Back from our trip.  Had to happen sometime I guess.  We had a good time, although it was spoiled rather quickly when we touched down in KC.  What a snowy mess.  Portland may not have been a beach-side resort, but it was a lot better than this.  I’ll attempt to briefly recap our week, as I realize that was a pretty weak effort on the last update.  Hey, I was typing on my iPad, give me a break.  All dates and events listed are subject to my sketchy memory.

We got to Portland Saturday and proceeded to navigate to our hotel.  The driving conditions out there were OK I guess.  A little worse than KC but certainly not Chicago or LA.  I can say that next time we travel I will be taking the Garmin.  The smart phone apps are functional, I suppose, but a far cry from an actual GPS.  It got us there, at the end of the day.  (Literally…  The end of the day.)

Monday we decided to tour some of the wineries in the region.  I honestly didn’t even know Oregon was a wine region;  Learn something every day.  Apparently they have a few though, so I picked out four in the nearby Willamette Valley that mapped out nicely.  We took our time about it, not really having anything else to do for the day.  I’m sure with some research I could come up with the exact wineries we went to, but I can’t pick them out of that formidable list right now.  That effectively used up Monday, and we wrapped up with a late dinner at Max’s Fanno Creek.

Tuesday we switched to brewery tours.  If I was gonna do it over again I’d work out a side-trip to Bend, OR, where a lot of the actual breweries are located.  I like to do tours, where they can tell you all about their operation and why they produce the absolute best brews in the country.  As it happens, the majority of the places in downtown Portland are Brew Pubs;  Pretty much restaurants that serve said brew.  Some of them did actually brew on site, but it isn’t really the same thing.  That’s not to say they weren’t some of the best Brew Pubs I’ve been to though, they were certainly more knowledgeable on their taps than most other places I’ve been.  They all would do a “custom flight” too.  Instead of just picking a sampler off the menu, if you would tell them what flavor profiles you like they would make some selections for you.  Probably my favorite was Lucky Lab.  This one wasn’t on our original schedule, but was recommended by a guy at another spot.  The kid there put some serious thought into our flight, it was like an interview process.  I liked the place so much I bought my official vacation souvenir from them, a nice cycling jersey.

Wednesday we decided to drive down to the coast.  Driving tours are far from my favorite vacation option, but it was OK. We stopped at Tillamook Cheese for a while, drove Highway 101 for a bit, stopped at some beaches along the way, all the good touristy stuff.  It was nice as drives go… But still a drive.  I of course would later regret not stopping at a few other places we saw, but I was getting antsy and decided it was time to head back.  I even skipped the fish hatchery;  I like those for whatever reason.  Oh well, what can you do.  There were a lot of hazelnut farms too.  I’m not sure why you would want to look around a hazelnut farm, but then I’m not sure why you wouldn’t either.

Thursday we were out of gas for the most part.  Done.  Finished.  We hung around the hotel, then we did make it out for a nice dinner.  We went to Jake’s Famous Crawfish, which was recommended by several people.  It didn’t really work out as planned, but we had fun.  Our original plan was to work our way through all the appetizers, so we could get a little taste of everything.  Turned out that after a 1/2 dozen oysters and a bowl of seafood gumbo, we were so stuffed we couldn’t even think about food.  And besides that, as is too often the case, we ended up sitting next to That Guy, who while entertaining for a short time eventually wore us out.  I can’t adequately describe him here.  Next time you see Donette ask her about him, she does a good imitation.  He was in some kind of bizarre loop.  He’d just pull out a random name (with no prompting what-so-ever,) and say for instance:  “Ahhhhhhh yeah, Jimi Hendrix, I remember him.  One time I asked him (insert odd nonsensical question) and do you know what he said?”  Then he would break into a spirited air-guitar and sing.  Over and over and over.  My favorite line of the night, though, was probably the only thing he said that strayed from this format.  There were some kids between him and us, and they were admittedly rather outrageously dressed.  They were, however, nice enough and minding their own business.  As a matter of fact I greatly appreciated their presence because he was focused on them for a while.  He finally wore them out though, and as soon as they left he moved over by us, ugh.  The first thing he says is “Man, they were weird huh?”  Uhhhhh, yeah.

All-in-all a good trip.  Got a little feel for the place, we’ll know to make a few little tweaks should we make it out that way again.  We got home Friday night and have been shoveling ever since.  Like I said, all dates and times above are subject to my horrible memory.  As I quickly proof this, I already noticed I missed Sunday.  That means everything could be off by a day, or I totally forgot about something already.  Sigh, it ain’t easy getting old.

As you may have gathered from my Facebook posts of late, we’re vacationing in Portland, OR. Fine place, as long as you enjoy eating and drinking. If there are other activities to be enjoyed we must have missed them. We did do some brief sight-seeing, for instance driving down to the coast and heading up highway 101 for a bit. Took lots of pictures, cursed lots of drivers, fun stuff like that. We went to Vancouver WA today, only to find it doesn’t open until 3:00. Seriously, there were all kinds of nice looking restaurants, all shuttered up until the magical hour of 3:00. Odd little town. We finally found a small diner which was open UNTIL three, go figure, and had a tasty lunch. Now we’re back in the hotel regrouping to see what this evening brings.

Whew we’re in something of an entertainment funk.  Eh, it’s February, what can you do.  I did get a nice lil’ respite from the weather on Friday, so I rolled down to the Brooksider to hang out with the boys on the patio.  It wasn’t exactly warm but it was passable.  Donette came down and joined me later, or more accurately joined her friends inside.  After that we headed home for some movies.  We kicked it off with The Avengers.  It seemed a little slow moving and put me to sleep in about 30 minutes.  Donette says it was actually pretty good so I might have watch it again.  I woke up as the credits were rolling, and decided to watch Ted.  I’ve already slept through it two or three times, but made it to the bitter end on Friday’s showing.  Honestly I should have just gone to sleep and deleted the movie.  What a sad, sad disappointment of a film.  This is a man who ran with the Funky Bunch, a man who brought us Dirk Digler, and he’s now reduced to this?  Fame is fleeting, people.

Saturday wasn’t much of an event.  I spent the morning thinking about going to the gym, and rationalizing why I shouldn’t.  Around noon I walked up to 75th Street to watch the Missouri game.  I stayed about 10 minutes, remembered it’s possibly the worst place to watch a game in the area, and walked back home.  Luckily the game was on TV (which begs the question of why I went to 75th in the first place…) so I hunkered down on the couch for an afternoon of entertaining games.  Later on Donette had a night out with girls planned, so I stayed home and stared at the TV.  Martins brought their new puppy over to hang out, so that was fun stuff.  The pup played very well with Teagan, although they had be reigned in a few times.  (He only goes about ten pounds…  Little small to be playing too rough just yet.)

Sunday was a complete loss of a day, or very near so.  I got up pretty early, and for no discernible reason started messing with my web server.  Ever woken up on a given Sunday and suddenly thought “Boy I sure would like to switch from mysql to sqlite today.”  Yeah can’t really explain that one.  I sat there all day though, and made some decent progress.  I actually had it up and running for a while, then gave up on the few last tweaks when I realized I really had no interest in it in the first place.  Unfortunately by that time it was 9:00 at night and I’d wasted my whole day.  Not the first time it’s happened, and likely won’t be the last.

Humbug.  Lame weekend.  We’re making a rather half-hearted attempt at dieting, which doesn’t mesh well with my entertainment schedule.  For the most part I played video games all weekend.  It’s cold, I’m broke, and there’s nothing lo-cal in the world that interests me.

We did watch the game, and a fine game it turned out to be.  We actually sat through the whole thing.  I was rather indifferent as to the outcome so I just needed it to be moderately entertaining.  And, in true Superbowl Sunday fashion, we made a big table full of appetizers to graze on while watching it.  I won’t go into the actual details of the appetizers though, it’s too sad to talk about.  There was lots of celery and greek yogurt involved, and that’s all I’m saying.  (And, I will grudgingly admit, it was all pretty darn good too.)

Wow, what a fine morning.  I can overlook the 100% humidity and cloudy skies for some 70-degree temps.  Not that it makes a whole lot of difference from the confines of a cubicle.

That was a moderately entertaining weekend at best.  Friday I did a grand bunch of nothing.  What, like went to the Brooksider, Jalapenos, and home?  No, like nothing.  I was pretty darn sick for the better part of last week.  I’m no doctor, but I do have the Google, and a little quick research indicated that recommended cures for the flu don’t include sitting on a patio in 40-degree weather smoking a cigar.  Rats.  So, Donette and I went up to the gym for a bit, then I went home and played Wii games all evening.  It passed the time just fine too;  I miss the ol’ Wii games.

Saturday I felt considerably better, due in no small part to my quiet evening Friday I’m sure.  I headed up to the gym for a few hours, then got a call from Martin with the super exciting news that he was heading to midtown for the day.  His description of the days plans were advertised as “Have a hotdog at Hooper’s.”  Indeed we did enjoy a few $1.50 hotdogs, then his plan somehow morphed into a tour of Waldo.  The final damage included Hooper’s, Tommy Farha’s, Patrick’s, Bobby Baker’s, and Quintons.  Those links are about the best I could come up with;  These aren’t really the kind of places that waste a lot of resources on websites and advertising and all that other crazy stuff.  I particularly enjoy that Farha’s shows up as a “Cafe.”  What exactly makes them a cafe;  the beef jerky for sale by the cash register?  Who knows.  Donette, meanwhile, was out with the girls.  They went out to dinner, then saw Billy Elliot at Music Hall.  We have different tastes in entertainment, what can I say.

Sunday somehow disappeared on me.  I don’t know what happened.  Matter of fact, I woke up this morning convinced it was Sunday.  (Which, I suppose, will make the day seem even longer than usual.)  We went to Costco and got a few items I guess, which is always good for passing a few hours.  I made a pot of beans and roasted a chicken for some tacos, and I guess that was about it.  Woo hoo.  Closed out the day with some movie on Netflix that was so horrible I can’t even remember the name.