Well there you go, another year at the Royal has come and gone.  It was a good time, I will grudgingly admit.  However, we must never, ever, ever talk about the food, or consequent judging results, on this site.  Ever.  Never ever.  For that matter, let’s not even talk about the events leading up to or including the contest.  Just drop it.

Unfortunately for my Weekly Update, the Royal consumed my entire weekend, starting  Thursday afternoon and ending Sunday morning.  Since I have banned all conversation relative to said event, that doesn’t leave just a whole lot of material to work with.  I did venture out late Sunday morning to have a little breakfast down at Sharp’s, but I was continually bothered by the uncomfortable feeling that everybody around me was whispering negative things about me under their breath.  So I took half of my biscuits and gravy to go and went home, where I huddled in front of the TV for the rest of the day and watched my Fantasy Football team get crushed.  I think I might be in a bio-rhythm slump or something.  Seems like more of a friggin’ flat line actually.

I am still in something of a post-weekend funk, but just for the sake of throwing in something positive, I’ll mention that the dogs started working with a new trainer this evening.  We signed them up for Bark Busters a few weeks ago, and tonight was our first session.  I thought it went very well, aside from the fact that the guy was here for 3 1/2 hours.  Good for the dogs, but didn’t mesh too well with my documented 20 minute attention span.  I’d say lil’ Belle made some pretty big strides, especially in the leash-walking department.  She’s a pretty good “puller” on the leash; makes things kind of hard with another dog and a bum shoulder.  He slapped a choke chain on her and showed us how to use it, and she’s (almost) golden.  It was practically Dog Whisperer-esque.  And, in an unexpected bonus, he thought Gabe was such a good boy he wouldn’t even take our money for him.  Ding ding.

OK, three days and counting until the BBQ people.  Get ready to bring your “A” game.  Actually, since the addition of the Band, I’m dreading the entire event like a root canal.  No good ever came of a band.  None.  Takes up too much space, too loud, draws in all the riff-raff… just a general party-killer.  Count me as “against” this idea.  But I’m sure they’ll be great… Really…  Come on down…
That weekend was one big blur of BBQ and football.  Friday I took the day off from work to demo our new “secret weapon” for the Royal.  Naturally I can’t provide details, because then it wouldn’t be a secret weapon at all.  I’ll just say it was a premium cut of brisket, provided by Martin’s neighbor Dave.  It got good reviews at dinner;  This could be the year I finally crack the top 50 percentile.  Aim high, I always say.  After dinner, Munkirs (the other half of “Team Brisket”) came over and spent some time prepping nearly 70 lbs. of brisket for the big party.  Martin jumped in and helped out too.  Normally you would not want a rib guy working on your briskets, but the sheer quantity involved kind of made it necessary.  It was a rather daunting pile of beef to tell the truth.

Saturday we took the dogs down to the “Strut With Your Mutt” event in Brookside.  Overall I would categorize this little outing in the “Bad Idea” filings.  Young Belle just isn’t quite ready for prime time yet.  Just a little too exciteable, to put it mildly.  We got lots of free puppy-swag though, so maybe it was worth it.  Maybe.  After that thoroughly frazzling little walk, I headed up north to help out with the smoker.  Martin had gotten up at the crack-o-dawn and put the briskets on, and they were coming along quite nicely.  It was quite a sight really… the smoker was loaded to near capacity I’d say.  Eight briskets, four slabs of ribs, and two chickens.  We should be ahead of the game for our party this Friday after all the prep work we’ve been doing.  The rest of the day was spent poking the fire, turning the meat, and watching college football.  My kind of day.

Sunday goes in the “Rest and Recovery” category.  I broke out my “Food Saver” vacuum sealer that Donette bought me last week, and sealed up some of the briskets.  After that, it was football and intermittent naps.  Not too exciting really, but rather relaxing.  Unfortunately, after Carson Palmer’s rather dismal outing, my Fantasy Football team didn’t fare too well.  High score money is definitely out this week, I’m just hoping to pull out a win from tonight’s game.

Holy crapola, that Monday snuck right by me.  Never even saw it coming.  I really don’t have much to relate anyway… that was kind of a dead zone weekend between barbecue contests.  Plus Donette was out of town, so mostly I just sat at home and read books.  Mostly.

For a brief summary though, I did go out and meet up with the Brooksider crowd on Friday after work.  In a (very) mildly amusing story, I hung out there for a few hours, and then went home and turned on the TV.  Next thing I knew I was waking up on the couch, TV still on.  Not too unusual; I fall asleep there all the time, so I just turned off the tube and went upstairs, put my PJ’s on and went to bed.  Before nodding off, I glanced over at the clock and saw that it was only 7:30 at night.  Apparently I’d been asleep downstairs for roughly 15 minutes.  What the heck, I went with it.  This naturally resulted in waking up around 3:00 the next morning, wide awake, so my Saturday started a bit early.

Saturday can be classified as “uneventful.”  I was feeling a bit jet-lagged from my early morning start, so mostly I just hung around and watched Days Of Thunder over and over.  Saturday night was Fahlstroms bachelor party, which I shall mercifully spare you a recap of.

Sunday I was going to sit home for the games and monitor my Fantasy Football team, which has been on something of a remarkable scoring run so far this season.  I got bored though, and ended up down at the Brooksider to watch the Cincy-Pittsburg game.  Ended up staying for the 3:00 games too, with Ed and J.R.  The ol’ Brooksider just kind of sucks you in with all those TV’s everywhere.  They just installed a bunch of 42″ plasmas;  Kind of like some kind of sports-nirvana thing going on.  Next week I think I’ll take my laptop down so I can keep up on my Fantasy team too.

That entire weekend was spent in Karnie MO, at the Jesse James Days BBQ contest.  We had a good time, but our ‘Que SUCKED!!!  I went into the weekend with grand visions of repeating last years’ success; it was not to be.  Due to myriad issues, we placed so far down on the list I won’t even admit where we came in.  Flat embarrassing.  My brisket did better than I thought it should have at least… I think they may have mixed it up with somebody elses truthfully.  I keep trying to give it the “Oh well, it was a blast” attitude, but in truth I’m perturbed.  KB is trying to weasel us into the Liberty contest this weekend so we can practice up, but it probably won’t happen.  Last we checked they were all full.  That would make the next contest the Big ‘Un, the American Royal.  We certainly don’t put a lot of effort into our competition entries there, other than trying not to get any zeros, so I guess our next real attempt will have to be next year.  DANG IT!!!

Sunday I was home huddled in a bitter funk on the couch all day, thinking of things that could have been done differently at the contest.  Watched some football, and watched my Fantasy Team do well for once… that was about it.  I guess we did go to breakfast at the new, recently re-opened Georgie Porgies.  They used to be up around 85th and Wornall, then mysteriously shut down earlier this year.  A few months ago they suddenly re-surfaced at Gregory and Troost, right around the corner from our house.  Good food but they won’t last any longer than the last several places to occupy that spot if they don’t get their service issues squared away.

No special news on the puppy front.  I guess we are now a two-pitbull family.  Going for that “Urban Chic” look.  Next week we will be installing the meth lab in the dining room and the picture will be complete.

Wow that was a full weekend.  Full of, for the majority of the time, good stuff.  Friday night we went over to Ed and Kim’s and met up with them for a wedding.  I expect everyone has been to a wedding;  How much should I have to detail that.  Good food, lovely ceremony, blah blah blah.

Saturday was an especially fine day.  I headed over to Ed’s house at 3:30 (yes, A.M.) and fired up the TFB BBQ smoker, which Kevin had delivered Friday evening.  I had some minor issues getting it going, mostly due to my unfamiliarity with the beast.  It took a lot longer to heat up than I had allowed for.  Everything got going OK though, and I tossed on a 12 lb. brisket, two 6 lb. pork shoulders, and three slabs of ribs.  Obviously, they were expecting a few people over to their house that evening.  They had invited numerous friends and family down from Cincy for the home opener against the Chiefs, and wanted to put on a feed.  After everything got rolling, Ed ran some power out to the front porch and we sat out there with our laptops all morning, watching the food and surfin’ the Web.  Kind of a Nerd/’Que kind of morning, and on into the afternoon.  The “Dork Highlight” of the day was when Ed ordered Jimmy John’s for lunch.  Despite the fact that he was sitting two feet away from me, he opted to email the menu in a pdf file instead of just asking me what I wanted.  Truly a Munkirs-esque move.  Well, that was honestly the entire day.  The food came off promptly at 6:00, and it all came out pretty good.  Not a competition effort, but a darn sight better than last weekend.  I powered through until about 8:00, and then hit the wall.  I came home and tried to watch TV, but crashed in roughly 20 seconds.

Sunday was another Cincy-in-KC day.  We met up with the whole crowd down on the Plaza around 7:30, where Donette’s parents had agreed to pick everybody up in their RV.  We were in line for the gate at 8:00, through the gate by 8:45, and enjoying some grilled burgers and sausages by 10:30.  It was a good tailgate; I sort of liked watching all the taunts come in from our less-than-hospitable locals, especially from behind the relative safety of my trusty KC tee-shirt.  On the downside, I had to endure all of the standard nonsensical chants and songs, which I still don’t get.  Sorry, the phrase “Who Dey” just doesn’t really mean anything.  Everytime somebody said it I had the uncomfortable feeling I was supposed to respond in some manner, but was a little lost as to with what.  “Hey hey hey, we’re gonna beat the #$(*@ out of you.”  Now THAT makes sense.  Easily decoded, straight-forward, none of this mystery crap.  Anyway, I’m sure you know the rest of the story.  We sat through 3 miserable hours in the rain (thankfully not with the Out Of Towners,) watched a pitiful, boring game, and then partied in the lot for a while afterwards.  Even ran into the Munkirs, Belanger, and Frerking crowd, so I got a little respite from the “Who Dey” chants.  The only good thing to come of the day:  The Cincy crowd went into the stadium as staunch Pittsburg-haters, based on what they perceived to be a cheap shot against Carson Palmer last season.  By the end of the day, the tables had turned, and they all agreed that cheap shots against QB’s weren’t really that bad of thing after all.  I think I even heard several of them offer Josh good money for his Pittsburg jerseys, but he wasn’t selling.  : )

Other random news… I think we are keeping Belle, so I guess I better post some more pics.  Her and Gabe are pretty much buddies now.  My arm is still messed up, I have to wear this stupid sling for at least three more weeks.  Actually WEAR it, not just have it near me, according to the Doctor.  Good grief.  I had an MRI done last week, but haven’t had it looked at yet… hopefully no surgery.