Food, TV, Waterfalls

According to Peter Trigg’s Calendar – “My kind of Somerset”… It’s the first of September, meaning we can look at a grainy picture of All Saints’ Church, Aisholt for 30 odd days. Stateside, we’re at the end of a bank holiday weekend (Labor (sic) Day). And summer is officially over.

Oi loves the rain! Loves it oi does :D
Oi loves the rain! Loves it oi does... Tis good for they radishes

On Friday we went out to a Greek restaurant down the road, Eleni’s I believe it’s called, which is muy fancy, pricey and delicious and then after that to our nearest pub, the Black Cat or somesuch… Saturday was a race against time to get both cars emissions tested which took far longer than it should have. They both passed the test, but due to inadequate directions we probably contributed more greenhouse gasses into the environment while we driving two cars around lost for an hour than would be ideal. The next step is going to the DMV to get Oregon plates for the cars. You have 60 days after moving to do this, but Drsita needs them to get a parking permit up at the uni and you feel very self-conscious driving around with California plates as they’ve a reputation for uncourteous, reckless driving. And rightly so, I’ve not heard a single car horn beeped in anger since getting here. And, of course, everyone cycles or uses public transport.

IMGP9865On Saturday evening we went with a couple of friends to El Toro Bravo, a tapas bar would you believe. Again, excellent food. And after that we started on The Wire season 4…

Yesterday we set out early for a new set of waterfalls… Photos abound over here. Incidentally, I’ve started flagging any photos with people in on Flickr as “only available to Friends & Family” since I’m a bit wary after Sita’s picture got used in an academic paper and I only found out about it when it turned up on BoingBoing… If you’d like to be added as a Flickr friend let me know, it’s one level above ‘contact’ and you’ll get to see people as well as waterfalls and skies.

After the waterfalls we went to a farmers’ market and there I took my favourite picture of the day:

Realising the tomaydoughs are little will help you scale this
Realising the tomaydoughs are only little will help you scale this

He completes us…

Here goes an ill-advised dip into politics after being force fed 3 nights of none-more-patriotic speeches from the democrats’ conference. Obviously, Obama’s the one to vote for. McCain getting in is too depressing to contemplate, but the Daily Show came up with this fine effort last night that hit the nail on the head for the tone of the entire proceedings.

Me blog. Now with added 2004-y goodness.

Had a job interview this morning, there’s a few more parts to the process, but it’s looking good… News as and when. Also, I made another step towards demolishing gwynunlimited.

*TECHYness* There were a hundred posts or so originally written with GreyMatter’s quaint little blog engine, so I imported them into the old version of WordPress 2.0.3 that gate.com refuses to let me update, exported the MySQL database, imported it into a new installation of WordPress 2.6.1, changed a few variables, deleted the posts I already had in the WP admin panel, dumped them with WP’s export function, and imported them into this here blog.*/TECHYness*

So now the archives reach a little further back to my first blog post in April, 2004, where I reveal the manifest destiny of this whole enterprise: to have a go at this blog malarkey, and detail my eating and telly habits. I feel I’ve kept pretty faithful to my original objectives… It was DrSita’s vegetable soup and The Wire season 3, last night.

Masochists among you may now browse the archives with the handy little drop down archives menu on the right there…

Roquito

Now that Monica’s officially broken the news I’m thinking it’s okay to link to M & D + 1. I’m guessing there won’t be many more posts about kitchens…

Special Portland CONGRATULATIONS to the pair of you, I can’t believe should have know Daniel would be reading him Linux manuals…

My family and other animals

A Zeeebra, not to be confused with a Zeb-ra
A Zeeebra, not to be confused with a Zeb-ra

Went to the zoo today with DrSita, but buggered up the directions and ended up arriving too late to meet most of the assembled L&C staff, and missed the food too. Packed the place was. It’s the last Sunday of the school holidays and it isn’t raining so any family worth their salt brought their children to Portland Zoo so they could shout things like “Can I ride the zebra” and stare into cages trying to find the animals.

As zoos go it’s not bad. They just had a baby elephant born two days ago so there was all kinds of talk about that. I learnt that Indian Elephants are called Asian Elephants in America. Though maybe they are in England too these days. I can’t be PC in both countries… The bat cave was grand though my pix didn’t come out cos I was tripodless. I might go back one day. On a school day. In the rain. Maybe the polar bears will have come out of hiding by then…

Getting all Ansel Adams

Getting all Ansel Adams

Washington Hills

…but without the equipment, technical nor local knowledge.

Yesterday Sudarat was kind enough to invite me along on a trip and picnic out to the waterfalls just north of here as a friend of hers is visiting. Incipient rain proved not to be a problem and instead gave me plenty of material for dramatic sky pictures, long exposure pix of falling water and it brought the sturgeons out to play. Sturgeons? Yep, we went to a fish farm where they had a pond full of the buggers. I skipped the museum before going to take pictures of them and saw the mother of all fishes gliding around the pond. Doing the museum first is too much like reading the manual before playing around with your latest toy for me… Anyroad, a stranger struck up conversation with me as one of them, about a metre plus long, glided into view- “Is that Herman?” she asked. I said I’d only just arrived and wasn’t on first name terms yet. The recording in the museum bit explained that Herman the Sturgeon is the biggest fish in the water, 25 years old or so… and an uglier customer you’d be hard pressed to meet. My fisheye lense seemed appropriate…

Herman the sturgeon?
Herman the sturgeon?

We’ve had a fair bit of rain lately too so the waterfalls were even more spectacular than usual… I can’t wait for how they’ll be in a month or two’s time…

splash
splash

We drove over “The Bridge of the Gods” into Washington too. So that’s another state to cross off. Lovely day it was, shame DrSita missed it because of her training schedule. We’ll be back though. We’ve also sourced a great ice cream shop for you, Dad, just round the corner from the trails.

Other news… translations and web design finally seem to be coming in and I’ve an interview next week for another web gig. Today I’m going to make a promotional poster for Sita’s course because since it was advertised late there aren’t many signups just yet. That’ll change once word gets around. Carmen Miranda is going to feature prominently

Blood, sweat, tears and, finally, chicken

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After seeing no cheap BBQs at yard sales, charity shops and Fred Meyer’s we went to Lowes for a new one, then spent the best part of 2 hours assembling it in the garden. Things went faster once I found a hidden bag of screws under the dog.

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Leif and Sudarat came round later and we had a well pleasant evening of Sita’s cooking, local veg and tales of squirrel hunting up north.

We ended with an ’80s music trivia DVD game, which I got for $4.99 from Goodwill (seemed more fun than Bibleopoly)

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Hope our neighbours were okay with screams of Kajagoogoo at around midnight…

Plastic Agave

We’ve been round various garden centres of late trying to find an agave plant. DrSita ruled the first place out as she asked if agaves would grow in this climate and they answered “Well, it’s a cactus, it should do okay”. One of the first things you learn about agaves is that they’re not cacti.

Several other garden centres haven’t had anything more adventurous that Aloe, but we’re not giving up because a few miles down the road there’s a place selling Pulque (only open on Saturdays and only in bulk).

Anyroad, yesterday at the aforementioned Fred Meyer (pronounced Maya) while BBQ shopping we found this…

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Very much a last resort.

Goodwill outlet store, Portland

Goodwill outlet store, Portland

Our first stop on our tour of Milwaulkie and Sellwood yesterday was air-conditioned super charity shop, Goodwill, about 5 mins walk from our house. There are about 20 smaller Goodwill shops scattered around Portland but this is the main depot it seems where a steady stream of unwanted bric-a-brac flows into the place as crowds of bargain hunters pick over the trays for bargains to flog on eBay or to decorate their house. There seemed to be about 10 new trays an hour coming in and I’ve no idea what happens to the stuff that doesn’t get sold, if it goes to other goodwills or just gets recycled. It’s a strange place and probably the most ethnically diverse site in Oregon. No barbecues though, which was the idea for going there in the first place.

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What is a Gravatar?

My Gravatar
My Gravatar
Default gravatar
Default Gravatar

When you comment on this blog (any many others) it displays a little personal graphic (avatar if you will) next to your comment. If you’ve signed up for a Gravatar then the blog will recognise your email address and display the Gravatar you uploaded. If you haven’t signed up for one you just get the default picture, Atticus looking forlorn with the legend “I need a Gravatar”… Out of the dozens of commentators in this blog only César (AWOL) and I have signed up though…

  1. Get yourself a gravatar at: http://en.gravatar.com/
  2. Enter your email address, check your inbox, click on the confirm link
  3. Choose a nickname, password etc, enter your details…
  4. Click “Add an image by clicking here”
  5. Choose where you want to add the pic from (My computer probably)
  6. Upload and crop your gravatar
  7. You’re done.

Ah go on, personalise yer comments

Sorry to keep on about it

but it’s too bloody hot. I’ve been playing me guitar in the basement and had to stop.

Today’s new song to play, Art Brut, Emily Kane…

Forecast today: 103 degrees Fahrenheit = 39.4444444 degrees Celsius

And I bet it’s the .4444444° that makes all the difference… Luckily there’s an air-conditioned cinema nearby so we’ve been watching all kinds of nonsense. Pineapple Express, has its moments but is still nowhere near as good as Knocked Up. Tropic Thunder last night cracked me up a fair few times. Mark Kermode says if a comedy makes you laugh five times or more, it’s a success and thus it definitely qualifies and is worth watching for the panda scene alone. Hellboy II is an option for this afternoon…

There are all kinds of small, independant cinemas dotted around Portland, our nearest however was showing Mamma Mia for 3 weeks and has now moved on to The Sisterhood of the Traveling (sic) Pants II, so we’ll have to go a little further afield.

We also found a Fred Meyer down the road, a huge, air-conditioned superstore stocking everything from cider to sweetcorn holders to trees. If they let you take your dog in it would be perfect. As it is ‘Cus and me just head down to the park at the bottom of the street, stick to the shade and paddle in the river. Even the basement’s starting to heat up. Righty, I’m off to shut the windows and blinds. We’re adopting Andalucian living habits. Siestas included. Hasta pronto…

Cannon Beach Photos

Gorgeous it is. And a lot cooler than the triple digit temps in our house…

[flickr]photo:2764167328[/flickr]

[flickr]photo:2764167796[/flickr]

[flickr]photo:2764169154[/flickr]

Ouch. A world of pane.

This morning I got up, poured myself a cup of coffee from the machine, opened the kitchen windows and then entered a world of pain as I jammed my finger between the sliding window frames. Now I’ve got a bruise under the nail and our peas are no longer frozen. Then, cos it’s forecast to get HOT again today I went out with young ‘Cus for a walk but he kept stopping to lick his foot because he too has some kind of paw injury. So we made a detour so he could splash about in the stream and soften his little paddy paws up to get rid of the splinter or whatever. He, and I, seem much better now, though neither of us will be typing at full speed for a few days.

We did a pub quiz last night and fared miserably though I thoroughly enjoyed it. Nice atmosphere and good questions. Though three out of four of us had PhDs (and one of us had a 2:1 in Hispanic Studies from Swansea Uni…) we came last. I blame the Doctors.

Other news, still applying left right and centre for jobs. It’s slow going. The radishes I planted a few days ago have already got shoots. We’ve now got a(n) herb garden going. Going to a faculty barbecue tomorrow. Considering heading for the coast on Friday to escape the forecast 99 degree temperatures. Still haven’t worked out the new recycling rules and how to get our rubbish collected. Learnt a new song yesterday on the geetar… Modern Girl originally by Sheena Easton, revived by Camera Obscura.