Tag Archives: Whiskey

Apr24

A breather in Bulgaria – Sofia!

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Tuesday, 26-August-2025 through Sunday, 31-August-2025


Bulgaria.

I haven’t been to this part of the world, before. I knew that I had the best tour guide I could ask for in Andrea, and had done the base background research on the history and culture (and had obviously absorbed some myself, such as Banitsa), but the adventure was a first foray into a new world, regardless.

It was glorious.


I can’t overstate how great of a guide Andrea was / is – I lovingly call her “The queen of Sofia”, and that title was well earned the whole time we were in town. Everywhere we went, people recognized her. Every restaurant saw the owner, chef, or someone similar come out to visit and catch up… alongside consistent extras unexpectedly appearing. Each bite was excellent, and each drink was special. I was in incredibly good hands.


Now, what did we do, specifically? Quite a bit:
– We visited Andrea’s Grandma for her birthday!
– We had amazing food – Italian, Turkish, pastries, and BBQ
– We met fun and interesting people – tons of folks from Andrea’s previous life, all interesting and enjoyable
– We explored. Walking around the city, I even had an afternoon of solo exploration where I got to recollect the fun of my Grand Adventure, exploring a city where I don’t know the language.


It really was an excellent start to an excellent vacation.

May14

A final dinner and drink in Wilsonville

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Thursday, 25-April-2024


All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…

But I’m not quite gone yet. One last evening in Wilsonville, staying in my now-empty apartment with a few piles of last-step belongings to take away, my travelling gear, and my mattress. The mattress was the last step – too big to throw out in the dumpster, and too old for me to reasonably donate… The disposal folks would be coming on Friday to pick it up and give it the proper burial that a 9 year-old mattress deserves.

My kitchen was bare, the fridge empty… that meant one last meal out in town!

Originally I was going to go to Juan Colorado, a nice Mexican spot nearby that serves fried ice cream… but I arrived a few minutes too late, finding the door locked and the restaurant closing up.

Instead, I went for what may well have been the first restaurant that I hit up when I first moved to Wilsonville – Wanker’s Tavern, an Australian-style bar that’s open late and serves staggeringly amazing nachos and has deliciously strong drinks.

Nachos and a Moscow Mule, not a bad ending to my culinary experiences in Wilsonville.

And at home, a final glass of whiskey. I’d been saving it for this specific occasion – a final dram of the distillers edition whiskey from Jameson, only available at the distillery in Ireland. From one home, to another!

Feb23

A promotion in Oklahoma!

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Weekend of Thursday, 08-Feb-2024 through Sunday, 11-Feb-2024


My friend Dave is getting a promotion!

Well… technically, he’s already gotten the promotion, and this was just the ceremony to officially instate him at his new rank. It’s the Army, I’m not going to worry over-much about the minutia of how it all works… though I’ll admit that I’m pretty jealous of the simplicity and clarity of how their system works. There’s clear requirements, transparent timelines, and a whole system dedicated to keeping it all moving smoothly. Kind of wish the private sector would listen in on that…

Anyways, ranting aside, I flew to Oklahoma!

It was lovely – One advantage of having a work laptop, and being able to work remotely, is that I could save aside a few of my projects onto my harddrive and then boot the beast up on the flight to get some analysis done and summaries written. It didn’t go beautifully smoothly, unfortunately, since “the beast” is an apt term for my laptop’s power consumption, it turns out… I wasn’t aware, but seatback power is limited to 75W… and the 180W power brick keeping that laptop running SUPER overloaded that circuit. No fires caught, of course, it just simply didn’t work.

Thankfully batteries are a thing, so progress was made and a book was read after the laptop died.



Once in Oklahoma, we had a combination of whirlwind adventures and quiet relaxation.

The ceremony itself, along with the time leading up to it, was chaotic and busy by nature. The morning before, and the days following, were beautifully quiet. It was lovely – a good ceremony, great cake, and good speeches. And, of course, excellent celebratory scotch afterward – regardless of glassware choice.




The rest of the time was gloriously relaxing. Catching up with friends, hearing stories and learning new little details about what life’s been like. We took a few nature walks, visited an excellent diner, and had an excellent evening full of pizza, whiskey, and even a few hands of poker! First time as an adult I’ve played Texas Hold’em, and I didn’t do too badly… didn’t do great, of course, but had a good time and didn’t get wiped out too early. Also, I learned not to bet against Dave because he doesn’t bluff. He had the luck of a recent promotion, and didn’t need to bluff.

Jerk.


We poked around the on-base museum (and saw a super cool WWII-era Morse-code transmitter), I took an artsy photo of a bike… I mean, it was a chance to visit with friends and see the life they’ve been building in the middle of the country. It was worth every minute.