Here and There Blog

Portland is famous for many great things. Beer is one. Rogue Ales is one of those breweries that almost always does a good beer. Voodoo Doughnut is famous for fun flavors and theme donuts - one of which is the Maple Bacon Donut. A collaboration idea was born and out of that union came the Rogue Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Ale. This is a beer that could only be drunk with others.  LJ, Homer and I were the ones that stepped up to the challenge. We sniffed the beer and yes, we could smell maple. And beer. But no bacon. We tasted the beer and tasted maple, beer, but no bacon. We also tasted "blech". Now I realize that is not a taste but picture a dog eating peanut butter and that was us. We took a second sip to make sure and yup, same reaction. Homer downed his out of beer honor. LJ and I had no beer honor and dumped our down the sink. Sorry Rogue Ale, this one didn't work!

This guy wasn't giving up any ground even as I parked right in front of the fence. I was in my car watching the bird, that was watching me and he was pretty unconcerned about me, the car, and anything else. Just having a good bird day!

Picture perfect! It was a great morning to be on the sand, in the water, or on a boat. June 23 and it's a surprise that the beach was uncrowded today. Makes it better for everyone though!  

Time for a zombie movie shout-out - I enjoyed World War Z ! No, it is not exactly like the book and that's okay. The book does WWZ from a past perspective and the movie puts you into the war in the present. Full of action, quick paced, and rather enjoyable with a few jump in the seat moments and World War Z leaves you wondering "what if?" Now in my zombie obsessed world, I know that starvation for lack of food in my house would mean I'm out on the streets pretty quickly if there ever were a zombie apocalypse.  Luckily it is unlikely that I will ever see one but a movie like this can get you to thinking.... Gun, sword, pick-ax, or bow and arrow? Gun of course but I don't own one. That leaves...Garden spade? Hmmm. Maybe starvation is the least of my worries if zombies invade. But really, if you like Zombie movies, Brad Pitt, fast action, then World War Z fits all of those. I read the book and get why the movie is not the book. Both are enjoyable, each in th...

A week of eating no fat, no cholesterol, and I squeaked in at 199 on the test. 1 point under borderline. Yay! As an avid quesadilla eater (loaded with sour cream and guacamole) I was slightly worried that I would get the lecture about eating habits from the doctor. Luckily I got off with a "you are at the high end of good". Noted. Whew! Good thing I ate those loaded nachos before the results came in! The last two nights have been garden burgers and salad. In retrospect, eating a poached egg almost every single morning in Malaysia probably contributed to this. But darn, they were good!  

Along the lines of everything happens at once. You can go for weeks of happy boredom and then there's that one day on the freeway where you find yourself driving right over car parts from an earlier accident. That bolt going under your right tire and making that noise really can't be good. It never is. But I arrived at my destination, stared at the tire and didn't see a flat. But I'm suspicious of these things. For I have flat tire karma. Have had it all my driving life. So I knew it was only a matter of time. That was Wednesday. Had the car smogged on Saturday. No problems. No hint from the smog technician that anything looked funny. I waited. Then last night. I was going to a concert and about 30 minutes before it was time to leave I went to the garage and stared at that tire. Definitely going flat. Tire gauge = 19. I got out a flashlight and looked that tire over. No puncture or nail that I could see. I filled it up with air, went to the concert and got home...

Taipei 101 is the name for the sky tower that's 91 floors above ground. A 39 second elevator ride takes you to the top (after a 30 minute wait in line) and you have the view of Taipei. The glass is thick and heavily tinted, hence the blue tinge.  The city sprawls out but there are mountains and green trees in the distance.  There is a restricted viewing platform where you can go outside and try and get a photo. The fog was so thick that I ended up with the dark tinge even though it wasn't yet sunset. It really is sort of pretty but you need a high power camera and plenty of filters to make a picture work from up here.

To keep you from getting bored, the Taipei (TPE) airport has a lot of sponsored seating areas. These are a couple of the really unique ones. First up, cool metal art, steampunk style!      Then as I walked to the boarding gate - Hello Kitty World!

The designer of the City Hall Park must have been a Gaudi fan. I thought this center area was for skateboards but on closer inspection, it is concept tile art? Not really sure. This was a circle with rocks in the middle and what looked like ramps with tile art.    

Right in City Hall Park. The Taipei cow.

After two weeks of not being able to sleep past 4 am, the one morning where I needed to be up early, naturally had to be the one morning I wanted to do nothing more than sleep in. After two weeks in Malaysia of doing the hotel/classroom/hotel routine I'm finally on the move. One thing I haven't mentioned was the colorful sunrises that we have in the mornings when the sky isn't covered in dark clouds. Sunrise over the airport is a perfect way to say good-bye to Malaysia.  And I'm quite ready to say "Hello Taipei!"