Hipsters and Clogs

Day 58, Hipsters: A co-worker and I went out for beers after work.  The conversation was lovely, the beers were delightful, and the whole thing was made better by a very friendly patron, our new friend Dragon!  This guy was there with his owner to watch the Giants game and demanded our attention and behind the ear scratches.  We were more than happy to oblige.  

Day 962, Clogs: Tumblr’s photo interface doesn’t let the user rotate a photo once it’s uploaded. This annoys me regularly. (To get this picture to display correctly, I had to copy & rotate the file on my computer approximately 6 times and upload a file to Tumblr twice. This is one thing Facebook wins on.) Absolute Zero was having some kind of cocktail making contest among the staff. Jana, Sean, and I thought we’d take a look at what was going on. It seemed to involve a lot of strawberries, in various configurations, and the occasional lime. Plus too many straws. And some very odd music choices.

Day 944, Clogs: A new sculpture went in on the 2nd floor landing at work a while ago. It’s pointing at something and has cobbler’s… shoe things.. It has  a poem that goes along with it. There’s a surprising amount of art at the Institute.

Day 937, Clogs: For the start of the 4-day weekend, I went to Amsterdam to see college friends Dawn & Nathan. (I also got a haircut, but that’s less interesting.) We had a great time catching up over drinks, food, and drinks. The two of them had been directed to visit a place I’d never heard of before, but is definitely worth a re-visit: Wynand Fockinck. We tried various liqueur cocktails we’d never heard of. Then we discovered at 8:55 that the proprietor closes up by 9pm every night, regardless of how crowded it is. And it was.

Day 928, Clogs: We won a free round of beer at pub quiz for being able to decode an anagram of “Johnny Cash - Man in Black”. I snapped a photo with my phone, which turned out terribly, I learned in the light. So through the magic of Dropbox and Photoshop, I uploaded it to my work computer and manipulated it just enough to not be terribly embarrassed. 

Day 0, Hipsters: Hi Neil’s friends & followers!  I’m Jen and I just made the cross-country move from Buffalo, NY to San Francisco, CA and have been graciously allowed to take over “hipsters” duties.  I arrived in San Francisco Tuesday evening and the first thing I did, obviously, was scrub out the bathroom, including what I have dubbed “the prison shower”.  Apparently lots of bathrooms in SF have bathtubs with no shower and a separate shower stall.  I find it kind of ridiculous.  

Day 911, Clogs: The cathedral, or Dom, in Aachen is arguably the only thing in town you need to see. We took the once-daily guided tour that’s in English and it was well worth it. Fantastic presentation by a knowledgeable guide really makes a huge difference over the others I’ve been to over the past few years! 

Day 899, Clogs: My dear old friends Pat and Kate visited. They’re based in Boston, but were taking the week to see NL & Germany, and so they came to see me here! We had a feast of local sausages, a ridiculous selection of cheese, and vin jaune, the bottle of which I bought last year & was inspired to open by this recent article. I was reminded, also, of Open That Bottle Night, which I now see we were just celebrating a few days early.

Day 884, Clogs: I started to feel a bit cold-and-flu-y on Sunday evening when we got back to Amsterdam, as we checked into our AirBNB place. The owner had done up the place very nicely. I found myself quite taken with this lamp. It’s like a fruit basket and… bud vases? If I did this, thought, I’d add more light bulbs. (Cheating tag because I took this Sunday evening and know that the rest of the week’s posts are a bit lame. 

Day 864, Clogs: It’s snowed a bit this week. Enough to stick and make things a bit slippery.