Man I like my new coffee maker.  I didn’t realize how bad of coffee our old one was making until I tasted a cup from the new one.  I’d have cashed in the Braun a long time ago.  Plus, the new one has the “schedule” feature, so when you get out of bed you’ve got a nice hot carafe of coffee brewed up and ready.  (Actually the old one had that too, we just didn’t use it for whatever reason.)  The only downside is that the bean grinder sounds like a jet airplane taking off, but I’m getting used to that;  Just another alarm clock.  We picked up a Roomba too, and that’s working out very nicely.  My biggest fear when we bought it was that the dogs would attack it, but they don’t even seem to pay attention to it.  We schedule it to run while we’re sleeping, so when we wake up in the morning we’ve got a fresh pot of coffee and a clean floor.  Ahhhh, wonderful times.

Friday afternoon I went out to some gun range in Independence with a few guys from work for some shootin’.  Fun stuff there.  It was an indoor range though;  All-in-all I’d rather be outside, at least if the weather is decent.  After that episode of manliness, I met the wife down at the Brooksider for a “date night.”  (I spare no expense on these events, obviously.)  We socialized there for a few hours, then walked down the street a few doors for dinner at Jalapenos.  (This is remarkably similar to every other Friday night;  We just decided to call this one “date night.)  Usually you have a long wait for dinner on a Friday night, but since they went non-smoking we just sit at the bar if there’s a line for a table, which was the case on this night.  Being the last Friday of the month, they were serving my favorite too;  The chicken verde burrito.  SCORE.  After dinner we went home to watch a movie.  The evening selection was 3:10 to Yuma, one of the 8 movies in existence we both agreed sounded interesting.  I found it so exciting I fell asleep about 10 minutes into it, effectively ending date night.

Saturday I had planned to go out to Mom’s and pick up my motorcycle, which I was pretty fired up for.  I wasn’t entirely certain where to put it once I got it home, since Donette parks her new bus in the garage, but I decided to just worry about that part later.  So, we waited for it to warm up a bit, then made the arduous journey to Peculiar.  We had a typically fine lunch at “The Best Burrito” to start things off.  I had the chile relleno and enchilada combo plate.  Their rellenos are quite good, and I find them easy on my braces too, so that’s been one of my common orders lately.  After lunch we went back to the house and I tried to fire up the Yamaha;  Alas, no joy.  Drawing on my extensive military mechanic skills, I was able to diagnose the problem as a dead battery.  In reality, the issue could be anything from a dead battery, to bad fuel, to a faulty fetzer valve.  But, a battery is the only thing I know how to fix so that’s what I diagnose everything as.  If that doesn’t fix it, well, time to figure out how to get it to the shop.  So, I hooked up a charger and we drove back home bike-less.  For dinner, given the exceptional weather, we fired up the grill and cooked some pork chops.  We did some green beans on the grill too, and that worked out surprisingly well.  After dinner I retired to the computer chair to work on installing a new bulletin board on my web server.  The time has come to ditch the old reliable cgi script I’ve used for years.  It attracts spam like a friggin’ magnet;  I get like 75 to 100 crappy posts every day on that stupid thing.  Of those, at least a few make it through and actually get posted, and I’m tired of cleaning them up.  So, I decided it would be easiest to instead go with the most popular “forum based” one, phpBB.  Having a somewhat quirky web server though, nothing is ever too easy, and I gave up after a few hours.

Sunday morning started off very early, when I had an early-morning revelation what was wrong with my server.  Naturally this precluded going back to sleep, so I got up and started working on that again.  It took a few hours, but it’s up and working now, at least at some level.  Get to figuring it out if you want to use it, ’cause as soon as I waste some time getting it to look a little better I’m getting rid of the old one.  It was still rather early when I got done with that project, but I decided to just get on with the day instead of going back to bed.  Incidentally Mom called and said the indicator light on the battery charger had turned green, so hopefully that means my motorcycle will start now.  Given the gale force winds and the threat of rain I decided not to go try it out though.  After reading the paper and watching a few hours of news on TV, I headed off to loiter at the gym for a while.  I like going up there on Sundays because I have time to enjoy some of the “amenities,” like the sauna and the pool.  Nobody seemed to appreciate me practicing my cannonball technique in the lap pool, but they’ll get over it.  Pools are supposed to be fun.  After that moderately healthy activity, I met up with Martin at the Brooksider to have a stogie and watch some TV.  Alas, for some reason or another the place was full of college kids, whoopin’ and hollerin’ and making a generally unacceptable racket.  I don’t know what the deal was;  It’s not Spring Break yet is it?  Oh well, we stayed for a while and then went to the Westport Flea Market and met the wives for dinner.  I had a blue cheese burger with extra onions and fries.  Aside from having to sandblast the film off my braces when we got home, it was delicious.

The long winter is finally over.  You heard it here first people.  I’ll be riding the scooter every day by next week.  And Float Trip is gonna be sunny and 70.  Ol’ Katie Horner ain’t got nuthin’ on me.

We had a bit of fun this weekend, interspersed with long stretches of downtime.  Friday started things off with a standard-issue happy hour at the Brooksider.  Not much to say about that.  We put in our requisite one hour of face time, then went and picked up a little take-out from Kin Lin, down by UMKC.  And that sorta did it for Friday.  We ate our dinner and took our places in front of our respective televisions to watch worthless TV.

Saturday I actually got up and went to the gym.  I’ve been slacking on my weekend gym trips something fierce;  Maybe I’m getting back in sync.  I hung out there for a while, then we took a short road-trip out to Gail’s Harley Davidson in Grandview.  They were giving away free neck gaitors, which I just so happen to need.  What a deal!!  I personally don’t have much use for Harley’s, but I’m all about free stuff.  We loitered around the store for a short while (pretty cool place actually) and then headed over to Bruce and Liz’s for their annual bowling party.  We made it for all of the pre-party at the house, the highlight of which was Bruce, Carl, and Martin’s take on “dualing guitars.”  They have all taken up the guitar for some unknown reason, and we were treated to a (thankfully) short recital.  After that auditory assault, everybody headed off to the bowling alley to test their skills.  We refrained from actual bowling participation though, preferring to just make fun of everyone else.

Sunday got off to a rough, rough start.  We woke up to find our 12 year old coffee pot had up and quit working.  What a piece of crap.  Donette raced down to Costco to get a replacement, but alas, the damage was done.  I was so thrown off my routine by that time that I just laid on the couch all afternoon.  (Actually that pretty much is my routine on Sundays anyway.)  We did have a little dinner party though.  The neighbor girls came over and joined us for some stacked enchiladas.  After dinner the girls huddled up to cackle and watch the Oscars;  I went and parked myself in front of the upstairs TV and watched Rob Zombie’s Halloween.  (Good movie, probably the best I’ve seen in my recent spate of movie-watching.)

Please pardon my tardiness.  I have the day off and this wasn’t extremely high on my list of priorities.  Looking down my list of accomplishments for the day, it’s apparent that nothing else was either.

As a matter of fact, I had Friday off too.  Donette and I had lunch at Lew’s, then I met up with Martin and K.B. at some point in the afternoon and we hung out at the Brooksider talking BBQ and such.  After a while the girls met up with us and we went across the street to Carmen’s for a little evening repast.  We hadn’t been there in quite a while, and honestly it hasn’t changed much, which I’ll take as good thing.  We started off with the stuffed artichoke, which is always solid, then split a plate of my favorite entree;  Fettuccini al Diablo.  I ended up with squid tentacles all tangled up in my grill work, but it was worth it.  What the heck, I don’t have to look at it.  (Stupid braces.)

Saturday was downright event-filled.   We started off the day by laying down a solid base of feed at Sharp’s.  Perhaps of note, if not really of interest, I voted on branching out and going to Georgie Porgies.  We went there quite a while ago and it was “OK,” so I thought maybe we should give it another chance, as opposed to the same ol’ Sharp’s.  Plus, if I’m going to get car-jacked I like to get it out of the way early so I have the rest of day to recover.  Anyway, I got voted down, as in all other walks.  Naturally Sharp’s was just as good as ever though.  After breakfast I met up with my buddy Mark, one of my Brooksider partners in crime.  We drove out near Lone Jack (in “my” fine purple Civic I might add, which he is now the proud owner of) and met up with one of his co-workers who owns some land out there.  We spent the entire afternoon shooting targets of various composition;  everything from balloons, to golf balls, to assorted fruits and vegetables, to traditional paper targets.  Naturally the sound of even small-caliber gunfire brings out everyone in earshot, and after a while a pretty good little crowd gathered to plink around.  One guy even brought a cannon he made.  It looked pretty cool and got lots of oohs and ahhs when he shot it off;  I crawled under the truck when he lit it and missed the whole thing.  It was just a fine time, and I managed to shoot up my entire 550 round box of .22’s I took out there.  Oh well, that’s the beauty of .22’s;  That whole afternoon of entertainment ran me about $12.  About 5:00 it started raining pretty hard, so we packed up and scurried back to KC.  Donette had been running around the city with Susan W. all day, so her husband John and I met up with them at Jalapeno’s for some dinner.  We had a nice long meal, after which it struck me that I was totally exhausted.  We had a few games of cards in the works, but it was apparent that I only had about 30 minutes of steam left in me, so we just went home and called it a night.

Sunday, well…  We tend to not do much on Sunday.  I think I used that nasty wet crappy snow as an excuse to just hunker down all day.  That’s pretty much all I did too.  I watched, in this order:  True Grit, The China Syndrome, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, and  The Sons of Katie Elder.  Wow.  After all those were over there wasn’t anything else on so I sat and clicked through the channels all night.  I got so bored at one point I actually got dressed to go to the gym, but then I looked outside and saw my car was buried under snow, so I plopped right back on the couch.  Crap, I was too lazy to even eat… Now that I think about it my intake for the day was a bowl of cereal and some coffee.  Oh well, I don’t think I’m gonna waste away to nothing any day soon.

Man if I was in a foul mood last week, this week would rate downright boorish.  Try as I might, my naturally effervescent attitude is unable to overcome the cumulative effects of work, weather, and shaky health.  I’ve been bordering on sick for a few weeks now, and I think it’s starting to catch up with me.  And as for Donette, she took a header down the stairs last Friday (likely in an effort to avoid going to work) so I’ve been tending to her every whim, even more so than usual.

Friday, once again a few people from work joined me at the Brooksider for a light Happy Hour celebration.  Not much to recount there…  Nothing ever changes at the Brooksider, which is why I go there.  We hung out for a bit, then I picked up a delicious order of chicken strips to go (1/2 price before 7:00, you know) and went home to watch TV.  I watched a couple of movies, starting with “Epic Movie.”  Wow, was THAT a poor movie.  I generally kind of like stupid movies;  They’re usually good for a chuckle or two.  This one, unfortunately, was so stupid it couldn’t even be followed.  I really can’t explain why I didn’t just shut it off and move on to the next one, which was “Resident Evil.”  Mildly more entertaining, as I am somewhat fond of senseless action movies, but still definitely leaning towards the stupid side.

Saturday could be summed up as a day lost out of my life.  I spent a little time in the back yard with the dogs, but that was about it.  I had to go in to work around midnight, and that loomed in front of me like a black cloud all day.  I am just almost too old for those all-night work sessions.

Sunday, Hop-Along-Doni pretty much insisted we leave the house for a while.  She spent all day Friday and Saturday in bed resting her ankle, and we were both effectively stir-crazy by Sunday.  We went to Costco and bummed around for a while, eating samples and buying things we don’t need, which is what you are supposed to do at Costco I think.  After that we headed back to the house, with a stop at the Brooksider stuck in the trip as a waypoint.  We caught up on all the weekend gossip, mostly which revolved around the big shooting at Price Chopper on Saturday.  We were having a pretty good time hanging out, but were interrupted by some silly band doing non-stop sound-checks.  “Yes, you are extremely loud, you can stop playing now.”  They were quite a group of characters though, and did make for some interesting people-watching for a while.  Believe it or not, it was a Missouri tribute band, and they looked the part.  Geez that music is even just a bit older than my tastes, although not by much.

I find myself in a particularly foul temperament this morning, even for a Monday.  It’s only 9:30, and the day is already heading south rapidly, possibly setting the tone for an entire week of foul-ness.  I woke up entirely too early for one thing.  That’s not so unusual an occurrence, and generally easily overcome by the newspaper and a pot of coffee, but my paper didn’t even show up today.  Yep gonna be one of those weeks.  Another contributing factor is my less-than-brilliant decision to get braces several weeks ago.  I guess it’s been about six weeks now, and they are still nothing less than miserable.  Granted, I seem to make more than my share of poor decisions, but I’d rank this one right up there with joining the Army, or working for Saga.

I suppose I am obligated to recap our weekend, although it may have a rather negative slant to it.  It probably usually does anyway.  Friday was no doubt the highlight of the weekend.  For one thing, I had the day off, which always makes for a solid day.  We puttered around the city not doing a whole lot all afternoon, then met up with the regular gang down at the Brooksider around 3:00.  Later in the day a veritable horde of co-workers showed up to join us, and we ended up staying the dreaded way-too-long.

Saturday didn’t bring much in the way of entertainment, for me at least.  I ran the dogs for a bit to wear them out, watched the MU game, and that’s about it.  Meanwhile, Donette attended various “girls-only” activities.  Her social engagements went well into the evening, leaving me and the mutts alone to play Doom III and watch movies.  I bought that Doom game several weeks ago (yeah I know it’s like a 5 year old game) in my ongoing attempt to enjoy computer games.  At this point I have to think I am never going to figure out those stupid games.  I pretty much just run around lost, running into walls and getting beat up by random creatures.  Sort of like a virtual version of my actual day;  At least I can turn the game off.

Sunday, of course, was the big Superbowl game, woo-hoo.  We went to a party, so that ain’t all bad.  These stupid braces cut into my enjoyment something fierce though.  They had a huge BBQ spread out for the game;  Ribs, brisket, burnt ends, pork, and sausage.  Hmmm, where to start?  I ended up with a double serving of macaroni.  I tried to gnaw through a few chunks of pork but they just tasted like pain.  Hey, only 18 months to go.