Seattle Cask Beer Festival

I am finally feeling fully recovered (near-enough) from my bout with pneumonia. This is good, as I was able to have a great time at Saturday's Washington Cask Beer Festival at Seattle Center with my golf/drinking team and Angie and Zen, our two designated drivers. I witnessed a huge field (auditorium?) of great beer, pouring freely (after admission), all cask-conditioned, which is by far my favorite, regardless of type of Stout, IPA, ESB, Pale Ale, or any other categorization the brewer wants to claim. Surprisingly, not much in the way of food or water/non-alcoholic drinks to keep the imbibers rational and the DDs entertained. John pointed out there were many truly magnificent bellies there, probably some $20,000 ones, considering the quality of beer that went into building them.

Post-fest, we went for food and still more cask-conditioned beer (a large and unneeded pint for me)at Brouwers Cafe in Fremont, where there was random punching, arm-wrestling and general silliness. This was followed with a trip across the street to the Theo Chocolate factory, where they very nicely did not throw us out as we stayed past their closing time, eating their samples and not buying anything.

Game Day.

Andrew, AndrewF, and Matias came over for a bout of various games Friday. We started with Hearts, then tried some crazy card game of Matias's. (Must get the name.)
Then we switched to ApplesToApples and Scattergories, then drove AndrewF home before his 6:00 deadline. Andrew and Matias came back with me, and we played two quick games of Settlers of Catan, then watched the sad end of the Kansas basketball game. (Ahead by 15, they lose by 5!)

Between games of Settlers, AndrewF called to say he could see us from his house. In the ensuing flashing-light and laser-waving chaos, the cinnamon dessert pizza was neglected and burned - especially sad for Andrew since his sausage-pepperoni half of the pizza accidentally had onions all over it.

I drove back to Seattle after dropping Andrew and Matias off, to rest and prepare for Saturday's beerfest.

Watchmen

Went to Watchmen with Andrew and Matias yesterday. I liked it, but it would have been easier to see if shorter and with some implied, not actual, violence. Except that would have been compromising, and Rorschach doesn't.

Matias then got to experience the wonder that is Gogos Mongolian Grill. Yum.

Pre-Season track meet.

Andrew took third in the 400m in tonight's track meet. Official time: 55.02. His 4x400m relay lost - they went from way ahead to just losing after their third runner (Caesar!) really struggled. He had already run the 1500m and just finished the 3000m, so maybe having him in the 4x400m wasn't such a good idea. I remember Caesar running it fine in last year's meets - it could just be that it's still early in the season.

After the game Andrew and I went to Gogos for dinner, where we both stuffed ourselves silly since it was nearly 8:00 and we hadn't had food for awhile.

Time Trials

Time trials for track have been going on at Southridge for the last week. Andrew got 8th in the 100m, not his best event, especially in the cold rain, and certainly not bad for a sophomore. He got 4th in the 400m with a time of 55 seconds, and so tonight he runs the 400m and 4x400m relay for varsity at their pre-season home meet against Gresham. He's nervous the coach will throw him in the 800m run at some point this season - a grueling event, but one he's very good at.

In other big, huge Andrew news: he did not set the curve in AP American History, he broke it! That means his score was so high his teacher opted to NOT use it as the high end of the curve. I'm a proud poppa!

Also still a sick poppa. Lungs are better (yay for lungs not heavy with crud! A vast improvement!), but random exhaustion and now a sore throat still plague me.

Soccer! Breakfast! Upcoming Track!

Saturday's soccer game was underwater, as the rain just kept coming down harder. The ball was squirting away and squelching off of feet in random directions. No one could score and so it drowned down to a 0-0 tie.
This morning's game started out wet, but the Xtreme scored twice quickly, the sun came out, and they scored again to win 3-0. Mali played great at defense both games, and ended today's having fun at forward in the sunshine.

Andrew and I had a nice breakfast this morning before the game at Banning's Pie House. He's not really looking forward to a rainy week - 400m time trials are Monday, and the first track meet is Wednesday. Hopefully today's sunshine will keep going for awhile.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicccckkkkkkk

I am still sick! It comes and goes and comes again. I went to the doctor and now am armed with antibiotics, so hopefully soon my lungs won't be heavy with crud.