1. I spent nearly the entire morning and into the afternoon reviewing pictures I'd taken over the last few days. I had fun using my primitive editing tools to improve them, taking the rough draft version from the camera and making a more (I hope) polished version. I see flaws. I look at a lot of other people's pictures and I see much better work than mine. So why spend all this time? Am I trying to get to the level of the photographers I follow on Tumblr? Not really. I try to learn things, but mostly walking around taking pictures, trying out some things, trying to learn more...mostly it makes me happy and it made me happy looking at my pictures. I like doing this, however good I am or not...heh...I learned a long time ago that no matter what I undertake...teaching, taking pictures, playing baseball or golf or basketball, writing a blog, cooking, keeping up on beers, all of it: there are always many, many people better than I am. No problem.
2. The Deke and I had another little dark beer session this afternoon. I popped open that bottle of Deschutes Black Butte XXV Imperial Porter I bought yesterday evening and when I took my first sip I felt like I'd been dropped into an open market in Istanbul the beer was so rich in fig and date flavors, not to mention coffee and chocolate and vanilla. Oh, my! The hoppy finish kept this from being a birthday cake, adding to complexity of this superb imperial porter. Then the Deke wanted more, so when I went to get some bread for our upcoming dinner at Chez Troxstar, I bought us each a small bottle of North Coast Brewing's Old Rasputin Imperial Stout. It didn't have the Turkish open air market experience locked inside of it, but it tasted more like what I look for in a day to day stout: toasty, coffeey, chocolatety, with sweet malty balance and, once again, enough of a hoppy finish that it's not like drinking a super sweet coffee drink from Starbuck's. We enjoyed our little tasting session immensely.
3. The Troxstar decided to try out his vegetarian chili recipe for a pre-game meal before the Pats and Broncos played and he knocked that chili out of the ball park. The game started badly for the Pats so the Troxstar, his missus, the Marla, and I headed over to the Tap and Growler to watch the Portland Timbers go down in defeat, but, as we watched that match, the Pats' game got really good and we watched the last several minutes of the fourth quarter and the overtime and left the Tap and Growler warmed by the Pats' victory. We also met some fun people during the soccer match and I had a very nice time chatting a bit with Gutenberg Jen.
No comments:
Post a Comment