The better part of that weekend was wasted, er, enjoyed up at Kearney participating in the Jesse James Festival BBQ.  I took Friday off and met up with Martin that afternoon, and we motored on up to the fair grounds to set up.  We spent the rest of the day, night, and on into Saturday trying to keep warm, dry, and awake, none of them very successfully.  Ah, we had an OK time of it I suppose.  Other than the freezing cold, the intermittent rainstorms, the company, and the contest results it was a super time.  I mean come on, what’s not to like there.  One of the very few good decisions I made over the course of the weekend was to get the heck out as early as possible on Saturday and skip the farce of an awards ceremony;  At least I was spared that indignity this year.

Sunday I was still a bit out of sorts from the lack of sleep and poor weather.  I finally got up and around and we headed out to the opening of the Kauffman Center around noon.  We got no further than QuikTrip and I got a call from work.  By the time I finished that call a few hours later Donette didn’t feel like going out again, so we just shut down for the rest of the day.  I chopped up my leftover brisket and threw it in a pot with some tomatoes, beans, onions and who-knows-what-else.  Chili weather is here.

In a monumental achievement, we actually installed our new sink last night.  Even more monumental, under prolonged stress-testing it does not appear to leak anywhere.  The key difference appeared to be, as the saying goes, “using the right tool for the job.”  The right tool in this case proved to be a pair of pliers.  As I plotted my next strategy yesterday, I remembered there were very few home or auto repairs that my Granddad couldn’t accomplish with a pair of medium sized slip-joint pliers.  He packed those things around like Dirty Harry packed a .44 Magnum.  In Garden City, legend has it he once rebuilt an entire engine in a ’32 Ford using nothing but his pliers and can of WD-40.  With a quick rummage through my toolbox I actually found that very pair of pliers.  (For whatever reason, every tool ever owned by a Kenagy has their initials engraved on it;  Makes it easy to identify I guess.)  They must still hold a few magical powers, even in my hands.  Everything went right together and worked in under an hour or so.  OK, I guess the sprayer doesn’t work.  But, like I said, the sink was given to us;  Beggars can’t be choosers.

Honestly, that was a pretty solid weekend.  Ups and downs, as always.  We started off strong Friday night at the Brooksider.  I stopped by Diebel’s on the way and grabbed a few top-shelf cigars, and made it there shortly after four.  Our friends David and Jill were passing through town again, so they joined us for a little revelry.  A fine evening on the patio was somewhat marred by the deluge of rain, but we were able to hang out under the small covered portion for several hours.  After a while we were getting hungry, so we headed down to the Thai Place in Westport for dinner.  I was expecting a wait, but I guess we were well past the dinner hour and we didn’t have any trouble getting a table.  I hadn’t been there in years, but we had a Groupon expiring so we figured what better time to use it up.  It was as good as I remember;  Probably the best meal I’ve had in a long time as a matter of fact.  We ordered three entrees and a few appetizers and just shared it all, which was plenty of food to go around.  I found myself wondering, as good as it all was, if it might have been even better had I not smoked two cigars earlier.  Hmmm.

Saturday, Donette got up early in the morning and headed up to the northlands for a training event, for her upcoming 1/2-marathon this winter.  While she was out bettering herself, I rode my motorcycle to Blue Springs to gorge myself on BBQ.  I was signed up to judge at the Blue Springs Blazeoff competition, which I’d done for the last several years.  Donette usually joins me, but this year she had her training going on, and besides that she was still holding something of a grudge from last year’s not-so-pleasant experience.  Well, it’s hard to say if all the tables had good luck this year, but we certainly got some solid entries at our table.  With the exception of some mediocre brisket, every thing we tried was excellent, to include the “Kid’s Que” we tried.  (Matter of fact, we all agreed one of the steaks the kids turned in was better than several local “steakhouse” offerings we’d had lately.)  Mostly I judge this contest to get opinions and advice from other judges, and I was at a great table for that this year too.  Four of the five other judges at my table also cooked on competition teams, which I’ve found sort of rare.  One of the more interesting things they said was that they all refused to either judge or compete at Kearney, as they consider it a sham contest because of the less-than-50% certified judge participation.  (In comparison, only 9 of the 84 judges at Blue Springs weren’t certified.)  This information won’t keep me from competing up there this year, but it will give me another valuable excuse when we do crummy again.

After the BBQ I enjoyed a nice ride home, then we set about a little home project.  At least we tried to, ultimately ending in another epic failure.  A friend of ours had given us an old kitchen sink they had torn out of a rental property, and while it did have a few scratches it was significantly nicer than ours, so we decided to set about installing it.  We hadn’t even begun the tear-out stage when my first odd injury occurred.  I was walking barefoot to the garage when that freakishly strong rainstorm hit, so I decided to sprint, or as close as I’ve come to sprinting in the last 20 years anyways.  I immediately pulled up when I felt something strain in that tendon behind your ankle.  Ouch.  It was pretty painful, so I just had to limp through the thunderstorm and get the tools.  Back safely in the house, I headed up the stairs to get something-or-another from the bedroom.  I was heavily favoring my left ankle, and bam, my right knee gave out on me.  It wasn’t a strained kind of feeling like the other one, it was a flashes of light, speaking in tongues, knock you off your feet kind of pain.  It put me on my butt for several minutes.  Good grief, I wasn’t aware I had to do ten minutes of stretching before crossing the house these days.  After a while I was able to mimic some form of normal locomotion, and we set about our sink project.  Despite several YouTube videos and a couple of trips to the hardware store both Saturday and Sunday, we still don’t have a kitchen sink.  At one point we actually did have it setting in the counter with water coming out the faucet;  Unfortunately water was coming out everywhere else too so we just tore it all back out.  Sigh.  I guess we could wash dishes in the bathtub, but it’s on the second floor and I can’t get up the stairs.

We didn’t work on the sink the entire weekend though;  We mixed in a nice dinner at 75th Street on Saturday, the abysmal sort-of-almost-football game on Sunday, and our friend Susan joined us for dinner at Jalapenos last night.  I guess we are relegated to eating out every meal for the immediate future;  Could be worse.

So if I’ve put off my “weekend update” until after hours on a Tuesday, does it really bear typing in?  Whew, what a day.  I would love to ramble off a lengthy complaint about it, but then that would be the “Tuesday update” and I still wouldn’t have the weekend covered.  Rats.

Said weekend kicked off slightly out of the ordinary.  Instead of sauntering down the Brooksider to sit on the patio, I picked up Munkirs over at his house and we drove south to beautiful Pittsburg, KS.  We had an early-morning bicycle ride scheduled there on Saturday, so we got the drive knocked out and stayed at a hotel.  Nice little town.  We dropped our bags at the hotel, then hit all the clubs and checked out the local college scene.  We got back to the hotel just in time to grab a few hours sleep before the ride.  (Or we might have watched a little ESPN and gone to bed at 9:30.)

Saturday morning we got up and headed out to our ride, the Gorilla Century.  This was pretty much the culmination of all the summer’s riding, at least for me.  Our goal was to ride the full 100 mile route, preferably under our own power.  There are lots of century rides available throughout the summer, but we had chosen this one based on the date, the cheap entry fee, and the irresistible allure of seeing the Big Brutus coal shovel along the route.  Indeed, it did not disappoint;  That is one big shovel.  Unfortunately it was a mere 30 miles into the ride, leaving the remaining 70 miles feeling a bit anti-climactic.  Overall ride impression?  Well, given a two-day recovery time, I will say it was a good ride and I’m glad we did it.  Shortly after finishing I was ready to sell my new bike on craigslist.  Whew, it was a warm ‘un.  We sort of saw trouble in our future when it was 83 degrees at start time.  We had a relatively good ride though despite the heat, up until the 75 mile mark.  We pulled into a rest stop there, averaging a very respectable 17.4 mph.  By this time the temp had gone over 100, and the discomfort was evident in the very few riders hanging out there.  We filled up with water and took off, and both of us sort of broke down shortly there-after.  Cramps, nausea, profuse sweating…  The entire remaining 25 miles effectively consisted of pulling over under shade trees every few miles and praying for a little relief from the leg cramps.  Geez we paid money for this?  But, to our credit, we both finished the whole ride, so we can claim mission accomplished.  They said they had to haul more people back in trucks than ever before, which I would certainly believe.  We may have suffered severe dehydration and possible organ damage, but we did get some really sweet tee-shirts out of the deal.  And, I have to point out that I beat Munkirs to the finish line for the first time in any organized ride we’ve been on, fully justifying the purchase of my new bike and proving that you can’t beat the technology advantage of carbon fiber.

After the ride we limped back to KC, and after dropping Munkirs off I headed home to meet up with the Aushermans, who were in town visiting from DC.  I gotta say, while it is always good to see them, I wasn’t up to the occasion.  I did my best, but I called no joy after dinner and they had to take me home.  I was out of gas, even a 75th Street pizza couldn’t bring me around.  They pushed me out of the car in the front yard, where I think they found my inert body still laying when they returned from a wild night of partying.  Sounded like they had a good time carousing in Waldo;  Guess I’ll have to take their word for it.

Sunday and Monday I was still a bit out of sorts.  I took Teagan to the park for a few hours Sunday morning, then headed to the Brooksider to watch the baseball game.  Martin joined me down there and we hung out for a few hours, enjoying the awesome weather.  (Why couldn’t it have been that nice just one day earlier?  Just ONE DAY??!!  I’m not bitter though.)  After the game we sat on my back porch for a while and tore up a large Waldo pizza;  It was just too nice to be inside.  The girls were at the Maroon 5 and Train concert at Starlight meanwhile.  Not my favorite groups but given the 70 degree temperature it certainly didn’t sound like a bad option.  Then for the holiday on Monday, well, I just didn’t do anything.  Non-event.  Even if I did do something incredibly fun I wouldn’t tell you, because I’m tired of typing.

I am rather loath to type this up today, but I guess I am somewhat obligated.  Plus, it wasn’t all that bad a weekend, so I should recap it in some fashion.  Friday was typically non-eventful;  I went to the Brooksider for a few hours.  I suppose you could call that something of a “rut,” but I like it.  Nice evening too.  Hung out and caught up on the local gossip;  It’s amazing how much fascinating news you miss out on only going there once a week.  Makes for more subject matter.  Once the subject matter had run thin though, I bailed out and spent the rest of the evening on the couch, alternating between the Chief’s miserable loss and the Royal’s miserable loss.  The Royal’s game was definitely the more watchable of the too, for what that’s worth.  Meanwhile, Donette was at the stadium watching the football game with her sister, which she said was fun.  I haven’t even seen the remodeled stadium yet, I guess I need to get out there too.

Saturday, for reasons I’m not entirely clear on or particularly interested in asking about, I hosted a Fantasy Football draft for Martin’s league.  They were going to grab some tables at the Brooksider, but decided it was going to be too crowded.  I’m not actually in their league, but I guess since I have the house closest to the place they were going, it made sense to somebody.  Hey, whatever, it was fun.  I got to see everybody in one place, without ever having to leave my own yard.  We even Skype’d in Schmidt from Australia, which worked out quite nicely.  Donette opted out of the event though, and headed for a girl’s-night-out with a few friends.

Sunday Munkirs came over and picked me up bright and early at 6:00 for a bike ride out at Longview Lake.  I chose this event to break the news to him that I’d picked up a new bike, which I’d somehow managed to keep secret over the last three weeks I’d been working on the deal.  He was appropriately angered, further justifying my purchase.  Matter of fact, he even referred to me with the exact same derogatory phrase Martin had when I showed him the night before.  This made the ride a success before we even started in my mind.  We went on this ride last year too, and it was an unmitigated disaster.  This year was smooth sailing though, I’m sure due to my new bicycle.  The fact that we only rode half as far might have played into things also, but I’m going with the new bike.  By the time I got home, Donette was at her first official training session for the 1/2-marathon she is planning on running this winter.  (The event is in Las Vegas;  Should be nice and warm.)  She said it went well;  She ran two miles, got some new running gear, and met some new people.  Since we had both done our exercise for the day, we decided we’d earned a dinner out.  We mulled over several fancy options, eventually deciding on the same ol’ 75th Street.  Boring choice perhaps, but tasty as always.

Pic of the new bicycle; The name has been removed from the down-tube to hide my shame at getting such an extravagance.