I was just gonna take a pass on this week, since I didn’t get an update posted yesterday.  But when Braun weighs in on the message board, laziness is no longer an option.  Get it done, and get it done now.  Actually, I had a sneaking suspicion that something spectacularly interesting was going to happen last night so I held off for an extra day.  That way I could share the excitement with all.  Such was not the case however… Darn.

We kicked off the weekend last Friday with Martins and Garcia down at the Brooksider deck.  I guess Todd was there too, but when isn’t he.  Nothing extraordinary to report… General miss-behavior and such.  After we tired of the Brooksider, Martin came over and hung out at the house for awhile, and the girls went over to Ed and Kim’s for who-knows-what.  Apparently they prefer the company of the younger generation.

Saturday was packed full of events, none of which where particularly interesting, but all of which shall be related for the sake of content.  Gabe and I started off the day walking down to Brookside to watch Todd get abused on the tennis court.  Tennis is kind of our sport-of-the-moment, I guess.  We decided that since we belong to a “racquet club” we should actually play some type of racquet sport, so we picked tennis.  We watched them until it got a little too hot for the pup, then I went down to Woodside to play a few games myself.  Actually I didn’t play any “games”… Susan and I just hit for an hour or so.  And to further clarify, there wasn’t really much “hitting,” just a lot of running after errant tennis balls in 95-degree heat.  I am not entirely convinced that I like this game, but I’m approaching it with my typical open-minded attitude.  After nearly passing out from the heat, I took a quick nap and then it was time for the THEATER!!!!  Yee ha.  On the upside, dinner was awesome… brisket, chicken, sausage and beans.  Jack Stack caters the dinners, and every now and then they stray from their forte’.  Never works out too good either; Stick with what you’re good at.  The show was “Singing in the Rain.”  Not too bad, as plays go.  A bit long perhaps… The first half was definitely pushing the limits of my attention span.

Sunday was relatively busy too.  My Mom and the Morelocks met us at Perkins on 75th for a little breakfast to get the day started.  I’ve noticed that whenever I mention Perkins, I generally get a reaction of condolence.  I can’t quite figure that out… I happen to like Perkins.  I picked it actually.  Sure, there are places around my house with a little more “local flair”.  BUT… They don’t give you a side of pancakes.  That’s a deal-breaker for me.  I like pancakes, but I don’t want JUST pancakes.  Nobody fills this requirement but Perkins that I’ve found.  I like just about anything with sausage gravy on it, a few eggs, breakfast meat of any type or all types, AND a few pancakes.  Yes this is an obscene amount of food, but I can handle it.  After that I went down and hung out with Todd for a while at the Brooksider and watched a bit of the baseball game, and then we went to Susan’s for dinner and HBO.  We had Church’s chicken and sides for dinner… It wasn’t exactly a day of healthy eating.  But it was GOOD.

Crap, I feel like we’ve been transported back to Texas.  Actually, it was a lot hotter for a lot longer down there, but this still sucks.  Turns out that poor ol’ Gabe isn’t too heat tolerant either, but he doesn’t seem to know it.  He’ll run himself into the ground, so we have to keep an eye on him.

Not too much went on this weekend.  The entire weekend was irreparably damaged by work.  Oh well, it happens.   Gotta pay the bills.  If I wasn’t working, I was laying on the couch wrapped up in the “Good Times” marathon.  I’m sure everybody else watched that too, huh?  Oh yeah, back-to-back-to-back Good Times episodes, 24 hours a day.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  Andy Griffith Show maybe.

As far as entertainment goes, I went to the ‘Sider for a few hours Friday night.  It was too hot to sit out on the deck though so I didn’t stay long.  Saturday afternoon I went to lunch out in Kansas with Munkirs, if you want to put that in the entertainment category.  Not a whole lot of verbiage during the meal, but the burrito was excellent.  Actually I can recall the entire conversation, which I shall relate for those not fortunate enough to attend:
James:  “Float Trip is pretty late next year.”
Phil:  “Yeah it is.  But the American Royal BBQ is the same weekend as last year.”
James:  “mmmm hmmmm.  Might get some new hiking boots for it this year.”
Phil:  “Yep.”
After that I tried to go to a party over at Susan’s, but didn’t stay long.  I think I had some kind of social panic attack and had to leave after about 10 minutes.  I had to go in to work at midnight anyway, so it probably was for the best.

Sunday was just a blur of “Good Times” episodes in between conference calls.  Never did get the stupid lawn mowed either.  I am trying to just let it go until Wednesday when it is supposed to cool off a bit.  I’m in no condition to be out in this heat.  Did everyone read the article in the paper this weekend about the Pitbull Rescue?  It’s a pretty good article.  Gabe came from the MPR; they’s good peoples.  I also read this joke in the paper this weekend, which I got a guffaw out of… I don’t know why.  One of my favorite jokes is the “Frayed Knot” one, so I guess this falls along those lines.  If I was any good at joke-telling I could take this one to the Brooksider.  But I’m not.

A guy and his pet newt walk into a bar.

The bartender asks, “What’s that thing on your shoulder?”

The guy says, “Oh, well he’s my pet.  His name is Tiny.”

The bartender asks, “Why’d you name him that?”

And the guy replies, “Because he’s my newt!”

BAH HAH HAH HAH HAH!!!!!!  “MY NEWT”.  Whew, that slays me.

Man it is too hot for me out there.  I had to break down and mow the yard yesterday and it like to killed me.  It didn’t help that I waited until 1:30 in the afternoon to do it either.  I’m ready for Fall.

That was a relatively busy weekend.  A rather social one too.  We started off the weekend Friday at Starlight with the Martins.  The show for the week was “Jesus Christ Superstar.”  I will have to rate the production a “high tolerable.”  While I will probably go to my grave without ever saying I actually LIKED a show, I will admit that this was one of the better ones.  It was more entertaining than watching the bats that fly around over the stage, which is unusual.

Saturday was entirely too busy, but entertaining.  We headed up to Smithville and took a cruise on the Martin’s boat for the better part of the afternoon.  The Munkirs came up too…  We’ve now seen them twice in as many weeks!!  Remarkable!  After taking in roughly way too much sun, we headed back to the slums to clean up, and then everybody came down and joined us for dinner at Carmen’s.  The Scotten’s even took a little break from their moving endeavors to voyage north and dine with us.  It was Donna and Kelly’s birthday; we even sang happy birthday and the whole nine yards.  The most notable event of the evening was Munkirs racking up 4 witty comments during dinner.  This quite possibly eclipsed his life-long total, and all in one evening!!  Apparently he has been sitting at home in the dark crafting these zingers during the last 2-3 months that he’s been MIA.  After dinner I had to go to work… BOOOO!!!!

Sunday I spent most of the day at home, putting in some quality time with Gabe.  He obviously wasn’t too pleased at being left alone all day Saturday while we were out playing around, so I had to make it up to him.  A little walking, a little fetch… Doesn’t take much to keep him occupied.  I also ventured into a little electrical repair in the house.  We recently had a new over-the-stove microwave installed, and of course nothing can ever, ever, ever work right the first time.  It would run for about a minute and then power off.  Not blow a fuse…  Just shut down.  After a little experimentation, we found that if you pounded on a certain junction box in the basement, it would come back on.  So, after a few weeks of thinking about it, I finally got around to opening up said box to have a look-see.  It wasn’t pretty;  One of the wire nuts had completely melted down and dripped plastic all over the place, and burned through a few of the wires.  Even to the untrained eye, it appeared quite unsafe.  So, I took everything apart, cleaned it up, and put it back together.  So far, so good…  The microwave runs, and nothing seems to get hot.  There is about a 15 percent chance that my house is on fire right now.

That strikes me as a rather lame update as I review it.  The weekend was much more eventful than indicated in this summary.  Guess you’ll just have to trust me on that.  Tonight is supposed to be a bit cooler…  I vote “Brooksider Deck” for dinner.

That was a nice, relaxing weekend.  That’s short for “I didn’t get anything done that I was supposed to.”  Hey, it happens.  I saw lots of good movies.  Maybe “good” is a stretch.

We started off strong on Friday… Perhaps a little too strong.  Coulda burned ourselves out early for the rest of the weekend.  All Doni’s co-workers came over (and Ed) and we held a little Corn Hole tourney.  (Tip:  Use that link and that link only to find information on the game of “cornhole.”  Do not stray from the recommended site.  That’s all I’m saying on the subject.  Hopefully I still have a job tomorrow after a few guesses at finding the official site went horribly wrong.)  Anyway… This is some kind of Ohio equivalent of “washers” I guess.  Once we convinced Gabe that it wasn’t some new type of “fetch” game we had a good time of it.

Saturday found Doni in poor health.  Run down from work, or the night before, or heat, or diet… Who knows.  At any rate, she pretty much hunkered down all day.  Gabe and I went to his final session at Puppy School, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude.  He really does quite spectacular while he is at class; Unfortunately it doesn’t always carry over to when he’s not in class.  I think the little bugger has associated obeying commands to when he is in that one particular building.  At any rate, we might sign up for another class, but haven’t decided which one yet.  After school, I went to a birthday party for a guy on my Fantasy Football Team for a few hours, then out to Mom’s for dinner.  Both sisters were there with the entire complement of nieces and nephews, so I got to see everybody in one fell swoop.  Plus, we had an awesome dinner; baby back ribs, fresh corn-on-the-cob, ‘tater salad, baked beans… Good stuff man.  In other epicurean news, her neighbor gave me about 3 pounds of garlic that he grew in his garden.  I hauled that home, minced some up, and whipped it up with some basil that’s growing in the back yard.  It made a fine little pesto that we put on some grilled Mahi Mahi Sunday night, but I overdid it on the garlic a bit.  I am suffering, as is everyone else in the general vicinity.

Sunday, aside from the aforementioned Mahi Mahi, about the only event of note was going out to lunch with the previously-feared-missing Mr. and Mrs. Munkirs.  We hit “On The Border” for some noontime grub.  Also of note, we were there about an hour and I don’t think the subject of Float Trip ever came up… Odd.  After that, I thought about fixing the weedeater, thought about fixing the electrical outlet in the kitchen, thought about going to the gym, thought about re-doing the web site, and thought about installing my new anti-virus program.  As an alternative to all these less-than-attractive options, I sat on the couch and watched movies all day.  What can ya’ do.

** Oh yeah, by the way, Ed put up some pictures from our Smithville trip last weekend.

MAN I like 3 day weekends.  I have enough vacation to take off every Monday for the rest of the year… I may just give that strategy some thought.  We spent the entire holiday weekend at Smithville lake, so I see no need for a multi-paragraph update.  Doni took the lead on the planning this year, after the spectacular failure of last year’s event.  (The details of which can be perused in the archive files from exactly one year ago.  Suffice to say that we ruled out tent-camping early on in the planning.)  The first major upgrade was to leave the tent at home and upgrade the living accommodations.  Doni’s folks lent us their mojo-motorhome to cover this area.  Doni drove it up there (??!!) last Tuesday to insure a premium spot.  Ed, Kim and I drove up there Friday afternoon to a fully setup camp, complete with a/c, shower, ‘fridge and freezer… Pretty much all the comforts of home.  Saturday we rented a pontoon boat for half a day, so we could take Gabe out on the water and see how he liked it.  He didn’t mind the boat, but wasn’t too keen on jumping in the water.  That was OK, because I wasn’t entirely sure how I was gonna get him back out if he did jump in.  Sunday was the same drill, except we left the pup back at camp and floated around on the Martin/Schmidt vessel all day.  Good times man.  We did have an incident with a particularly ferocious perch; this evil little creature bit four people, with Ed getting the worst of it.  Sunday night was rained out, which kinda stunk.  We got back to the camp site all cranked up and ready to go, and it rained non-stop the entire evening.  Oh well, made us appreciate the motorhome all the more.  Monday we broke camp and headed out.  Doni and I drove all the way home, then decided “hey it’s kinda fun up there…” so we turned around and went back.  What the heck, the site is paid for through Wednesday.  So, we hung out with the dog another day and watched the fireworks.  Just pulled back into town this morning, hence the lack of update yesterday.  My major failing for the weekend was in the photo arena…  Just didn’t get around to snapping any pics.  And I don’t take my camera on the boat… That’s just a bad idea.  I got a picture of the dog and some shrimp fajitas in my fancy tinfoil grill-wok, and that’s it.