Beer. Mmmm...

Yesterday I attended the Oregon Brew Fest down on the Portland waterfront. The weather was hot, the crowd was large, the music was rock'n and the beer was flowing.

My pallet votes best in show a tie between Rogue Ales Latona Pale Ale and Widmer's KGB. These beer's were very different from each other but both were outstanding.

My pallet votes worst in show as Terminal Gravity Brewing's Festivale. This was not a good beer. It was a brown beer that tasted like something brown was put in it. Sorry Terminal but if I was to drink a full glass of that I think I would have been terminal.

In fairness I will say of the 80 plus beers on tap I only sampled eight or so. It was disappointing to see how many breweries ran out of their featured beer so early in the day. McMenamin's Concordia Breweries featured beer was Hot for Teacher IPA which was out by the time we got to their tap and was replaced with their Ruby which is a very fruity beer I won't drink.

The crowd was typical Portland. Which means a bit of everyone and everything was there. The one thing that surprised me was how many people brought their kids. Granted there were some stands for craft soda's which would be fun for the kids, it just didn't seem like the place to take a kid. The crowd for the most part was on its best behavior which helped make the experience better.

People in line were very friendly and most wanted to talk about beer which is good because that is why we were there. Over the years my appreciate for beer and what it takes to make it and the variety of flavors has grown. The beauty of living in Portland is that there is no shortage of fine crafted brews.

Goodbye 40, you were good to me.

Hello 41, you need to be better.

Sparring

For Alex's birthday we bought him some sparring gear for his Tae Kwon Do class. Last night was his first night to participate in the beating session and he loved it. I totally enjoyed watching him and the others and wished that I could have joined in. When we can afford to I think we'll have the whole family in the class. For now I'll live vicariously through my little butt kicker.

Here's Alex all geared up before class. What you can't see is his favorite part (the cod piece). When we bought the gear he had to try it on which embarrassed him thoroughly.
Here he is delivering a fine front kick.
The boys he was sparring with were all higher belts than him and he held his own. Here he is defending against a side kick during free sparring.

Moo!

This picture makes me smile.

I'm Melting

I'm not too big on the heat. Right now it is too hot for me to be outside long. It makes me cranky. Old man on the porch yelling at the kids kinda cranky. The only positive thing about weather like this is that it makes my iced tea taste soo good.

Thanks to a portable airconditioner our house is tolerable. The poor pup is hot which isn't good because he is a total lap dog and wants to sit on me all the time. No can do pup. Too hot.