Well now there’s a good start to the week;  I got absolutely drenched on the way in this morning.  In retrospect, maybe I could have looked out the window before deciding to ride my scooter in.  Or, perhaps as I walked the 50 feet from the front door to the garage, decided “Well it’s starting to rain pretty hard, guess I better walk on up to the bus stop.”  But no, with my trained meteorological eye, I looked north towards the office and decided the really hard stuff wouldn’t be coming down for several hours.  Made it about three blocks.  The only way it could have been worse was if my rain gear was, say, still packed up with my float trip stuff instead of under the seat where it usually is.  Mmmm hmmmm.  Oh well, I should dry out by lunch time or so.

Well, another Easter gone by, two more DOR’s (Days On River) under my belt.  And a fine float it was.  Aside from a prolonged bout of rain on Friday night, we enjoyed rather sublime weather conditions.  Given the last five years of, shall we say, “less than ideal” weather, nobody was complaining about a few sprinkles.  (OK, six hours of blinding rain, but still.)

I traveled down there Wednesday night after work with Martin & Munkirs.  We took Chris’ truck and made pretty good time;  I think we showed up at camp at 10:00 or so.  Parked the truck next to Zim & Chad, as per our usual agenda, and commenced to campin’.  We actually went well into the wee hours that night;  Guess we were ready to get out of KC or something.  Munkirs eventually set up his tent and called it a night;  I weaseled in on Zim’s camper myself.  I think James got caught up in “new tent” euphoria;  I couldn’t see banging around in the dark trying to figure a tent out when there was a warm, dry couch a few steps away.  And as for Martin;  Well, he’s from Kearney, he ain’t quite cut out for the “sleeping outside” thing…  He always sleeps in a camper.

Thursday morning we got up and enjoyed some tasty egg sandwiches from Zim’s Cantina, then headed for the river.  Since it was shaping up into a fine day, we opted for the “long float,” where they take you up river and you float back down to camp.  It’s advertised on their site as a five hour trip.  That’s a bit…  “Optimistic” I would say, at least where our group is concerned.  We did make pretty good time though.  It was just two canoes in our group that day;  Munkirs & I in one, and Martin & Chad in the other.  There was a much larger group from our campground also, but we didn’t know them that well and Munkirs wasn’t feeling particularly social, so we kept to our own little barge.  (Or, “age group,” as the case may have been.)  It was a pleasant, uneventful float, which is to say we didn’t dump and got back to camp while it was still light out.  By the time we arrived back in camp, several more “elderly gentlemen” had arrived, and dinner preparations were well under way.  We had a fine BBQ dinner prepared by team TFB, and then re-commenced to campin’.

Friday shaped up quite similarly, if on a larger scale.  We went on the lower-half float that day, which despite being billed as an hour shorter in duration actually took about the same time, if not a bit longer.  Hmmm, strange.  (Not really.)  Once again, it was a sunny, warm, dry day, something we haven’t enjoyed in recent years.  We all got through it in remarkably good condition.  I really cannot recall going on two floats in as many days and not losing even one canoe.  Absolutely unheard of.  The only thing different I could think of was that Scotten wasn’t there, de-stabilizing the barge with his stupid lawn chair.  Carl quite inexplicably chose feeding his family over floating this year, breaking a long attendance streak.  (With the exception of one quite controversial incident a few years back.)  That couldn’t have been the difference though…  Could it?

Saturday morning we got up, swam out of our tents, and started breaking camp.  We enjoyed our standard breakfast in beautiful Mountain Grove, MO, and headed back home.  First order of business upon our arrival in KC was a little lunch at the Brooksider, naturally, to enjoy the weather and re-hash the weekend.  After that, I went home and chiseled three nights of camping off me, then went to bed for 15 hours.

Sunday I woke up well rested, if a bit sore.  Little “worse for wear” as the saying goes.  I managed to get around and get out to Mom’s for a delicious Easter lunch though.  As an added bonus, I rode the motorcycle so I got to enjoy the warm, if rather windy, weather for one more day.  We stayed at Mom’s a few hours, then took the “long way” home.  There was still plenty of daylight left when we got home, so I fired up the lawn mower and knocked out the first mowing of the season.  (Booo.)

Scootin’ season has officially begun;  I rode the scooter all last week.  Why yes, it DID rain a few days, and yes I DID get very wet, thanks for asking.  Better soaked on the scoot than dry on the bus though.  (We’ll see how long that sentiment holds up.)  I rode the motorcycle for the first time today.  CHILLY!!  I haven’t figured out the science behind it, but it is a proven fact that 35 degrees on the motorcycle is a lot colder than 35 degrees on the scooter.  I think that little windshield may help out a lot.  Hopefully my teeth will stop chattering in time for the ride home.

I’d rate that about the most boring weekend on record.  Considering my usual mundane schedule, that is quite an accomplishment.  I was feeling rather beat-down on Friday, so I stopped by the Brooksider for about 30 minutes and then headed home.  I got a new (work) laptop so I spent most of the evening getting that all set up.  How’s that for excitement??  I did watch a movie later in the evening, solely because it was Friday night and I didn’t want to go to bed at 8:30.  I can’t remember the name of it but it was absolutely horrible.  It was so bad I ended up rather angry that I had even watched it.  For two hours I stared at it waiting for a plot, or even some vague point, to develop.  Never happened.  I even randomly skipped through it afterward to  see if maybe I had dozed off during some critical scene.  Nope, it was just bad.

Saturday developed in the absolute pinnacle of boredom.  I accomplished nothing what-so-ever.  One perfectly good weekend day down the tubes, never to be recovered.  Didn’t even walk the dog.  I kept telling myself it was due to the inclement weather, but it really wasn’t even raining at our house.  I guess we went to lunch at The Well.  Split a turkey wrap.  Good grief even our lunch was boring.

Sunday I spent the day tethered to the smoker, cooking a brisket for Float Trip this coming weekend.  Not exactly an exciting day by any stretch, but at least I could say I did something with my time.  I dug the motorcycle out of storage too.  That thing has been hard to start the first time over the last two years I’ve had it, so I was ready for a few hours of messing around with it.  This year it fired right up;  Guess it was tired of this winter too.  By the time the brisket was done it was bed-time.  At least I hope it’s done, I didn’t really slice into it.  It was on the cooker 12 hours though, I’d like to think it should be tender after that much time.

Tis the season to sit around and watch basketball and not accomplish a whole heck of a lot.  And wow am I good at it.  I would claim that I took it to a whole new level, but I’m sure there are many who out-sloth even me watching the games.  I have the day off, so I will need to be a bit brief in my weekend summary;  I’ve got lots to get done today.  Shovel the drive, build a snowman…  The usual late-March activities.

OK I had an absolutely riveting update typed in here, and for whatever reason it is all gone.  That first less-than-riveting paragraph is all that’s left.  Maybe a few too many comments about the KU fans and bad karma got me?  Not likely, as it was all well deserved;  Guess I’ll just chalk it up to bad luck.  At any rate I am not inclined to try and duplicate it.  I’ll just list an overview of the weekend:

1.  Friday we watched the MU game at the Brooksider and then went to dinner at Cantina del Ray.

2.  Saturday we ate breakfast at Amigos with Mark, Anne, Don, & Katie.  Then we went to the Bullet Hole and wasted some ammo.  Watched basketball the rest of the day.

3.  Sunday we watched basketball all freaking day, mostly at home.  Went to the Brooksider later in the day, after the crowd had cleared.  Made corned beef & rutabaga for dinner.

Geez that’s all I can remember.  I’ll spare you the admittedly witty commentary regarding Those People and their less-than-graceful exit from the area.

Another down-ish weekend.  I’m still oncall so I kept things rather subdued.  Not that unusual really, but at least I feel like I have an excuse.  Friday we went out for our semi-almost-nearly-traditional happy hour, but this time we went to the Peanut on Main instead of the Flying Saucer.  Downtown was an absolute madhouse with the Big 12 tourney going on, and I didn’t want to risk being jostled.  We met up with John & Susan and a few of their friends, and hung out there for a while.  Went home in time for dinner, and so went Friday.

Saturday I got up to find my website all messed up, so I spent my morning on that.  Before going to bed on Friday I decided it would be a good idea to try the “automatic upgrade” feature;   Didn’t turn out to be such a whippy idea after all.  Oh well, that’s what backups are for I guess.   About the time I got that mess straightened out, it was time to head down for the St. Patrick’s Parade in Brookside.  We generally don’t go to it, but the school where Donette works was in it and she was supposed to take pictures for the yearbook.  It turned out to be a fine parade indeed, despite the rather sketchy weather.  The last several parades I’ve bothered going to consisted of sixty pickups with magnetic signs on the doors driving by one after another, maybe with a balloon tied to the bumper.  Weak.  This one was a lot more festive;  Clowns, firetrucks, floats, costumes, and tons of candy.  (Carefully and safely handed out, naturally;  No throwing.)  It was a good time, and Donette got lots of pics.  I even posted some of them already.  OK, maybe not the most exciting photo album ever, but I figured it’s March already and I haven’t put up a single picture for the year.  After the parade we stopped by the Brooksider for a short bit, mostly to warm up.  It was crazy crowded though, and steadily getting worse, so we bailed.  Donette went out with Susan to some kind of fund raiser later in the evening.  I stayed home and worked all night.  Sigh.

I stayed up until the wee hours working, so the better part of Sunday was spent sleeping.  I’m getting too old for those all-nighters.  I finally got up around noon and proceeded to do nothing for the rest of the day.  We did go down and say hi to everybody at the Brooksider and watch the brackets on TV for a while.  Around 5:00 or so, Donette caught a ride to the airport and headed to Las Vegas.  She and our friend Lucy are staying there for a fews days to catch some sun and throw some money away.  I’m gonna stay home and work.  Sigh.

I don’t know what that title means.  I am aware the Oscars were last night, because Donette watched them over at a friends house, but I wasn’t able to fit it into my busy schedule.  Compounding the issue, my online paper isn’t working this morning (again) so I don’t know who won.  Gosh, hope I can make it through the morning.

All things considered, that was a rather entertaining weekend.  I was oncall so that kept me tethered to the PC a bit more than I’d have liked, but I think I made the most of it.  Friday we stayed in;  Kind of get into the swing of oncall, so to speak.  I can’t remember what we did for dinner but I’m sure it was absolutely wonderful.  Enchiladas perhaps?  After that we drifted off to our respective TV’s and watched movies.  For my part, I saw “Blood Snow” & some other movie which was so awful I have purged it’s name from my memory.  “Blood Snow” wasn’t exactly riveting (it was in German and didn’t really make sense even if I could have understood what they were saying) but compared to the second one it shoulda been on the awards show last night.  I would’ve just turned it off in disgust, but being Friday night I felt I should stay up until at least 10:00, so I stared at it until the bitter end.

Saturday worked out to be a decent day, all things considered.  I worked through the afternoon, with half an eye on the disappointing basketball game, and then about 3:00 I walked Gabe down to Brookside.  Our friends Troy & Laura were down there for an “event” that’s been on the calendar for a long time.  Laura has been writing a childrens book called Escaping the Tiger for the better part of the last decade, and it finally got published, shipped and released.  They had a big “book signing party” down at a store in Brookside, and Troy was grilling out back, so I went down to hang out and enjoy the day.  It turned into a rather huge event.  There were conservatively 250 people packed into the little shop, and unfortunately they sold out of books a bit early, but there was plenty of food and everybody had a good time.  And, once again, I got to see still more high school friends I hadn’t seen forever.  (Laura is a proud Grandview alum.)  The crowd was a bit much so I stayed outside with the grill, helping Troy shovel chicken.  He ended up churning out 60 lbs. of drumsticks and several slabs of ribs.  I stayed until they finished up around 9:00, then went home and watched “Duplicity” with Donette.  Weird movie.  Not quite sure I ever figured out what was going on.

Sunday we slummed around the house all morning, then headed out for an exciting walk through the aisles of Costco around noon.  We loitered there for an hour or so, and then decided to catch some lunch somewhere.  We decided on the new Blanc Burgers down on the Plaza;  Well, new location anyway, it recently re-located from Westport.  I can’t decide if I liked it or not.  It was most definitely good, but a bit on the pricey side for a hamburger.  But, it was one good hamburger.  (As well it should have been.)  After lunch I took Gabe for a nice long walk, to reward him for destroying our living room while were gone.  Then, for evening entertainment, Donette & Kelly went over to Susan’s house for a big Oscars party.  Boys weren’t invited this year, drat, so I stayed home for a little cinematic entertainment myself.  My showings included the soon-to-be-famous titles “Severance” and “Killer Klowns from Outer Space.”  Definitely Oscar-worthy.  Oh and I played some solo Rock Band and Big Game Hunter too, that entertained me for a few hours.  I found the “shooting arcade” portion of the latter, where you just blast stuff and don’t have to do any thinking.  Perfect.