I survived my four day weekend with “the boys.”  Unfortunately I came back to a severely impaired webserver…  It is definitely limping.  So, I’m doing the best I can with what I have.

Thursday afternoon Martin & I flew out to Louisville, KY to attend the ’09 Bourbon Festival in Bardstown.  We met up with Todd & his brother-in-law Eric at the Louisville airport, rented a vehicle, and proceeded on to Bardstown.  We pulled in to our Bed & Breakfast pretty late, and after a rather, ummm, “extensive” tour of the house we headed out to check out the surroundings.  We stumbled across a rather inviting place that met our somewhat low-brow requirements, and ended up staying rather late;  Which is to say when the lights came on and they told us to leave.

Friday we awoke bright & early (early at least) to start the weekend festivities.  After a delicious breakfast (highlighted by listening to the proprietress scream up the stairs at Chris to get up, which became a morning ritual by the time we left) we piled in the car and took a rather circuitous route to the Four Roses Distillery for the “Let’s Talk Bourbon” seminar.  (We found the navigation equipment somewhat dicey in Kentucky.)  Oddly this was possibly one of my favorite, and cheapest, events of the the festival.  Don’t get that combo very often.  It was an outdoor event on a fine day, an informative and festive event, pretty much all around fun.  We stayed quite a bit past the posted end of the party, until we noticed we were sorta the only people there, so we slunk back to the car and drove off.  Next was the Woodford Reserve distillery.  That was kinda a non-event, I’d say we were a little disappointed in that one.  “Done, check, move on.”  We headed back to Bardstown & took a quick nap, then headed out to the big “Cigar & Jazz Festival.”  Hopefully you can pretty well put together the content of that evening from the title…  Yeah we kinda sat around and, er, smoked cigars and listened to jazz.  There ‘ya go.

Saturday, after another fine breakfast, we took another long drive out to Maker’s Mark for a tour.  The tour was sort of marginal, but there really wasn’t anything better to do.  I’m a fan of the brand so it was interesting to hear all the history and such.  Plus we got free ice cream;  Can’t go wrong there.  After that we went on a failed quest to find President Lincoln’s birthplace, then ate some lunch, then it was time for the coup de grâce of the weekend, (according to Todd,) the “Bourbon Tasting & Gala.”  This was a black tie event (strike one) held in a large indoor area (strike two) with 1,200 other people.  (Yep that’s three.)  Ahhh, it was fun.  I guess it was like every other Gala I’ve been too, for that matter.  I thought the dinner was very good, and I got a lot of cool swag too.  The fact that I was sweating to death in a stupid tuxedo while enjoying these things was certainly unfortunate, but couldn’t be helped.  Probably the worst part was that they had the same stinkin’ band from the party we went to the night before, so we had to listen to the same set.  It was good the first night, entertaining even;  Two nights in a row?  Not so much.

Sunday was spent travelling back home.  As mentioned, I got home to a gimpy webserver, so I spent the rest of the day alternating football games & geeking on the pc.  About 8:30 the impact of spending three days partying hit me full on, and I wiped out on the couch.  DONE.  Yes, yes I do have some pictures.  In fact, I took a brand new camera just for the event, and I must say I was a little disappointed in the performance of it.  Some of the pics I was most looking forward to just didn’t come out.  (Like the four of us standing in the back yard of the B&B in our formals while the lady snapped pics like we were heading to our senior prom;  All of them are blurry.)  So, I’ll pick through what there is and see what can be done.

Let me preface this entry by pointing out that I am quite disinterested in typing this.  I would expect that to be reflected in the resulting post.  So there.  I am fortunate enough to have the day off, and I’m sure I could be doing something better, although I’m not exactly sure just what.

We had way too many things on our “list” for the weekend.  So many, in fact, that we sort of shifted into panic gear and didn’t actually accomplish too many of them.  It happens.  Friday, for instance, we were supposed to go on an “outing” but it turned out we just didn’t have it in us, so we sat down at the Brooksider and enjoyed one of the rare rain-free days.  We didn’t stay too long, and might still have gone out later, but in a rather unfortunate turn of events Gabe hurt his foot at doggie day-care so we had to stay home and tend to that.  He somehow managed to crack one of his nails, and it was bleeding all over the place.  This particular injury does not go well with light-colored carpeting.  We might have to just tear up the carpet on the stairs;  Haven’t decided yet.  Unfortunately we just had it put in not too long ago, but what can ya’ do.  Right now it looks like somebody slaughtered a goat in the living room and dragged the carcass up the stairs.  OK that’s a rather graphic image, but also quite accurate…

Saturday was kind of a blur…  I don’t really know what happened.  Things started off with a rather unexpected bit of exercise, when one of our neighbors called and said they had an aerator rented, and wanted to know if I wanted in on the fun.  Well, matter of fact that was on my list of fall chores, so I had to hurry up and mow and mark all the sprinkler heads, then tried to push the aerator around for 30 min or so.  Those stupid things are like torture machines, especially on teeny yards like ours where you have to turn around every ten feet.  After that nightmare, we went out and picked the scooter up from the shop sometime around noon, and had lunch at Maloney’s while we were in the neighborhood.  We had evening plans once again, and once again we bailed on them.  I just don’t like leaving the ‘hood it seems, and I think I might be getting worse.  The Plaza is about as far as I really care to go.  So, I ended up just going down to the good ol’ Brooksider and watching the Missouri game.  It was crowded and loud, but I guess it was an “event.”

Sunday went by rather quickly too.  Some time ago we had donated a brisket dinner to an auction, and the people who bought it were cashing it in.  We were lounging around the house, watching football and such, and all of a sudden we were running late.  The house turned into a flurry of activity for a few hours, and we ended up only being about 15 minutes late on our delivery.  When we got back home, the neighbors had all gathered across the street in a driveway, for some kind of quaint little “neighborhood happy hour.”  As this met my somewhat restrictive geographic requirements for entertainment, we joined in the fun.  So, we hung out over there for a few hours, complaining about the new sidewalks, meeting the newest neighbors, talking about the houses that are for sale;  General neighborly chit-chat I guess.  After that, a few hours of football, and the weekend was over.

That weekend was “OK.”  Got a little marred by work, but that happens.  Friday night I was sorta-kinda-almost working so we didn’t really do anything.  Cooked up a nice dinner and then kept half an eye on my PC while watching television.  Bleh.

Saturday was my day-o-fun for the weekend.  We started the day right by going to the gym with Susan for a few hours.  After that we got cleaned up and headed down to the 1rst annual Bacon Festival.  It was a beautiful day out and we’d been thinking about going anyway, so we went ahead and showed up.  I would characterize the event on the whole as “different.”  From the location (West Bottoms,) to the theme, to the entertainment, it was a rather eclectic event.  All in a good way though.  We spent most of the three hours we were there trying out the various bacon-themed dishes on site;  bacon ice-cream (gross as it sounds,) bacon and chocolate cake, pork rinds, shredded pork, and of course the almost-famous bacon explosion.  Not to mention plenty of just plain ol’ bacon.  They also had a bacon-eating constest, which made me a bit queasy just watching, and a local band called Bacon Shoe.  Not quite sure how to describe the band;  A rather bizarre cross between musicians, comedians, and performance artists.  Maybe it was the pork overload, but I found them hilarious, if maybe a bit “edgy” for afternoon entertainment.  I had to wonder if the organizers had listened to them before signing them for the event, or if they just went with them because they had the word “bacon” in their name.  I saw at least one of them walk in, listen for a few minutes, then walk back out with a pained expression on her face.  Look them up if you want an idea of their bizarre-ness;  I would link to their site but it’s a bit, er…  Inappropriate.  After we had our fill of pork product, we headed back to midtown and checked our newest neighborhood spot, “The Well.”  It opened a few weeks ago near Tanners on Wornall, and given their large rooftop deck and the fine weather, we decided it would be a good day to try them out.  Little fancy for us I think, but we’ll drop in now and then I imagine, mostly because the deck is so cool.  After that we headed to John & Susan’s house to round out our day with a fine dinner of grilled steak.  Yum.

Sunday I got up and went out target practicing with my friend Mark.  There was quite a wait at the range, so that kinda stunk, but we had fun when we finally got our turn.  I stopped by the Brooksider on the way home, where Doni’s parents were enjoying some chicken wings, and had a tasty sandwich myself.  After that, well, I logged into work and killed the rest of my evening.  Wanna hear all about that?  Nahhhh.

Now THAT was a nice weekend, weather-wise if nothing else.  It was relatively entertaining also;  I’d say we made the most of it all around.  I even had the good fortune to have Friday off as a bonus.  Score!  It was a long week at work, so we didn’t really do much with Friday afternoon except wind down.  Went to the gym all day…  Which is to say we laid out at the pool all afternoon.  For dinner we traveled south out to Munkirs house.  It wasn’t as far as I remembered;  We took the dog to boarding, gassed up the car, packed some snacks and a change of clothes, and we were there before I knew it.  Last time we went out there we had to spend the night at a hotel somewhere in Overland Park;  This time we drove it straight through.  It was worth the drive though;  Grilled Kebabs and ‘tators, right up our alley.  For after-dinner entertainment we played some kind of card game.  I did a few seconds of research on Google and I can’t find it to provide a descriptive link though.  I think Janene may have made it up on the spot.  It was fun but I didn’t win, so I will never play it again.

Saturday I got up sorta early and got the yard mowed.  There is something horribly wrong with having to mow the lawn once a week in the middle of August.  Very unnatural.  After knocking that out, we had to go out and do a little shopping.  For the first time in my 43 years, I am going to some kind of event that necessitates a jacket.  Having never attended such an event, it stands to reason that I have never owned a “jacket.”  Well, after six or seven hours of arduous shopping, now I do.  I didn’t have much trouble finding something I liked, but it did take a little time to pare down the selections to something, errr, in my price range.  Actually I never did find something in my “price range,” but I settled on one anyway.  It was, quite literally, the cheapest one in the store, and I wasn’t going to drive all over the city trying to save $10 somewhere else.  And I do rather fancy it…  Just had a little sticker shock going on.  I had it in my head that a jacket should be, well, 1/2 the price of a suit.  Reasonable assumption, since it is 1/2 a suit.  Not so much;  They are roughly the same price.  Scam!!!  Oh well, now I have one.  Somewhat traumatized by this experience, we headed down to the Brooksider to enjoy the weather out on the deck.  Hung out down there a while, went home and grilled some burgers for dinner, and called it a day.

Sunday Donette got up and went to the gym with Susan, and I spent my day on a long motorcycle ride.  I met up with my friend Troy and a friend of his around 10:00, and we headed up to Weston to kick around a bit.  Did a little antiquing, poked around some craft shops, and had a tasty lunch at O’Malley’s.  (We really did have lunch at O’Malley’s.)  After Weston, we headed… ummmm, out of town, and, errr, went a different direction, and ended up at Lake Perry in Kansas.  OK, I am a bit directionally challenged.  I was good with Weston, but got a little turned around after that.  No matter, Troy was in charge of directions, I just enjoyed the ride.  We went through all kinds of little towns, checked out a few Civil War “historical markers” and pretty much took advantage of the fine, fine weather.  I put just over 200 miles on my bike over the day;  Good times.  Donette, meanwhile, was up in Liberty visiting with long-lost Todd, who was in town for his parents 50th wedding anniversary.  I likely would have re-scheduled my ride and gone up there also, but apparently he had forgotten to mention he was in town.  Sigh.

Just kidding, there is no good news.  It’s all as dark and gloomy as the perpetual rainstorms in KC.  Wow what a weekend.  It was my turn at oncall, and wasn’t a good one.  I essentially sat in front of my PC from Friday night until around 5:00 Sunday afternoon.  OK, there’s a LITTLE good news;  I think I actually got a little color from the rays coming off my 24″ monitor.  Little late in the summer for a tan but better late than never.

We did leave the house for a short bit Sunday night, to get some dinner.  We went to the new Los Cabos restaurant out at the Legends, and it was worth the drive.  (When we left the house I didn’t realize it was at the Legends or I probably wouldn’t have gone.)  Solid fish tacos though, and it broke up the monotony of staring at a screen all day;  That was worth the drive in itself.