March 31st 2009
On Tuesday we went to the Lucky Labrador brewpub, which we’ve never been to before but had heard good things about (and because we love labradors). Havana slept through most of lunch. Lucky Lab has a very aloof group of employees who don’t seem to care if you order anything or not and is even dog-friendly. There are lots of photos and painting of labradors, all looked just like Illy and Ouzo.
March 31st 2009
Obama fired GM CEO Wagoner! To all those who defend Wagoner as a great CEO… I am sure I could take the #1 car-maker in the world, lose two-thirds of my marketshare in a few years, lose money on every single car I make, invest in things that people have said for decades they don’t want and drive the company into bankruptcy. That must make me a great CEO too, so if you were happy with Wagoner, please hire me and pay me millions a year to do it to your company. And if I can’t kill your company faster than Wagoner killed GM, I will only take half the $20 million bonus GM is paying him to leave.
To all those who think the federal government shouldn’t be running GM, I agree that would be bad. It’s so bad that the only thing worse than the Federal Government running GM is GM running GM.
March 30th 2009
We drove to Portland to The Nines hotel to stay there for a couple nights.
The Nines is a new Portland luxury hotel but they’re suffering so Gay got a good deal on a suite (there’s positives to economic downturns!), which is the only type of room to stay in with kids who go to bed at 7pm.
Our room wasn’t ready when we got there so the hotel sent us to the bar to wait with free cocktails. After moving into the room, we went back to the Deschutes Public House for dinner, which is a very comfortable place to take tired kids.
March 29th 2009
We left Sunday morning for a long drive up to Ashland, Oregon. I was expecting to arrive in Ashland, eat dinner at a Subway or something and go to bed early in a lousy hotel. The lousy hotel was right, but we discovered that Ashland has a nice little brewpub, The Standing Stone Brewing Co. This was a nice place to go after a long day of driving, but Hudson was very tired and cranky, which is unusual for him. That made dinner less fun. Of the sample set of beers, we both liked the Belgian Saison and I liked the Double IPA.
March 28th 2009
After a week I’ve realized that San Francisco is not a beer town, despite being the birthplace for American craft brewing. Grocery stores have a very limited beer selection, far more limited than even Vashon’s Thriftway, and restaurants have only a handful of beers on tap, most of which are mainstream beers. And if you do want beer you’d better not have kids because the beer bars don’t allow kids.
We drove around San Francisco for a while and then, on the recommendation from the hotel concierge, went to Izzy’s Steak House.
March 28th 2009
This morning Gay discovered that Hudson has not one, but two, teeth now.
March 26th 2009
We drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to Santa Rosa to visit the Russian River Brewing Company, one of my current favorite brewers and brewer of the famous Pliny the Elder. It’s hardly a brewery, mostly a brewpub, which would explain their very limited availability even in San Francisco. We ordered their sampler, which is a set of 2 oz. samples of all their current beers, 14 in total, most of which I’ve never had. Half of them were Belgian-style including a beer brewed with brettanomyces which was incredibly sour, like drinking liquid Sweet Tarts and not very good in our opinion. Another sour beer, called Consecration, but aged in Cabernet Sauvignon barrels and brewed with currants that was much better, you can really taste the wine barrel flavor. So good that we bought two 750ml bottles to take home.
March 25th 2009
Hudson is 7 months old today. He’s been teething a lot lately and needing teething gel so his first tooth is probably imminent. He can turn over and do 360°s pretty easily but he’s not yet crawling. He’s still very quiet and laid-back. When he’s really upset he makes noises and most people think he’s just trying to talk, but we know that he’s angry and either needs a diaper-change, he’s hungry or bored.
Hudson at 6 months, 5 months, 4 months, 3 months, 2 months and 1 month.
March 22nd 2009
Today’s Gay’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Gay!
We had breakfast at the hotel in Redding and took our time leaving thinking we had plenty of time. We gave the kids a bath in the morning after breakfast, packed up and got on the road by 11am. We made our way pretty quickly to Chico to the Sierra Nevada Brewery.
March 21st 2009
We got room service breakfast at the hotel in Portland, packed up and were checked out and in the car by 9:30am. Not bad. We hoped to get to Redding, California by 4pm. That was too optimistic. Traffic was light but 7 hours in car seats makes kids unhappy. Hudson was less happy, since he hates being in a wet diaper for more than a few minutes so we had to stop quicklyt at rest stops and Gay rode half the way in the back seat sandwiched between the car seats trying to entertain them.
