Happy Caturday (aka Meowy Catmas)!

A Twist on How To Wrap A Cat For Christmas

How to Wrap A Cat For Christmas is a huge hit on YouTube right now but we prefer Conan's take involving Andy Richter.

Merry Christmas From OKCtoPDX!!

A Playhouse Christmas!

We are extremely lucky to have several vintage 80s Christmas specials (complete with commercials) on VHS, and a tape player to watch them with. Our favorite Christmas special is Pee Wee's Playhouse Christmas and we watch it every year. The special has some really incredible guest stars like Oprah, Dinah Shore, Cher, and Charo plus many classic Pee Wee moments. If you aren't lucky enough to already own a bit of Pee Wee Christmas fun you can buy it here or watch it on YouTube, see part 1 below.

Merry Christmas and Happy New YEAR (ahhhh)!!!

All We Want for Christmas is Doctor Who

This year, thanks to Netflix, we had the pleasure of enjoying several great British television series. We watched The Black Adder, A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Sherlock, Doc Martin, Torchwood, Secret Diary of a Call Girl, and Jeeves and Wooster to name a few. However, Doctor Who has stolen our hearts and is by far our favorite. Our obsession started last Christmas when we watched a couple classic Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s and 70s. We then swiftly moved into the new Doctor Who series (that started in 2005), and spent a good portion of this year watching those. Apparently Doctor Who fans in Britain often spend Boxing Day enjoying Doctor Who episodes both old and new, so we plan to spend part of our Christmas holiday enjoying some time and space fun with "The Doctor".

Our love of British tv led us to the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Craig had a very interesting hour long interview with Stephen Fry this year, and it peaked our interest to watch his show more often. He is the funniest guy on late night television and whenever we can keep our eyes open past 12:30am we like to catch his show. So now back to Doctor Who, Craig recently provided his audience with a great musical explanation of the Doctor Who series when he had Matt Smith (who plays the 11th "Doctor") as a guest on his show.



If that video clip wasn't holiday themed enough for your liking then you can go here and watch Craig Ferguson and Jimmy Fallon exchange Christmas gifts. Cheerio!

Happy Caturday!

Me Cookie Face

I think we can all agree that Betty White is experiencing a much deserved resurgence in popularity due mostly to a Facebook campaign to get her to host SNL. Well the people are trying to do it again and this time the internets want Cookie Monster. Now that's something we can get behind! Here is Cookie Monster's SNL audition tape. May it bring you joy while you bake your holiday cookies.

OKC Christmas Tradition

This blog has been seriously lacking in Oklahoma related posts so here you go. B.C. Clark's is an Oklahoma jewelry store and it's iconic jingle is a staple of Christmas in Oklahoma. Oklahomans sing this jingle right along with "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". Ever since we left the Sooner State we pine for the jingle around this time every year and go searching for it on the internet. Merry Christmas Oklahoma-style!!

Happy Caturday!

Man in a Lady-Wig

The other day we were standing in line at UPS waiting to mail our last package of presents and we thought of the hilarious SNL UPS skit featuring Bill Hader. So here you go Bill Hader as Man in a Lady-Wig. Enjoy!

Give Winter the Middle Finger

Two weeks ago Portland dodged a big snow bullet, but Washington state did receive a good amount of snow. The snow and cold temperatures had an unintended affect on a crossing sign in Spokane, Washington. See the video below.

Jumping the Shark

It has been our experience that when a television show starts running low on ideas the writers do one of two things. 1) They come up with something outlandish and totally unbelievable. A classic example of which is Fonzie jumping a shark in the classic television show Happy Days or 2) They put together a clips show. So in an effort to avoid jumping the shark we are going to put together a series of fun video clips for your enjoyment throughout the month of December. Consider it our holiday gift to you. Happy Holidays!!

Happy Caturday!

OKCtoPDX in OH

Hello again everybody! Well that was a longer hiatus than originally expected, sorry guys. One half of the OKCtoPDX team spent most of October in Ohio taking of some stuff and doing very Ohio-y things like enjoying fall foliage, eating pumpkin spice cookies, and watching Ohio State lose to Wisconsin. Then the same half manged to pick up a nasty cold which is now on the run, thus allowing OKCtoPDX to get back to the very important task of blogging.

Brief Break

okctopdx is entertaining some out of town guests and will return in a couple weeks. Until we return enjoy this Peter approved "SNL: TV Funhouse" classic. "Don't question it, just do it!"

Happy Caturday!

Into the Woods

Phase two of our epic trip was a journey to the Redwood National Park. This area of extreme northwest California has many state and national forests. The Redwood National Park is more a collection of these forests/parks as opposed to a discrete park.

There are many trails and dirt roads to hike/drive. Due to time constrains, we desided to stay on main routes. U.S. 101 winds through this area, so you can take in much of the views from the car. We did take a scenic route (Newton B. Drury Scenic Pkwy). Along this parkway, we happened upon the Big Tree Wayside.





















This picture shows the Big Tree. We were not disappointed. The paper sign, in front of the tree, states that this tree is 287 feet tall and has a circumference is 68 feet. This tree is approximately 1,500 years old!

Happy Caturday!

The Crater Lake Adventure

Ever been to a caldera? Well, we have! The closest, and most scenic caldera to us is Crater Lake National Park. As our regular readers know we visited Crater Lake two weekends ago (remember this?). Here are some pictures of the Crater Lake area.

Some background... The caldera formed nearly 8,000 years ago when the volcano, Mount Mazama, erupted. The eruption emptied most of the magma chamber, which caused the great collapse forming the caldera. Centuries of rain and snow helped to fill in the caldera with water - forming Crater lake.
















To the north of Crater Lake is the Pumice Desert. Mount Mazama ejected hot ash over this area, probably killing all the indiganous life. Thousands of years later the area still as yet to fully recover. Most of the areas to the west and south of Crater Lake have fully restored pine forests, but not this area. Few trees and vegetation have returned.

The steep edges of the crater.




























In the background you can see Wizard Island. This cinder cone volcano formed after Mount Mazama blew and collapsed.





















Seven miles from the crater, these interesting formations were created. Volcanic vents formed in the ash deposits. The super-heated gas melted parts of the ash to form pillars. The rest of the ash was eroded away to leave these mostly hollow tubes.
















Native American tales tell of crayfish monsters grabbing gazers of the lake and pulling them in. We can see were the tale may have originated - one could get lost taking in the sites and inadvertently take one too many steps towards the lake. If you ever go, be careful of the edges.

Two Parks for the Price of None

Last weekend, the National Park Service offered free admission to over 100 National Parks. That offer gave us a great excuse to head down to Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest. It also gave us an excuse to go camping again. In future posts we will talk specifically about Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest. In this post we'll talk about everything in between.

In all, we logged over 900 miles in two days. Fortunately, we're no strangers to long distance driving (see here, here, and here). We went from the farms of the Willamette Valley, to the Cascade Range, the Redwood Forest to the scenic Oregon Coast. The map to the left shows our path, a la Indiana Jones (only it's not animated).





Originally, we were only going to head down to Crater Lake, spend the night nearby, and come back home. This would have gotten us back to home base by 4pm and really would have made for a short adventure. Fortunately, we called an audible and decided to head to California. We're glad we did.
















Our jumping-off point on the second day of exploration was the Joseph H. Stewart Recreational Area. Being just an hour southwest of Crater Lake, it made sense to use this state park for an overnight stay. This was a nice, full service park (running water, showers, etc.) located on the Lost Creek Reservoir. The beautiful Rogue River feeds the reservoir and offered scenic views during a portion of our trip.

From J.H. Stewart, we headed to Grants Pass, OR. This metropolis of 30,000 people, nestled in the Cascades, was the gateway to the path to the Redwood Forest. U.S. Route 199 was our official path. We have never been on a curvier or more scenic road. Unfortunately, the driver was too busy keeping his eyes on the road and having a death grip on the wheel to fully appreciate this section of the trip.
















The trip down U.S. 199 was harrowing, so we opted not to take that route back after the Redwood Forest. Instead, we took the 101! U.S. Highway 101 jumps in and out of pine trees yielding stretches of awe inspiring ocean beaches and rocky outcrops. Here are some pictures around Arch Rock in Oregon (near Brookings, OR).

















U.S. Highway 101 does not go directly to Portland, so we figured there would be some inter-coastal range hopping, eventually. Night had fallen by this time, so we couldn't get pictures of that stretch.

Check back soon for specific write-ups about Crater Lake and the Redwood Forest.

Happy Caturday!

We Learned a New Brew Trick!

It's time to dry hop! Our latest brewing adventure takes us to the world of pale ales. Much of the popularity of pale ales revolves around the layering of hop flavors. Our friendly neighborhood home brew store suggested we dry hop for this batch of beer.

Dry hopping allows you to add more aromatic hop layers without increasing the bitterness of the beer. Dry hopping is often used when brewing pale ales and IPAs.

For home brewing, the best time to dry hop is during the secondary fermentation period (see our fermentation post). While boiling our wort, we set aside 1 oz of Cascade hops. We made sure to seal our dry hop hops in a baggie and store that baggie in the fridge. When we racked to the secondary, after 2 weeks, we added the extra hops.



When dry hopping Make sure to use a grain sock or nylon bag to keep the hops together. You don't want to have to strain out the hops later (unless you have some filtration procedure, which we do not). It is important to use a sanitized 'hop holder' so you don't introduce 'bugs' to the beer. Once you are done with the secondary fermentation, just toss (garbage, compost, etc.) the hops.

Happy Caturday!

Best Baguette

I was first introduced to the Vietnamese sandwiches, known as Banh Mi, while living in Oklahoma City. It took some convincing from several co-workers before I was brave enough to cast aside my daily PB & J and venture to Saigon Baguette (aka Milk Bottle Sandwiches) for my first ever taste of the glorious Banh Mi sandwich - it was love at first bite. These sandwiches vary slightly from store to store but generally they are comprised of thinly sliced pickled carrot and daikon, cilantro, chili peppers, some kind of sauce, and meat or tofu all in a soft but chewy french baguette roll. I enjoyed several variations of these sandwiches at various restaurants in Oklahoma City, but Saigon Baguette was by far my favorite. I also should note that these sandwiches are usually priced around $2 or $3, which makes for a great cheap meal. So when we left Oklahoma City for the bright lights (ok, light rains) of Portland, I was sad to say goodbye to Saigon Baguette, and hoped that I would be lucky enough to find a new Bahn Mi to fill the void.

Well my wish was granted when one day while driving to the library I saw sign that said it all...Best Baguette. I mean come on! That is a bold statement and I knew I had to see if in fact it was the best. So we stopped in for a lunch one day. I ordered the vegetable sandwich with tofu and Peter order the grilled pork sandwich. The sandwiches are pretty darn good, not sure if they are the best because I'll always be partial to Saigon Baguette, my first Banh Mi love. Best Baguette bakes their own baguettes so the bread is always fresh and few times we have been lucky enough to have sandwiches on very fresh, still warm bread. They load their sandwiches with lots of veggies and meat/tofu, so the sandwich itself is plenty to make a meal. The sandwiches are all under $3 (take that Subway) and worth every cent. We do hope to keep trying various Banh Mi restaurants in the area, but for now Best Baguette is our favorite.

Trek In The Park

Over the weekend we decided to boldly go where no man has gone before. Ok that's not totally accurate several men, women, and even children have been here before but we haven't, so we boldly went where we had never been before. Anyway I digress, we ventured to the east side of Portland to witness a massive gathering of nerds known as "Trek In The Park". "Trek In The Park" was the brainchild of the Atomic Arts group founded by local Portlanders. For 3 weekends they put on a live rendition of a classic Star Trek episode. This year they brought the episode Space Seed to Woodlawn park. If you are unfamiliar with this Star Trek episode or simply need a reminder wikipedia has a great write up of the episode here (gotta love nerds). To put it simply, Space Seed is the episode where Kirk and Khan first meet. Their cast was small but very talented, and you could tell that the actors as well as the audience were having fun. It was super crowded, and kind of hard to see. So if we go back next year we will try to get there earlier to stake out a better viewpoint. "Trek In The Park" is just so Portland (white and nerdy), and we are so lucky we get the opportunity to experience it. Below are a couple of pictures we took (the lighting wasn't great), and then a list of the cast members.

Happy Caturday!

McMenamins Edgefield

I can't believe it but we have totally neglected to share with you a great chain of brewpubs owned and operated by McMenamins. McMenamins has several brewpubs, concert venues, hotels and even a few movie theaters in the Portland area, as well as other parts of Oregon and Washington. A few weeks ago we spent a couple days out at McMenamins Edgefield located in Troutdale, Oregon.

The hotel and surrounding grounds were the site of the Multnomah County Poor Farm in the early 1900s. The main building served as the farm hospital. Farming operations ceased in the 1950s, and the main building became the Edgefield manor. This manor housed emotionally disturbed children. Later the facility became a nursing home.

McMenamins took over the property in 1990. They turned the nursing home into a hotel and restaurant. The surrounding grounds were transformed into a vineyard and two par 3 golf courses. Furthermore, the various farming buildings have become pubs, bars and distilleries. They even have room for an outdoor stage for summer concerts. We have visited McMenamins Edgefield several times since we moved to the Portland area. Usually we go out to play golf and enjoy a pint or two. But in early July we stayed the night in the hotel and enjoyed a nice dinner in the Black Rabbit Restaurant. We had a rather nice stay with great food and beer. Unfortunately, our stay happened to coincide with a brief heat wave in the Portland area, and hotel was not equipped with air conditioning so our evening was a little uncomfortable. It was fun to stay at the hotel and wonder the historic grounds. We will definitely be heading back to play golf very soon. Look for more posts coming soon about other McMenamins properties.















Location of McMenamins Edgefield in Troutdale, Oregon
















Pub course and distillery bar





















Painted pipe in our room

Happy Caturday!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

The 23rd Annual Oregon Brewers Festival kicked off today with a parade and the ceremonial tapping of the keg. You can bet your masskrug we will attending this year's festivities. Here are some pictures of the parade.

Happy Caturday!

Camping A Go-Go

It's safe to say that Oregon has an over abundance of natural beauty that has a way of beckoning one to the outdoors, eventually. We've always been the type of people to prefer a hotel over spending the night in the wild, but a recent class at our local REI store got us motivated to give camping a whirl. After a trip to the aforementioned REI store as well as Fred Meyer we had all the supplies we needed for our first camping adventure. We will eventually post of a list of camping essentials for your reference, but we feel we should get a little more camping experience under our belts before we start doling out the advice. Until then you can go here for some helpful advice.

For our first time out we decided to not stray to far from home, so we choose a nearby state park. L.L. Stub Stewart State Park was just a scenic 30 minute drive from home base, and once there we could hardly believe we were so close to home. Stub Stewart is a really nice, newer state park with several tent and rv campsites and lots of trails for hiking. We arrived on a Saturday afternoon, set up our camp, and hit the trails for a pre-dinner hike. When we returned to camp we started building our fire, and after a few attempts we got a fire going. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for s'mores - real gourmet camp food. Once the sun went down, we were treated to an amazing starry sky complete with shooting stars (or meteors). The one downside to our camping trip was the sleeping on the ground thing. The camp sites at this park are packed gravel and it's just as fluffy as it sounds. Also, a guy at the adjacent camp site sawed logs (as in snored) all night long. We theorized that his long suffering wife banishes him to the wilderness on the weekends so she can catch some zzzs and he can make some other poor saps suffer. Well, without much rest we were pretty much ready to get out of there come morning light and that's exactly what we did.

All in all we did enjoy our night of camping, and with a few minor adjustments we could really get into to this whole being outdoors thing. Next time we plan to have better padding to sleep on and maybe pack some earplugs, you know just in case. Speaking of next time we just made arrangements for a camping trip to Crater Lake, and you better believe we will be blogging about that complete with lots of pictures. So if anyone is still reading this blog and has any tips for camping or specifically camping at Crater Lake, let us know.

Happy Caturday!

Oh, The Places We Go!

First off I feel we owe any remaining readers an apology for our lack of posting lately. Oregon had one of the coolest and wettest May and June since 1944 (a weather nerd post by Peter coming soon). The lack of sunlight has left us severally Vitamin D deficient, and with alarmingly low levels of energy. But luckily summer came Monday, and our weather, somewhat shockingly, became summery. So with three full days of sunny, warm weather to recharge our batteries we have a renewed vigor for blogging again.

I know it might be hard to believe but we have been living in the Portland area for almost two years now...crazy, right?! Well we decided that it's about time to start highlighting some our favorite places to go around here. So look forward to a series of posts about our favorite restaurants, stores, and places we like to spend our time/money. Hopefully this new blog series will inspire our readers to visit the Portland area, and maybe even visit us in the process.

Happy Caturday!

Time to Bottle

Racking the Beer

We are coming down the home stretch for home brewing. You've created the wort and have let the yeast ferment your brew. After two weeks (longer for lager) aging the beer in the secondary fermentation container (carboy), you are ready to bottle. **You could also keg at this point, put we do not have the know-how or equipment for putting the beer in a keg.

You will need bottles, but they don't have to be brand new. We have set aside 60 bottles from various commercial beers. The most important attributes of the bottles are: 1) completely in tact, 2) NOT screw top, 3) clear of sediment. You should test one or two of your bottles with your bottle cap and capper, just to make sure the bottle and cap are compatible.

Before racking (bottling), you need to place 50-60 bottles (new or used) in the dishwasher. DO NOT ADD SOAP, but run the bottles through a complete cycle utilizing heated drying. This sterilizes the bottles. If you do not have a dishwasher, you can purchase a bottle cleaning attachment for your kitchen sink.







The last part gets a little crazy, because a lot of components are coming together. You will want to sanitize the primary fermentation bucket, siphon, hose, and bottle racker. Wrap the bottle racker with plastic wrap for the time being.

Get a sauce pot out and boil 1 cup of corn sugar in one pint of water. Boil steadily for 10 to 15 minutes, but do not let the water completely evaporate. You will add this solution to the beer to wake the yeast back up. The extra food will help carbonate and pressurize the bottles.

In a second sauce pot, boil 60 bottle caps in enough water to cover the caps. Once the caps have been 'dancing' for a minute, remove the heat. The bottle caps are now sanitized.






One last time, you will transfer the beer from one container to another. Place the carboy on the counter and set up the siphon and tube. Transfer the beer from the carboy to the primary bucket on the floor. As with the last transfer, make sure you put the hose in the bottom of the primary. Make sure you keep the siphon off of the bottom of the carboy - you do not want to suck up sediment. Once this transfer is complete, add the sugar water solution to the bucket.

Now you can bottle. Place the bucket with the siphon and tubing on the counter, above the dishwasher. Attach the racking device and open the dishwasher door. You'll want to fill the bottles over the door, because it helps to catch any spills. Take the plastic wrap off of the racker, get the beer flowing and you are ready to bottle.

The auto-racker only lets beer flow when the bottom is completely pushed in. Once you pull up on it, the flow will stop. Allow the beer to fill the entire bottle. The racker displaces enough volume, so when it is removed, you will have some space in the bottle.


It is best to work with a friend. Hand the filled bottle to your friend and have them cap the bottle. Make sure the bottle cap is seated on the top of the bottle, then set the capper on the cap and bottle. Push the levers down until the cap's edges have crimped around the bottle opening. You have now completely bottled your first beer.




Continue this process until you have used all the beer, or as much can fill a complete bottle. Place your bottle beer into crates or other storage devices... whatever will make the bottle transport easiest.

For ales, you will want to store this at room temperature (68 to 74 deg F) for at least 2 weeks for further aging (lagers take longer, up to a month in colder storage situations). Refrigeration slows down the carbonation and aging process, so don't be in a rush to put all 50+ bottles in the fridge. I would suggest, after two weeks, moving about 6 bottles to the fridge at a time. You may want to refrigerate the remaining bottles only after 16 to 20 weeks to keep them fresh (if they last that long).

The final step... take one of your chilled brews out of the fridge, get your favorite beer glass out, poor the beer and enjoy!



Update: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3