Last night we headed down to the Crossroads district to see the O.A.R. show.  We started off the evening by meeting up with the Martins at Los Tules for a little dinner, and then headed off to Grinders.  When we got there the opening band, Soja, was about 1/2-way through their set.  I’m not all that fond of Reggae so I could have easily done without this part of the show, but everyone else seemed to like it and the people-watching was top shelf.  By the time O.A.R. came on at 9:30 it had cooled down to an almost tolerable temperature, and we got to enjoy a great show.  Donette had picked up some “V.I.P.” tickets for us, which effectively consisted of access to a large blocked-off area in front of the stage.  I was a bit skeptical of the extra cost during the opening act, as there was plenty of room out in the main section, but when O.A.R. started it was quickly apparent that it had been money well spent.  There was enough room to walk around without fighting a crowd, and you could easily walk right up to the stage for a little ear-splitting volume if you wanted.  Matter of fact, Donette and Kelly took in the whole show down on the front row;  Crazy kids.  The only bummer was they didn’t get any pics up there, the camera-police were being a bit over the top.  They were even getting on people for taking pics with their phones, come on.  Well, OK she did sneak in a few photos.

We had house-guests last night so we broke out the hide-a-bed.  When we got up our guests were gone and the bed had been taken over by marauding pets.  Might never get the couch folded back up.

Busy weekend in the Kenagy household.  Since Johan has been visiting us, it’s sort of like we are trying to keep a vacation pace, but while working at the same time.  Wears an old man out, but it’s a lot funner than my usual schedule.  Friday was an exception to this, for me anyway.  Donette and Johan went down to the Phoenix to watch Lonnie McFadden, but I got hung up at work and missed out.  Boo-hoo for me.

Saturday morning Donette and Johan got up quite early and headed out to the Jingle in July 5k run up at Worlds of Fun.  Very rare is the morning the wife beats me out of bed, but I didn’t even hear them leave.  Sounded like fun;  I’ll take their word for it.  Johan turned in a quite respectable time.  I think that was mostly out of self-preservation as he tried to distance himself from Susan & Donette, who were sporting Santa hats and sleigh bells.  Donette bested her 5k time for the year by like 10 minutes too.  It was either a “fast” course or she hasn’t been trying very hard the last few.  By the time they finished I’d drug myself out of bed, and I met up with them at Eggcetera for some solid biscuits and gravy.  For our evening entertainment, we headed down to the Power & Light district and had a monstrous burger at Gordon Biersch.  After filling our bellies, we hopped on the KC Strip Trolley and started a tour-de-KC back towards our house.  We’d never taken the trolley before, but we had a coupon so we figured what the heck.  It worked out nicely I’d say.  It gave us a chance to hit all the “entertainment districts” in one evening.  We started at the Power and Light, then hopped off and checked out Martini Corner, on to Westport, then the Plaza, and then finished out the evening in Waldo.  Whew.  Even better, we had the trolley all to ourselves the entire time, until the last leg from the Plaza to Waldo.  At that point it went from just us three to absolutely crammed.  Guess it’s more of a “late night” sort of thing maybe.

Sunday was a day of feeding.  Munkirs joined me in the morning for a quick bike ride (somehow missing all the rain,) and then we met up with Susan out at Amigo’s in the ‘Dotte for a massive breakfast.  That is to say, we ordered off the breakfast menu, it was after noon by the time we actually got out there.  That kind of knocked the wind of us, so we stayed on the couch the rest of the afternoon, then it was off to Smokehouse BBQ where we joined Donette’s parents for some dinner.  I always forget just how good that place is, it ranks very high as one of my favorites in the city’s BBQ stops.  Too bad it’s so incredibly far from our house.  I stuck with my standard order, the rib platter.  Not only is it good, it’s also one of the only places in town that I can afford the ribs, bonus.  That wiped us all out for the evening.  I wasn’t really hungry when we started, but it was so good I ate the entire platter, relegating me to the couch for the rest of the night.  I think I need to ramp up the bike riding and slow down on the restaurant visits.

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.