My latest super-duper web server is up and running.  This mid-week post really serves as nothing more than a test to make sure this part is working OK.  The new server, on the off chance that you are interested, is pretty much the same as the old one;  A Linksys NSLU2 running Unslung, attached to an external 80 gig hard drive.  It is not, however, running all the extra crap like the old one… no streaming music, no time server, and several other little “experiments” that I don’t really use anyway.  It isn’t “overclocked” like my other one either, which seems to make this page load just a bit slower.  For reasons even less entertaining than the rest of this post, I don’t want to do that part just yet.

Wow that was a decent weekend.  I never have a weekend that rates “great” anymore, so decent is pretty good.  No running around all over the place, minimal phone calls, intermittent entertainment… just overall relaxing.  I had the day off Friday, which is a solid start to any weekend.  Since the weather was so nice, I took the pups to the Bark Park and let them run themselves silly all afternoon.  It was a work day, so I figured nobody else would be there, and that theory was dead on.  We had the entire place to ourselves.  Later in the evening we headed a bit south to attend yet another in the recent string of 40th birthday parties, for one Carl “Chuck Rotten” Scotten.  It was a well-attended event, and turned into the usual reminisce-a-thon.  Todd was notably absent however; he decided to go to a “tennis mixer” at the gym instead, continuing on his current run of questionable decision making.

Saturday we started the day with a visit from the Dog Guy.  It was sort of a waste of time really.  All I wanted to work on this week was leash-walking, and it was pouring rain out.  We really didn’t work on too much else… she is doing pretty well on her sit/stay stuff, but isn’t quite ready for any more advanced stuff until we can get her to walk a lot better on the leash.  After that was over, we cleaned house for a while.  Donette’s parents have been helping us keep the place clean, but they’ve headed off to Texas for their winter hibernation so we’re on our own for a while.  (Something tells me the odds of finding a cleaning person that doesn’t mind two Pitbulls running around the house is pretty remote, although I guess we haven’t really tried.)  That depressing round of chores took a few hours, and then we started cooking for some odd reason.  Apparently inspired by her recent trip to Albuquerque, Donette was on some kind of mission to make stacked enchiladas.  We decided on a recipe and went at it, boiling up some chicken, roasting chiles, chopping up the “stuff,” and making a few side dishes to go with them.  Oddly, I think my favorite part was baking them on dinner plates in the oven.  Don’t ask me why… I’ve just always liked hot dinner plates.  Weird, I realize.  Anyway, the Martins came over and joined us for the taste test.  They came out OK;  At no point did I close my eyes and feel like I was actually at El Pinto eating though.  Not bad for a first try.  After dinner we threw some 10 point pitch with the Martins, and the evening saw the men return to their standard dominating card form.  I can’t remember the exact numbers but I think the second game was 40 – 0.  Something like that.

Sunday was good ol’ football day.  Not much more to say there.  We also made a second run at the stacked enchiladas, with all the leftovers from the night before.  The Sunday recipe turned out much more favorably than the Saturday one;  Sorry Martins, you got shafted.  It was a pretty solid effort, plus I got to bake on dinner plates again;  Two times in as many days.  Ahhhhh, life in the fast lane.  Not much after that.  It was too muddy to take the dogs anywhere, so we curled up and watched the games, baseball and all.  While nothing is ever certain, I think my Fantasy Football team is even going to win this week… Will miracles never cease.

Yes my update is 1.5 days late.  I started on one last night, and quickly came to the startling realization that nothing exciting had happened to me.  And, believe it or not, the last 24 hours has not changed that fact.  I was oncall all weekend, and will be for the remainder of this week.  Kind of limited my entertainment options, as well as my mobility range.  Prevailing wisdom is that if you go over 15 minutes from the nearest Internet access, you WILL get paged.  It’s a known fact.

Seriously, I didn’t do anything last weekend.  Basked in the glow of a 14″ LCD laptop screen and kept an eye on things.  Meanwhile, Donette was in Albuquerque with some friends for the hot air balloon festival.  What a scam.  Somebody has to stay home and watch the dogs I guess.  In my sole effort at social interaction for the weekend, Todd came over and visited Sunday night.  He claimed to be worried about my mental health;  Something about the post-traumatic stress of my less-than-favorable performance at the American Royal.  He brought over a few good stogies and we sat on the back porch in the rain and listened to Johnny Cash.  Not exactly a real pick-me-up, but well intentioned I’m sure.

Today I got a new toy, so I can throw that in the mix too.  One of the benefits of a late update, see?  One of my co-workers hooked me up with a 32″ LCD TV, so we finally have a replacement for the 300 lb. boat anchor up in the “office.”  AND it has a “PC monitor” mode, so I ran a 8′ VGA cable across the floor and I am currently typing this in 32″ widescreen mode.  I am so cool I can hardly stand it sometimes.

Well there you go, another year at the Royal has come and gone.  It was a good time, I will grudgingly admit.  However, we must never, ever, ever talk about the food, or consequent judging results, on this site.  Ever.  Never ever.  For that matter, let’s not even talk about the events leading up to or including the contest.  Just drop it.

Unfortunately for my Weekly Update, the Royal consumed my entire weekend, starting  Thursday afternoon and ending Sunday morning.  Since I have banned all conversation relative to said event, that doesn’t leave just a whole lot of material to work with.  I did venture out late Sunday morning to have a little breakfast down at Sharp’s, but I was continually bothered by the uncomfortable feeling that everybody around me was whispering negative things about me under their breath.  So I took half of my biscuits and gravy to go and went home, where I huddled in front of the TV for the rest of the day and watched my Fantasy Football team get crushed.  I think I might be in a bio-rhythm slump or something.  Seems like more of a friggin’ flat line actually.

I am still in something of a post-weekend funk, but just for the sake of throwing in something positive, I’ll mention that the dogs started working with a new trainer this evening.  We signed them up for Bark Busters a few weeks ago, and tonight was our first session.  I thought it went very well, aside from the fact that the guy was here for 3 1/2 hours.  Good for the dogs, but didn’t mesh too well with my documented 20 minute attention span.  I’d say lil’ Belle made some pretty big strides, especially in the leash-walking department.  She’s a pretty good “puller” on the leash; makes things kind of hard with another dog and a bum shoulder.  He slapped a choke chain on her and showed us how to use it, and she’s (almost) golden.  It was practically Dog Whisperer-esque.  And, in an unexpected bonus, he thought Gabe was such a good boy he wouldn’t even take our money for him.  Ding ding.

OK, three days and counting until the BBQ people.  Get ready to bring your “A” game.  Actually, since the addition of the Band, I’m dreading the entire event like a root canal.  No good ever came of a band.  None.  Takes up too much space, too loud, draws in all the riff-raff… just a general party-killer.  Count me as “against” this idea.  But I’m sure they’ll be great… Really…  Come on down…
That weekend was one big blur of BBQ and football.  Friday I took the day off from work to demo our new “secret weapon” for the Royal.  Naturally I can’t provide details, because then it wouldn’t be a secret weapon at all.  I’ll just say it was a premium cut of brisket, provided by Martin’s neighbor Dave.  It got good reviews at dinner;  This could be the year I finally crack the top 50 percentile.  Aim high, I always say.  After dinner, Munkirs (the other half of “Team Brisket”) came over and spent some time prepping nearly 70 lbs. of brisket for the big party.  Martin jumped in and helped out too.  Normally you would not want a rib guy working on your briskets, but the sheer quantity involved kind of made it necessary.  It was a rather daunting pile of beef to tell the truth.

Saturday we took the dogs down to the “Strut With Your Mutt” event in Brookside.  Overall I would categorize this little outing in the “Bad Idea” filings.  Young Belle just isn’t quite ready for prime time yet.  Just a little too exciteable, to put it mildly.  We got lots of free puppy-swag though, so maybe it was worth it.  Maybe.  After that thoroughly frazzling little walk, I headed up north to help out with the smoker.  Martin had gotten up at the crack-o-dawn and put the briskets on, and they were coming along quite nicely.  It was quite a sight really… the smoker was loaded to near capacity I’d say.  Eight briskets, four slabs of ribs, and two chickens.  We should be ahead of the game for our party this Friday after all the prep work we’ve been doing.  The rest of the day was spent poking the fire, turning the meat, and watching college football.  My kind of day.

Sunday goes in the “Rest and Recovery” category.  I broke out my “Food Saver” vacuum sealer that Donette bought me last week, and sealed up some of the briskets.  After that, it was football and intermittent naps.  Not too exciting really, but rather relaxing.  Unfortunately, after Carson Palmer’s rather dismal outing, my Fantasy Football team didn’t fare too well.  High score money is definitely out this week, I’m just hoping to pull out a win from tonight’s game.