Having no valuable content from the 3-day weekend as far as entertainment, I shall instead blather on about the new router I was forced into purchasing.  (Actually, I had a rather fun weekend, filled with quite a few engaging activities.  I elect to cover the new router, all the same.)

So, as I’m sure everyone recalls from my breathtaking post back in November, I picked up a new wireless N router at Microcenter, which for the price (free) has served me rather admirably.  This weekend, though, it at least appeared to give up the ghost.  It refused to hand out any local addresses, and the wireless connection dropped to the point where I couldn’t stream Netflix movies.  (Which, having no cable TV, essentially leaves me with no form of entertainment.  Deal-breaker.)  I spent quite a bit of time Sunday morning trying to fix the problem, with limited to no success.  I finally decided it had served it’s purpose, and headed up to Microcenter for a new one.  On the sage advice of Mr. Munkirs, I ended up going with the Netgear WNDR3700.  After some research, my requirements were gigabit support and simultaneous dual-band wireless support, both of which this model covered.  (I would later learn that none of my wireless adapters support the 5Ghz range, making that feature a rather significant waste of money;  oops.)  The gigabit support is a huge upgrade though, and something I have been planning on getting anyway, so that’s worth the cost.  (So I tell myself.)  Those requirements aside, so far it has performed just famously.  It does have something of a confusing interface for some of the more advanced features, which several online reviewers complained of.  But, unlike the Tenda I was coming from, at least it has the features;  Just took a little cipherin’ to use them.  The wireless performance is rather remarkable, both speed and range.  I had a repeater set up downstairs to get my PS3 and Wii connected, but the new router actually performs better without it.  It has some other fancy features too, like the ability to connect a network drive and share it out.  I have no earthly use for this functionality, but since I paid for it I will most likely get it working in the near future…

I’ll throw out an update while it’s still actually Monday.  Not that I’m even consistent on that anymore but what the heck.

So last weekend we took a lightly-planned drive to Cincinnati to visit with the Paff family.  We’ve been trying to plan a weekend with them someplace for a while now, but it never quite worked out for both our schedules.  As it happened, they were having a Beer Festival in Cincy this past weekend, so we figured that would work as well as anything.  Donette’s parents were nice enough to watch Teagan on short notice, so we packed up the car and headed east.  We made it as far as St. Louis on Thursday night, where we stopped for dinner with Jeff & Victoria and got a good night’s rest.  Friday morning we hopped up early and got back on the road, and got to Ed and Kim’s around four.  That left us just about enough time to change clothes and head out to the first night of the beer fest.  We met up with Ed’s family as soon as we got there and proceeded to make the rounds of the endless selections.  I don’t think I had a single thing I’d tried before during the entire night, and I’d say most were from breweries I’d never even heard of.  The event was rather lightly attended for the enormous venue it was held in, which worked great for us;  Huge selection and no lines for anything.

Saturday morning, Ed got up and headed back downtown to attend the 5B conference downtown.  Believe me, I was more than a bit disappointed that I missed out on this event.  I mean c’mon;  A whole conference dedicated to blogging?  That’s just too nerdy to be true.  Which is to say, right up my alley.   But, alas, I waited too long and they were all full by the time we decided we were making the trip.  Who knows where it may have led had I gotten in.  Actual interesting content on this site?  Doubling my hit-count per week to, say, four-ish?  The sky would have been the limit.  Oh well, there’s always next year.  I DID, however, get to go to the “Connoisseur Reception” with Ed and some friends before the general admission opened up at the Beer Festival Saturday night though, which was pretty sweet.  They had a selection of beers there, paired with some interesting foods, that we walked around and sampled for an hour or so before heading down to the main floor.  It was quite interesting, as the people serving the beers at this event were generally very knowledgeable about what they were pouring.  (In some cases even the Brewer.)   Downstairs it was more of a “Yeah we’re just volunteering, which one would you like.”  Unfortunately this just lasted a short time and then we headed downstairs to find an absolute mob scene at the main festival.  They posted a picture of the madness on the Hoperatives site.  Not quite the scene for this old man;  I didn’t last too long.  Kim came down and rescued us and we headed back to the house for some peace and quiet.  Ed posted some more info on the event at his site, as well as a few of his favorite brews of the weekend.  My favorite?  Well, I’m going to say the Imperial India Pale Ale from Green Flash Brewing.  Not exactly a bold pick but it was just that good.  Close second was the White Rajah IPA from The Brew Kettle, or maybe the Double Stout from Green Flash.  (I really liked the Green Flash selections;  They should broaden their distribution for my benefit.)

Sunday we discussed a few possible entertainment options, but ended up just hanging out with Ed, Kim and Trey all day in Cincy, which suited us just fine.  We were a bit worn out.  We had our obligatory lunch at Skyline, then drove around and checked out some local shopping, including probably the single coolest grocery I’ve ever been to.  Rash statement, but true.  Ed had a hockey game at 6:00 so we all went and watched him play, and that pretty much finished us off for the weekend.  Today we got up and made the rather brutal drive all the way back to KC.  And aren’t we glad to be back;  Lovely snow, just lovely.

I sincerely apologize for the delay in my almost-semi-regular Monday update.  Actually I couldn’t care any less, but it never hurts to appear a bit contrite.  Don’t have much to report on anyway.  Friday night I went to the Brooksider.  It had been a long week, and I was inclined to go unwind a bit.  I must say though, sitting inside at my favorite haunt just doesn’t do it for me though.  It’s loud, crowded, and just generally unpleasant.  I might seek other forms of Friday entertainment while I wait for the next break in the weather.  Or, more likely, I will continue going to the same place but complain about it.

Saturday brought me no entertainment value what so ever.  While there were ample opportunities for revelry, I had a long night of work staring me in the face so I took the low road and just stayed home.  I did sneak out for dinner at Cantina del Ray with Donette and Kelly, which was rather tasty.  After that they went out to watch the big MU basketball game;  I did the same but at home.

Sunday, when I finally woke up at the crack of 11:30, the girls were ready for some brunch.  After a brief discussion, we decided on The Cook Shack at 89th and Wornall.  It’s slightly south of our general circle of patronage, but we decided to get a little crazy and drive the extra mile or two.  It turned out to be worth the trip;  Quite delicious in fact.  The girls didn’t give rave reviews to their cinnamon roll, but everything else was top notch.  If we can handle the commute, it well may be worked into our regular rotation, especially given the recent demise of Sharp’s.  With our bellies pleasantly stuffed, we returned home to wait for the big football game later that evening.  For about as long as I can remember, we’ve gone to our friend Steve’s house out south for the Super Bowl.  Alas, given that I’d already strayed outside my boundaries once that day, I simply was not able to make the drive.  I tried and tried to convince myself that I was obligated out of sheer tradition, but when it came time to load up the car for the trip I opted for the 1.5 mile jaunt over to our friend Susan’s house instead.  And a fine party that was too.  Without the prospect of a crushing 20 minute drive home looming over us, we even stayed for the entire game;  A rarity indeed.

I got my schedule back to some semblance of normalcy this weekend.  Friday night I made my return to the Brooksider, for the first time in three weeks.  Not much had changed though;  Didn’t figure it had.  It was nice enough outside to spend a few hours on the patio with the “regular” crowd, then I went indoors for a while and sat with a handful of the TFB-BBQ members.  (They aren’t cut quite as rough as the average Brookside resident;  Bit too chilly out for them.)  Meanwhile, Donette was out having dinner at Extra Virgin with a bunch of friends.  They were taking advantage of the KC Restaurant Week specials that were going on.  If you didn’t hear about that deal, a ton of local restaurants were offering fixed menu specials, benefiting Harvesters.  Sounds like they all liked the choices too, and I liked the leftovers that made their way home.

Saturday I decided I wanted to get in on some of the Restaurant Week offerings.  So, we met our friend Susan down at Avenues Bistro for some lunch.  This wasn’t my pick, to be clear.  While I had never been there, I maintain a general aversion to any place with the word “Bistro” in the name.  They certainly didn’t do anything to sway my opinion on that stance either.  Our lunch ended up carving two and a half hours out of my day, causing to me to totally miss the Missouri game.  The vast majority of this time was spent sitting in our booth waiting and waiting and waiting for each course to come out.  (It certainly wasn’t spent eating;  It didn’t take too long to put away my main course, which consisted of three pieces of ravioli.)  Under-whelmed, to be sure.  I don’t know if the service is always that slow, or if they were busier than usual;  I seriously doubt I will ever find out either.  We went home for a few hours, and then figured that since our over-priced lunch didn’t actually consist of any food, we’d go get some dinner.  We considered a few of the “fancier” options on the list, but eventually decided on walking over to The Well.  The fixed menu there was a choice of either mahi-mahi or ribs, so Donette went with the ribs and I had the fish.  The portions they brought out were the polar opposite of what we had for lunch.  We were both actually pretty full after our (enormous) salads, then they brought her a 1/2-slab of ribs with a plate of fries, beans and slaw, and me a huge portion of fish sitting on a mound of risotto and squash.  It was all quite good too, although we had to box most of it to save room for dessert.

Sunday Donette headed north with some girls to run in the 10k “Groundhog Run.”  I mulled over the thought of going for a bicycle ride, but opted instead to take the dog over to the nearby high school for some exercise.  And exercise she did;  Whew, she must have had some energy stored up.  We played ball for a solid hour, and I think she’d have gone another 30 minutes if I’d let her.  Poor dog was so tired she was barely running though, so I figured we’d better call it a day.  When we got back home I fired up a pot roast for dinner.  Pretty much the same menu as last week, but I made a few changes.  I used a chuck roast instead of a rump, and cooked it in my dutch oven instead of a slow cooker.  Susan came over and helped us taste-test it;  Honestly I don’t think it was much different than last week’s, although I think I like the chuck cut better.  After dinner the girls popped in some Oscar-nominated movie, which both of them said stunk.  I took the upstairs TV and watched “Super 8,” which garnered an “OK” rating from me.

Another weekend ill-spent.  I think the diet experiment sucked the life out of me.  We just didn’t do much the last few days.  I should say, “I” didn’t do much;  Donette got out of the house a few times.  Friday we had “movie night” again.  Nice quiet night at home with the pets.  I can’t recall what we watched…  Suffice to say they weren’t my picks.  Seems like the second one was mildly amusing.

Saturday morning Donette got up early and went to some run somewhere.  She wasn’t running, but recruiting people for her “Team Challenge” group she’s in.  Sounds like it went pretty well, despite the brutal cold.  Meanwhile, I didn’t do a whole heck of a lot.  Played on the PC, watched basketball,  and spent a few hours on the never-ending project of sorting out our iTunes music.  (Only 5,133 more songs to categorize!!)  Donette got home in the late afternoon, changed clothes and promptly left again to go see a movie with Susan.  I stayed home and continued doing nothing.

Sunday didn’t bring a whole lot more amusement.  Donette headed out to see another movie with Susan.  As the Oscars get closer they always try and see as many of the nominated movies as possible.  Since I couldn’t care less, I don’t get to go with them.  I probably should have gone cycling again, but I decided the streets were too wet.  (Pretty weak excuse when presented with a 50-degree January afternoon, but I really hate getting my bike dirty.)  I did actually leave the house though;  Teagan and I headed out and played ball for a while.  Had quite the round of fetch too.  Poor girl was so tired she couldn’t jump in the car when we were done.  When we got back home I again mulled over a bike ride, but instead got sucked into the football games.  For dinner we went over to Susan’s and had a fine pot roast, marking the official end of the diet.  Oh, it was so good.  The plan we’ve been following recommends a week-long “transition” period to get used to adding more foods back into your diet after two weeks of all fruits and vegetables.  I didn’t read it too closely, but I would guess a plate of beef swimming in a two-inch pool of gravy is not the recommended first post-diet meal.  My poor lil’ tummy is in some bit of distress this morning.