Whew I’m spent.  Mondays are hard on me.  We didn’t even do that much this weekend;  I guess it just doesn’t take much these days.  I started off Friday at the good ol’ Brooksider.  I haven’t been there in a few weeks so I dropped by for happy hour to see if everybody was there.  And, what do you know, they were.  Same people, in the same room, at the same table.  I like consistency.  I stayed an hour or two, then came home to relieve Donette of her dog-sitting duties so her and Dakin could go out.  They went to the Brooksider too, and watched the Disco Dick show.  They must have like it… They stayed out rather ridiculously late.

Saturday I actually went and kicked around the gym a bit.  Third time last week, whoa!  For our evening entertainment, we went to the 810 Zone and met up with Ed & Kim, who were in town for the Bengals game.  This is the third year they’ve gotten together with a big group of friends and family from Cincinnati and gone to the game.  Anyway, they were all down on the Plaza to watch the UC game.  As for us, we watched the MU game, although it was more interesting watching the Cincy crew watch their game… that was the real spectacle.  That was the first time I’d been to the 810 Zone incidentally;  And I would guess it’s probably the last time for a good while.

Sunday we had good intentions of heading to Arrowhead and tailgating with Ed & Kim and their merry band of hooligans.  We just didn’t have it in us though.  Stayed out too late Saturday night I guess.  We just couldn’t drag ourselves to the car.  Instead, we stayed home and made some rather tasty lentil soup, and watched the game from the comfort of our couch.  We met up with them after the game though, at the Falloon.  They still seemed to have a little energy in them, despite the pummeling the Bengals took.  Speaking of pummelings;  I lost to Donette in stupid Fantasy Football, by 120 points.  OUCH.

Well that’s not much of an update I suppose, but it’ll have to do.  It’s early and I don’t think I’ve fully woken up.  Let me be.  And yes I know there aren’t any new pictures.  Sigh.  I had good intentions though, that should count for something.  I don’t have any poll material either.  What can ya’ do.

The BBQ season is now over, as least as far as competitions go.  I don’t think the cover is ready to go back on the smoker just yet, but we’ve done our last all-nighter for the year I imagine.  (I hope…)

Things kicked off Thursday afternoon with the not-so-fun part of the long weekend;  Everything had to be hauled down there and set up.  Last year I managed to show up just when this part was getting wrapped up…  Remind me to wait until a little later in the day again next year.  I weaseled out of MOST of the hard stuff though, so I’ll live.  We spent the rest of the day hanging out in the unseasonably hot weather, trying to convince ourselves how much we liked our new spot they stuck us in this year.  It was one of those good-news-bad-news situations.  On one hand it was a huge spot, and we were on the end of a row again, which helps when you are setting up and tearing down.  But, we were right in the middle of several other huge “party booths” which made the traffic situation a little ugly.  It’s not like we were given much choice about it, so I guess we’ll just have to get used to it.  We partied well into the night, (by our definition anyway,) and then retired to the camper to be gently lulled to sleep by the sound of the constantly passing freight trains, which were a few hundred feet from our spot.  (Put that in the “bad news” category.)

Friday was the “party day,” which defines the Royal weekend for a good percentage of our team.  In fact, I’m not entirely convinced that at least half the team knows there is also an actual BBQ competition after the party is over.  At any rate, it does take at least as much work as the competition, if not more.  We spent a good part of the day setting up the food lines, putting out chairs and hay bales, and just general set-up, not to mention slicing and chopping a few hundred pounds of smoked meat.  I also managed to sneak off to the hotel room that Donette had rented for the weekend, which was conveniently located downtown.  I took a nice little nap, then headed back to the site later in the afternoon.  Our party turned out remarkably well.  We get a little more prepared every year, and as a result things go just a bit smoother with each event.  Mind you, I generally get a lot of this information second-hand, as I have a tendency to run out of gas well before the party is over.  My nap paid off this year though;  I actual saw the band and everything.  All-in-all the party was a success.  Our food got good reviews, and I think we actually had enough for most if not all of the people that showed up.  The band was a hit again, and Zim did a good job managing the riff-raff at the door.  And, to top it off, we set a new record with our annual fund-raising effort, collecting almost $1200 for the Mid-American Burn Foundation.

Saturday was, for the most part, a rest and recovery day.  Usually the actual competition is Saturday, but this year for whatever reason they moved it to Sunday.  (Another good-news-bad-news situation.)  We cleaned up some of the damage from the night before and basically just sat around baking in the record-setting weather.  Donette came down and rescued me for a while so I didn’t melt.  We had lunch at Tanners and watched some college football, then it was off to the hotel for another nap.  She hauled me back down to the booth around 6:00 that evening to get ready for “game time.”  In another of the constant upgrades, we had a flat-screen TV set up this year, so we spent the rest of the evening watching the MU game and fine-tuning the meat schedule for the next day.

Right around midnight, we had the cooker warmed up and the first meat went on.  Brice and I spent all night in lawn chairs, tending the fire and watching horrible infomercials.  I’ll say one thing, that job was a lot more comfortable this year than most, due mostly to the weather and the TV.  I put on a jacket around 3:00, but it never got cold enough for jeans.  The infomercials were excruciatingly bad, but it gave us something to stare at, even warranting the occasional chuckle with their over-the-top cheesiness.  The rest of the group got up around 6:00, and we were in full ‘que mode by 7:00.  I really don’t know what is more exhausting, the party on Friday or the competition itself.  By the time the last entry got turned in at 2:00 that afternoon, I was thoroughly spent.  Luckily, by that time, our set-up crew had torn down almost everything, so all I had to do was crawl to the car and pour myself in the passenger seat.  Actually it worked out well;  We were putting the smoker on Martin’s hitch when the rain finally hit full force, so we escaped just in time.  Donette drove me straight to the car wash and gave me a good power-washing, (twice,) and the rest of the day was spent on the couch nodding in and out of consciousness.

So how did we do?  Well, not only was our party a big improvement, our BBQ took a vast jump in the standings too.  For my part, I took a “back to basics” approach which worked out well for me.  I’ve been on a steady decline in the standings the last few years so I tried to duplicate everything from our first year of competition, when I did at least mediocre.  I even made Josh come down and walk up to the turn-in with me like our first year, which may border on out-right superstition but it seemed to pay off in the rankings.  And, even more importantly, we handily defeated our arch-rivals, the Red Glove BBQ team.  Here are the official results, as summarized by Martin this morning:

Chicken – 242 out of 486 – Score 152 – Just a few spots worse than last year & had a higher score. An excellent first effort for Ballew

Ribs – 195 out of 490 – Score – 155 – An improvement in spots and score from last year’s strong finish

Pork – 56th out of 485 – Score 165 – An impressive few weeks for the Creighton boys. 3rd in Kearney and the highest finish and score ever at the Royal!

Brisket – 189 out of 491 – Score – 152 – Best brisket finish ever and an improvement of 234 places from last year!!

Beans – 88 out of 210 – Score – 153 – A strong finish and according to Brett if he could have gotten more smoker time he would have killed the pork team.

Sausage – 200 out of 373 – Score 151 – An improvement in score and spots from last year – There was also a high enjoyment factor watching Belanger apply the jelly

Team – 116 out of 496

Triple Fat Back is on the move;  In the right direction for once!!

It’s Fall I guess, in the weather sense if not officially.  (When does Fall officially start?)  That means time for my favorite weather of the year, and time to start burning vacation, which coincide very nicely.

As such, I took Friday off to go on my first official “motorcycle trip.”  My bike isn’t really set up for touring, being supremely uncomfortable and having no storage, but I’ve been slowly collecting enough gear to make it feasible at some level.  That’s my nifty set-up on the left there, complete with my hillbilly saddlebags, i.e. a backpack and a handful of bungee cords.  No, I wasn’t trying to be artsy-fartsy with the black and white picture, I just don’t know how to work my camera very well.  Somehow I keep setting it wrong.  Anyway, I took off Friday afternoon, destination Hermann, MO, where my friends the Red Buffalo BBQ team were doing a ‘Que competition.  I’m not too keen on the Interstate, so I went up 50 highway to Jefferson City, then cut over to 94 for the rest of the trip.  I had my iPod stuck in my ears for amusement, and the trip went remarkably fast.  When I turned onto 94 I found myself right beside the good ol’ Katy Trail, and I had a good laugh remembering that hellish trip.  It looked a lot better at 60 mph than 12 mph, I can say that for sure.  All-in-all, I really enjoyed the trip.  If you’ve never gone tearing alongside the Missouri river at 95 mph with the wind in your hair, listening to some DMB on an awesome Fall day, I highly recommend trying it.  OK, actually I am sure I never exceeded 70 mph, I have no hair, and I had on way too many layers of clothes to enjoy the weather.  But, I did listen to lots of good music and I got a little bit of air through my sandals.  Yeah, I know it’s a bit of a contrast to wear an armored jacket and sandals.  But, frankly the world would be a more beautiful place without my feet so I don’t worry so much about protecting them.  I got to Hermann around 4:00, and spent the rest of the day hanging out at the ‘Que contest.  The whole thing was pretty much a blast;  The ride, the contest, everything.  Fun stuff, at least for my boring world.

Saturday I got up and hung out a bit, but not too long.  I wanted to stay around for the competition, but at the same time I had absolutely no interest in riding home in the dark, so I loaded up and took off around 10:00.  It was another great day of weather, and there were literally dozens of motorcycles on the road, especially the 94 highway stretch.  I got lots of practice on my official wave.  I’m still fine-tuning it, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of the coolest motorcycle waves in existence.  It was a quite windy ride though, and I took a few more breaks than the previous day.  When I got to Lee’s Summit I turned north and headed up to Martin’s house, and by the time I got there I was more than ready to dismount for a while.  Martin had the big smoker fired up, and I spent the rest of the day helping him prepare a rather massive amount of food in preparation for the party next weekend.  Donette came up and got me that evening, and I left my motorcycle abandoned in his garage;  I don’t think my butt could have taken another 10 minutes on that seat.

Sunday I got out of bed and found myself nearly immobile.  Man that ride was a good time, but it took a toll on my old bones.  My back hurt, my shoulders hurt, and my legs wouldn’t straighten out.  I hobbled over to the couch, turned on the television, and spent the rest of the afternoon clicking through football games and watching my fantasy football teams.  We did venture out around halftime of the Chiefs game.  We headed up to the Martin’s to watch the second half and pick up my bike.  But, after we went out to dinner, it was kinda dark and the roads still looked a little damp, so it’s still there.  (Either that or I still wasn’t ready to get back on it.)

I find Mondays to be an increasingly tedious part of my weekly routine.  This is a quite frustrating situation, given that there’s not much I can do about it.  I guess I should look at the bright side;  Monday night television now consists of Monday Night Raw AND Monday Night Football.  Gosh, so many entertainment options.

I supposed our Thursday night is worth a mention before I jump into the sparse weekend coverage.  We don’t usually go out on school nights, together anyway, so just the fact that we left the house was news in itself.  (Somebody usually has to stay home and babysit the dogs, but they are slowly getting a little better at being left alone.)  Our destination was the Peanut downtown, where our friend Anne works every Thursday.  The ‘Nut ranks as one of my favorite dinner destinations in the city, particularly when Anne is cooking.  It might not be the most heart-friendly meal, and strays a bit from our recent attempt at a healthier diet, but you have to shock the metabolism every now and then I think.  She started us off with her world-famous appetizer;  Lays potato chips served with a cup of blue cheese dressing.  Let the artery thickening begin.  We followed that up with a bakers dozen of their enormous hot wings, then rounded the meal out with a triple BLT and fries.  (The sandwich was loaded down with about a pound of bacon, and of course the fries came with another cup of blue cheese for dipping.)  Whew.  Now that’s eatin’, people.

Not a bad weekend all-in-all;  A little bit of partying intermingled with some thrilling culinary adventures.  OK, maybe “thrilling” is a stretch, but we did actually cook at home a few times.  Friday was shaping up into a non-event, so we decided to hunker down and cook some dinner.  After taking a quick inventory of the freezer and the cabinets, we decided on grilled fish with a white wine and rosemary reduction sauce.  It came out fair.  Sounds better than it actually was.  For the most part I just like saying “white wine reduction sauce,” the rest is secondary.  That was essentially our Friday;  The rest of the night consisted of bad television intermingled with a few riveting games of sudoku on the computer.

Saturday afternoon wasn’t much to speak of, for me anyway.  I walked the dogs quite a ways, while Donette hit the Plaza Art Fair with her friends Susan, Anne, Lucy & Katie.  Luckily (miraculously) she didn’t buy anything.  After that, we met up with a crowd down at the New Point Grill to celebrate Carol Brown’s 40th birthday.  We had a good time but couldn’t stay long, because I had to work later that night.  But, I never miss a chance to party on Kevin’ s dime so we stayed as long as we could.

Sunday we spent our afternoon cooking and watching football.  I was volunteered to smoke some turkey and brisket for our neighborhood block party that night, so that ate up most of the day.  I used the Red Buffalo’s award-winning turkey recipe, and was quite pleased with the results.  For the most part it consisted of brining the bird all night, then smoking it at around 225 with a generous amount of butter and fresh herbs.  Meanwhile, while the smoker was running, Donette took a shot at a new chicken recipe.  She smoked up a bunch of chicken thighs, and I must admit they came out more-than-passable.  Too bad girls are strictly prohibited from competing on the TFB team, we could use the help.  But, rules are rules.  Since food is the general topic of the moment, I suppose our lunch bears mention too.  I made my first-ever frittata, and it came out very nicely.  If, like myself, you’ve never heard of a frittata, I would liken it to some kind of cross between an omelet and a quiche.  Here’s the recipe I used, if you feel adventurous:  Italian Frittata.  Our Sunday evening was spent at the aforementioned block party.  It was as much fun as standing around trying to talk to a bunch of people you don’t know can be, I guess.  It was mercifully short at any rate, and broken up with frequent trips back to the house to “check on the dogs.”  I won a door prize though;  That made it worthwhile right there.  A gift certificate to a nearby restaurant…  More food!!

Sorry to all, but the technical content of the weekend was rather limited;  I have no material relating to any network upgrades, PC tweaks, or even random firewall policy changes.  Maybe next week.  My time was spent in the hellish wilds of Kearney MO, land of cow patties, trucker hats, and single-ply toilet paper.  I was there participating in TFB’s second BBQ competition of the season.  And, to tell you the truth, I am still feeling a little bit out-of-sorts from the whole thing.  Somehow I managed to burn, cut, or bruise a great portion of my already battered body, including a nasty slice right on the tip of my index finger.  I didn’t notice it so much until I started typing this morning…  Could end up being a career-threatening injury.

But, being a trooper, I will play through the pain and recap the events, if maybe in a slightly abbreviated fashion.  Martin and I got there mid-Friday, followed closely by Zim and the all-important camper.  We got settled in and the rest of the crew dragged in throughout the evening.  We actually had a nice little party, although the sub-40 degree temperature made things just a little chilly.  Of course, no TFB event would be complete without some type of humorous turn of events.  In St. Joseph this Spring, Chad provided the amusing story line. (That’s all I’ve got to say about that.)  For the Kearney event, the shocking turn came about when our arch-enemies, the Red Glove BBQ team, set up right across the street from our camp.  They were truly sneaky about the whole thing, even going to the length of signing up under the pseudo-moniker of “Bone Deep BBQ.”  (Just in case we were perusing the entry sheet daily watching for them, I guess.)  It was a good laugh though, and added a new level of drama to the entire competition.

We got our smoker fired up around midnight Friday, and the first flesh hit the fire at roughly 1:00.  (I apologize for being vague, but I just can’t be sure who might be reading this in an attempt at stealing trade secrets.)  Things progressed smoothly throughout the wee hours;  Not sure how much text I could possibly squeeze out of that.  Turn, baste, stoke, turn, baste, stoke…  You get the idea.  We passed the time with occasional forays over to the Red Glove (a.k.a. Bone Deep) camp, and my co-worker Rick’s team who was up the street a bit.

Everything got wrapped up around 2:30 Saturday afternoon, as far as the “work” was concerned.  The results were announced promptly at 4:00, and you could have cut the tension in the air with a 12″ slicing blade.  (Much like my finger.)  They asked if we needed any additional security called to stand between us and the Red Gloves, but we assured them we were professionals and would act as such.  Red Gloves scored the first punch early and big, staggering us hard with a first-place finish in chicken.  They followed that up with another body-shot in the form of a fourth-place rib entry.  The TFB team was reeling, but then came back strong when Falhstrom and Bryse’s pork entry placed third.  That was it for the ribbons;  We had to go to the scorecards for the final results.  Team TFB ended up taking the honors, by a scant but decisive four spots.  (Eighteenth to twenty-second.) I don’t think our resounding victory really surprised anyone, given our clear history of defeating them, but I will admit the dual ribbons had us a bit shaken.  As for my brisket, it came in a somewhat disappointing 20th.  Not bad, I guess, but I must admit I was hoping for a little better.  (It placed top 50% and beat the Red Glove entry, which are my main areas of focus.)  I was somewhat comforted by a string of perfect scores in the “tenderness” category, so it’s something to build on.

Sunday was a wash.  I spent the day up at Martin’s watching football and trying to recover.  Of course, we also spent a considerable amount of time discussing what we could have done different, should have done, didn’t do, blah blah blah.  The American Royal competition is right around the corner people!!