Man will it EVER warm up out there?  We were supposed to go the Royals game yesterday but it was so marginal out we bailed on that plan.  I’m getting tired of sitting outside trying to convince myself I’m having fun when it’s 50 degrees and windy.  Screw it, I’m just going to stay inside for the rest of my life.

We kicked off the weekend pretty strong on Friday, going down the Power & Light District to celebrate K.B.’s 45th birthday.  I like going to those, makes me feel young.  That place is really taking off, it was packed everywhere;  Most places even had a line to get in.  We started things off at the “PBR Big Sky,” which proved “interesting.”  In what would be the theme for the evening, it started out tolerable and then the music got so loud (and bad) that it drove us out.  We ended up moving over to the bowling alley for a little peace and quiet.  This bowling alley had a slightly different format than the ones I’ve been to though;  After we’d been there a few hours it had mysteriously shifted from “bowling alley” to “hip-hop club.”  Time for Phil & Donette to go home.  On our way to catch the bus though, we ran into the neighbor girls, who talked us into stopping by the newly-opened Flying Saucer.  That was one of our favorite places when we lived in Fort Worth, so it really wasn’t very hard to convince us to check it out.  We ended up staying there approximately “way too long.”  We finally left at some unreasonable hour, and found out that we’d missed the last bus home by about an hour…  Whoops!  I knew I hated public transportation for a reason.  So, we split a cab with the girls, which worked out fine.  (They stopped by the Plaza on the way home to keep the night going though… Crazy kids.)

Saturday morning I rather grudgingly drug myself out of bed and headed north to Platte City, to judge my very first BBQ competition.  I wasn’t very sold on the idea at first;  It was cold and rainy, and I stayed out way too late Friday night.  But, I’d signed up for it so I figured I better show.  It turned out to be a good time though, and I got to eat a lot of good BBQ.  (And a little bit of not-so-good too.)  It was a lot easier, and cheaper, than cooking in the competitions, that’s for sure.  I hung around and talked to some guys about a new cooker too, but didn’t pull the trigger just yet.  I’ve been sorta eying a new rig for a while, if for no reason other than I’ve had mine for over 15 years.  Anyway, these guys were cooking on a few models from American BBQ in Olathe, and they looked like pretty solid units.  I’ll wait and see how they did in the competition.  At the end of the day though, I don’t have near enough coin to get a new one anyway, so it’s kinda a moot point.  That event took up most of the afternoon;  I finally got home around 3:00 to find Donette still in bed.  Sheesh.  I carefully rousted her, and we went out in search of a place to watch the Royals game.  Never did find it on TV, so we just hung out at Tanner’s for a while and headed back home.  We opened the front door to find Gabe had escaped his kennel and was tearing around the house like the 85 lb. moose that he is.  He has somehow figured out how to open the latches, and has been escaping more often than not lately.  We can’t figure it out either;  Best guess is he has developed retractable thumbs and folds them out when we’re not around.  Oh well, so far he hasn’t torn anything up, knock on wood.  He just sorta moves things around…  You might find your shoes in different rooms, and a hat laying in the middle of the back yard, that kind of stuff.  Weird dog.

Sunday, as briefly mentioned, we intended to go to the Royals game, but decided against it.  Instead, we went and bought some brisket and chicken and fired up the smoker.  Slightly disheartened by my mediocre finish at the St. Joe competition, I’ve begun my quest to improve the product.  I made a few key changes, which I thought resulted in a slight improvement.  Still need a few more tweaks though, although I haven’t figured out exactly what.  Donette’s first try at chicken turned out well too.  I even stirred up a pot of BBQ gumbo with all the leftovers I’d brought home from Platte City.  Faced with four lbs. of beef, eight pieces of chicken, and a few gallons of gumbo, we called up the neighbors, who luckily came over and helped us at least put a dent in the spread.  The freezer is getting a little stuffed with leftovers though.

This should be an official work holiday, if only because I need one. We’re not really celebrating anyway though, except for a small party at the neighbor girls house tomorrow. But then that’s not really a “Cinco de Mayo” party if it’s tomorrow, now is it.

My weekend was entirely consumed by the first BBQ competition of the year for the Triple Fat Back team. We headed way north to scenic St. Joseph MO, to participate in the second annual Apple Blossom BBQ. To tell you the truth, I am still a little out of sorts by the lack of sleep and bad weather, so I will likely be brief in my summary. Martin and I headed up there Friday afternoon, and met up with Zim and Chad who had already laid down the “base camp.” From there, well, we did BBQ stuff. It also marked the first appearance of our new “Gold Level Sponsor,” Weston Brewing Company. They were nice enough to provide us with several kegs of beer to give away to all the hordes of visitors wandering around the festival. Only one problem… It was about 35 degrees and rainy, so nobody showed up. Not just at our booth, at the whole festival. I’d say the whole thing was probably a bust for the city, but we had our fun. (That is, if you call sitting in a lawn chair half-frozen for 12 hours “fun.”)

Oh, come on now, surely there are more details to delve into from nine guys getting together and partying all night? None that you’d want to hear about, no. Kevin brought some new “swag” for the group, including new TFB tee-shirts, trucker hats, and notebooks. He even brought a monogrammed chef’s jacket for the newest honorary Fat Back, Cubby. (We couldn’t get him to put it on though.) As far as results, we performed to our standard satisfactory level, with the exception of Bob & Joe, who turned in another astonishing 3rd place finish in pork. I’d say after the last few competitions, they seem to have their recipe honed to perfection. As for me, well, I guess I can say I’ve achieved consistency if nothing else. Unfortunately, while Team Pork has reached consistent top three product, the brisket has just managed to reach consistent mediocrity. Not good, not bad, right smack in the middle every time. So, something has to change, hopefully for the better. I have several tweaks in mind, ranging from subtle to shocking. No longer will I be able to contribute to any of the housework or otherwise be a participant in society; I must focus solely on brisket improvement. At this point I plan to keep my employment, but only because I need to fund more briskets. Practice makes ribbons, people.

That sort of wraps up the weekend. Donette was in St. Louis visiting her sister all weekend, and Gabe stayed up north with Ronda while I slaved away in St. Joe. I picked him up late Saturday afternoon, went home, and wiped out on the couch until this morning. Them BBQ’s is hard on an old man.

Wow, why is it still so cold out?  This doesn’t bode well for our upcoming BBQ contest next weekend.  We struggle enough without fighting challenging weather conditions.  It was a mighty crisp ride to work on the motorcycle this morning too;  Those mornings should be over by now.

I’m a little lacking on material from this past weekend, so I’ll jump back to Thursday night.  One thing we did do a lot of over the weekend was eat, and it started Thursday with a trip to the new Maker’s Mark restaurant in the Power & Light district.  I’m on their mailing list for some reason or another, and a few weeks ago, I got an email inviting me to come down for a “preview.”  That’s really all it said, but I figured “what the heck” and we went down to check it out.  The gamble paid off nicely:  They put out all you could eat and drink for a couple of hours, all free.  SWEET!! They put out some serious grub too;  Sushi, oysters, shrimp, lamb chops, steaks…  Heck I can’t even remember what all we tried.  We both got stuffed, I know that.  We even met Bill Samuels Jr, who has been the CEO of Maker’s Mark since 1975.  We had a nice little chat…  I can’t believe he hasn’t called me to get together yet though.  Well, now we can say we’ve been there at least.  From a glance at the prices on the menu, it might be our last trip…

Friday evening our free meal ticket continued, with the volunteer appreciation dinner for the American Royal.  Donette volunteered last year during the BBQ competition, putting in several hours of back-breaking manual labor, so they put on this nice banquet for a “thank you.”  We joined several elderly ladies at a table, one of whom kept insisting she knew me from somewhere.  We never figured it out though, after running through every single place I’d ever been in my life.  Anyway, not a bad dinner, despite not quite living up to the fare from the evening before.  There was a monotonous presentation-thing going on in the background the whole time though, which cut into my dining enjoyment somewhat.  But, the price was right and we really didn’t have anything better to do, so it passed the evening.  Incidentally, I woke up in a cold sweat around 3:00 A.M. with a clear recollection of who the lady at the table was;  She was the mean old woman that gave me a beat-down on the tennis court a few years ago.  She was just lucky I didn’t recognize her at the dinner, ’cause it would have been go-time.  She didn’t look nearly as imposing without the tennis racket in her hand, I almost surely could have taken her.

Saturday, Martin & Brice came over for a final practice-run on the smoker before our competition in St. Joe next weekend.  It turned out to be a relatively decent day weather-wise…  We can only hope it will be at least that nice next weekend.  In a new twist on the practice technique, this time I set about documenting the entire process of my brisket in pictures.  Something new to put on the website if nothing else, I figured.  So, all morning I painstakingly photographed every step, from taking the brisket out of the ‘fridge, to trimming it, seasoning it, lighting the smoker, etc.   Somewhere along the way though, I realized that I had inexplicably been hitting the on/off button on the camera all morning instead of the “picture” button.  Wow.  It was early, but not THAT early.  Yeah, can’t really explain that foul-up, but I have no pictures at any rate.  Anyway, that pretty much took up the entire day, and everything came out “OK.”  Got a few more tweaks for the Big Show, but not much.  Martin did a few slabs of babybacks, which were top notch with the exception of some gummy sauce he poured all over them.  My brisket was serviceable, if a bit dry.  Donette even cooked some good chicken wings while the fire was going.

Sunday didn’t bring much excitement.  We stayed up late Saturday (as far as our definition of late anyway) and I guess we were worn out.  We got the yard mowed, played a few dozen games of Sudoku, watched the Royals game, went to lunch at Jalapenos…  And that’s about all I can think of.  We were supposed to cook hamburgers for dinner, but really didn’t feel like it so we saved that for tonight.  What’s so special about cooking hamburgers?  Well, I have decided to go on a quest to cook a premium hamburger at home.  And so, tonight this monumental task gets underway, starting with the grinding of the chuck roast.  Ohhhh, I’m excited.

Ahhhh, that was a nice little vacation weekend.  Unfortunately it left me too beat up and worn out to do anything practical or taxing today, so I will just jot down a few notes and get back to bed.  I have the day off and my horoscope promises a 5-star day so I don’t want to ruin things by trying to spend it wisely.

Our weekend started last Thursday when we flew out to Denver to visit with Ed and Kim.  They both had to work on Friday so we kept it low-key that night, although we did manage to go have an awesome dinner at Benny’s.  I had the chili relleno dinner, which was spectacular as-is, but then I put it over the top (in both taste and fat calories) by going with the bonus topping of carnitas.  Holy smokes it was good.  As far as I know everyone else enjoyed their dinners also, but I wasn’t really listening.

Friday while Ed and Kim worked, we killed the afternoon by driving around sight-seeing and generally enjoying the weather.  We had a good lunch at some random Irish Pub, the name of which escapes me now.  All we really cared about was that they had outdoor seating so we could take in some sun;  The lunch itself was kind of secondary.  After Ed and Kim got home, we took the light-rail down to the Pepsi Center to catch our first ever NLL game.  That, of course, is the National Lacrosse League, just in case you don’t follow the game as closely as we do.  The home team is the Colorado Mammoths, and they seem to have quite a following.  I don’t know if the place was an official sell-out, but it had to be awfully close.  If I had to guess, the main draw is probably the fights, and we were treated to a few doozies;  They made hockey brawls look like powder-puff football.  It was quite an event at any rate, and now we can say we’ve been to a Lacrosse game.  I’m not entirely sure what they were doing over the span of the few hours we were there, but when they were done running around beating each other about the head and shoulders with their sticks, the Mammoth had more points on the board than the Rush, so the Home Team won.  (Insert ringing cowbell sounds and hurl a few loud obscenities here for the full effect.)

Saturday we got up early and drove to Breckenridge Park, for our first try at skiing.  (Technically, I have been once, about a 1/4 century ago, but my skills from that trip have waned a bit.)  We got there around 9:30, and the place was already pretty busy.  Ed and Kim strapped on their snowboards and headed off to do their thing, while we set about renting some equipment, signing up for lessons, and all that good stuff.  Our class started around 10:30, made up of Donette and I and four other first-timers.  The instructor seemed mildly curious as to why you would take skiing classes on the day before the park closed for the season, but he seemed game enough for teaching us anyway.  The morning session brought great promise, and we quickly deemed ourselves skiing prodigies.  By noon, we had positively mastered the skills required to traverse 30 yards of perfectly flat terrain.  We broke for lunch, and then returned to head up the lift for our first run at the hill.  I don’t know if we had short-term memory loss or what, but the afternoon didn’t go quite as well as the morning.  Everything that seemed so easy earlier was all but forgotten as we stared down the 25% grade into the frozen abyss that he took us to.  “Uhhh, dude, are you sure we’re on the right hill?”  It was a rather humbling afternoon, exacerbated by the hundreds of 7-year-olds whizzing by us.  By 3:30 we convinced the instructor that if he could somehow just safely transport us to the bottom of the mountain, we would tip him handsomely, turn in our gear and never again return.  If nothing else, we probably provided him with some good story-telling material for his off season entertainment.  All in all, it was fun though, in a rather painful and humiliating sort of way.  And if you’re going to try skiing, I think we picked an awesome day for it;  It got up to like 60 degrees by the time we were done.  After that torture session, we went into town and hung out at an outdoor concert, which was a little more our speed.  We stayed there for a few hours, people-watching and enjoying the music and perfect weather.  On the downside, Donette enjoyed the weather a bit TOO much…  By the end of the day she was so sunburned that her ears actually swelled up.  I didn’t do a whole lot better either;  I managed to burn my neck pretty bad.  At least she evenly toasted herself, I ended up with one side glowing red and the other side the color of a catfish belly.  Nice.

We spent the night in Breckenridge, then got up Sunday and hit the road back to Denver.  After a huge breakfast to start the day, we embarked on a very circuitous route home, in an ultimately unsuccessful quest to see a moose.  I guess it was too hot out for the wildlife, we didn’t see much outside of a few cows, several foxes and bunch of road-kill deer.  It WAS a nice scenic drive though, as far as drives go.  We took a few breaks, including a short hike in one of the parks, a stop in Idaho Springs for a late lunch, and a detour to Buffalo Bill’s grave site.  The trip took up the whole day, and by the time we got back to the house we had to head to the airport.  We got back to KC around midnight, picked up the dog, and headed home to rest up.  I’m glad I burned the extra day of vacation, as I am pretty worn out today.

Edit:  I added a few pictures to my photo gallery.

Man this weather SUCKS!!  I am getting truly bent out of shape over it all.  I had to scrape frost off my car to drive in this morning, CRAP!  Of course I should be on my scooter toughing it out, but since we went back to two cars I tend to take the path of comfort and convenience.

That was a “down” weekend, mostly due to a combination of the weather and being oncall.  We snuck in a little fun here and there though.  Friday started the weekend with several hours of nothing.  I like to ease into the whole oncall routine you know.  Donette made a good dinner of kielbasa and kraut, and then I retired upstairs to watch the Royals get shut out.  That quickly bored me to sleep, and so ended Friday.

Saturday brought a little fun, in the form of the Royals game.  We met up with the Martins out at the stadium around 2:00 and enjoyed a nice tailgate with a bunch of their friends.  They brought in a bunch of Wabash BBQ, which I’d never tried.  (Thumbs up.)  The game, if you watched it, was somewhat less than entertaining.  The weather was just about as bad as the game too;  More like football weather.  We stuck around for a while though;  Our seats were good and we’re always up for some people-watching, so that kept us occupied.  After the game, well, we went back home and did more nothing.  I had to work into the wee hours so I had to save my strength.

Sunday wasn’t exactly a big wrap-up to the lame weekend, but we stayed busy.  I started the day off by fixing my website.  Since it wasn’t broken in the first place, I’m not sure what got me off on that tangent, but at any rate it’s broken now.  No more message board for pkenagy.com, at least for the time being.  I am totally baffled.  The OLD one doesn’t even work any more.  Very mysterious.  Having thusly wasted my morning, I moved on to installing a new XM radio in my car.  I’d say I’m pretty much addicted to the XM thing…  This is our fourth radio.  (Heaven forbid I take the 30 seconds to move the one in the living room back and forth to the car like most people.)  Granted, I’m only in my car about 20 minutes a day, but that’s more than enough time for the FM stations around here to put me in a foul mood.  That took quite a while, as this time around I actually spent a little time routing the wires right so it would look halfway decent.  And, being probably the cheapest available receiver on the market, it presented a few additional installation challenges that baffled me for a good bit of time.  So, now we’ve got 24×7 tunes in both cars, the house, and one receiver that just sits in the closet and collects dust.  (Oh, we’ve got plans for it though.)  That project got me through the afternoon, then we went to our routine Sunday evening dinner at Jalapenos to wrap things up.  As it happened, I never got called from work over the weekend.  As soon as I’d have gone and tried to have fun I would’ve though… What can ya’ do.

Finally, in a rare bit of “bummer” news from pkenagy.com, I hate to announce that the Kenagy’s are back to a one dog family.  I’d just as soon leave it on the down-low, but I’ll mention it in the hopes of keeping somebody from making any ill-advised references or standard issue pitbull jokes;  They wouldn’t go over too well.  After a year and a half of working with Belle, we finally decided she just wasn’t cut out for our house.  Despite some very prominent flaws that led to this decision, I’d still take her company over a good portion of the people that I deal with day to day, so the whole thing pretty much sucks.  And that’s all I got to say about that.