Brewnotes

Today started off as a slow day.   Getting somewhat tired and looking forward to coming home!    We had a fantastic breakfast at Mothers.    Then we travelled down to the Chinese Garden.  The garden was built in 2000 and takes up an entire city block.   All the materials were constructed in China and brought over and assembled here.

We then took the car out and went and visited the Audubon Society of Portland in Forrest Park.   Check out how small I look next to the “old growth” forest.   You can see Mt. Hood in the background of the other pic.

Going out for the rest of the night!   

First up.  Deschutes Brewing Co in the Pearl District.  This is my favorite of the trip so far.

Then we had a long afternoon into late evening.   Kell’s Irish Bar (always seems to be a good Irish place in every city), the Thirsty Lion Pub & Hall (video trivia & and a bunch of English/Aussies on holiday) and a final stop @ VooDoo donuts (a portland landmark). 

Kell’s had a cool tradition;  dollar bills wrapped around 2 quarters and then people would throw them onto the ceiling and they would stick.  I still don’t understand how that worked.  (Look for it in the pictures).   Every year they pull them down and donate them to charity.

I had never seen so many types of donuts.   Lyss had a peanut butter rice krispy donut.  I had the old-fashioned glazed.

We walked up a long steep hill to Washington Park where the Japanese Garden is located.  Very authentic and well done.

The view from Washington Park over the city….

We first visited Henry’s which was in an old brewery in the brewery blocks of Portland.    Over 100+ drafts and a really good pizza.    Next just a couple blocks away in the Pearl District was Rogue;   a stop I was really looking forward towards.   (think Dogfish Head but on the west coast)

On the way out, we stopped at a very eclectic place, Tugboat Brewing Co.   (14% ABV Stout).   Ouch.

Continuing on the exploration of the coast,  we visited Yaquina Head where there was a lighthouse and tidal pools. 

On to the city…. Portland up next.

Checked out Cape Kiwanda and Cape Lookout.  Did a tough hike – 4.8 miles rated moderate to difficult,  lots of hills & mud.   By the time, we reached the whole way out (end of the cape), the weather had turned, fog rolled in and started raining.    

Dory boats are interesting.  These are used by the local commercial fisherman.  They make a run on the beach as fast as possible and then “beach it”.     The first picture shows the view from the Pelican Brewpub.   Great view,  mediocre beer and food.

Here are a couple of pics from Cape Lookout.   Notice how high we are up in the air.    Many points on the trail you could look straight down.   At least a couple hundred feet.   Doesn’t bother Lyss,  she goes right up to the edge and looks down.

After a very interesting trip on logging

roads from Wine Country to the Coast, we finally hooked up with US101.   The quote from the innkeeper, "[sic] you two should be alright.”

Some explanation is in order, it was a beautiful drive but was straight out of “Ax Men”.  At one point it was a single lane non-paved path,  no cell service, and no GPS!   When we got to the hotel yesterday, I looked at Google maps, and there is no road there.    I won’t forget this for a very long time.

We kept traveling down US101 to Depoe Bay and stopping at all the St Beaches (Waysides).   Scenery is breathtaking.   Was really neat to see the kite surfers.

Just a couple more pics because I have so many good ones.

Visiting Portland, OR and we are doing some wine tasting.    First impressions – anything you grab from Chelaham winery is really good.    The Pinot’s have great structure, intense fruit & depth that you don’t find much in Pinot Noir.

Staying at the Lions Gate Inn B&B.   This place is beautiful.  

Vintage arts & crafts, nice gardens, a great restoration and a great inns keeper.

Anyone really surprised that despite her repeated assertions that House Speaker Pelosi didn’t know about the interrogation tactics being used that we are now learning otherwise?

This quote from an article in the Washington Post says it all, “Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners”.

Its time for her to come clean about what she really knew.

Recently I’ve installed Ubuntu 9.04 on a laptop (not work) and have been trying to live on the other side. This note represents my first blog post from this laptop.

Impressions
• Firefox continues to be my main browser.
• Google Apps for Domains (email hosting & calendaring) works nicely.
• OpenOffice 3.0 – Does everything I need outside of work.
• Dropbox – Cool Cross Platform solution for file sync across machines.
• XMMS – Nice WinAmp replacement
• TomBoy – Note taking app that does everything I need
• VLC Player – works just as well as it does on Windows.
• FileZilla – Great FTP client.

What I haven’t found yet
• BitTorrent – a good client that I like.
• Adobe Lightroom replacement (I’m hooked on this app and probably won’t find an alternative)

The future
• I’ve been working on brewing software that runs cross-platform. I hope to debut this soon.