I just passed another birthday a few weeks ago. I'm not a birthday fan; I don't celebrate them, I don't expect gifts or phone calls, I don't eat a cake, etc. Just not my thing. But this year, by coincidence, one of the restaurants in our building converted it's monthly wine pairing meal to an Oktoberfest beer tasting and pairing, held on the anniversary of my birth. I'm also not a huge beer drinking (I like my libations in the form of wine and whiskey), but figured "What the hey, let's give it a whirl." Man that was some good beer. We had mostly Sam Smith offerings: a cider, porter, lambic, and others. Those were accompanied by beer cheddar soup, crab legs, shrimp, sausage. Getting hungry and thirsty just thinking about it.
Immediately after the evening of beer, I headed down to Palm Springs for work. I don't like Palm Springs; it just feels like an exclusive "members only" waste of land. There's no middle class, just the upper-upper and the lower. There were two cool things about Palm Springs, however:
1) Wind Turbines: I don't know why, but I love wind turbines. They're practical and they're great to stare out for hours. Wind farms are like array telescopes; there's just something about the architecture, symmetry, etc. Flying into Palm Springs you come right into the Coachella valley which is full of wind farms. And you're flying so low you're almost buzzing them. A great way to approach an otherwise shitty city. I had a great conversation with a native Hawaiian this week about the new(er) turbines on the West Maui mountains. I think it's an excellent idea, him, not so much.
2) Desert Adventures: My team of co-workers went out into the desert with Desert Adventures for team building on a very hot afternoon. Keeping each other from falling off a board, passing team members through a hole in a wall 6ft off the ground, that kind of stuff. It was great; I was concerned that the 110deg heat would be an issue but 10 minutes of acclimation (and gallons of water) were all we needed to get right into it. I do love the desert climate; not sure I could live there but it's fun to visit. Our guide was an Environment Scientist that spends half a year as a guide on McKinley and the other half living in the Joshua Forest. Really calm guy.
Susan was in Dallas all last week for work, so we met at the airport late Friday night as our respective flights were landing (when's the last time you could meet your loved one at the gate? It was a nice treat to greet her coming off the jetway). Then we jumped in the car and motored down to Portland for a quick Saturday night turn-around trip to see Conor Oberst and Jenny Lewis at Crystal Ballroom. Amazing show; two of my favorite songwriters from our era, so seeing them together was an amazing way to welcome us both back to the Great NW.
But now I'm back in the just above freezing, windy, and rainy (well, it is sunny today) climate I love. No travel plans until December and I'm looking forward to hanging out at home for a few weeks. We're planning on attending a Brigadoon Assistance Dogs open house this weekend, but that's about it for us.
Music: "Sex on Fire" by Kings of Leon is currently playing in Cog, but once again I'm back in the groove of listening to Portishead's Third near-daily, probably the best album of the year (which is a hard category this year against Conor and My Morning Jacket). If you haven't heard it, by all means, Deezer it ASAP. New Cure comes out today but I'm not that excited. We'll see how it grows.
Books: Just picked up two books by Chuck Palahniuk, Choke and Rant, but haven't started either of them.
-Alan
