Man you can keep this weather.  I am dragging.  It is just inhumanly hot out there.  Even my morning walks with the dog are barely tolerable, and that’s at 5:30 in the morning.  Oh well, that’s what air conditioning is for I guess.

Well that weekend didn’t really go as scripted, but then when does it ever.  We had plans to kick things off Friday night by going and watching the free B-52’s concert out at Legends shopping center, wherever the heck that is.  Donette had some kind of psuedo-work function in the late afternoon though, so we didn’t even leave the house until 7:30 or so.  By the time we made the roughly 100 mile journey to the show, it was over.  Nice.  It wasn’t a wasted trip though;  My buddy Rick of Red Buffalo BBQ was competing in a ‘Que contest at Cabelas, so I just hung out with him all night while Donette, Ed and Kim hooked up with a bunch of people over at Yard House.  I had a good time watching the bbq team work, I wish our merry band of slackers would have got in this contest.  Rick ended up taking second place in ribs, congrats!!

Saturday is a bit of a sore subject, but I guess I’m obligated to summarize it anyway.  After the week I had at work, I had grand visions of just partying the entire weekend to wind down.  I started the day right by whipping up some biscuits and gravy to give me a little energy, and then took my coffee upstairs to read the paper and surf the web a bit.   I don’t know what the heck happened from there.  I vaguely recall Donette saying she was going to the pool, and the next thing I knew she was back home from the pool and telling me it was time to get ready for dinner.  I’d punched some kind of hole in the space-time continuum and ended up sitting in front of the computer in my pj’s for the entire day.  A perfectly good Saturday flushed down the crapper, and I was none too happy about it.  But, there wasn’t much to do about it except complain, which I did in large quantity.  After coming to grips with the fact that my day was gone, I rebounded a bit and we headed out to meet the Munkirs at Bonefish Grill for dinner.  We were joined by the Scottens and Belanger too, so we had a table full.  Despite the treacherous drive out there, and the less-than-ideal location in general, it was a fine meal.  After dinner we went even further south to Munkirs house and hung out for a while.  We rested up and digested for a few hours and then trekked back to midtown, eager to return to the land of sane drivers and paved streets.  Kudos to the Munkirs clan for putting together such a festive event though, even if it WAS in Kansas.

Sunday, against all odds, I headed BACK to Kansas.  Now that’s just plain wacky.  I met up with Martin and Brice over at Fahlstroms house to do a little barbecueing.  Even though Joe is technically not on the team anymore, we let him participate anyway, since it was his house and his smoker and all.  Plus, we needed a fourth for cards, so everything worked out OK.  Pretty much the entire day was spent playing cards and tending the smoker, which just really isn’t a bad way to spend a day.  Martin and I did some baby back ribs, Bob did a pork butt, and Joe mixed it up a little with a leg of lamb and some chicken wings.  (Lamb??!!)  Donette, Kelly and Todd came over and helped us eat all that.  We didn’t finish it all, but made a serious dent in it.  After the feed-fest we headed back to our house for the weekly Entourage event, and that was it.  Weekend over.  (Oh, and by the way, Martin and I thoroughly thrashed Bob and Joe at the card table.  Thoroughly.)

Seriously, that was not a weekend you want to hear about.  It was my much-dreaded oncall weekend, so I spent the vast majority of my time huddled in a dark room in front of the glow of an LCD monitor.  And it ain’t over yet, I’ve got the entire week looming in front of me like a dark cloud.

The little entertainment I did have this weekend was “Grease” at Starlight.  It pretty much sucked, and was made even worse by the constant buzz of my stupid pager.  (Well, that and the 95 degree heat.)  We bailed at intermission.

Last night we went over to Susan’s house to watch a couple of back episodes of Entourage.  The spaghetti dinner was great, the TV marginal.  The excitement for the evening was watching Gabe tackle his new chew treat, which was rated on the package as lasting “UP TO ONE HOUR!!!”  He took this as the challenge it was, and gnawed through it in a remarkable 20 minutes.  (Material in the “excitement” category is woefully slim this week.)

That’s it.  That’s all I got.  Heckle me in the forum, I don’t care.  My life is already miserable, how much worse can it get.  Sigh.  Sigh.

I’m toning down the title of this weeks posting.  I do not want to inadvertently trigger another emotionally charged maelstrom like last week.  Wow, twelve postings in the comments section;  A new record.

We started the weekend strong on Friday by going to the O.A.R. show down at the City Market.  Ed got us listening to this group when he moved to KC;  We’re not hooked quite to the point he is (borderline stalker… they mentioned him by name if that’s any indicator for you,) but it’s good music for sure.  Martins came down too, so there were a total of 4 people at the concert over the age of 27.  OK that’s an exaggeration, we saw at least 2 other people that may have been as old as us.  We didn’t ask them though for fear of finding out otherwise.  Despite the fact that we were old enough to have been biological parents to 95% of the attendees, it was an awesome show.  Anybody that pulls off a concert that good at the freakin’ City Market puts on one heck of a performance in my book.

Saturday was kind of slow;  Most of the day I sat inside playing with my computer thinking what a great day I was wasting.  It happens.  All too often, as a matter of fact.  I did head over to Ed’s house around noon, and we fired up his new bullet smoker.  No small event;  Ed’s inaugural foray into the world of KC smoking.  He made a wise first choice;  two beer-can chickens.  Hard to go wrong there.  (OK, actually one was a beer-can and one was a Pepsi-can.)  We loaded up with coals and a mix of apple and mesquite wood, and left the smoker to do it’s thing.  Can’t beat those bullet smokers;  they pretty much take care of themselves.  We all met back up at their house around 5:30 to find the birds all cooked up and ready to eat.  Several other people came over too and we enjoyed some hen, cornhole, and jovial banter.  Todd invited the Woodside Racquet Club over too, so we even got to meet lots of great new people, awesome!!

Sunday we drove up to Smithville and hit the lake with the Martins.  NICE FREAKING DAY FOR ONCE!!!  Not too hot, not too cold, not too windy, not too crowded, pretty much perfect.  We bobbed around in the lake for about 5 hours, enjoying the rare weather, then scurried back south.  Had a good dinner at Jalepenos, then hunkered down inside the TV room to wind down watching some Entourage.

We had a lot busier and ejoyable weekend than that lame summary would indicate.  You’ll just have to trust me on that.  Monday is a rough day to try and conjure up an engaging repartee.  But, as it generally directly follows the weekend, what else can you do?

Crap, that was not a fun weekend. Friday was OK;  We went to see Dr. Doolittle at Starlight with the Martins.  We upgraded our seats to the third row so we’d get the A/C coming off the stage, which was key to our enjoyment of the show. I’d like to be up there for every show, but the cost of the tickets is a bit prohibitive.  The pre-show dinner was good too;  Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy.  Right up our alley.

Saturday, I spent the entire day working with the neighbor to clean up the aftermath of our new driveway install.  We waited until it got good and miserable out, and then laid sod on both sides of the drive, and started replacing his retaining wall that got torn out.  Wow, I am not in good health.  There is not a single part of my body that isn’t in moderate to extreme pain, and a few that are barely functional at all.  The worst part was, we didn’t even get very far on the wall.  We spent the better part of the day working on it anyway, because it’s gotta get done one way or another.  We gave it up around 8:00, and Donette and I went down to the Brooksider for a little dinner.  It was an early night though, we didn’t stay long.

Sunday I spent the entire morning hobbling over to the window to see if the neighbor had started working again.  Luckily (for me anyway) he got paged and had to go into work all afternoon.  I took advantage of the break by going and getting a pork butt and practicing a little ‘queing.  That pretty well killed the day, messing with the smoker and watching TV.  Remarkably, I had trouble keeping the smoker hot enough.  The dang thing was 125 degrees before I ever even lit it, and then I could only get it up to about 175.  Needed a bit more charcoal I guess, the wood just wasn’t burning hot enough.  It got done, but not to the “shredding” stage;  I’ll throw it in a slow cooker to finish it up this week.  That pretty much wraps up the weekend.  Ed and Kim and Todd came over and ate some pork sandwiches and watched Entourage, and then I shuffled off to bed to try and sleep off the pain.  It didn’t work, I am still suffering mightily.

I suppose I survived my first Pigfest, albeit in a somewhat degraded state.  I feel like I’ve been beat with a stick for two days straight.  Dang kids.

Donette and I flew down Friday morning, joined by Kelly Martin.  Kelly was so bouyed by her second-place finish in the cornhole tourney at our house that she decided to take her game out-of-state.  That night we hooked up with Ed and Kim and a bunch of their friends at the “biergarten.”  They had a nice outdoor deck, complete with cornhole boards naturally.  We hung out there relatively late, but when the young ‘uns headed off to catch “a show” we decided it was time to bail back to the hotel.  Incidentally, the hotel worked out well for us.  We stayed at the Millennium downtown, which Ed knew from experience was rather easy to get on priceline.  So we gave it a shot and got rooms for $35; the best rate I can find on their site is $120.  Ding ding.

Saturday was the Pigfest and as Ed mentions on his site, the events of the day don’t really translate well into text.  We ate some great food, played hours on hours of cornhole and whiffleball, with a little volleyball mixed in for good measure.  There was some excellent music too, provided by Mer out of Chicago.  The music was going over well and everyone was having a great time, but things got cut short some time after midnight with a rather unfortunate incident involving six squad cars, enough officers to turn back a small riot, and some very unfriendly members of the canine squad.  The good news is that Ed was allowed to leave the state and come back to KC, provided he sticks to the somewhat restrictive terms given and keeps his leg monitor on at all times.  With any luck it will all be cleared up in time for him to get next years fest set up.  To support the effort, we will be setting up an online donation site at http://Free_Ed_&_Mer.com;  donate lots and often.

Sunday was spent travelling back to KC.  Kelly treated us to a 3-way at Skyline Chili, and then we headed home.  Chuckle chuckle.  Man that is some “different” chili.  That’s all I’m gonna say.