Brett and Debbie

It's Hop Harvest time..

The chinook hops were ready to pick last weekend, although this year I don't have nearly as many as I did last year. I've been getting questions about when this year's fresh hop beer would be ready, so with the help of Autumn and Tim who were visiting from Seattle harvesting I managed to start 11 gallons of this year's "Mystery Hop". Fermentation is going fast, so I'm hoping to have some ready to taste at the upcoming biergarten...

In other beer news a friend of mine just had an engagement party and I served my Kolsch, consensus was that it was quite tasty. We went through 2.5 gallons in no-time, I had to make a "beer run" to bring back another keg!

The other vines are slowly getting ready, maybe I'll get 2 batches of fresh hop beer made this year

Debbie made it..

The Hood to Coast team from Ziba made it! Debbie even beat her expected time on the last leg of 3 after running just under 15 miles all-together, with a total of 196 miles! Apparently the evening's sleeping accomodations were not very friendly with only 2 hours to sleep on a tarp, so she's exhausted and headed for bed. I'll post some photos once we get them downloaded, or keep an eye on the Arriba Ziba Blog soon.

The profession of a programmer involves

This is probably one of the most insightful articles I've read on
programming productivity in a long time!

http://www.paulgraham.com/head.html

Running from Mt. Hood to the Coast??

Debbie is running in the hood to coast run this year, a relay race
from Mt. Hood to the ocean. She will run just under 15 miles in 3 seperate legs, along with a team of 11 other runners from Ziba who call themselves Arriba Ziba. I'd say it is a little crazy, but it sounds like fun..!

One of the vans (1/2 the team) stopped by for dinner at our house after their first leg, had showers and naps, blogged, then left for another run. As host I was even invited to post on their blog. They have wireless cards in the van as they run, so they will be blogging this evening and tomorrow morning all the way to the finish. There are already some great photos posted.

In other news I'm experimenting with other interfaces to blog with, this old MT blog has gotten clunky. The blogger stuff was so EASY to use! Wow, it must be time for an update of my crusty old blogger ways. I've found Qumana to be a pretty easy way to put everything together..

We're done with the remodel.. taDa!

We finally did it!  We took photos of the house (after remodeling it a bit) and put together a before and after album for you to see the changes. We are ready for parties and house guests now, the keg fridge is stocked and Charlie wants to say hi! We hope you'll stop by soon and check it out for yourself.

Thanks to all those who helped in the remodeling effort, emotional support and physical labor alike! We couldn't have done it without you, so please come enjoy it with us.

Before

After