Tuesday, November 14, 2006

...wherein I visit the center of the universe...

Ok, I lied in that last post when I said that was my only chance to post for the day. I managed to escape the whiteboard jungle, and I'm having a cold one at the Official Center of the Universe, generally known (outside this blog) as Tugboat Brewing, on Ankeny St. just off Broadway, in downtown Portland.

Which is not to say this is a come-meet-the-blogger invite. I'll probably post this just as I leave, antisocial geek that I am.

If you find yourself at Tugboat, get an ESB if it's on. The Hop Gold is a good bet as well, and it's organic now, too. And Chernobyl Stout... Wheaties may be the breakfast of champions, but Chernobyl is the dessert of champions. Or if not champions, at least it's the dessert of *me*.

Not a lot to say about the day's software design thrills, other than that it's nice to be back in the Java universe again. I do have one pending task that requires a bit of JNI, but I'm procrastinating about it. If I procrastinate long enough, it might go away. That would be nice.

Long(ish) time readers of this blog may remember my interest in the Ruby language. Sure would be fun to get paid to code in a super-high-level interpreted language for a change, but I have a funny feeling I'm heading the other way and I'll get sucked back into kernel world again. I don't really fancy having to write a Solaris or HP-UX driver anytime soon, but for some reason I volunteered anyway, which means I'll probably have to. Ugh.

Ok, it's Chernobyl time now. The nice folks at Tugboat insist it runs around 14% ABV. I'm not totally convinced it's that high, but it's a tasty beer, rich and roasty, the way a Russian Imperial Stout ought to be. If you like Old Rasputin, there's a good chance you'll like Chernobyl too.

I've gotten a few compliments lately about photos and my occasional city park posts. I aim to please, so I took a couple of photos here and I might even post 'em if they're any good. The closest city park to the center of the universe is tiny, obscure Ankeny Park (not to be confused with Ankeny Square), which is basically a mini North Park Block marooned on the wrong side of Burnside. Its main feature is a pair of old public restrooms. So it's maybe not a crown jewel of the city park system, but Tugboat is just steps away, which counts for a lot in my book.

Ok, I'd probably better wrap this up. I saved as a draft a minute ago, and then the Blackberry mail app died with a NullPointerException. I'd hate to overtax the poor thing any further, so here goes...
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld

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