After a late night out at the Royals game with Martin Tuesday night, I ended up taking the day off yesterday for some local sight-seeing.  While I was not aware of it, there are actually a precious few tourist attractions right here in our own little city.  Johan and I started the day off with a long trip southwest to the beautiful city of Olathe.    We wanted to see the famed Garmin facility.  Actually Johan was looking for a specific device, and we figured if anybody had it available it would be the place where they were made.  Turned out to be not so clever an idea, they didn’t have much of anything.  But, now I’ve seen the Garmin facility.  Continuing our Tour de Electronics, we headed back east to the mecca known as Microcenter.  We spent a little more time here than at Garmin, and made a few select purchases.  Concluding our morning shopping trip, we headed to the Old  Overland Park area and strolled the Farmers Market for a bit.  I never even knew they had one on Wednesdays, we just kind of happened across it.  Donette met us out there, and we picked up some nice looking produce for dinner.  By this time we were getting hungry, so we headed downtown and hit Arthur Bryant’s for lunch.  I like that place better every time I go, it’s always a safe bet.  It was worth noting that Johan did declare the TFB BBQ from last Saturday to be considerably better though.  Actually he had a mouthful of brisket and I couldn’t understand him;  He might have said “It’s hot out” or something, but that’s what I heard.  After lunch we made the quick drive over to the Liberty Memorial.  Despite having lived in this city for a couple of years, I have never made it to this spot, so we all got to see something new.  As everyone who has been has told me, it was very interesting, well worth the admission.  We got to go up the tower too, and enjoy the great view.  We spent several hours there, and then headed down the Boulevard Brewery.  We had tried to get in on a tour, but their website showed them all booked through August.  Still worth a stop though, we figured.  As it turned out they let us in on the tour that had just started when we arrived, score!  The tour was entertaining as always, I think I pick up new fact or two every time I go there.  After that we started making our way back towards the house, by way of Costco of course.  We bought some nice fat ribeyes for dinner, as we were starting to get a bit hungry again by that time.  Luckily the package had four steaks in it, as I torched the first two beyond any recognition.  I hate that grill, and I am convinced it hates me too.

Finally got some new tires on the trusty bicycle.  They were waiting on the front step when I got home from Martin’s house last weekend.  I put them on yesterday after work and headed out on a 25 mile test ride.  Honestly, I have to say I was not impressed with the new rubber.  I was out of breath the whole ride, sweating so much I could hardly see, and my average speed was, well…  Average.  This leads me to the inescapable conclusion that the new tires are most likely faulty.  I probably need some more expensive, faster ones.  Possibly a whole new bike.

If anybody hasn’t stepped outside for a few days, I’ll save you the trouble;  It’s still hot.  Despite the lingering heat wave, we enjoyed a bit of semi-outdoor entertainment this weekend though.  We kicked off Friday at the ol’ Brooksider.  I headed down there directly after work (by way of the house to put some shorts on,) and took up my spot on the patio.  It was so hot there wasn’t even a waitress out there for a while, but they opened for business at five.  It actually wasn’t that horrible;  It’s shaded if you get the right spot, and the fans were moving the air around a bit.  After a while Donette and Johan joined me;  They’d spent the afternoon at the pool.  We hung out down there for a few hours, then headed off to dinner at Cantina del Ray, which was typically tasty.

Saturday kicked off with doggie class up at Petsmart.  After I finally found a parking place, (it’s right next to the new Trader Joe’s, which is still absolutely crazy,) we put in our hour of learnin’.  She did a little better than last week, although “lay down” is proving to be a bit of a stumbling block.  Who wants to lay down when there are treats flying all over, people walking by, kids wanting to pet you, etc?  Sheesh.  Matter of fact she never did lay down, not once.  Better do our homework this week.  After that we loaded up the car and headed <gasp> across the river to hang out at the Martin ranch.  I wanted to take Johan to one of our competitions, but that didn’t work out so the next best thing was toss some meat on the smoker and have a little party.  Actually, given the weather, I’d say it was a better option;  The idea of sitting outside all day was not very appealing.  Saved a lot of fuel too;  We didn’t have to actually light the smoker, we just set it in the sun and it ran about 250 all day.  We threw on two briskets, four slabs of ribs, a handful of chicken wings, and some jalapeno poppers for good measure.  It turned into quite the party, good times.  As an added bonus, Team Brisket might have actually stumbled across our next “tweak” too;  Look for a double-digit finish at the next contest!  (As long as there are fewer than 100 teams anyway.)

Sunday was a bit of a down day.  That BBQ took it out of me.  Poor little Teagan was shot too, so we didn’t have to worry about entertaining her.  I honestly am not sure I’ve ever seen her that tired, she slept all day.  Between kids throwing her ball and playing with the Martin’s temp-pup, she was flat worn out.  I did drag Johan down to the Brooksider in the afternoon so we both could feign interest in the sporting events of the day.  I have to admit I was a little surprised/dismayed to find the place was absolutely packed with people watching the soccer game.  Hey, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but could you do it somewhere else?  Luckily the regular crowd was there, (not that “lucky” actually…  wasn’t really very surprising at all,) so we had someplace to sit.  They had nearly every TV tuned to the soccer game, but they did throw the Royals game on one for us.  I will admit, the soccer game was exciting, especially at the end.  Passed the day at any rate.  For evening entertainment I watched Secretariat.  While well outside my usual genre, it was a very good flick.  I would recommend it to everybody, but then I imagine most have already seen it.

The heat is bringing me down.  Misery has officially set in.  It was nearly tolerable over the weekend though, at least until yesterday.  Friday Johan joined me down at the Brooksider to kick off the weekend in traditional fashion.  It’s tradition at our house anyway.  We hung out there for a short while, and then Donette’s family joined us down at Jalapenos for a tasty dinner.

Saturday I started the morning with my weekly dog-training class.  Young Teagan started off strong, she did a fine job of showing off her skills we practiced all last week.  After that we moved onto the new curriculum for the week, which included “loose leash walking.”  (Or “heel” or whatever you want to call it.)  This exercise she does not necessarily excel in.  Oh well, that’s the reason for the class I guess.  She does barely OK, unless there is any type of motion within a 100 yard radius, and then forget about it.  Definitely a work in progress.  After class, Johan joined me for an educational trip down to the cigar shop in Westport, and then we all headed down to the Rock The Crossroads event for some evening entertainment.  That was a good time.  Johan even participated in the run with Donette and her friends;  I elected to stay behind and watch all their stuff.  Since they didn’t actually have any stuff, it made my job even easier.  After the race we stuck around for the concert.  The music was rather abysmal, or at least the sound system was, but it was a nice night out so I enjoyed it all the same.

Sunday morning, Donette and her Mom took Johan to Branson for a few days.  Shopping, shows, fun stuff like that.  Me, I stayed behind to mow the lawn and assorted other miserable tasks.  I did actually get the lawn mowed too, which was a good week overdue.  I spent the rest of the day working on my weed-eater, which hasn’t run for several weeks now.  When all is said and done I imagine I will just throw the thing in the trash in a frustration-fueled rage, the same fate my last few have met, but at least I can say I tried fixing the dumb thing.  Any small engine mechanics out there???

I spent the better part of yesterday fretting about my stupid bicycle.  While I never figured out for certain what was causing the flats, it was pretty clear I needed new tires at any rate.  (Many have mentioned the problem could well be a triple-fat-back load on a 1/2-back rated tire.  I choose to ignore the taunts.)  I hadn’t noticed that they were so bad, but closer inspection showed they had worn flat in the center, with quite a few threads showing through, and the sidewalls were coming apart.  Determined to find a quick, reliable, inexpensive solution, I spent my lunch hour tire-hunting.  I immediately found that a tire meeting all three criteria doesn’t exist in the local shops, at least within my lunch-time driving range.  Despite my desire to get back on the road quickly, I just couldn’t bring myself to pay motorcycle-tire prices for a 23 mm wide piece of rubber.  Similarly, I wasn’t too interested in a Walmart solution that was just going to come apart again by the end of the summer.  Off to the good ol’ Internet.  I ended up making my purchase at probikekit, a site that was recommended to me by a friend a while back.  They had the exact tires I was looking for, at right about half the price I could find them locally, or on other websites for that matter.  Toss in free shipping and boom, done deal.  The bad news?  Well, I’m not exactly sure where this place is, but it’s a long ways away.  As you might guess from the currency selector option at the top of their page, and their spelling of “tire,” (tyre,) the warehouse is not nearby.  Best case, I’m grounded for at least a week.  I always have the trusty mountain bike hanging in the garage as an option though, we’ll see if it comes to that.