Wow, the weather out here has been just a bit erratic. (If you would like to provide me with a detailed theory as to why that is… Don’t.) Sheesh, I feel like I’m back in the midwest! Sunny and warm for a few days, then a snow storm, then rain, then hot. All in the span of a week. They have a “false Spring” joke out here, but this seems a little extreme. It’s April!! Oh, the injustice of it all.

That was a rather quiet weekend. Can’t go on Float Trip every weekend, I guess. My entire weekend entertainment was centered around cooking a few corned beefs left over from St Patricks day. In what will surely be documented as one of the most comprehensive pastrami studies in history, I smoked one from Costco, and one from my favorite local butcher shop. The excitement just never stops at my house. I definitely preferred the flavor of the one from Kings, although the Costco entry was a bit more tender. I can hardly wait until next year when I add one from Snake River Farms to the mix. Anyway, something came up Sunday, (geez my memory is bad,) and we didn’t get around to making pastrami sandwiches. That had to wait until Monday, which then pushed back publication of my update a few days while the scores were tallied. (I made up a few of those details.)

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Finally an exciting weekend! (All things being relative… I left the house, so that ranks exciting in my life.) This year, I finally got around to attending a long overdue float trip with my college buddies. This has been a fraternity tradition since… Well, a long time ago. I never can remember the year, I believe I heard ’66. Always Easter weekend, and always at Pettit’s Canoe Rental. There are several guys well older than I still going, all the way down to guys currently attending college. I’ve only been one time since moving to California, and every Easter since then I’ve just sat on the couch moping and wishing I’d have made the effort to go. But, every year, the logistics of traveling there with camping gear, transportation down to the river, etc, just sort of overwhelm me. I’d already bailed out this year too in my head, but when a couple of guys called a few weeks ago and said they’d rented a VRBO I could share, it was on. I bought plane tickets the same day, and have been anxiously awaiting the trip since. The only less-than-ideal part was, I flew into St Louis instead of KC, so I didn’t get to see all my KC family and friends. But, my cramped timeline wouldn’t have really allowed it anyway. On the upside, St Louis is a direct flight at a much lower cost, and a buddy picked me up at the airport and drove me to the river. (The drive to the river is about two hours shorter than from KC also.) All about the compromises I guess. Anyway, the trip was fantastic, I had a great time. I guess I have really missed seeing those clowns. Even if we’ve been telling the same stories for the last 35 years, I always laugh like I’ve never heard them. And the VRBO was the way to go, even at the expense of rather merciless taunting from the camp crowd. Hurl all the insults you want boys, I’m gonna go sit in the hot tub for a bit.

I got back home late Saturday night, and Easter Sunday was spent on the couch. Donette went to brunch at a friends house, which sounded great, but in truth I’m a little worse for wear. Multiple bruises, a slight sunburn, and just general soreness. So instead of enjoying a delicious ham, I watched the NCAA basketball games and then an Easter-themed movie, Easter Bloody Easter. This soon-to-be-classic holiday film, set in the small southern town of Walburg, is a wonderfully done tale of romance, revenge, intrigue, and heroism. Despite the ridiculous story line, completely unintelligible dialogue, and horrible special effects, it still manages to be an absolutely awful movie. Of course I sort of liked it, I’ll probably add it to my annual rotation.

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I really can’t think of anything we’ve done this month, but I suppose I should type something up anyway. It’s free, and I don’t have anything else to do. I have to think our season of hibernation is about to end though. If the forecast is to be believed (always a sketchy bet,) we should be in for a lengthy stretch of dry, warm weather starting Wednesday. We’ve had a few intermittent windows of sun, but for the most part it’s been cloudy and rainy for several weeks. Now, if we actually take advantage of the nice weather remains to be seen. Surely good intentions count for something.

I don’t want to strain myself trying to remember too far back, so I’ll briefly cover last weekend and pretend the past few weeks never happened. (Which, in a sense, they didn’t.) Saturday was my only evening of note, when we went to a trivia night at a local winery. Trivia is just quite the fad out here, maybe it is everywhere? I’ve never been to one myself, but now I have. Yeah, check that one off. Eh, it was pretty fun actually, I think I might go to another. I wasn’t much for input to the answers though, most of the questions I thought were pretty random. I actually have my doubts about the moral character of the winning team, I think there may have been some shenanigans involved there. They got nearly a perfect score; Either they cheated, or they were a group of complete nerds. I’m not ruling out either, or possibly a combo of these scenarios.

Sunday was, as everyone knows, the Oscars awards. Donette likes to get together with friends for dinner and watch the show. Personally, I don’t have a lot of use for it, having seen very few of the movies and not recognizing the majority of the names. So, as is my annual tradition, I stayed home and watched my own movies and babysat the pups. The showing at my house this year was “Winnie The Pooh: Blood & Honey.” While it is my understanding that this cinematic masterpiece was not represented with an Oscar nomination, I found it quite riveting, well-done entertainment. OK, it was awful. It fully earned that incredibly low 2.9/10 rating. I understand part 2 is coming out soon, maybe it will fare better. Can’t be much worse. Oh, I also finished the book I’ve been reading, “Nos4a2.” That was a good read, I may search out a few more of his books. I do have a few major complaints regarding it, but as the friend who lent it to me hasn’t read it yet I’ll keep my spoilers to myself.

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I guess we’ve hit the requisite rainy stretch for the winter. It’s the water supply for the rest of the year, so I guess it’s a necessary evil, but man is it a drag. We just didn’t do a whole lot this weekend, mostly due to the weather. Who wants to go out in the pouring rain? (Not us, apparently.) We spent the majority of the weekend on the couch, watching a lot of movies. I won’t even list them all, there were too many. We ran the gamut of our library, everything from a few 80’s favorites to some of this years Oscar nominations. Some were good, some were… Not.

I guess I’d have to say the highlight of my past week was a great cheese find at Costco. (Queue the “you know you don’t get out much when…” jokes.) I was cruising the aisles making sure there wasn’t something I couldn’t go without and there it was: A big block of Point Reyes blue cheese. I realize this particular dairy product can be a bit polarizing, but I happen to enjoy it. I’ve been wanting to get down to Point Reyes and visit their dairy for quite a while, but it just hasn’t been in the cards. I guess for now I’ll have to be satisfied with a great deal on their product. (It was WAY cheaper than on their website.) We had some on our salad for Valentines Day, and then made bacon-blue burgers Sunday night. I guess that’s the one small issue with things at Costco; It was only packaged in 1 pound sizes. That is a lot of blue cheese. Thinking about creating a new breakfast sandwich to use some up.

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Wow, the Chiefs went back-to-back. Pretty darn impressive, not to mention fun for the fans. Got these stats today from a buddy: Patrick Mahomes has been a starter for 6 seasons. In that time, he’s rung up 6 AFC championships, 4 Super Bowl appearances, 3 Super Bowl wins, 3 Super Bowl MVP’s, and 2 NFL MVP’s. Pretty solid start to a career. It will be exciting to see if they make a run at being the first team to 3-peat next season. Better make some moves in the off season!

Pretty solid weekend out here, if somewhat marred by work. Saturday we went on a pre-valentine’s event at one of the wineries up here. We’re members there, so it fell under the “cheap date/entertainment” category. It was an afternoon tasting and charcuterie tray, and they were pouring their latest wine releases. The weather was pretty cool out, but everybody was sitting outside on the patio. We gladly took a table inside when they offered. It was a nice way to kill the afternoon. Side note, I am somewhat famous with the tasting room manager for messing up “something” every time we go there. Pretty bad when that’s what she remembers me for. Well, this trip was no exception; Somehow or another we ended up with two charcuterie trays. I didn’t think too much about it, other than “holy smokes, that’s a lot of food.” Then I noticed every other couple only had one tray. Well, they insisted (and were egged on by my very own wife,) that I’d messed up ordering. The “deal” was per couple, and they said I’d ordered two of them. Well, I don’t think that’s the case. It did indeed say “2x valentines tastings.” But I only paid the price of one, which is all I care about. Afterwards they gave you a box of cookies and stuff, and they only gave of one of those also. I’m of the thought that the girl pouring for us just messed up and gave us two, as it was the first table she helped. I’m the victim, again. Hey, I’m not upset about extra charcuterie anyway, it’s my favorite food group.

Sunday, of course, was the big game. We kicked the day off watching the Puppy Bowl, which has become something of a tradition. It was a little hard to watch this year; Nacho kept growling and yapping at the TV. She would not be convinced the puppies were not actually in the room with us. It was good entertainment all the same. (I didn’t see any Missouri pups this year?) After that, we headed down to a friend’s house for a watch party. We used to be friends anyway, I’m not too sure we didn’t get banished. Hey, I like the Niners too; Just not this game. They set up a tv for me on the back patio, and I watched the first half in ostracized solitude while enjoying some fantastic food. He made a massive pot of pozole that was incredible. Everything was incredible for that matter; A big taco bar, and loads of chips and homemade salsas & dips. The patio got a little too chilly during halftime, so we hightailed it back to our house for the second half. All remaining taunts were delivered via text.

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