DSO, Construction, Portland, Construction, Storms, Construction

It’s been a busy last few weeks.

I took the Friday before Memorial Day off to spend with Julie right before her birthday.  We saw Ashkenazy’s Pictures at an Exhibition with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.  The regularly scheduled pianist for the performance was sick, so they brought in another guy at the last minute.  He did pretty well, considering.  We were hoping Ashkenazy would play some piano, but he only directed.  It was still enjoyable.  I’ve always liked Pictures since I first heard it as part of the soundtrack to Hearts of Iron.  

After the show we ate at The Whitney.  It’s an awesome restaurant located inside a Victorian mansion just a stone’s throw from the Fisher Theater.  After that we took a depressing drive through downtown Detroit’s abandoned office buildings.  A tribute to the success of the automobile – so successful that everyone drove out of town!

My parents came from Virginia that weekend to help us renovate our kitchen and add a half bathroom over the next two weeks.  As soon as the arrived we started work tearing out the old tile, linoleum, pine flooring, and some plaster/lath walls.  I helped install the new subfloors as well.  

On the Thursday after Memorial Day I headed to Portland for RailsConf 2008.  There were some interesting sessions, but the best part was a keynote by Kent Beck, the father of Extreme Programming (aka XP, the methodology we use at my current job).  What really amazes me about Rails is how well it complements XP.  Another highlight was the free beer and food provided at corporate-sponsored parties and meeting people in meatspace whom I’d only met in cyberspace.

Oh, and Portland is a great city.  Their train system, akin to Munich’s S-Bahn, provides pretty extensive access to the city.  The city has a big beer and coffee culture.  A good deal of hops are grown in Oregon and Portland is home to the “third wave” of coffee companies – the hand-crafted alternatives to the national chains.  I got up bright and early one morning to grab some coffee at Stumptown Coffee Roasters.  It was the best coffee I’d had since the Intelligensia I tried in Chicago.  It’s the kind of coffee that’s so good you don’t need cream or sugar to cover up bitterness or staleness.  At the cafe, I picked out a small package of Nicaraguan coffee and put it on the counter.  The barista said, “do you realize how much that is?”  I looked at the price board and it was $60!  I quickly swapped it for some Salvadorian coffee that was much cheaper.  I brewed it at home in my French press.  It has a nice, warm, nutty flavor.  Mmmmm.  Too bad it’s all gone now!  I also visited the Japanese garden and the rose test garden.  It was too early to see the roses, but the Japanese garden was amazing.  I’d never seen so many Japanese maples, and they were all groomed into ball shapes of all sizes.  

When I returned home I got back into renovation and my day job.  Julie and My parents had already completed the tiling, most of the bathroom, and some of the countertop granite tiling.  I helped where I could.  By the end of the week, we were all exhausted and my parents left for Virginia.  We just have the bathroom plumbing to finish and some new cabinets to install once they arrive.

This last weekend I got a new garage door to replace our old wooden one that had been smashed to pieces.  I thought it would be a pretty quick job, but Julie and I had to abandon the project and I’ve been forced to partially pull the door up and roll underneath, Indiana Jones style.  

This past weekend we also were battered by three strong thunderstorms.  Our power went out Saturday night and remained out until Tuesday morning.  We were obviously low on their priority list.

Now life is back to normal and the garage door is almost done.