Bloomingpedia, via Eric.
Bye-Bye Bert's
I was bummed to learn of the closure of Bert Grant’s Yakima brewpub from the P-I today. From the time it opened to the last time I was on Yakima, about five years ago, a stop at the old depot was a requirement of the trip, in token of Grant’s role in the craft brewer renaissance and in celebration of my family’s agrarian roots in the Yakima valley. Pears ain’t hops, but the incipient vineyards and hops fields of my childhood promised a richer, tastier adulthood, a promise which mostly has been borne out.
Pears disappear
I swung by the liquor store on my way to pick up Viv, in need of gin, and wandered aimlessly for a patch. Rounding a corner I was haply surprised to see Clear Creek Eau-de-Vie, a variety of brandy that has been of interest to my family for years (my grandfather was a pear farmer and my dad has a long and lively interest in the manufacture of wine and liquor). So I added it to my forage, traded a small pile of pebbles and such to the man watching the mouth of the cave, and swung up into the saddle of my bantha, the booze in the trunk.
When Viv and I reached home, I picked up the paper bag with the bottles in it, which tore and dropped about five inches to the floor of the trunk. As i reached to pick it up, I was puzzled about the source of the liquid gurgling all over the floor of the trunk. The pear brandy bottle’s neck had sheared off.
I was able to save most of the booze by straining it through a coffee filter, and eventually got the pear out. But I’m still bummed, as I had hoped to open the bottle with my pop.
Toob
How to Subscribe to TV Shows Using The Democracy Player, Bittorrent, and RSS, by Jesse Newland.
Seattle and ashes
Charles D’Ambrosio sketches scenes from a pre-boom Puget Sound – my good old days, chilluns – in The New Yorker.
UPDATE: I found the story, as I often do with D’Ambrsio, beautiful and evocative. Interstingly, I distinctly felt that this story was written in conscious dialogue with Alexie and Vollmann. Perhaps someday Vollmann will write of the Northwest directly.
UPDATE II: on Father’s Day 2016 I noticed that the new Yorker appears to have bitrotted this, and presumably other, old links. Fixed. This post gave me such a thrill when the author himself dropped by to express appreciation for my expression of appreciation.
Learn from Jon
Jon, who has been a bit quiet of late, makes up for it with disquisitions on the American left, his Christianity, and an unimpeachable list of tunes. Clearly, the man is, in fact, the Greatest Bus Driver in the World.
Seriously, I urge you to reflect on that list of music. It lends credence, as it were, and predisposed as I am to listen to Jon on things political it makes me reinspect my impulse to skip the religion component. Jon makes me think, and think hard.
But why does he think Billy is back on the sauce?
Bullet dodged
Happily, the Powerbook boots smoothy this morning and does not emit the aroma of a brewery, so I presume whatever intoxicant was preventing the machine from operating as expected last night has been metabolized.
Not again
As I seated myself on one of the new couches, beer and laptop in hand, the unfamiliarly slick surface and round arms led to a moment of discombobulation which resulted in a sploosh of beer over the keyboard and trackpad of the Powerbook.
At first, it appeared that all was well, but moments ago, the machine froze, and now it won’t boot.
Due to the move, I don’t know where all my diagnotic emergency CDs are. Bummer.
In anticipation of a sore back
Today, by some coincidence, we received both a new living room set and a new living room set, one a couch-chair combo in chocolate leather, one a bunch of flat boxes from Ikea. I have completed the build of a chair, a couch, and three shelving units, with two shelving units remaining. I started the day with a brisk round of wood chopping.
Viv wants to go out.
I think I’ll give the new couches a nap test.
Container ship aground south of Tijuana
[via Monkeyfilter] The full-laden containership M/V APL Panama beached in northern Baja Mexico on Christmas day. The ensuing mayhem has been amusingly & anachronistically CHRONICLED by correspondents unknown upon the PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN TO ME web-site of Countryman & McDaniel, attorneys-at-law.