The weather is very messy today. This is the first ice storm I’ve experienced since I’ve moved to PA, and it’s sure hitting hard. There must be 4 inches of frozen ice pellets on the ground by now. At least it looks like snow once it lands, so if I ignore the ice pellet sounds hitting the window I can pretend that it’s a normal winter storm. I sure hope we don’t lose power.
Michael and I went to the PLUG West Linuxbiernacht 2007 last night. The 2006 event of the same name certainly drew a bigger crowd, but I was happy with the turnout of 10 people at this one. Most of them I’d met previously, but there were a few people I was meeting for the first time. I’m happy to report that I’m not as shy at these things as I used to be, much of that coming from being able to say I run the Montco Chapter, PhillyChix, and actually work with linux now. They are all fine talking points, so I am not at so much of a loss for what to say. But Linux? Local geeks? You don’t want to hear about that, you want to know what beers I tried!
1. Lindemans Pomme – This is the apple lambic from Lindemans, and they had it on TAP! I’d never tried it before, and honestly it was far too sweet for my tastes but had a nice sharpness to it. I’m glad I tried it but probably won’t again.
2. Delirium Tremens – The old standard, this appears to be my panic beer, the waitress was there, I was too overwhelmed by the selection of great beers, and just spit out “get me a Delirium Tremens!” Unfortunately I think the one I got was old, or otherwise mishandled.. the taste was slightly metallic! Ick! I should have sent it back…
3. Cantillon Lou Pepe Framboise 2004 – Now THIS was a treat! It isn’t your normal sweet framboise lambic, it had a wonderful kick to it that I was really impressed with. I’ll be keeping my eyes out for their other lambics.
4. Spaten Maibock – Again with the German brews I’m getting into. This was a nice maibock, perhaps on the sweet side, but I enjoyed it.
What else… just a lot of little things lately. We live in a cute 3 bedroom house that has a bigger kitchen than the one I grew up with, but doesn’t have enough space for all the cooking things we got as wedding gifts. The solution? A pot rack to hang from the ceiling! So we headed down to Le Butler’s Pantry in Skippack and picked up a nice one made by J.K. Adams of Vermont. It worked out better than we anticipated – freed up a lot of space and it looks really nice!
I also drove in Philadelphia for the first time last week. I don’t have a ton of experience driving in cities. I used to drive in Syracuse, NY fairly regularly, but that’s not a big city really. I used to drive the expressway through Rochester, NY from time to time. Nothing like Philadelphia. Getting into the city was not hard, I left from work (this was a work trip) and it was pretty much a straight shot into the city. Unfortunately there were some roads closed due to a fire and I had to round a few blocks to find my way. Leaving wasn’t as easy, I went completely the wrong way and ended up much further from the expressway than I wanted to be. It took me about 20 minutes to sort out where I was and where I needed to be going. All told, now that I’ve done it I’m less scared of it, but I am not going to make a habit of it. It took me a good half hour calm down after that drive :)
I’ve been working with
OK, it’s late, time for bed.