Back from Oregon, and had a great time! I was down there for work in the Hillsboro area, and spent some time visiting my friends Doug and Lori, who just opened a restaurant in Hood River.They're doing great! I'm very happy for them. They opened the Sawtooth Roadhouse, which has great, creative, but solidly delicious food and should definitely be visited if you're in the area.
Doug and I had a great time hanging out at the North Oak Brasserie bar one night with owner Mike Caldwell for a great conversation about food ingredients, wine-making techniques and Sarah Palin, of all things. It was amazing to me how many Palin fans there are in Oregon. The discussion outside of Palin really gave me some ideas about experimenting with processes for racking, controlling sediment, etc. in future wine batches.
Upon returning, I realized the domain name for my blog had expired. Ha! Oh well, that's what you get for ignoring it for so long. Anyway, that's been fixed.
This winter has been pretty crazy. Anchorage had a bad cold snap over December/January, and I had some pipes freeze over New Year. Kitchen faucets, and then one of the heating zones. I'm so thankful nothing burst, but it took a long time and a lot of energy to keep the house warm and the pipes thawed. My latest gas bill (for a 2600 sq. ft. house) was $450. Yeah. That would be the work it took to keep the house up to temp with only a subset of the heating zones working - it meant my boiler had to keep going full time every day for a few days.
This winter has been consumed by home improvement projects focusing on insulation. I've been crawling around up in the roof and in my storage crawlspace improving the heat retention. My house is an older one, and it's amazing how energy-inefficient it is. Simple improvements are making a huge difference.
Speaking of homes, I was able to tag along with Doug while he, Lori and a general contractor did a home inspection on a prospective purchase. The house was from the '40s, I believe, and it was great to talk and learn about the house. That's really interesting stuff to me.
Right now I guess we're all a little worried about the volcano, Mt. Redoubt, blowing its top sometime soon. Ash is really annoying. I'm sure we could all do without that, but it is cool nonetheless. But yeah, here's hoping the wind blows the ash out to sea.
