Another BBQ season, in the books.  And believe it or not, it ended on a high note for once.  My weekend kicked off on Thursday when I met up with a few team members down at our site for the American Royal BBQ.  We did a little light setup work and then spent the better part of the night sitting around a fire on Brown’s sweet junk-yard minivan seats.  Now that’s good entertainment there.

Friday started off with an unplanned flurry of activity.  Sometime during the night the team adjacent to us had taken an ill-advised joyride on one the volunteer golf carts and had been rather rudely asked to leave the grounds by the KCPD.  Unfortunately their camper butted right up to ours, and we had to tear down our entire site so they had room to get their truck in.  We felt kind of bad for them, as they were pretty nice guys and rather entertaining characters.  But, being opportunists, we also saw the upside of the situation;  We moved our camper over onto their spot, giving us a lot more party space, and commandeered their port-a-jon for the rest of the weekend.  The rest of our team showed up over the day and we got set up in record time.  Our party went off pretty much without a hitch, and I think everybody had a good time.  My Mom and sister came down for a bit, and several friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.  Overall my least favorite night of the event was a rather enjoyable fiesta.

Saturday doesn’t really bear re-telling.  Not many guys come down, it’s mostly just spent cleaning up the overwhelming amount of trash from the night before and going over our pre-game strategy for the BBQ.  (The trash takes about 12 hours and we spend about 10 minutes on our game plan.)  Right about midnight we got down to the cooking business.  The pork and the brisket went on at 1:00 Sunday morning, and then the rest of the night was spent in the trailer watching movies and stepping outside to check on things every now and then.  It was a good year for team Triple Fat Back, I would say down-right respectable even.  Out of 475 teams, our results were:

Chicken  – 125th
Ribs – 165th
Pork – 259th
Brisket – 74th
Overall – 105th

We turned in beans and sausage too, but those results haven’t been posted yet.  Although I put most of my effort into the brisket, I must say I got quite a kick out of our chicken finish.  Our chicken chef, Zim, was hurt and wasn’t able to make it down to cook this year, so that job defaulted to Martin and I.  A few hours before it was due, we decided it was probably time to think about what we wanted to do.  We spent about twenty minutes cutting it up like we wanted, then walked around sampling all the spices the rest of the guys were using.  We settled on the rib team’s dry rub, sprinkled it on, threw the bird on the smoker, and let it be.  Then shortly before turn-in, we decided the pork team’s mop was rather tasty, so we slathered some of it on too.  Lo and behold, this somewhat half-hearted effort ended up scoring pretty well.  Our best brisket finish ever came with some comedy too.  We always put together some elaborate concoction of multiple sauces, spices, and various other super-secret ingredients for our BBQ sauce.  Alas, this year we had inadvertently used all the sauce at the party on Friday and didn’t have anything left.  We ended up walking over to the Expo center and buying some unknown bottle from the last vendor that was still set up, and just poured it on straight from the jar.  Hmmmm, considering our finish, maybe we should stick with this “less is more” strategy in the future.

After the turn-ins, Donette came and got me and I spent the rest of the day on the couch.  Well, after I spent about 30 minutes standing in the driveway while she took a pressure-washer and some steel wool to my filthy carcass.  You might notice that nowhere in the synopsis above is any mention of going home.  Nope, I spent the whole four days down there this year.  The weather was great and the time was passing quickly, and I just never got around to it.  They have showers at the site, but the people who used them generally reported feeling cleaner before, so I stayed away from that option.  Oh well, it’s just a little grime.  I’ll try and get some pictures of the weekend posted some time this week.  I didn’t take many but I do have a few.

That weekend went fast.  I think I was cheated somehow or another.  We started things off slow on Friday down at the Brooksider Patio.  One could also argue that I went to the Plaza Art Fair too, but it was purely by chance, or a better description might be by poor planning.  I decided I needed to run down to Diebel’s to pick up a cigar;  Bad idea.  It was a mob scene down there.  Luckily I was on the scooter so I could just hop up on the sidewalk for some convenient parking.  I still had to walk through that disaster though.

Saturday started off well, then slowly dissolved into somewhat of a bust.  Donette got up early and headed down to Brookside for the annual “Strut With Your Mutt” event.  She and another girl had a booth set up to do some fundraising for her upcoming 1/2-marathon.  They were selling assorted homemade doggie treats, which she had been up all night baking.  Teagan and I walked down there at a slightly more reasonable hour and joined her.  Teagan did very well, and all the excitement wore her out nicely.  Donette did good with her fundraising too, it was worth a few hours of sitting out in the beautiful weather.  The only thing we had planned after that was the first class in Teagan’s next “grade;”  Intermediate Obedience.  It was scheduled at 4:00, which was something of a day-killer in the first place.  As it turned out, the instructor called at 2:00 and said class was re-scheduled until next week.  Well crud, that’s nice to know, I had a list of other things I would have much rather done.  Oh well, what can ya’ do.  Instead I mowed the lawn, grilled up some pork chops, watched a few movies, and called it a day.

Sunday was a full day.  Donette headed out in the morning to run in a 5k event with some friends, and I headed up to Martin’s house to start the preparations for the Royal next weekend.  By the time I got there around 10:00, he already had eight pork butts nestled snugly in the cooker, merrily smoking along.  We figured there wasn’t much use in staring at the smoker, so we headed out on a brisk 17-mile bike ride to pass the time.  (The term “brisk” referring to the weather, not necessarily our pace.)  It was a nice ride, but there’s some hills up there in them northlands.  Whew.  After our ride, we sat out in the back yard the rest of the day, enjoying the weather and pretending we were working on the BBQ.  Mostly we just ate.  His neighbors brought over some pancakes to fill us up after the bike ride, and no sooner had we finished gorging on those then a buddy showed up with some sliced brisket and ribs.  By the time we polished that off, Martin had a tray of jalapeno poppers ready to come off the grill, and then we washed those down with a few more slabs of ribs, some chicken wings, a pumpkin souffle and a big green salad.  Eeeesh, it’s making me a bit queasy just thinking about it.  I was miserably stuffed, but that didn’t stop me from trying the smoked-meat chili another neighbor brought over later.  Ohhhhh my belly.  I think I might need a few (dozen) more bike rides to work that one off.

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.