I don’t have a whole lot to go on from that weekend.  Donette is out of town so I hid in the house and babysat the dogs and watched movies.  Friday I didn’t even do that much, I just played on my computer all night.  I was engrossed in my latest project, Puppy Linux.  After some finagling, I was able to successfully boot Puppy from a thumb drive.  The whole operating system lives on the flash drive, along with any new programs, files, etc. that you might modify while you’re running on it.  So, you can move the thumb drive between computers and have your same exact environment where ever you are, with no modifications at all to the PC you booted from.  This opens up some rather interesting options, none of which I will go into.  As the saying goes, I could tell you but I’d have to kill you.  I also put together the pictures from last weeks Float Trip; thanks to Zim and Martin for supplying me with some more material.

Saturday for some reason I can’t really explain, I became engrossed in Ebay.  I was on an absolute mission to buy something, with no real concern as to what it was.  I can see how people get sucked into bidding on that junk, I was getting quite perturbed because I kept getting outbid on everything.  At the same time I was rather amazed at the prices people will pay for stuff.  Apparently they don’t do a lot of comparison shopping;  most things can be had brand new for not much more money.  For afternoon entertainment I met up with Martin, Todd, Bob and Joe down at the Brooksider.  Not much to relate from that outing, just general tomfoolery and lots of barbecue talk.

Sunday I woke to find that I’d been outbid on every single one of my Ebay items.  For the prices people paid for everything, they were welcome to them too.  Finally, more out of frustration than anything, I bid on a used tail light housing for my motorcycle.  That’s a rather “unique” item, I figured there wouldn’t be much of a demand for something like that.  Sure enough, I was the lone bidder, so I’m the proud owner of an extra piece of plastic for my motorcycle.  It was actually something that I was wanting though;  I want to do the “rear fender trim” using the directions on this page, and I’d rather have an extra in case something goes horribly wrong.  We’ll see if it actually shows up at my doorstep.  For dinner I went over to John and Susan’s new house, where we had pasta and watched the Sopranos.  I feel another lame season coming on…  It’s pretty tedious viewing.  Dinner was good though!

We have returned safe and sound from yet another annual Easter Float Trip.  At least I would say we are no less sound than when we left.  We headed out Wednesday night and made the five-hour journey to Dora, MO, where Zim graciously housed us in his camper for the evening so we wouldn’t have to struggle with our tent in the dark.

Thursday we awoke to find possibly the best weather of the weekend;  Sunny and 40-ish.  We took advantage of this balmy climate and made the relatively short float from camp down to Dawt Mill.  I think this is becoming everyone’s favorite float anyway;  It is shorter than the other options, has some of the best scenery, (including the world famous monkey-deck,) and is generally devoid of river hazards…  With the exception of one rogue boulder that nearly de-canoed me.  I imagine we made for a rather interesting picture floating down the river in coats, pants and boots, but you gotta do what you gotta do.  It was no fashion show.  It’s a good thing we didn’t dump, we surely would have either frozen or sunk from all the clothes we were wearing.  Luckily it was a nice dry float though, and we returned to camp five hours later to a delicious dinner of fried chicken, mashed ‘taters and slaw.

Friday morning, after much spirited debate, the general consensus was “no float.”  It took roughly 2.7 seconds to talk me out of it, but there were a few die-hards who at least professed to wanting some river time.  When all was said and done though, only Zim and Chad actually loaded up a canoe and launched.  The rest of the group stayed back at camp and huddled around the fire, passing the time with several thousand rounds of cornhole.  I might take just a moment here to interject that at the end of the day I was the UNDEFEATED CORNHOLE CHAMPION OF THE WORLD!!!  Or of Dora at least.  Actually there is an asterisk by my title though, as I did not win the championship round against Eisenbarger by two points.  I’d given my all at that point and simply didn’t have another throw left in me;  I was mentally and physically exhausted.  Beside that, it’s probably the only thing I’ve ever won in my life, save the speed-typing contest in Angel Fire;  Let me have my moment of glory.

Friday night proved to be the coldest of the trip.  While I haven’t been able to research it fully, most in the group generally agreed it was, overall, the coldest trip ever.  Granted, you’re taking something of a chance with the weather when you go camping every Easter, but we’ve had glorious weather for the last several years running so we’re a bit spoiled.  This year, however, the official low in Dora (the closest town) was 21 degrees.  I’d say it qualified as “bitter cold,” and I heard several other descriptive adjectives attached throughout the evening too.  There was an extremely short-lived conversation about sticking it out until Sunday, but that idea didn’t get a lot of support.  We were low on supplies, frozen, bored, and the firewood was gone.  BAIL!!!  We pulled into KC later in the afternoon and had a short victory celebration at the Brooksider.  (Outside on the deck in the freezing wind, naturally.)  When all was said and done though, still a good trip.  Hey, at least we didn’t have to make many trips for ice.  Always the optimist.

Sunday, after a refreshing 14 hours of sleep, (seriously,) we had Easter dinner at our house.  Somehow or another we managed to squeeze a dozen people in the dining room, and had a nice little feast of brisket and ham along with several sides and desserts.  Good stuff!!  After dinner Todd came over and watched the Sopranos, and that was a weekend.  Only 345 days until the next Float Trip, start counting them down.

That was certainly a lame weekend.  Just never really got out of the gate.  The big canoe trip is next weekend though, so I probably needed the rest anyway.  I see a cold front is moving in just in time to make the trip “challenging.”

I just really didn’t so anything.  Donette was with Mom in Nebraska visiting my sister and family, so I just kind of sat around.  Watched a plethora of horror movies, ate junk food, that kind of stuff.  Excited yet?  Maybe I’ll add some content later after my weekday motivation kicks in.

Oh, I guess I could mention that I smoked my inaugural ’07 brisket yesterday.  I didn’t try any of it though so who knows how it came out.  I had intended to eschew the foil technique entirely, but ended up panicking and wrapping it up for a few hours.  And, as usual, regretted it.  Oh well, the season is early.

OK enough with the rain already…  I assume I brought this scourge on the city by deciding to ride a scooter to work.  At the current rate of precipitation I’ll get to ride to work like 4 days this year.

Whew that made two busy weekends in a row, save Friday. All we did Friday was stop by the Brooksider to say a quick “happy weekend” to everybody and then went home and shut down.  I went oncall so I had to spend an evening hunkered down in the dark sulking; it helps me get adjusted to the odd hours.

Saturday we got up relatively early and took the dogs on a nice long walk.  They like the exercise and I doubt it hurts us any either.  After that I took my bicycle up to a shop in Waldo to get it worked on, in preparation for my good intentions of riding again this summer.  This marked the first time, literally, that the bike has been off the garage wall since the ill-fated Katy Trail ride of ’05.  It still has like 2 lbs. of gravel dust caked on it as evidence of this, which might have something to do with why it doesn’t quite shift right.  I’m supposed to pick it back up today, hopefully they got it all working again.  For afternoon entertainment, we put our helmets on and went for a little ride.  We were a little nervous about the weather, but after keeping an eye on things for a while we decided it was going to stay dry so we rode all the way out to Mom’s house, by way of Y highway.  We visited a while and had a tasty lunch, and then rode back a slightly different route.  I’m for the weekend rides; it was a good time.  Relaxing even.  Kind of looking forward to the end of the 20 mph wind season though.  Donette went home after that, and I rode over to Brice’s house and had a few of the ribs they were smoking up.  BBQ season is officially OPEN!   We didn’t do much that night, sat around at home and watched the Jayhawks get thrashed.  I was a bit sad to see them lose, but that was easily compensated for by the knowledge that their “fans” or whatever they call themselves will be blissfully absent from the area until next year.

Sunday we started out the same way, with a good long dog walk.  According to Caesar Milan this is the surefire route to happy, healthy dogs, so we need a lot of walking.  Then we put the kids down for a nap and took the scooter up to the recently relocated Jake Edwards BBQ.  It earned a “mediocre” rating I would say.  Not too bad but I doubt we go back any time soon.  We had the burnt ends and sausage;  The burnt ends were decent but not smoky enough for me, and neither of us liked the sausage at all.  The sauce was good, the beans livable, and the fries passable.  However, when you factor in that everything was a buck or two overpriced, it knocked the rating down even further.  After that we took our full bellies home and went on a bit of an outdoor spring cleaning binge.  I got the blower fired up and blew all the crap off the back patio, we drug out the chairs and associated patio furniture, and washed the motorcycle and scooter as a bonus.  Then, inspired by the ribs at Brice’s house the day before, I fired up the smoker.  Todd and the Martin’s came over and we threw some chicken breasts and wings on, since that was all we really had time to cook.  We drug the TV out on the patio and watched North Carolina get beat while the chicken cooked.  The wings came out pretty darn good;  Martin may have given new life to the quest for the perfect smoked chicken wings.  The breasts were just OK…  I wonder if the sauce I slathered them in blocked the smoke or something.  Oh well, we were just enjoying the weather more than anything, I don’t think anybody was even hungry.

As a side note, I realize that the “weekly poll” excludes like 50% of the site’s dozen or so readers.  It was a request though, what can I do.

Wow I don’t feel too whippy.  I think I might be getting the crud that has been going around the office.  Perhaps I better stay home and sleep until Float Trip.

Well that was a relatively quiet weekend, at least compared to last week.  We started off Friday at the Brooksider on the deck, watching a little basketball.  None of the games were particularly exciting though, so we left early and went to dinner at Minskys with John & Susan.  I can’t recall that I’ve ever been to Minsky’s;  Maybe as a kid or something.  It wasn’t bad though…  Maybe we’ll even go back some day.  Anyway, we turned in early.  Nothing like a big plate of pasta to finish a day.

Saturday we sort of hid in the house.  I worked on my webserver most of the morning;  I’m sure everyone will breathe a big sigh of relief to know I am back on my usual server, complete with the latest greatest updates and patches.  I was supposed to go on a group scooter ride at noon, but didn’t make it.  There were several reasons I didn’t go, not the least of which was that the scooter was in the shop.  I could’ve gone and picked it up in time to go, but the weather wasn’t really all that nice, and I didn’t think it a very solid idea to go riding on St. Patrick’s day in the first place.  Probably get splattered by a drunk leprechaun or something.  We watched basketball at home the rest of the afternoon, and then the Martins came over for dinner.  I boiled up a pot of corned beef and cabbage, which I am quite fond of.  Now before you go griping on corned beef not being an authentic Irish meal, let me quickly point out that I don’t really care.  I like corned beef, it’s on sale for St. Patrick’s, hence that’s what I have for dinner on said holiday.  After dinner we traded in the usual card game for a round of dominoes.  I thought the game quite stupid, and I hope we never ever play it again.  Cards are much more entertaining.  Obviously I lost by like 200 points.

Sunday was similarly quiet.  It was a little nicer out, so I took a short motorcycle ride around town, and then we took the dogs on a nice long walk around the neighborhood.  After that I went down to the Brooksider to watch the KU game, and that was pretty much it for the weekend.  Donette fixed a tasty pot of red beans and rice for dinner, and we sat around and watched TV the rest of the evening.

In closing, I must say I was a bit disappointed in the results of last week’s poll.  The vast majority of those responding did not go to any parade at all last weekend?  Geez, what kind of fun-haters are reading this thing anyway?  I suppose I know the answer to that.