Wow that was a boring football game.  Thumbs down.

We actually went out Friday night for a change.  Gabe was sacked out from being at daycare all day, so we figured what the heck.  We hung out at the Brooksider for a while, then the Martins joined us for dinner at Jalapenos.  (Like we haven’t seen enough of THEM in the last few weeks…)  After a good over-feeding, we went back to the house and threw a few hands of 10 point pitch.  Haven’t played that in a while; Good game.

Saturday Donette woke up rather early and flew out to Texas for some kind of insurance convention.  Sounds like a hoot.  That left Gabe and I on our own… We were so perplexed by the situation we just kinda sat around all day.  We did go out to the park for a little exercise.  Played a little catch, did a little “practice” on his commands, that kinda stuff.  Around 6 or so, I figured I’d better get started prepping food for Todd’s Superbowl Fiesta.  He signed me up for cooking some ribs, so I picked up a few slabs of spares at Pricechopper.  I got them all peeled and stuff so I wouldn’t have to mess with that Saturday morning.  And, I figured we might need some soup too, so I made a huge pot of turkey broth.  By then I was sort of in the prep-cooking mode, so I went ahead and chopped up a big ol’ bucket of mirepoix for the soup.  (How ’bout THAT word…)

Sunday I got up early and fired up the smoker, and had the ribs on by 8:00.  I used the apple wood from a tree I helped cut down a few months ago;  It burned just famously.  While the ribs were cooking I decided to make a huge pot of “Clean-Out-the-Freezer Gumbo.”  I used up a bunch of leftover brisket and turkey, and some smoked sausage.  It came out pretty well, but I didn’t get the roux quite as dark as I usually like.  Got a bit impatient, what can I say.  Next time I think I am going to try using my immersion blender, maybe that will be easier.  I whisked that pot for a solid 40 minutes and it STILL wasn’t dark enough.  Anyway, I hauled everything over to Todd’s around 3:00 for his little fiesta.  He drew a remarkably good crowd considering the venue… I can’t believe how many people (myself included) left their 50″ TV’s so they could huddle up in Todd’s kitchen around his 19″ TV with rabbit ears.  Old school, man.  Belanger and the Munkirs came up, the young ‘uns (Mike and Ed) came over, Ivicak, Susan… An honest-to-goodness mob.  We sat around and watched the game in it’s boring entirety, and that wrapped up the weekend.  Gabe and I are bacheloring until Wednesday, so if you got any action for me let me know.  (Assuming it doesn’t require traveling over a mile or so.)

We are back in KC now.  Frankly I am too depressed about the whole situation to even write about it.  Sigh.  It’s cold out.  Sigh.

We got back yesterday and immediately crashed for about 16 hours.  Man that flight from Honolulu to Dallas is BRUTAL.  I guess you gotta get there somehow though.  A boat would be even slower and I can’t swim that far.  I need to learn how to sleep on the plane I suppose.  I will keep the summary of the vacation on the succinct side:  It was good.  We did get rained out two days, which was kind of a bummer.  Supposedly they only get six inches of rain annually at the beach we were at, and I think they got the entire amount in those two days.  So THAT kinda threw us off our game plan.  Other than that, you know, nothing really to tell.  We’re pretty low-key on our trips.  I’ve got over 900 meg of pictures to sort and post, to hopefully quiet Carl’s complaining, but that could take a while.

All is still well in sunny Kauai.  The sun is shining, the beaches are warm, and the waves are breaking.  Saturday we moved from our timeshare property to a nice 4 bedroom rental right on Poipu Beach; a nice little upgrade.  My chief concern with the new digs was the lack of high-speed Internet access, but my fears were allayed upon finding a nice strong wireless signal from some benevolent neighbor.  Now my only worry is the #)$*%^ ROOSTERS THAT @#$(*$%^ CROW ALL #$&%^$ NIGHT LONG!!!!  DON’T YOU EVIL CREATURES EVER SLEEP???!!!!  Feral chickens aside, we’re having a heck of a nice time.  As of this writing, Colleen is upstairs preparing a hearty breakfast of pancakes and eggs, after which there is a very solid chance we will go sit on a beach.

We’re out of town, so let’s keep things brief.  We kicked off our bi-annual Kauai vacation on Saturday with a rather miserable flight.  Nineteen hours from the time we left our front door until we opened the door to our hotel.  Sheesh.  After taking a little siesta to adjust to the 4 hour time change, we settled into our routine of snorkel, eat, sleep, snorkel, eat, sleep.  Things are good.  Seeing some whales, doing some relaxing, that kind of stuff.  Of course I managed to sunburn my melon right off the bat, dang it.  Get it out of the way, I guess.  Haven’t even taken my camera out yet, so no pictures to post.

Due to the recent outpouring of passionate opinion on the message board, I put up a BBQ Survey.  It will be available for 30 days.  This is the first link that came up when I typed in “free survey page”… There well might be something better out there.