The Great Outdoors

That was a nice little unplanned 3-day weekend.  I kicked it off Thursday night, going out with a few guys after work.  As we sat around discussing the state of world affairs, the topic somehow swung to weekend plans, and one of the guys mentioned he took the day off Friday to go fishing.  Well, I just so happen to have more vacation than I know what to do with, so I took the day off and weaseled my way onto his boat too.  I’m not really much of a fisherman, as the other guys on the boat found out pretty quickly.  I’ve never even used a baitcast reel before, and when I heard what they cost I was somewhat afraid to try.  I couldn’t figure out the magical loop system used to put the bait on either, so they had to bait my hook for me every time like a 3rd grade girl.  Oh well, that way I didn’t have to touch the icky bait.  I ended up getting skunked on the fish, which was no surprise really.  As a matter of fact, the fishing was pretty slow for the whole boat, the group only caught two salmon and one steelhead over the six hours we floated around.  You can bet it was funner than sitting in my cubicle all day though.

Saturday we attended the fifth annual blind beer tasting up at our friends Michael & Alaina’s house.  This was the third time we’d been, and it just keeps getting bigger and better every year.  This year even featured official commemorative tasting glasses;  Fancy!  They had three stations set up, and we enjoyed several hours of sampling. When all the entries had been tried, everyone marked down their scores and a winner was determined.  Some lame cider-ish brew won, blech.  Oh well, different tastes for different folks I guess.  It was a good time at any rate.

Sunday we met Michael & Alaina at the El Dorado Saloon for a late breakfast.  Late as in lunchtime, but luckily they still had their breakfast menu on.  It was a solid breakfast, maybe not as good as The Purple Place but the outdoor seating was a draw for us.  I enjoyed a quite passable plate of eggs, hash browns, and biscuits & gravy, and Donette had a big southwest omelette that she said was delish.  I expect we’ll be back to try a few more menu items in the near future.  After that it was a typical Sunday on the couch watching my fantasy football team once again spiral downward into a painful defeat.

On a somewhat random note, one of my home pc’s crashed and burned over the weekend, and it’s the one I use to store all my pictures off my phone.  Bummer.  Waiting for some parts to come in, but in the meantime I don’t have my super-duper photo app to easily get my pictures.  I managed to pull off a few to share though.