Am I an acloholic?

I just realized that my last two posts are both about beer, and about me drinking for a long time. The reality is that I've been drinking very little over the past few months. I decided a few months ago to limit my drinking to once a week. In the past I try to go two months in the winter with no drinking. However I never get past about 4 weeks, so this year I decided to be realistic and allow some drinking. I've haven't violated my rule of once a week yet and I don't think I will. I'm going to give up the limits once the Timbers season starts April 17 (wow, only 5 weeks away).

Anyway, I'm probably going to be posting here some more. I just got a new computer. I had an old Mac. It is a G4 which isn't a horrible machine, but I hadn't upgraded from OS9.2 so it ran like crap on most web sites with anything but simple HTML, as a result it was difficult to post because my browser would crash once or twice while trying to post and I'd lose everything. Plus uploading pictures to flickr or video to youtube was all but impossible. I now have a Toshiba Satellite laptop. So far (about 3 hours) I really like it, one of the great things is that it has a SD card reader so when I take pictures I can transfer them directly to the computer.

This summer I have 3 trips planned for which I plan to do some blogging.
May 26-28: Red Sox in Seattle. I'm making my yearly trip to Seattle to watch my beloved Red Sox. I'll be posting pictures to Sons Of Sam Horn.
July 18-19: Timbers in Atlanta and Charleston. I regularly travel to Seattle to see the Timbers (I haven't missed a game in Seattle since I joined the Timbers Army) and made 1 trip to Vancouver, but this will be my first trip that isn't by car/bus. I'll also be in Greenville on the 20th to see family and go to a Greenville Drive game.
August 14-19: I'm going to be in New Hampshire with family and won't be able to post much from there, but I'm going to go to a Red Sox game while I'm east. I haven't been to Fenway Park since 2001, so I'm excited to be going again and will surely take a lot of pictures.

Lucky Labrador Barleywine fest

The Lucky Lab Barleywine fest was today. It was held at the NW Lucky Lab location on NW Quinby. As is my norm for brewfests, I showed up as they opened (noon). Over the next 5 plus hours I samples 28 different brews. I'm not about to mention them all, but here are a few highlights:

--Roots 2006 Oak Aged Epic Ale: Great nose. It was quite sweet, almost too sweet, I wouldn't be able to drink this regularly or in large amounts. 6.5/10

--Caldera Russian Imperial Stout: The nose on this beer was amazing and complex. The flavor was the similar. 9/10

--Golden Valley Barrel Aged Black Panther: Similar to the Caldera, but not quite as good flavor. 8.5/10

--BJ's Barrel Aged Imperial Stout: Sweeter than the Caldera and Golden Valley, and an slightly odd nose. 7/10

--Widmer KGB Imperial Stout: very little nose, the initial taste is a bit sour with a nice coffee after taste. Not as good as the other stouts I have mentioned, but typical Widmer beer, solid and flavorful, but nothing outstanding. 8/10

--Tuck's Glutius Maximus: Complex, nutty nose. Somewhat sweet flavor, reminded me of New Belgum's Abbey. 7/10

Beer:


The Fest at the NW Lucky Lab location


Beer:

Hillsdale Brewfest!

I spent 6 hours today at the McMenamins Hillsdale Brewfest, also known at the Battle of the Belt. Every year McMenamins brewers from all over the Kingdom compete against each other for the honor of providing the McMenamins beer for the Oregon Brewers Festival the following summer.

Past winners were:
1995: Old Bushwacker Barley Wine - Bart Hance - Westlinn
1996: Chewbaccan Strout - Mike Hougan - Lighthouse
1997: Brahmamama Pale - Clay P. Riley - LSD
1998: Jabba the Porter - Jon Greene -Hillsdale
1999: Reincarnation Pale - A. Collins & C. Culla - Crystal Brewery
2000: Armadillo IPA - Vince Howell - Highland
2001: Beltfester Lager - B. Hance & A. Gonzalez - CPR Brewery
2002: Stronghold Imperial Stout - Jason McAdam - Hillsdale
2003: Hoot to the head - Organic Oatmeal Stout - Greg Balch - Hillsdale
2004: Big Bully - Organic IPA - Greg Balch - Hillsdale
2005: Royal Oil Oatmeal Stout - Mike White - Fulton
2006: White Lighting Whiskey Stout - T. Proctor & B. Riely - Concordia
2007: No Mas Lento IPA - Chris Haslett - Fulton


There wer 20 different brews, ranging from fantastic, to ones I could barely get down (but hey, beer is beer).

Although I don't really like IPAs I am hoping that an IPA wins theis year. that brew is Rose City 'Til I DiePA, a brewed by a fellow TA.

Some pictures:
First 10 brews:


Sectons 10 brews:


The belts:


Obi also did some live blogging : http://hesaidwhatagain.blogspot.com/2008/02/strange-brew-live.html

Edit:
The Winner will be anounced at 4pm at the Back Stage Bar at the Bagdad Theater and Pub, on Wednesday Feburary 12. I plan to be there and will post the results.

Josh Wicks returns!

The Portland Timbers announced today that goalkeeper Josh Wicks will return for a second season. Wicks was the USL-1 Goalkeeper of the year last year, with a fantastic 0.60 GAA and 14 shutouts in 27 matches.

As I'm sure Wicks would say a lot of the credit goes to the defenders in front of him, but he still made a number of fantastic saves last year.

Portlandlandtimbers.com link

Only 65 days until the Timbers season starts!

New Turf update (again)

Work continues at PGE
I swung buy the park again today and they were still working on the new turf. Since they are on a deadline (the OSU baseball games) I guess they are working whenever they can. I read somewhere (I think on the Timbers site) that they need it to be relatively dry weather to put down the sand and rubber infill, and since it is dry this weekend, they are working.

They were spreading what appeared to be the sand part of the infil on the northern end of the stadium. I got a few pictures of the work.

Spreading the sand:


And using a giant brush to get it down into the turf:





They also were opening up the huge (about 4 feet square, and 6 feet tall) bags of the rubber infill. There were stuck together in chunks so they had to be broken up (I guess this is why it needs to be dry to do the work). Here is a video of the work.



Red Sox and baseball stuff...

Yesterday was "Truck Day" for the Boston Red Sox. This is a very strange phenomenon, that I have never heard f for other baseball teams. It was the day the a giant moving truck left Fenway park to drive to Ft. Myers for spring training. There are some great pictures taken by a few Red Sox fans shown in this Sons of Sam Horn thread

Also the Roger Clemens (AKA: Texas Con-Man, Fat Billy from Ohio) 'Roids/HGH saga continues. The
New York Daily News reported that Brian McNamee injected Clemen's WIFE with HGH in addiiton to her husband. This just gets better and better. McNamee already turned over physical evidence that he injected Clemens, including vial and bloody syringes. Fat Billy may end up in jail over this.

Red Sox: Is Coco gone?

The Red Sox announced today that they have resigned Bobby Kielty. Kielty is a solid defensive 4th outfielder, and not to bad with the bat (remember his pinch-hit HR in the 8th inning of game 4 of the World Series). According to Gordon Edes from the Boston Globe "It's a non-guaranteed contract that will pay Kielty $800,000 if he makes the big-league roster, with an additional $300,000 in incentives." I find it hard to believe that Kielty would accept a position as a 5th outfielder (behind Manny, Drew, Coco and Jacoby), so it seems logical that Coco is on his way out. However there are no rumors out there now about any pending trade.

Only 9 days 'til Pitchers and Catcher's report!

Also a quick New Turf Update:
I stopped by Piggy Park today to check out the work on the new turf. They were putting in some thing around the pitchers mound, I couldn't really see from that far away, but it looked like something to keep the infill in the "grass" around the mound in place when they pull out the mound for other events. The first use of the park is not that far away as Oregon State plys a baseball tournament in the park starting on Feburary 29.

Sports Upadate!

A bit about what's going on in my non-Timbers sports world...

--Blazers: Brandon Roy was named as a reserve to the NBA All-Star team. I'm really happy for Roy, he has shown again and again this season that he is a rising star. Twice the conference player of the month, leading numerous amazing comebacks. Plus he's really humble. He said "It's extremely humbling," Roy said. "To be an All-Star in my second season; I still haven't found the words to explain how I feel right now. I'm nervous about being around all those guys on the same team. Just sitting there with Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan and Dirk; these are guys that I've watched playing the NBA Finals, and guys I've cheered for. And now I'm going to be sitting in the same locker room as a teammate for a day. It's humbling. I'm nervous. . . . I might not speak." (link) It is very refreshing to see a star that is so down to earth and humble.

--Red Sox: The Red Sox did not land the biggest prize of the off-season trade market in Johan Santana, as the Mets reached a deal with the Twins for the left-hander. As wonderful as it would have been to have a starting rotation of Beckett, Santana, Matsuzaka, and Schilling in 2008, and then Beckett, Santana, Matsuzaka, Buchholz, in years to come, I think it would have cost too much in terms of both prospects, and future salary. The word it Santana is going to cost over $20 million a year, and even for a team with as large a payroll as the Red Sox that could still limit flexibility in a few years. Plus, because he's from Oregon I didn't want the Red Sox to trade away Jacoby Ellsburry, I think he's going to really surprise some people this year.

--Patriots: the Patriots are in the Super Bowl again. I fully admit to being somewhat of a fair-weather Pats fan (but they are the only NFL team I'll ever root for), but the weather has been pretty darn fair lately. The Patriots put perfection on the line on Sunday, and aim to be the only team to go 19-0 in a season.