Duchess tavern for more drinking, and it was absolutely packed with college kids. Very amusing. It was totally not like that when I was in college. Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Our flight to Spokane was pretty amusing. It was on a tiny turboprop, and to balance things they had to move four adults from the first six rows to behind row 12. I do respect that they pay attention to that, I don't want to auger into the trees at the end of the runway. My brother Kurt (#6) and I flew Horizon, and Horizon offers free beer and wine on their flights, so even though it was 9am, we had to indulge. They serve them out of 22oz bombers, and since we were about the last to be served since we were in row 8 and they'd cleaned house further up, we just told her we'd be happy to finish it off for her. They didn't announce that they were serving beer, since it *was* 9am, so we were the only takers. My brother Steve (#2) picked us up at the airport, and in the process of walking to his car in the garage he went up a ramp without noticing, so he couldn't find his car since he parked on 2 and we were on 3. Sigh. Spokanites don't experience parking garages very often. We drove to my parent's apartment, where we got the digital picture frame us kids got them for Christmas to connect to the wireless network. Now all the kids can submit photos to it via email, it's pretty cool, and looks very nice. After that we drove to Steve's house where we experienced his "Steve's Magnum Opus Sandwich": A pair of 2' french bread loaves where sliced in half and then a channel was carved in the tops and bottoms for more room. Both sides were buttered, sprinkled with garlic powder and parmesan cheese and then broiled to make garlic bread. The bottoms were skim-coated with mayo, then a half pound of heated pepperoni was layered on, followed by a half pound of heated ham slices, a quarter pound of bacon, and a half pound of provolone cheese slices. This was toasted in the oven to melt the cheese into the meat. Finely sliced anaheim chilis were fried until soft then layered on top. In a bowl he combined diced lettuce, tomato, black and green olives, and a bottle of italian salad dressing. This was well mixed, then layed onto the cheese with tongs. The top was put on and Steve's Magnum Opus Sandwich was done! I ate a foot-long section, the most of any of the brothers, winning me the special trophy: a roll of toilet paper. When the plan is to drink beer all afternoon, it's important to take on enough ballast. Next we drove to my brother Johnny's (#1) house. He changed into his nice clothes, and we had some time to kill so he showed us something hilarious: He had insulated boots for his 110 pound Rhodesian Ridgeback dog Hunter, and the poor pooch high-steps like crazy when they're on. Very funny, but Hunter looked so sad. This year there were 46 entries, less than half the 110 there were last year, and SIX of them were fruit beers. (Blegh!) We decided to just judge them all instead of dividing them into halves like last year. At one point a guy from a Post Falls wine/beer store who was done with wine judging asked to join us, so we let him sit in. It was kinda amusing, we'd taste a beer, and on a 1-20 scale give it 15 16 16 15, and he'd give it an 8. Next, 12 13 13 13, and he gave it a 13. Um, how did he rate the good one lousy and the lousy one good? His scores didn't end up mattering. Eventually, he got called away by his girlfriend, who had left her purse on our table, so he carried it with him walking away, and we mocked him pretty good for it. Best in Show this year was a tie between Skagit River's Sculler's IPA and Laughing Dog's Devil Dog Imperial IPA, but after a taste-off the nod went to Sculler's. Georgetown won the Porter/Stout competition with 9lb Porter. After a few hours BSing with the brewers, we took off around 8pm and went back to Steve's house. There, we cracked a bomber of Deschute's Abyss, their Imperial Stout. MMMMMMM. That's one Good God-Damned Beer! (At the 1999 family reunion, one of my old uncles was hiding from his teetotaller siblings to drink beer, and Johnny introduced him to Deschutes Obsidian Stout. He got a shocked look on his face, and held the bottle in one hand right in front of his face, saying "That's a good god-damned beer! A good god-damned beer". It's now our top beer rating.) Afterwards we introduced Johnny to the joy that is Single Malt Scotch Whiskey. (Yes, apparently we hadn't drank enough already). I crashed 3 hours later, but Steve and Kurt were up drinking til 3am. The next morning Steve made biscuits and gravy to sooth hangovers, then dropped us off at the airport. B picked us up, on her way home from taking the kids to their last ski lesson. Harry rode the chairlift for the first time, and like it, and Isabel took the big lift to the top of the moutain and skied down blue runs back. They both loved it. We're going to have to take them skiing with us some weekend very soon. Saturday, March 01, 2008
I'm super excited about today. In less than an hour, I get the kids out of bed and into the car, then B will drive us to my brother Kurt's apartment to pick him up, then drop Kurt and I off at Seatac airport. We're flying to Spokane to be beer judges for the 3rd time at the annual Post Falls school district Wine, Stein, and Dine. It's going to be a lot of fun, woo! We'll fly back tomorrow. Last night we went over to some friends house for a dinner party, it was raining, I was amused to see the guys holed up in the garage with a cooler of beer, and the women were in the kitchen with the kids running everywhere. Good times. That house is pretty tiny, but they've finally got the money to knock the living room and dining room off the front of the house, go 20' further out, and build 3 bedrooms and a bath above a new kitchen/living room. Cool. They've got a pretty large yard and like their location. They've got a contractor (one of our friends) but were having trouble finding an architect that wasn't booked up a year in advance. I told them to check Seattle Magazine for a list of "Seattle's Most Desperate Architects". Heh. We finished season one of Dexter. It's pretty darn good, I give it 4 of 5 stars. |
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