Minneapolis

Last night I got back from a conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I thoroughly enjoyed the conference, learned a lot and met a bunch of great people. Instead of going to the business meeting, I took off to see the Mall of America, across the road from the hotel where the conference was held:

It's pretty insane, with an indoors amusement park:

The hotel itself was pretty flash, here's a picture of my room:

On a completely unrelated topic, a cute treefrog was visiting us the other week, to my entertainment:

Portland the second

In other travelling news, Mort & I went to Eugene last week to have Mort's wisdom teeth out. The surgery went well and he has been recovering quickly, although somewhat tired of mashed potatoes.

More pictures from our Portland trip:

I can't really explain what these trucks are doing....

The statue, Portlandia (not actually crouching in a tree):

The world's smallest city part, Mill Ends Park is 60cm in diameter, between the two posts:

Mr. Whippy is a bit more hard-core here:

Portland, the first

The other week Mort and I spent in Portland. I was seeing the Oregon National Primate Research Centre, and Mort saw some of the city. We were kindly put up by the Oregon Humane Society in their tidy dorms for vet students doing practical work:

Our neighbourhood also consisted of trucks

And trucks

And trucks

And concrete pumps with the worst names ever:

Luckily, we were surrounded by a variety of fine-dining opportunities:

In a spin

Our collection of beer paraphernalia is slowly expanding as planned - we now have a CO2 cylinder & regulator to go with the keg. This equates to beer on tap in the garage. Still not nearly as awesome as Patrick's setup, but it's good to have goals....

I've been enjoying playing with the spindle, and used up all the "learning wool" I bought. I picked up something a little nicer to experiment with:

It's Blue-faced Leicester wool, very soft and pretty.

It's been a while

Yeah, I get busy and tired and blogging sort of goes out the window. Sorry.

My birthday-spindle has come in useful this week - I've used up my learning-fibre, and will have to find something else to spin.

We went to the annual homebrew club picnic the other weekend, which was a lot of fun. There were several beer-related games, including the hop-and spoon race and keg relays. Needless to say, cheating was rife. I was most impressed with the guy who put the hop on the spoon, then put that end in this mouth to carry rather than the handle-end as is more traditional....

The park was pleasant, and has some cool sculptures that I want to make into vertebrae:

Patrick & Elena's new puppy enjoyed herself. She's a Golden Doodle, which is a pretty dreadful breed name, if I do say so myself.

Girly knitting

I finished a girly-top this weekend, after our housewarming party thing:

Note: the sleeves are not necropsy-friendly but are good for making spooky hand motions.

Also, the back has curly-whirlies:

In appreciation for all the work Mort has been doing in the necropsy room, on Friday he was presented with a keg (and beer) - a totally awesome and appropriate gift. We were both thoroughly surprised.

It's hot, but at least we're not enjoying it

It has been hot here this week - 42°C the other day. So naturally we went for a 17-18 km cycle after work to run some errands and do shopping..... We've also thoroughly impressed people that Kiwis are freaking insane, by refusing to turn on the air-conditioning, even though we have what the folks here call "central air".

We made our first beer in the new house on the weekend - an American IPA - and figured out how to reconstruct our beer-fall without stairs.

And... for your viewing entertainment: a mole.