For our weekend entertainment, we took a few days off  and traveled to Cincinnati to visit our friends Ed and Kim, and their young son who I hadn’t seen yet.  Whew, good times, but I”m beat down.  We took off driving that direction Wednesday night after work, and made it as far as St. Louis, where we stayed with Donette’s sister and brother-in-law.  I wasn’t sure I was even going to make it that far, I could hardly keep my eyes open driving.  We finally got there though, and visited for about 5 minutes before I fell asleep.

Thursday we got up and hit the road again.  It was a generally horrible drive the rest of the way to their house, not that there is such a thing as a good drive.  We hit some brutal construction along the way, and spent a fair amount of time at a standstill on I-70.    We trudged through it though, and got there right about dinner time.  We toured their new  house, then took a walk around the corner and ate some grub  at a nice local diner.

Friday Ed had to work, so Kim was  left home  to entertain us.  We slept in a bit, then loaded up the car and headed down for a little  exercise at a nearby state park.  We parked at the Avoca trailhead, which is part of the Little Miami Trail.  It’s rather similar to the Katy Trail in that it is an old converted railway, but it is much longer and asphalt-paved.  Luckily I’d hauled my bicycle with me, and I got in a quick 25-mile ride along the flat smooth path.  Donette and Kim did some jogging with the baby meanwhile, and somehow or another we finished up at the same time.  After that we went out for lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant, then back to the house.  After a bit, Ed showed up from work, with a big bag of assorted sausages from their Whole Foods Market.  He grilled those up for dinner, then some friends of theirs came over and we all sat in the back yard and enjoyed the weather.

Saturday Ed and I got up early-ish and headed out to his parent’s house for the big Pigfest party.  We pitched in a little and helped set up all the various events, such as the wiffle-ball fields, the cornhole tournament, etc.  I spent no small amount of time standing around admiring the new pig roaster they had for this year’s event too.  For many years they’ve done the pig over an open pit, which while certainly functional isn’t necessarily too efficient and involves quite a bit of work.  The rig they borrowed this year was an enclosed cooker, with several well-thought-out features that made the job a little easier.  The crowd started trickling in around noon, and by 3:00 the party was in full force.  I couldn’t even guess how big the crowd got, but to give you some idea they had a 200 lb. pig and there wasn’t much left over.  After dinner MER put on a good show for us all, and then the evening degraded into the traditional revelry.  I posted a few carefully screened photos here.

Sunday brought the inevitable drive home.  We had a little better luck with the construction, and honestly it wasn’t that bad.  We broke things up a bit by stopping by her sister’s again, and also in Columbia to see her niece at MU.  We got back home around 10:00 or so, and promptly crashed out.  Today we both had the day off, so we could get reoriented a little bit before heading back to work.  Donette’s parents were nice enough to take care of the 50-lb. wiggle-bomb while we were gone, so we drove up and got her, and now I think I shall take a nap…

After the last several consecutive blazing-hot weekends, that one was a nice respite.  I kicked it off, of course, down at the Brooksider.  Just too nice out not to.  The rest of the boys had been out playing golf all day, so they were worn out.  We hung out a few hours and then everybody called it a day early.  Donette’s family came over later for a visit, despite the relatively unkempt condition of the house.  Had a nice time though.  They all headed out for some Foo’s Frozen Custard later, but I took a pass on that.  Dieting and all, you know.

Saturday my friend Dennis (that used to live across the street) picked me up at 6:00 for an early morning bike ride.  There was an MS-150 training ride leaving from the Subaru dealership out in Lee’s Summit.  The route was based on the Tour de Lakes organized ride from earlier this year, just with a different starting point.  The big plus here was the whole ride was free, save for a few stops along the way at convenience stores for water.  On the downside, it was a quite hilly route, and windy too.  And, we missed the turn-off for our intended 45 mile route and ended up on the 63 mile ride.  Eh, it was all good.  It was a nice ride, and can’t beat the price.  Not to mention, when we got back to the dealership they had catered in a big BBQ lunch for everybody!  After eating lunch and driving back home, it was well into afternoon couch-time.  We did head down to the Brooksider again for little bit;  Who knows how long this weather will last.

Sunday was Donette’s turn at exercise.  She got up early and headed out with a few friends for the big “Race for the Cure” event.  And I do mean “big”;  There were 25,000 people in it.  That’s quite a big larger than the bike ride I went on Saturday morning.  Sounds like they had a good time of it.  After the fact, I wished I would have taken the dog down there and snapped a few pictures, but at the time the couch sounded like a better option.  I did meet up with them down at Sharp’s for breakfast though.  I’ve been kind of down of Sharp’s lately, but it was very good this time.  I splurged for the chicken fried steak and eggs, maybe it’s another case of needing to order the right thing.  After breakfast, I took Teagan down to the dog park for some exercise.  And exercise she did, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her so worn out.  She didn’t play with the other dogs too much, which was sort of odd, but she played fetch until she couldn’t run anymore.  Actually she kept playing even after that, I finally had to hide the ball from her because I was getting a bit worried she was going to overheat.  That pretty much ended our day.  We were supposed to go to a BBQ over at a friend’s house, but Donette ended up not feeling well so we called it a day.  Sat on the couch and watched movies the rest of the night, none of which really merited a review.

The scourge of blog pages these days seems to be comment spam.  Well, besides the actual content of said blogs, but that’s another topic.  I can count on two or three junk comments coming in every day, and sometimes bursts of like fifty or so.  Anyway, WordPress has a nice add-in to catch all this crap.  Akismet checks the comments that are posted, and if it determines it’s a spam moves it to a folder instead of posting it.  It’s good at it too, I think I’ve only had it miss one or two since installing it a long time ago.  I don’t even check the contents of the folder any more generally, I just empty it out and move on.  The other day though, out of sheer boredom, I found myself scanning through the contents to see what was there.  A few of them caught my eye.  Several of them were in Russian, and my browser (Chrome, as it happens,) automagically detected this and offered to translate them for me.  How cool is that?  Pretty sweet technology there, at least I thought so.  Another handful of them were offering to sell “bulk Facebook fans, likes, and friends.”  Now that’s just sad.  What is the world coming to?  I went ahead and picked up a few hundred new friends though.

Hopefully we are in something of a respite from the heat wave.  I got in a short, easy bike ride last night and it was quite pleasant.  As an added bonus, when I got back home, I found Farmer Brice had left a nice basket of fresh tomatoes on my front porch, my first of the year.  (Not counting the ones I bought at the O.P. Farmers Market, which I’m not convinced were from a garden.  These were infinitely better at any rate.)  I sliced them up with some mozzarella I had in the ‘fridge, added some fresh basil and balsamic, and they made for a delicious dinner.

Another weekend down.  We kicked off Friday in the usual fashion, down at the Brooksider.  I really didn’t want to go down there as I was feeling a bit tired, but with the (very slight) break in the weather I thought I better take advantage of the patio.  After visiting with everyone for a while, we headed off to dinner at Piropo’s Grille in Parkville.  (Why yes, of course we had a coupon.)  Donette has been there several times, but it was only my second time there.  I had a ribeye, which was awesome.  The sides were a bit under-whelming, but who cares about them anyway.  Donette had a KC strip steak, which was very good too, especially with blue cheese crumbles on top.  That did us in, night-ender.

Saturday I took Teagan up to school, which was the last class of the session.  Oddly (at least I thought it odd) everybody else in the class had slowly dropped out, and for the last two weeks it’s just been us.  Hey, personalized training, can’t beat that.  I’m not sure why everybody else quit.  Didn’t like the class?  Scared of the killer pitbull?  Who knows.  I didn’t find the class “fantastic” but I thought it helped, so who knows.  Maybe everybody just got tired of cutting into their Saturday.  At any rate, we ended up signing up for the next session too;  Onward and upward.  After that, I took a short bicycle ride, then joined Martin, Brice and Falstrom at a few nearby haunts.  We killed the afternoon playing pool and shuffleboard (which I lost every single game of) and then it was back to the couch to watch the Royals game.

Sunday I woke up (very very very) early and picked up Munkirs for a bike ride.  We headed off to Louisburg, KS and rode in the Cider Mill Century.  We weren’t on the century (100 mile) route though, we took the 50 mile option as part of our grand training plan towards our planned century ride later this year.  We rode this one last year also, and I distinctly remember despising it, particularly the big hills.  This year was a pleasantly different experience;  It was actually a rather easy little outing.  Could have been the nicer weather this year, our increased mileage thus far, or maybe it was just a lucky day.  That said, I did get the dreaded leg cramps with about six miles left.  Eeesh, I hate that.  Luckily I was able to shake them out pretty quickly and finish up though.  Later that night, Donette headed off to Starlight to catch the Mama Mia show with a few friends.  I opted for the Brooksider myself, as  I was absolutely craving a cheeseburger.  Odd, because I rarely crave food at all these days, but I couldn’t shake this one.  Musta been the bike ride.  It hit the spot too, yum.

Last night, after cycling home from work, I was looking for a few more miles.  I had a few options available within a short distance of the house, and decided on the one that was leaving from Spin Pizza.  There were two route options, so I showed early to weigh my choices.  About 6:15 the first group took off, and they described that ride as “27 – 30 miles at an 18 mph average.”  Ummm, no thank you.  That was a pretty serious-looking group of  cyclists.  A few things they all had in common;  All the bikes cost slightly more than my motorcycle, and the people riding them weighed about as much as my right leg.  Y’all have fun.  That left me with the 6:30 group, who were at the other extreme end of the spectrum.    With the exception of a few people, (including one Munkirs will readily recognize as “Pinarello-guy,”) it was definitely a bunch of hacks.  Which is to say, I fit right in with this bunch.  So, we took off on our pleasant 12 mile journey, holding a blistering pace of about 4 mph.  Huge group too;  I did a rapid head-count and hit 38 people.  It wasn’t a bad route actually;  We wound through Mission Hills for most of it, which made for a sort of cool “Tour de’ Homes.”  After a while we re-grouped in a parking lot, where the ride leader had parked his truck and had ice water and energy bars for everybody.  Now there’s a new twist on the group rides, I thought that was awfully nice of him.  Shortly after that break, I started to get a little bored though, and took off after two guys riding like they were trying to qualify for Team Garmin.  Bad idea, shame on me.  We quickly pulled far away from the group, and when we got to Ward Parkway they turn around, look at me, and say “Which way now?”  Really??!!!  You were riding that fast and don’t know where you’re going?  Good grief.  Again, shame on me;  If you don’t know the route, stay behind the ride leader.  Anyway, we turned north and started back, eventually winding our way back to Gregory and Wornall.  Here my new friends again got puzzled and couldn’t figure out where to go.  I offered up some rare input;  “Why don’t we just get on Brookside and roll down the hill to the start.”  One guy actually waves his hand at me dismissively and says, “No, Brookside doesn’t go through, that won’t work.”  Well well, end of my input.  I shoulda just rode on by myself, but I’m a team player so I stuck with them and their foolish choice of Pennsylvania.  Yeah, I could have told them that meant stop signs every two blocks for the rest of the way, but I was done.  North is north anyways, I figure.  So, we haltingly rode back, and indeed did end up at the pizza shop.  I did jab my one small measure of revenge in though.  Upon our arrival, Navigator asks, “You coming in for pizza?”  I replied, “No, I need to ride back home.”  Navigator: “Oh yeah, how far you still have to go?”   Phil: “Not far, I live right off Gregory.  I just take Brookside the whole way.”  Fat Boy OUT!