Category Archives: Personal Rambling

I just got my first “Tornado Alert – Take Shelter” alert. That brings today’s total to Severe Thunderstorm, Flash Flood, AND Tornado! Did I collect the full set in my first week?

It is, in fact, raining QUITE hard now, and that thunder sounds cool. Really big thunder. And visibility just dropped from infinite to about 400 meters, in no time at all.

Nobody in this Starbucks seems worried, so I’m gonna just stick with the herd. Some guys on the covered porch outside actually came in, but I think it was because they couldn’t hear each other over the rain. I guess this is normal now. 🙂

As the classic meme says:

Update: Just got a Tornado “warning”, which is apparently a step above Alert. I appreciate that DarkSky is keeping me up to date pretty rapidly here! The good news is that the region they mentioned is 17-30 miles north, and the weather is currently moving north by northwest. My biggest problem now seems to be that i’ll never be able to get the 60 feet to my car without being absolutely drenched, even WITH my jacket. It is really coming down out there.

Update 2: Well, it seems to be over. Just like that the rain stopped. What fun. Makes 2pm in Florida seem quite tame by comparison. Sending someone out into that rain has to qualify as assault or something, there’s just a LOT of mass falling from above.

Best Sushi Restaurant server T-Shirt ever: “Come Sashimi Again”. Also best pineapple cream cheese wantons.

Didn’t get a picture of the rolls, got distracted by how delicious they looked and just ate them instead. It was worth it.

Ra Sushi was delicious. They shall definitely sashimi again.

We arrived at DFW about 2pm yesterday and decided to explore a bit since we didn’t have anything planned for the rest of the day. We drove through Fort Worth, then worked our way up to Denton. 

We found this great spot for dinner, Barley & Board. 

Bevin was extremely pleased by shoestring fries, which she’s doesn’t really ever find in Portland. We also had a really tasty “sweet & salty & spicy” nuts appetizer.

My burger was pretty darn tasty, but I did find it interesting how much more on the “cheese sauce” side the cheese was, vs the nice Tillamook Cheddar I’m used to. Fun how even the simple things get changed up.

Across the street from Barley&Board is a used bookstore. Somewhere between Half Price Books & Powells. It’s in what seems to be an old house that has a some cool little rooms and cubbyholes and very squeaky floors. Definitely tickled my bookstore bone, plus I found a first-edition hardcover of The Starship and the Canoe by Kenneth Brower, which very much excited me. 

To finish up our evening we checked out John Wick 3: Parabellum at the Alamo Drafthouse theater. Both the movie and the theater were super fun. The now much lamented Cinetopia was certainly trying to take some notes from Alamo, but as great as they were they really didn’t quite get there. We have now been spoiled utterly.

One really cool thing, is that rather than showing us shitty ads before the movie they actually had a John Wick series recap, which was really nice! It was really nice to get a reminder of some of the stuff, and it was a lot more enjoyable way to spend 20 minutes pre-movie.

Also, John Wick is as much fun as ever. Still can’t quite regain the feeling of the first movie, but definitely a lot of fun. If you’re into that sort of thing. 

It’s a pleasant morning in the Southlake suburb of Dallas. 78 degrees with a nice breeze. Of course I’m sitting in a Starbucks currently to write this and get some stuff done, but in a little while here I’m back on the road to go exploring and check out some of the neighborhoods in the area. Operation “Decide where might be good and where is definitely not good” is a go! (Although we need a catchier name.)

Disney’s website apparently has ruined itself, and we don’t have pictures yet. So instead of posting a bunch of new content for you, we’ve gone on a more local adventure:

Which yes, of course, involves Bevin finding crazy foods.

Also not pictured here is me demolishing a delicious apple strüdel.

The Mt. Angel Oktoberfest is a bit of a madhouse but crazy yummy.

It was a long flight home. Bevin was sleepy.

Unfortunately my poor internal timekeeper is darn good at their job, and I woke up naturally at 4am Portland time, or the “correct” 7am Florida time. Thanks a lot for that, now reprogram yourself you traitor!

In any case, we are home now, and back to work. Gathering up all the pictures from all 8 of us is going to take a few days though, so prepare for more pictures and notes to be posted later. In the meantime: off to conquer the email demon, who is ever so angry!