Sports Bar in Hillsboro

Yesterday we went to buy some more ski socks in order to improve our smell during our upcoming ski trip to Whistler. Coming out of REI, M suggested to go watch Black Swan in a nearby theater. We decided it was easier to eat out as it would allow us to go to an earlier show. As we were standing right in front of a wings place, I suggested to just go there and have some comfort food. As we entered I realized it wasn't just any wings place, it was actually the local sports bar. The rooms were filled with absolutely gigantic screens showing all the NFL and NBA games live simultaneously. The place was quite packed. As a perfect tourist I started to take pictures as I found it so "exotic" (or typically local as you prefer).


See what I mean by a lot of big screens ? Anyway as we were waiting for our wings M went to the ladies room and came back telling me I absolutely had to go check it out. I went to the men's and I suppose it didn't look the same as they probably didn't have any urinals there. I stayed in awe for like a couple seconds in front of THAT:

Yes there is a TV so you won't miss that critical minute of the game while you were emptying your beer filled bladder.
Sorry for the @#$#$ pictures, I just had my phone with me.

Nice weather is back...

...and it's time to restart getting some exercise I suppose. M has been kicking my a.. rightfully to get me to exercise more and the past few days have been quite good. 900m swim Friday, 11.5 miles bicycle yesterday and a 3 miles run this morning with some time at the gym after.
That obviously made me hungry, and this is the best occasion for me to show you the nice griddle we received for our wedding which has been working wonders. Yum-yum.

Apple-cranberry chicken links with asparagus, the griddle is the only way I managed to get them tender and crunchy at the same time.

Daylight saving time

Last week has been pretty busy at work but the main event is that we switched to summer time. The benefits are two-fold, first we're getting to see sunrises again in the morning, second it is still bright daylight when we drive back from work and that is very nice !


Last week we started receiving some of our wedding presents. Among them was a nice "terrine" from Le Creuset that I put to good use last weekend and baked my first pate ! We had visitors over for dinner and they seemed to enjoy it, we did and after distributing slices around to other friends it's already almost finished. It was such a success that I'll do more.

The recipe was as following:
- 1/2 onion chopped
- 2 shallots shopped
- parsley chopped
- juniper berries (genievre)
- 1 nutmeg grated
- 1 glass Calvados
- 1 glass white wine
- 0.5kg chicken livers
- 0.5kg ground chicken meat
- 0.5kg ground pork meat
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp sour cream
- salt, pepper

Mix ground meats, vegs and spices with the wine and calvados and marinate them, marinate the livers separately. Let it rest for a bit (1 day would probably be better but I didn't). Mix everything together and fill the terrine, let it rest again (goal is to get things well packed). Prepare a "bain marie" in the oven at 400C (a large pan filled of water that you heat before putting the terrine in). Cook it for 90 min. Let it cool down slowly with weights sitting on it to pack it tightly, refrigerate. Serve the next day (it was actually better 2 days after than the next day). Yumm.

Haircut

M wanted me to show how respectable I was now with my haircut:

Rest of the portraits there including a picture of a not-so-happy-to-be-portrayed kitty.

X-Mas 2009

We drove to Seattle to spend this year's Christmas with M's dad. As we arrived we were welcomed by his bright decorations.


The next day we started early to prepare the dinner's feast (which was less Gargantuesque than Thanksgiving I have to admit). We started with an Avocado-shrimp-mushroom salad.


Followed by a stuffed roasted orange duck


and a chestnut-chocolate "buche" with candied orange peels


The next day we drove around to M's hometown and made a stop at the unfortunately (I've been told) closed XXX root beer stand


And we finished with a nice view on Mt Baker and Lake Samamish


Merry Christmas to all of you !

French Comics list

It's been a while I should have done this, I'll try to keep this updated over time, so here is my French "BD" list, in kind of disorder.

Les arcanes de la lune noire 1
Les chroniques de la lune noire: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Le triangle secret 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
Le triangle secret INRI 1,2,3,4
Dans le secret du triangle
Le Decalogue 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Le Decalogue: le XI eme commandement
Complainte des landes perdues: Kylede Klanach, Dame Gerfaut, Sioban, Blackmore, Moriganes
Le combat ordinaire 1,2,3,4
Le cycle de Cyann: 1,2,3,4
Les passagers du vent: 1,2,3,4,5
Hors Jeu (Bilal, Cauvin)
La trilogie Nikopol
Le sommei du monstre, 32 decembre, rendez vous a Paris, Quatre?, Animal'z
Duuna l'integrale
Gorn 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
Kookaboora 1,2,3,4,5
Kookaboora Universe 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
Travis 1,2,3,4,5,6.1,6.2,7,8
Travis Karmatronics 1
Carmen Mc Callum 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
Carmen+Travis 1,2
Code Mc Callum 1,2,3
Universal War One 1,2,3,4,5,6
Hk 1.1,1.2,1.3,1.4,2.1
La quete de l'oiseau du temps 1,2,3,4
Avant la quete 1,2
Les forets d'Opale 1,2,3,4,5
Persepolis 1,2,3
Poulet aux prunes
Jacob le Cafard
Le tueur 1,2,3,4,5,6
Alef-Thau integrale 1
La caste des Meta Barons
Les maitres Cartographes Integrale
Carnets d'orient 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
Djinn 1,2,3,4,5,6
Le grand mort 1,2
Le complexe du chimpanze 1,2,3
Hauteville House 1,2,3,4
Lincoln 1,2
Le chat du rabin 1,2,3,4,5
Jeanette pointu 15
Le troisieme testament 1,2,3,4
Gaston 19
Le grand pouvoir du Chninkel
Siegfried 1
Thorgal 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29,29bis
Vlad 1,2,3,4,5,6,7
Xoco 1,2,3
Yiu 1,2,3,4,5,6
Yiu premieres missions 1,2,3,4,5,6

U-cut

We had planned to go ski today, but despite a fantastic weather over Portland, Mt Hood was in the clouds and a strong blizzard was blowing over the Meadows ski resort where we planned to go to. Additionally it seemed the road was deep in the snow and I haven't purchased chains yet. Instead we decided to stay where the nice weather was and we went to the Beck's farm to get ourselves a Christmas tree. The farm was in a pretty rural area, near Oregon city south of Portland. We started getting a view on Mt Hood as we headed there but it still looked quite stormy over there.


I was worried we would have difficulties finding the farm, but as we were heading off the highway we crossed dozen of signs for various tree farms. Once there we enjoyed the American quality service. They provide you with a saw, a piece of cardboard so you can kneel without getting muddy, they have a machine to shake your tree so you won't spread too many needles, another one to put a net around the tree, and another one to drill the bottom of the tree so you can attach it to a stand (sold on the spot as well).

Once home M started to decorate the tree with whatever we had from last year in Israel. It became obvious quite fast that we clearly didn't have enough. After a stop at Fred Meyer, we had more than enough and she could work hard at it.

Halloween Party

You can see a few costumes featured at our Halloween party there. M was disguised in Orion constellation and I was wearing my skydiving gear but no pictures of us until someone posts their pictures (I guess I was too busy having fun to take pictures).

Happy Halloween

Tonight we're having a Halloween Party. Two pictures of the preparation to give you a taste of it !


Crazy pumpkins playing with veggies..


How long will it last ?

It's the weekend !

Friday evening, leaving work I wanted to take a picture of the nice fall colors of the trees in the parking lot when a model just appeared in my frame aside a nice car and started to pose ;).


After that we had cookies and beer at Henry's who happens to have the largest selection of beer on tap I've ever seen (something like 100).The beer was good and I ate 2x my share of cookies. Life is good!

Hillsboro Flower Farm

Everyday, on our way to and back from work we take Jackson School road. This is a pretty rural area. During the spring I stopped on the right side of the road to take some pictures: Here on my blog - Spring fields. I regret not stopping on the way back to take pictures of the flower farm with its fields all colorful. I guess I'll do it next year.

Today on the back from work, I stopped on the right side of the road and finally took a few pictures of the flower farm. It is quite cute with its little windmill, the colors were vibrant under the sunset. Here it is (stitch of 3 images and cropped, but this would be my standard field of view the day I upgrade to a M9).

Engaged

Where is my mind ?

Yesterday M had a dinner out with her dad. As they came back, she suggested we go out to MFNW (Music Fest North West). For a week, groups play every night for one hour each in 15ish concert halls around Portland, most of them around Burnside. I had a quick look at the (large) program and didn't recognize anything and figured it was expected as it would probably young underground alternative groups.

We headed to the Crystal ballroom to join Allen, but as we arrived it was sold out :(. We decided to walk on the direction back to home and pick a concert on the way. M picked the shows at Dante as she knew a song of the group that was on. We stopped by, payed 15$ each for 2.5 shows (6$ / showing). The group playing: The Moondoggies actually sounded quite good. The following group, Bobby Bare Jr. was really weird and honestly I didn't care for it.

The last one was a single, older guy with his guitar singing some bluesy, hardish, rough songs. We sounded really great. After 10 minutes I was commenting to M, that this guy really deserved to have a group with him and it would sound great. I checked again the program and saw the name "Black Francis". It didn't take me too long on wikipedia to realize that this was the guy I knew under Frank Black, formerly singer of... the Pixies... Yeah the purists will remind me that his old scene name was Black Francis... Anyway, I'll remember this night as the night I saw the singer of the Pixies for 6 bucks in a tiny room, 3 meters away :).

And yeah, he definitely would have sounded better with his band but still, he was great :). I didn't have my camera as Concert halls tend to not allow to take pictures, but this was apparently not a problem :(. So I only have phone pictures.

Portland Japanese Garden

Last weekend we had a looong saturday doing chores and finishing some long due home improvement. We bought a few boxes in order for me to store all my camera gear in orderly fashion and organize my desk.
We also bought a cabinet in order to store all the liquor instead of having it take counter space. We found a nice looking, cheap little wooden cabinet at Bed Bath and Beyond. Label said "Made In China, Easy to Assemble". I opened the box with enthusiasm until I realized that there was no assembly manual and we had taken what appeared to be the last box in the color we liked. After about 20 minutes staring at the disaster, spreading the pieces around, turning them, shuffling them, I decided I would go ahead without the instructions. It took me a while, a bit of trial and error, but my recent experience with Ikea furniture helped me figure out what some apparently weird parts were for. Success ! We now have a nice little cabinet full of booze awaiting happy thirsty guests.

We had enough with chores so we took it easy on sunday and Michelle suggested going to the Portland Japanese Garden. I had never been there and always wanted to. We found a very nice, soothing, aesthetic but slightly overcrowded garden. I really loved the place and definitely want to come back once fall colors have started. I took quite a lot of pictures, here are a few to give you an idea on how it looks like.

Peaceful


Reminds me Monet's garden


Swirly ?

You can find more samples here.

Spring Fields

Besides the pollen issues, spring has been gorgeous here. This morning I stopped on the side of the road on my way to work to take a few pictures:

Flowers

Today it's been a ball of flower delivery men, here is how our table is looking like now:


Thank you everybody ! :).

Afternoon view on Portland

I have been staying home today, recovering from my recent apendicitis surgery. That way I got to enjoy the nice afternoon light from our place:

Looking North:

Looking East:


Looking South:

Settled in Portland, OR

I know it's been a while I haven't posted news. I've been quite busy with work and with my falafel->cassoulet->burger diet switch. Yes I'm gone, not in the middle est anymore. I hopped for a week in France to see Fifille getting married in Toulouse, ski and visit countless castles and there I am ! Back in Oregon, the Evergreen. I paved the way for M who joined me a few days later with Mr.

Fifille and Tom getting married.


Since then we've had pretty busy weeks at work and weekends appartment hunting, unpacking, cleaning, car hunting and getting sick. I've been taking care of the last part for the past week or so but it's getting better.

So we found a nice apartment with a great view in the SW part of town and will be living here for a good year. We have a city street car (tramway) stop right in front of our building which is quite convenient to go around (it's free). On nice days we can see mount hood above the highway bridges crossing the Willamette river. We can also enjoy a view on OMSI and its river submarine ! From our window Mount Hood looks a lot bigger than on the picture :).

Our tower is the right one


View from our window

Oh and for the ones wondering which car I picked, it is a G37. Yeah, I'm using German cameras but I kind of stick to Japanese cars (Audi could have gotten me if they wanted though).

France

Yeah I know, I've been back for weeks and has been desperately silent. Usual excuse, been busy, been lazy ;). So As usual I came back home for Christmas, but as last year my stay in Paris was actually quite short. I stayed for the usual celebrations in Paris and then flew to Pau where I met Tom & Fifille. There they took great care of me, taking me around the Pyrennees for ski, sightseeing at Gavarnie, snow shoes hiking and camping high in the mountains in sheppard's huts.


Gavarnie cliffs


Coming back from the Ansaberre hut

You can find the rest of the pictures of this trip here.

Flying Home

Since Budapest, quite a lot has been going on. Early December we had the visit of Ralf and Kellie that we had met in Ethiopia in the Simien mountains and convinced to stop in Israel to visit us on their way from South Africa to Jordan. We visited Akko and Nazareth with them, and finished the nice weekend by a great "gigot d'agneau" baked in the oven.
The following week Lilach and Leeor were finally back from their honeymoon around the americas. Last week, M's mom arrived from the US and we took L&L and Mom for a little hike in the Golan heights in Gamla. The weather was good enough for mid december, and the Golan winter was mostly looking like fall as you can see here:



Tonight we're flying to France for the Christmas holidays. More news next year !
Merry X-mas and Happy new year all.