I guess the brutal weather finally got here.  If it waited this long I guess that’s a bonus.  That’s my always-optimistic attitude shining through there.

We had a weekend o’ parties;  Can’t beat that.  We started off Friday down at the Brooksider, where they were having a party for our friend Ritchie.  He had just retired from Hallmark, with some ridiculous amount of years.  I had 25 years in my head, but the more I think about it I think it may have been even longer than that.  I guess you get to know lots of people working somewhere that long, because it may well have been the biggest crowd I have ever seen down there at 5:00 in the afternoon.  They had all kinds of good food set out, so that covered dinner too.  We stayed there a few hours, and then went over to our neighbor’s house for a party they were throwing.  These girls just moved in next door a short while ago, and I’m sure they were just giving us the “courtesy invite,” but we decided to actually show up for a few laughs.  It did indeed provide quite a few chuckles.  I’d say the average age was 21 – 23;  It was like a college flash-back.  We kind of stood on the edge and marveled at their skills until 11:00 or so, when they were circling up to head down to Westport.  As for us, we circled up and headed to bed.

Saturday we actually ventured out into the oppressive heat for a short while.  We walked the dogs, did a little shopping, and that type of practical stuff.  We also stopped by Jalapenos for a little lunch.  I mention that only because I decided to stray from my usual order (pork burrito) and get a chile relleno.  I had been to Fiesta Azteca Friday afternoon and had the same, so I wanted to compare their offerings while the memory was still fresh.  Jalapenos was good, actually better than I remember, but I still give the edge to Fiesta Azteca.  There is lots of supporting reasoning to this opinion, but I’ll spare you the details.  After all that excitement, and I really hate to admit this, we went over to John & Susan’s house for…  A couples baby shower.  Yeah, yeah, admit it, you’ve been to one too.  I have weaseled out of several previous situations, but this one was conveniently located and I was promised that there would be absolutely no games or similar tomfoolery.  It wasn’t too miserable, considering the situation.  There was a ton of good appetizers, and none of the guys were too thrilled about being there, so we just kind of slunk off to the kitchen and ate.  We didn’t stay long either;  I had to work all night so we bailed pretty early.

Sunday was once again “brisket-practice” day.   With my notes from last weekend providing a solid base documentation, I fired up the smoker and went to work, again keeping a detailed brisket-diary.  The Martins came over and product-tested with us, and I have to say it didn’t come out too bad.  Definitely an improvement, which is my main focus at this point.  The bad part of all this practice is the associated obligation to improve on my actual contest scores though.  See, as it stands I can always just do poorly and then say “Guess I shoulda practiced some.”  Now if/when I score horribly, I will just flat suck.  OH THE PRESSURE!!!  Actually, after a little thought, I am fully prepared to fall back on my secondary “This isn’t the smoker I practiced on” excuse.

We turned it down quite a bit after our big trip last weekend.  Just can’t hold that pace at our age.  Friday we went down to the good ol’ Brooksider, which is something of a rarity lately.  That’s probably a good thing though, because it makes it seem funner when we do go.  And, case in point, we must have been having fun because we stayed a lot longer than we intended.  Actually we’d gotten up and were walking out the door when we ran into one of our old neighbors and ended up staying a few more hours.  That was a night-ender;  We finally left around 7:30, went home and watched the rest of the Royals game on the couch.

Saturday we moped around the house until it got good and hot, and then went on a motorcycle ride.  We were headed for the Lee’s Summit Perkins to get some breakfast, but when we realized it was 11:30 we changed plans and went to Fiesta Azteca in Raytown for some lunch.  That’s my favorite place for Mexican food lately.  I like the big menu for one thing…  Most places I have one, possibly two items I’ll order every time, but at this place I have a rotation of like 5 things to choose from.  So far my bottom-line favorites are the carnitas burrito and the chile relleno burrito.  The latter option is quite interesting;  It’s a chile relleno (and a good one at that) rolled up in a flour tortilla with beans.  OK, maybe not the healthiest option in the city, but good.  After lunch we rode around a bit longer, stopping by Knobtown Cycle to look at some helmets and then meandering around a while longer before ending up at home a few hours later.  Maybe it was the hot weather, but we never recovered from the ride;  The rest of the afternoon was spent laying on the couch watching television.  For evening entertainment we went to Starlight to see “The Wizard of Oz” for the fifth time.  It wasn’t a bad show, but I pretty much knew what was going to happen.  The element of surprise was definitely lost.  It was a relatively nice evening out though, and ended up being the first show this season that I had to stay for the whole thing.  Errr, I mean “got to” stay for the whole thing.

Sunday afternoon was spent smoking a small brisket.  Not too much to go over there;  Put on some coals, played with the dogs, listened to the Royals…  A nice relaxing day.  I am determined to practice a bit more for the upcoming barbecue “season” so this was my first effort to that end.  I took notes every hour or so on the temperature, when I added heat, etc, so maybe all that info will pay off.  The Martins came over for dinner, but we didn’t even try the brisket so I don’t really know how this attempt turned out.  It went straight from the smoker to the ‘fridge.  It’s on the menu for Tuesday night so I guess I have something to look forward to.

Man driving vacations are GREAT, I’m never flying AGAIN!!!  OK, just a hint of sarcasm sneaking in there.  I’d say that was my longest stretch in a car since the Angel Fire trip several years ago.  Honestly it wasn’t that bad, especially considering all the money we saved over flying, renting a car, etc.  This overlooks the minor detail that we spent $1500 getting our 10-year-old vehicle ready for the trip, because I’m assuming it is now good for another 10 years.

The trip I am referring to is our 1200 mile jaunt to Loveland, OH for our second Pigfest.  We went last year and had such a good time that a repeat was definitely in order, but after the bashing our checkbook took in Europe last month we decided to make the dreaded I-70 run instead of flying.  We took off bright and early Friday morning on a blistering pace, and made pretty good time until I passed a State Trooper in Illinois at roughly Mach II.  I can’t even begin to explain why, but when I glanced ahead and saw a big white car sitting in the median with lettering all over it, all I thought was “Student Driver.”  It had a light bar and everything, it’s not like it was cleverly disguised.  One of those inexplicable optical illusions I guess.  Anyway, for whatever reason he didn’t even give me a glance, although I was conservatively 30 mph over the limit.  I took it as a sign that I’d better dial it back a few notches though, so we took it a bit slower the rest of the way.  When we got to Cincinnati, we checked into a hotel downtown, met up with everybody, and spent the rest of the evening at the Hofbrauhaus on the Kentucky side.  We were pretty spent from the drive so we didn’t make it as late as the rest of the crowd, but it was a passable effort, especially for us.

Saturday morning (OK it was “early afternoon”) we got started with a good breakfast at First Watch.  I always thought those were exclusive to KC;  Apparently I thought wrong.  After a tasty omelet, we continued even further East to the Paff Entertainment Complex in Loveland, OH.  (At least I think we were going East…  You would do well to ignore my comments on geography in general.)  The weather was perfect for an all-day outdoor party;  The high was right around 80 degrees and it was mostly sunny all afternoon.  After spending the whole day with whiffleball, cornhole, soccer, volleyball, and assorted other activities we had a huge dinner (roast pig, naturally) and then enjoyed a backyard concert by MER, out of Chicago.  It was a great show, and ended on a much better note than last year, when the police unceremoniously cut things short.  We made it a little later into the evening, and then snuck off to our tent to call it a day.  Unfortunately the unseasonably cool weather that we had enjoyed so much all day had dropped into some very unseasonable temp’s for the night.  We didn’t have any sleeping bags or blankets or anything (why would you need them in July???) and after about 30 minutes our teeth were chattering.  We called no joy and low-crawled into the house, where we scored a premium spot on a comfy hide-a-bed;  It pays to turn in early I guess.

Sunday I got up early and tried to wake Donette up;  I thought maybe we could sneak back out to the tent before anybody noticed.  Couldn’t roust her up though;  I think we were busted anyway.  We had a tasty breakfast, packed up our tent, and started the trek back to KC.  On the way out of town we stopped by Kim’s parents house and visited a while, and enjoyed a second breakfast.  (Hey, it was getting close to noon.)  We found that Ed may have been exaggerating the horrors of the West Side all along;  We didn’t get mugged, shot at, or even car-jacked the whole time we were there.  We chatted for a while, then headed out of town, stopping by Skyline Chili on our way for one last breakfast.  The drive home was as uneventful as the trip out.  Our plan was to stop in St. Louis, but we were so enthralled by the beautiful scenery of the Interstate that we just kept on going all the way to KC.  Actually we really weren’t all that tired and getting home sounded good.  Plus, “the kids” were being taken care of by Ronda and we didn’t want to push our luck with that.

Today we just rested up, washed the car, and miscellaneous stuff like that.  In a rare burst of energy, I even got my Pigfest pictures posted already.  Yes, I’m aware I don’t even have my pictures from last month up yet, so don’t bother reminding me.  For a bit more comprehensive photo coverage, check out Claire’s (Ed’s Mom) album.  You can get more wrap-up and picture links on Ed’s site too.

The update will be just a bit late on Monday, as we will be driving home from Cincinnati.  Driving??!!  Yep, driving.  We waited a bit long and airfare was too pricey.  And, not only am I being subjected to the unspeakable horror of nine hours in the car, I have been forbidden to take a laptop.  (GASP!!)  I hope we can manage some fun amidst these brutal conditions.

Our weekend sorta kinda started Thursday, which is always nice.  The Martins joined us in Westport for an O.A.R. concert.  Normally we wouldn’t take part in such wackiness on a school night, but we were feeling particularly energetic I guess.  It was a good show, other than the slightly uncomfortable feeling that we were 20 years older than everybody else.  I also had hard time shaking the notion that we were getting cheated on the venue a bit.  Saturday night Ed went to see them in Denver, where they were playing at Red Rocks; In KC the show was in a parking lot outside the friggin’ Beaumont Club.  I can’t help but notice a bit of disparity there, yet the ticket prices were the same.  Welcome to Kansas City, cultural center of the Midwest.  After carefully comparing the setlists with my seasoned eye for the arts, however, I don’t think we got shorted any on the music;  Good show.

Friday I had to work, which was pretty tough after a late night out.  I gave ‘er my usual 110% though, showing up early and staying late.  (Never know who actually reads these things…)  After that, I hit the lovely new digs at the Brooksider for a while, enjoying their copious amount of man-made shade, also known as a covered deck.  Donette joined me after a bit and we headed down to Jalapenos for a big dinner.  We were so full after that we ended up just going home and lounging in front of the TV the rest of the night.

Saturday morning I was scheduled to drop off my motorcycle at a shop in Excelsior Springs, so they can install my new handlebars and grips.  I’m pretty pumped for this upgrade, if not for leaving my toy in Excelsior all week.  I was having some trouble finding a place to get the swap done, at least in a reasonable amount of time.  Seems everybody is all booked up.  Anyway, I had to ride all the way out there and leave it with them, which I wasn’t too excited about.  I thought I heard them bang something into the gas tank last night, although it might have been my imagination.  Donette picked me up out there, and we headed over to her parents house to eat some lunch.  Gotta maximize your trips north of the river, you know.  For evening entertainment, we went to see “Sweet Charity” at Starlight with the Martins.  We haven’t been having much luck with our Starlight tickets this year.  We missed the first show entirely while we were on vacation.  At the second show, we sat in the pouring rain for the entire first half before bailing out during intermission.  Then, Saturday night the show was delayed for an hour and a half while they tried to get the stage door un-stuck.  Honestly I didn’t notice a big difference in entertainment value between staring at the door and staring at the production itself, but it was a rather boring wait.  They finally started the show around 10:00, but then we had to leave at intermission again because I had to work at midnight.

Sunday we spent the better part of the day up on Smithville Lake with the Martins and Browns.  I’d planned on smoking a “practice” brisket, even had one all seasoned up in the ‘fridge, but couldn’t refuse a little boat time.  We floated around all afternoon, listening to the Royals lose again and soaking up some sun.  I managed to burn myself again too… Slow learner.

By the way, there are some new pictures of our recent Spain trip up in the gallery; check ’em out.  Plenty more to go… I’m getting there.