FINALLY some good barbecue weather.  Now if it can just hold out for a few weeks, I’ll buy into the calendar theory that Spring is actually here.

Things kicked off strong on Friday with a “work” happy hour.  We headed up to our new hangout of choice;  The bowling alley in Raytown.  There’s just something appealing about sitting around a bowling alley…  Perhaps the sheer un-appealing aspect of it?  At any rate, it was a nice little wind-down after the week.  When I got home, one of the neighbor girls was visiting with Donette, so we blabbed with her a while about the Jayhawks and their big tourney run.  (Nutty KU people.)  After a few hours of THAT, we headed off to a benefit auction at Donette’s school for a late dinner and some face-time with her colleagues.  That was fun, although remarkably I couldn’t find anything I was even remotely interested in bidding on.  It was catered by BB’s Lawnside BBQ though, and I’m always up for sampling some ‘que.  As far as that part of it goes, I’d say they should stick to the live music part of their business, ’cause the food isn’t going to keep them in business.  It was “OK” I guess…  The sausage was actually pretty good, but the pork and brisket were rather marginal.  After dinner we went back home, where we ran into the neighbor girl again.  We still had a little “go” left in us, so we came up with the brilliant idea to…  Go out to dinner!  Nothing like a little gluttony to start the weekend.  We headed down to Jalapenos and ordered a few dinners, which we then boxed up and took home.  Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Saturday morning brought my one practical use of time for the weekend;  The continuation of the failed brake replacement project from last weekend.  I drove out to Zim’s house this time, because he actually has real tools and a garage and other useful stuff like that.  The drive out there probably took longer than the work itself;  He had all four wheels done in like 45 minutes, and even threw in a tire rotation free of charge!  So, I can now reliably stop my car, which is a good thing.  By the time I made the drive back home it was around noon, so I headed over to Brice’s house to enjoy the weather.  His mantra for this ‘Que season is “Practice makes ribbons,” so he had his smoker fired up and loaded down with ribs and pork butt.  It turned into quite the event…  Several people dropped by during the afternoon to sample some food, and we played a few thousand rounds of washers to pass the time between the “courses.”  After that I headed home to watch the KU game, but it turned out to be such a blow-out that I didn’t even watch too much of it.

Sunday was a nice quiet afternoon.  Since the weather was so nice out again, I decided to fire up my own smoker.  (Practice makes ribbons, you know.)  In a rather interesting departure from standard grill-fare though, I threw on a corned beef brisket that I had left over from the St. Patty’s sales.  That pretty much ate up my entire afternoon.  Other than a trip up to Tanner’s to watch the Royals and eat some lunch, I spent the whole day sitting on the back deck listening to my iPod and tending the fire.  Unfortunately, between these two days of sun and fun, I managed to get quite a nasty sunburn on my head.  Happens every Spring, dang it…  I must be a slow learner.  And as for the corned beef?  Pretty darn good.  I shredded it up and made a sandwich with some spicy mustard and a slice of cheddar;  I’d put it on the “repeat” list.

Wow, the weekly poll hit a new high; 42 total votes.  I had to spend the majority of my evenings last week freeing up extra memory on my server to keep up with the vast amount of traffic.  Now, whether or not the results are actually valid is another question.  I happen to have it on good authority that Carl was seen at his daughter’s school several days last week, telling all the kids that the Easter Bunny was going to come take back their candy if they didn’t run home and vote for him.  Something shifty was going on, that’s for sure.

Friday doesn’t really bear recounting… I didn’t do much.  Donette was on the road returning from her Houston trip, so I just headed home to babysit the dogs, as I did every night last week.  Those little monsters really cut into my already mediocre social life.  I’ll be glad if it ever warms up and I can put the dog-door back in, so they can let themselves out.  I can’t even recall what I did for entertainment all evening. Something tells me it probably involved laying on the couch channel-surfing, if I was going to make a guess.

Saturday brought a little more activity, if not really any more accomplishment.  I had gotten it into my head on Friday that the brakes on the Accord were making a grinding noise, so I set about using my mechanical expertise to remedy the situation.   Coincidentally, there were already new brake pads in the trunk all ready to install, which Donette had thought to purchase roughly a year ago when we were told the brakes needed replaced.  Let’s not bring my tendency to procrastinate into the picture though.  I spent the better part of the morning laying out my plan, including trying to decide whether or not I needed new rotors.  I got a little expert advise for you;  If you decide to run your fingers over the rotor to see if it’s gouged up, do NOT do this immediately after driving the car.  By the time the pain registered, I’d lost the finger prints on all four fingers of my right hand.  Man, those fingertips just wiped right off like butter on a hot skillet.  After venting my agony on everything within reach, I continued on with the arduous process of jacking up the car.  Thankfully that went off without a hitch, only to find the wheel was stuck on like it’d been welded there.  I finally hit it with a big enough hammer to jar it loose, with only minor damage to the alloy wheel.  I then proceeded to puzzle over the brake calipers for a few hours;  They really looked like quite an intimidating hodge-podge of bolts and hoses and such.  I took off a few important-looking pieces of metal here and there, but eventually stopped after I started having flash-backs of my old Monte Carlo.  (I took it apart to “fix” something or another in the steering column but never figured out how to put it back together, and eventually had it towed off for junk.)  I ended up making the executive decision that the brakes were just fine, and (hopefully) put everything back together, effectively wasting my entire afternoon.  The aforementioned grinding noise was easily resolved by turning up the radio a little higher;  All good.  Meanwhile, Donette’s nephew Joshua was inside making better use of his time by doing a research paper for school.  The subject matter was “Steroids in MLB”;  Look for it to be published in the next issue of Sports Illustrated!  At least it should be, he spent all dang day on it.  I don’t know when this paper was due (I suspect today…) but he did the entire thing from start to finish over the course of the day.  This worked out well for us;  We left him home with the dogs while we went out and had dinner at Governor Stumpy’s around the corner.  We need to go there more often, it’s not a bad little hang out.  I’d add a link to their website so you could check out the menu, but it is probably the single most embarrassing excuse for a website I’ve ever seen, so I’ll spare you the agony.

Sunday I woke up and started the day with a massive breakfast.  I made a tasty three-egg ham & cheese omelet, hash browns, and a batch of sausage gravy to smother everything with.  It was quite good, and the cat didn’t even run through it this time.  After that feed-a-thon I read the newspaper, and then after much deliberation went to the gym for a few hours.  Then, feeling entirely too healthy, I headed down to eat chicken wings and watch the basketball games at the Brooksider.  I made it through the early game, but then the place was overrun with loudmouth KU fans and I had to bail back to the safety of my couch.  Donette, meanwhile, was out at NFM shopping for a new washer and dryer set.  Our dryer makes some squeaking noise (and has for about the last decade) which apparently necessitated the purchase of an entire new unit.  And, although I was not aware of this fact, the washer has to match the dryer in order to function properly, so you can’t just buy one or the other.  Anyway, she got some fancy LG front-loading super-duper industrial-grade machines, so we should be set for another dozen years.  It seems to me that whenever one of my friends spend that kind of money they get cool stuff;  Shotguns, or big-screen TV’s, or laptops, or what-not.  I get a washer and dryer that sit down in my crumbling leaky basement.  Clean clothes are a good thing though I guess.  She also bought a big bag of accessories for my prized food-saver though, so I did get something out of the deal.  This was obviously an attempt to divert my attention from the bill for the washer and dryer, but that’s OK.

Another Float Trip come and gone;  Except it didn’t really come this year.  The weather was actually looking pretty good considering the date, and we were excited about the water conditions.  Given that the water was 25+ feet above normal, it promised to be a nice challenging float.  There would certainly be no dragging on low spots, and we figured the normally 6 hour long float should take around 45 minutes this year;  All good stuff!  Fortunately, as we made our last-minute schedule tweaks before leaving on Wednesday, Munkirs thought to call down and check on the camping conditions, and was told the entire campground was under water.  DOH!  In short, several phone calls later, we ended up at our friend Bill’s lake house down at the Ozarks.  The accommodations and amenities were certainly top-notch, but it weren’t no Float Trip.  What can ya’ do.  All things considered, it was a nice alternative though;  More comfortable if nothing else.  We stayed there until Saturday morning, then called it a trip and headed back to KC.  Having a little unplanned down time on my hands for the weekend, I even got a few pictures up already.

Saturday, after a nice lunch at Jalapenos and a short nap to recover from the rigors of the pseudo-float,  I got right back on my usual schedule of sitting around watching TV.  Woo Hoo.  We did get a nice little entertainment interlude when the neighbor girls called and said they were down at the Brooksider watching the KU game.  They were probably bluffing and just being nice, but we figured what the heck and went down and joined them for a while.  Aside from the decidedly rough nature of the KU crowd, we had a good time, and even stayed out well past our usual curfew.

Sunday we did the standard Easter celebration;  At least “standard” as far as my definition.  We drove out to Mom’s and had a delicious ham dinner, with corn, asparagus, potatoes, and all that good stuff.  After dinner I drove back home to start my bachelor week;  Donette is headed to Houston with my Mom to take a little Spring Break.  So, it’s just me and the myriad pets this week…  Somebody come entertain me.  That’s all I got.  I’m tired.  I think the pups were a bit out of sorts over Donette’s absence last night;  Crazy mutts paced all night long and kept me up.

Boy it looks like a beautiful week to go camping, am I ever excited!!  I hope the basketball tourney is on satellite radio, because we’ll need something to pass the time while we sit in the car watching the rain/snow mixture come down.  Geez, we’ll probably have to send a look-out canoe ahead of the main group to call out icebergs.  Oh well, so far it looks like it is going to be just a bit warmer than last year, and we survived that one.  Last Easter it dipped into the teens at night, forcing Munkirs and I to snuggle in one sleeping bag just to survive.  (Nah, we’d have frozen to death before that happened.  It was cold, but we stayed well on our respective sides of the 6-man tent.)

Remarkably, we actually left the house a few times this weekend.  Friday was a non-event however, so I’ll substitute Thursday’s outing for the sake of some material.  That evening, I went up to the bowling alley in Raytown and hung out with some co-workers, as if I hadn’t seen enough of them during the afternoon.  That’s the second Thursday in a row I’ve been to a bowling alley…  Suspicious.  They’ve got two-fer-a-buck tacos though, can’t go wrong there.  I hung out there for a while, and then headed back home.  Mid-drive, however, I was notified that the neighbor girls were watching the Big 12 tourney on TV down at the Brooksider.   Donette was up North having dinner with her family, so I figured “What the heck” and stopped by for a while.  We watched MU get thrashed by the mighty Nebraska team, then I headed home, since it was well past 7:00!!  The neighbor girls, meanwhile, decided it would be a good idea to go hit Westport for the evening.  Ahhhh, to be young.

Saturday got off to a rough start, but rebounded later.  I woke up early, and decided to start the day with a solid breakfast.  A quick inventory of the ‘fridge turned up all the stuff for a ham and cheese omelet, which sounded like just the thing.  I must say, it turned out masterfully;  Sharp’s ain’t got anything on that omelet.  I enjoyed a few bites of it, then decided I needed a glass of milk to accompany my meal.  As soon as I turned my back to go into the kitchen, Gabe and Kane got into one of their all-too-common disagreements.  You would think Gabe would be the instigator of these events, but Kane has been observed more than once taking an unprovoked swat at his nose, so I’m not really sure who started this one.  (He might not be the smartest kitty in KC, but I’ll wager you he’s one of the fastest.)  Anyway, I got everybody all settled down, then returned to the table to find that Kane’s path of escape had been right through the middle of my beautiful omelet, as well as my full cup of coffee, which got dumped all over my unread paper.  I think I blacked out for a few seconds, but when I came around I was still screaming at those dumb animals.  I’m not sure they cared though;  Heck I think Kane was rather pleased at the delicious coating of mexican-blend cheese on his paws.  I can’t really blame him anyway;  I suppose if I had a snarling 75-lb. pitbull snapping at my heels I wouldn’t really care whose breakfast I ruined getting away either.

So, after a delicious meal of cold cereal, Donette got out of bed and we took the bus downtown to check out the Big 12 scene.  (Wow, a two-paragraph day!!)  I had a pair of tickets to the games, so we went down a few hours early to walk around the new Power & Light district.  I’ll give it high marks so far;  Pretty cool spot, especially for around here.  We bummed around a while, then went over to check out the new arena and watch a little basketball.  Unfortunately, our seats were so high up that the game was kind of hard to follow, so we only made it until half-time of the KU game.  It was still early, so we headed back across the street and had a remarkably good lunch at Gordon Biersch.  I say “remarkably” because they seemed to be struggling a bit with the crowd, so I wasn’t expecting much.  It came out very good though, if a bit slow.  After the basketball game was over, the place got just ridiculously crowded, so we bailed back to the bus stop for the ride home.  Of note regarding the ride home, I actually initiated a conversation with a complete stranger!  And after all the grief I give Donette about talking to strangers, sheesh.  I noticed the guy was wearing a Pellet Envy jacket though, and it piqued my curiosity.  Turns out that he and his wife (who was with him) are indeed the Pellet Envy team, and we had just a fine chat about competition BBQ’ing on the way back to Brookside.  (Remarkably, he was not familiar with the Triple Fat Back moniker.)  It also turns out he is entered in the Memphis In May competition for the first time this year, so he invited us to stop by his booth while we’re there and check things out;  Score!  Weary from all this interaction, I spent the rest of the day on the couch watching TV.  I watched Hostel II and some other horror flick that was so bad I can’t even remember the name of it.  Whew, busy day though.  I even took some pictures of the tourney and a few of the dogs playing in the back yard;  They are posted in the photo gallery.

Sunday I was still tired from the previous day’s events, but I managed to rally and get down to the gym for a while.  After a grueling 10 minute workout, I headed back to the Brooksider and joined Martin to watch the championship game on TV.  It wasn’t even that crowded down there;  I guess everybody was downtown watching it maybe?  We hung out there most of the afternoon;  I even had a cigar and then we sampled a few of the Boulevard Smokestack beers.  They were quite interesting brews, if maybe a bit on the expensive side.  Unfortunately I forgot my wallet and Martin had to pick them up, so money was no object.  After the game Donette came down and visited for a while, then we went and had dinner at Tanners to wrap up the weekend.  Oddly, we ran into our new bestest friends from Pellet Envy there again…  I think they are stalking us.

Not a bad weekend, all in all.  A bit on the quiet side for a person of my high entertainment requirements perhaps.  Friday night was a total “down” night actually…  I don’t think we did anything at all.  All I can remember is watching movies;  I watched “The Hills Have Eyes II”  (crappy) and “Next” (crappy also) and Donette watched whatever the heck she watched downstairs.

Saturday, Mom came out in the morning and took us out to Sharps for breakfast;  Score!  Mom and Donette had omelettes, I had good ol’ biscuits and gravy.  Aside from being an obscenely large portion, they were delicious.  (Must not have been that much I guess… I ate it all.)  After breakfast, being good and carb loaded, I headed off to the gym for a while.  I hung out there for a few hours, mostly just killing time while I waited for it to warm up outside a bit.  When it finally got up to a tolerable temp, we drove out to Mom’s to try starting the motorcycle again.  It fired up with a little cranking, so I got to ride it home finally!  I tell you what, that free neck gaiter thing that I picked up last week is SWEET.  It definitely rounds out my cold weather riding ensemble.  It was somewhere in the mid-30’s, and it was just fine riding.  Maybe a little chilly on the highway, but tolerable.  I rode it straight home, and then once I regained feeling in my fingers I grabbed a spoon and commenced to whoopin’ up a big pot of roux.  Zim was coming over Sunday to help make a pot of gumbo for Float Trip, and I wanted to get that part out of the way.  Good thing, because it took three friggin’ hours before it was the good dark color I like.  Of moderate interest on this topic, I tried baking the roux this time instead of cooking it on the stovetop, and was quite pleased with the results.  I picked that up while watching Alton Brown last week;  Can’t go wrong with Alton I figure.  That about covers Saturday;  The only other event of note was taking Gabe to the vet.  (And that always does qualify as an “event.”)  Donette took him by herself, and it sounds like all went well.  He got his rabies shot and various other vaccinations, so I guess he’s caught up for the year.  (Don’t want any rabid Pitbulls running around, you know.)  They gave him a gold star because it only took four people to hold him down while getting his nails trimmed;  It usually takes at least six people and a mild sedative.

Sunday, after spending my morning adjusting our myriad clocks for Daylight Savings, I tried to get the kitchen in some kind of order for some gumbo’n.   Zim arrived promptly at noon, and we got to work.  (Well, actually he showed up at one of the neighbor’s houses at noon…  And weren’t they pleasantly surprised.)  That took up the better part of the afternoon;  Chopping up all those vegetables and around 10 lbs. of meat is no small undertaking.  Once it finally came up to a boil we headed down to the Brooksider and loitered a while, then came back to check on it a few hours later.  I was quite pleased with the results;  I’m proclaiming it one of the better pots of gumbo to come out of the Kenagy kitchen.  Hopefully the hungry Float Trip patrons will agree with that assessment…  I figure the fact that it’s gonna be 25 degrees out should help my case.   After that bout of cooking, I was pretty well spent.  I sat in the back yard and let the dogs run for a good while, enjoying the weather.  Speaking of the doggies, they went to dog daycare for a 1/2 day on Sunday, and did “OK”.   They described Belle as “excitable,” whatever that means.  Overall they seemed to enjoy it though, we might try again soon.