I think I’ll go with the “brief weekend overview” method here, because I’ve got some unrelated ramblings to post and I wouldn’t want anyone to get bored and quit reading before all the REALLY exciting stuff kicks in.  So… Friday we went down to the Brooksider for a birthday party.  “Big Don” turned fifty.  We didn’t last too long because it was too crowded… Kept getting jostled.  I didn’t even get any cake.  Saturday I drove up to Kearney to check on the progress of the smoker that Kevin Brown is working on.  Yeah baby, we’re going big-time this year.  Hopefully it will be completed by this Spring, and ready for some demo’s.  Here’s a few pictures of it, kind of out of focus but you get the idea.  (What’s up with the fuzzy pics K.B., camera frozen or something?) 1, 2, 3, 4.  The box that looks like a wood burning stove is… a wood burning stove.  This will serve as the firebox.  The upside is that it should be very fuel-efficient and the heat should be quite adjustable, the only downside is that it weighs several hundred pounds.  There are two pictures of the cooking chamber with the doors cut out; you get the idea there.  The green box that looks like a filing cabinet goes on the opposite end from the firebox, to serve as a warming box.  There’s apparently still some discussions going on with the design team regarding this feature.  There are also some chrome Harley pipes I don’t have a picture of; these will serve as the smoke stacks.  I’ve got high hopes for this project, as I’ve always wanted to cook on one of those big fancy rigs like the cool kids at the BBQ.  Heck, or just use one for a party for that matter.  And on to Sunday… We met Munkirs down at the Brooksider for lunch, and watched the afternoon football game.  Doni’s cousin who goes to school in Omaha was in town and came down also.  Had a good lunch but the football game was rather boring.  The best part was that Munkirs paid for lunch with the Brooksider gift certificate I’d given him for Christmas.  THAT was a good plan on my part, if a bit transparent.  After that we went home and cleaned the house a bit, then Susan W. and the Kids came over and watched the Sopranos.  We’re up to the middle of Season 2 now.  For dinner, Susan declared it “Bring-Your-Favorite-Snack Night”; we had some 7-layer dip (Doni’s), cheese and crackers (mine), Skyline Chili dip (the Kid’s) and McDonald’s french fries (Susan????).

Well, as I mentioned, I was keeping the “Weekend Update” brief so that I could drone on with both some random geek projects and some general mal-content.  That wasn’t particularly brief however, so I think I’ll cut out the geek projects because I’m sure nobody really cares about them anyway.  You never know though, somebody might have some solutions/ideas for me.  Just to pique your curiosity however, I’ll mention that 1) I bought a new Linksys wireless router, and am currently working on juicing it up to serve a signal to the Brookside area at large.  Of course I’ll likely never let anybody actually attach to it, but I want to see how far I can pick up the signal myself.  2) I moved my webserver to a different PC, after finally conceding that I don’t need 3 PC’s running all the time.  The question still remains what to do with the “open” one though.  3) I continue to be perplexed by a viable backup solution for my computers.  I just can’t find anything easy and reliable.  (Oh, and did I mention preferably “free”.)  I put a portable drive on the computer downstairs and shared it out for this purpose, but after a reboot the share goes away.  Not to mention, I still can’t find a program I like for the backup either.  Geez.

OK I’m skipping the paragraph on “general mal-content” too.  Screw it, I’m spent.  My holiday is slipping away rapidly, I need to go do something.  Maybe I’ll just post that separate or something.  I could blab a whole novel on “Why I always end up at the Brooksider instead of the Gym, and the toll this is taking on my health.”  There are just myriad reasons explaining both why this is not my fault, and why it is everyone else’s fault.  Compelling, fascinating reasons.  Entirely too lengthy to go into on a Monday morning, that’s for sure.

Oh, and a little side-note: We seem to have lost Todd.  He was at the Brooksider Friday evening, and hasn’t been heard from since.  Hasn’t been on Instant Messenger all weekend, and doesn’t respond to emails.  Heck, I even took the extraordinary step of CALLING him; Goes straight to voicemail and the messages haven’t been returned.  If anybody talks to Francisco this week you might have him run through the weekend “calls” and see if anything turns up.  If anybody does happen to see Todd, do not attempt to approach him yourself.  He’s no doubt cold, confused, and hungry, and could be dangerous.  Just make a note of the time and place, and I’ll notify the proper authorities so that the matter can be addressed safely.

True to my word, I’m doing my update on Sunday this week.  This may of course result in the omission of countless exciting things that happen to me today, but I can always add them later.  At this point it looks like a day of football-watching anyway.

Friday night we went over to the Kid’s (A.K.A. Ed and Kim’s) place and hung out.  Kim’s younger sister and boyfriend were in town, and we just kind of sat around and chit-chatted.  Since we didn’t get over there until 9:00 at night we didn’t last very long.  It was a rough week man; I was shot.

Saturday morning, we went back to Ed and Kim’s and joined them for breakfast.  Actually it was breakfast only in the sense that we had breakfast food… It was like 11:30 in the afternoon.  But, whatever the time, we had a good meal; waffles, bacon, and goetta.  Never heard of goetta?  Well, we hadn’t either, but we can report that it’s good stuff.  Probably can’t get it around here though… We’ll have to look.  After that we took our full bellies to the gym and worked out for a while.  We even used the hot-tub for once, something that we keep saying we’re going to do but never do.  Quite relaxing, maybe we’ll get around to it more often.  After the gym, I went and hung out at the Brooksider for a little while, and then we went and met a bunch of people at Nick and Jakes for dinner.  The occasion was Munkirs’ 40th birthday.  Man everybody I know is turning 40.  I really need to quit hanging out with all these old people; it makes me feel old too.  I am far too young to be socializing with all these relics.  Anyway, we had a good meal (for a Johnson County eatery anyway) and enjoyed the company of all the elderly people; The Scottens, Martins, Franciscos, Belangers, and Todd all came too.

Speaking of Mr. Munkirs, (I suppose anyone over the age of 40 should be respectfully referred to as “Mr.”) I wanted to be sure and thank him for referring his “Decorator” to Doni.  Yes, apparently James has been making use of a professional decorator’s services, and felt compelled to share.  This is really a wonderful turn of events, as I was just thinking that I had nothing better to do with my money than give it to somebody who can hang some pictures on my wall.  Sheesh.  I really don’t understand what the big deal is.  I am more than capable of decorating my own home, I don’t need the Munkirs’ hoity-toity references.  No sir, I can do just fine with some plastic and a staple gun.  Uh huh, looks nice doesn’t it?  Sometimes I get even more creative, and add some color with some blankets!!  I think it’s rather obvious that I am a very accomplished decorator in my own right.  Not to mention, what do you think is more energy efficient; my plastic or some gauzy little strip of colored cloth?  Creative AND practical, that’s me.

Happy two-double-not-five to everyone.  I, for one, am more than happy to see the end of the holiday season.  Too much running around all crazy, going places and doing stuff, too much eating… Just pretty much too much of everything.  I am ready for a few weeks of the standard “Get up, go to work, go home, go to bed” drudgery.  Suits me just fine, thank you very much.

Let’s see; Flashing all the way back to Thursday… After work, we went up to Mom’s house and had the Kenagy Christmas celebration.  Had a festive time of that, and got my sweatshirt that I wanted.  It was fun watching the chilluns run around all crazy opening stuff up too.  They were wound pretty tight, and didn’t seem to mind at all that Christmas was really 5 days prior.  The more Christmas the better when you’re a kid, I guess.

Friday, as I suppose you are aware, was New Year’s Eve.  It also marked 14 years of marital bliss for Doni and I, so we had kind of a double-celebration thing going on.  As we’ve done for the last two years, we celebrated by going to Todd’s for a little pre-party, and then had dinner at the Capitol Grill.  Let’s see if I can list off all the attendees from my feeble memory; The Munkirs, Scottens, Martins, Susan and Date (a.k.a. John), Joe F. and Date (a.k.a. Sandra), and Todd.  Yep, that adds up correctly, I amaze myself.  Had an awesome steak, although I continue to maintain that no steak is worth those kind of prices.  After dinner we went back to Todd’s and rang in the New Year, and called it a night.  I don’t think I made any resolutions… None that I plan on keeping anyway.  Martin resolved to hug everybody he sees, so if you run into him someplace keep your distance.  He calls it a “handshake” but it’s a hug.  You’ve been warned.

Saturday was an exercise in lethargy; kind of a “wind-down” from the night before.  I went down to Todd’s around noon with Ed and Kim, and we just hung out all day watching college football and grubbing on leftovers from the party.  We even had some Domino’s pizza, which was something of a nostalgic meal.  I bet the last time I had Domino’s pizza, I paid for it with “Saga Points” down at Warrensburg.  Not a bad product though, especially when you can get three pizzas for $15.

Sunday I went to the Brooksider with Todd to track my Fantasy Football game.  I was pretty excited for this event… It was my first ever shot at actually winning some money in this stupid game.  We hung out all afternoon, but after a while it became evident that things weren’t going my way, so Doni came and got me and we headed over to Ed and Kim’s for “Sunday Night TV” and dinner.  Well, on the way over there, we tuned the radio to football, and all of a sudden my player’s names were all over the place.  I was actually racking up points, and quick.  As soon as we walked in the apartment I logged onto Ed’s PC… Lo and Behold, my fantasy game was tied, and the Chiefs had the ball.  (I’ve got Trent Green and Larry Johnson on my Fantasy Team.)  “THROW IT TRENT, THROW THE BALL!!!!  GIMME ONE MORE FRIGGIN’ POINT!!!!”  Well, Trent threw the ball, resulting in his fourth interception of the day, and minus one point for Phil’s team.  Game over, Phil loses again.

In other random news… I continue to try and get a new PDA on EBay.  And I continue to get outbid on everything I try for.  If you ask me, people pay too much for stuff out there, so it doesn’t hurt my feelings too much.  Why people would pay darn near retail for a used Palm Pilot is beyond me; I know I ain’t going to.  Well, that’s the end of my update.  Next week I believe I will start updating this on Sunday instead of Monday.  I’m “distracted” on Mondays.  Stifles my creativity, you know.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  I managed to, despite my best efforts.  Had a nice little mix of “traditional” and “non-traditional” celebrations.  I won’t elaborate there, I’ll just leave that line up for interpretation.  The inlaws got me some nice practical things for the house; new blinds and the roller-things you put under your 200 lb. house plants.  (That’s the best I know how to describe the roller-things… All I know is the plants are getting too heavy to move by picking them up, so you put these under them and roll them around.)  Every “toy” I wanted for Christmas, I bought for myself.  Playin’ it safe, you know.  Hopefully I can just send my Newegg and Microcenter bills to Santa Claus when they come in.  Since Zim asked for details on said toys on the message board, I shall now bore everyone with the details of my acquisitions.

My Christmas Toys

• Samsung 16x DVD burner.  This might be my favorite purchase.  I bought the burner OEM/white-box from Microcenter, then bought an aluminum external case for it off newegg.com.  So, I can just plug the burner into any of my PC’s USB ports, and voila, instant portable DVD factory.  Sweet.


• Seagate 80 gig hard drive.  This was one of my “Black Friday” sale scores; I picked it up at CompUSA, then bought another aluminum case like the one for my DVD burner to put it in.  So, I use it as a portable drive to carry around and back up all my PC’s to.


• Panasonic 50″ LCD rear-projection TV.  That was our present to each other, I guess.


• A new Palm Pilot.  I can’t go into details there, because I haven’t actually bought it yet.  I have one picked out on EBay though.  As sure as I list any details of it out here, one of you knuckleheads will rush out and outbid me on it, purely for the joy of ticking me off.

What did we do over the weekend?  Well, you know, Christmas stuff.  We went and exchanged gifts with the Munkirs over lunch at the Blue Moose on… Friday was it?  Holy smokes, my days are all messed up.  Couldn’t have been Saturday because I was doing Christmas stuff all that day, and it couldn’t have been Sunday because I watched football all day… Yeah, musta been Friday.  Saturday I got up at the crack of 11:00 and drove up to Mom’s house.  We aren’t having “Kenagy Christmas” until this Thursday, but I figured I better get up there anyway.  This worked out very nicely because all her neighbors had brought over all kinds of food, which I gorged myself on.  After a few hours of visiting, I had to run back home and fry a turkey for the “Morelock Christmas.”  Since they also had ham and brisket, I’m not sure we really needed a turkey too, but I like frying them anyway so I wasn’t asking questions.  After dinner we played some game called “bunko.”  On the surface it seemed like a pretty simple game, but I never really caught onto it.  You roll some dice and then everybody takes your money.  Sometimes the person to your left takes your money, sometimes the person to your right takes your money; but somebody is always taking your money.  Much like every other game I’ve ever played, I guess… That’s why I never play them.

Outside of that, I pretty much hung out with “The Group” at the Brooksider and watched football.  Those days are over now though; it’s back to the gym this week baby.&nbsp Ohhhhh yeah.  That’s the plan anyway.  Speaking of football… Barring some total catastrophe in this evenings game, my Fantasy Football team will be in the league Super Bowl next weekend.  Given my somewhat embarrassing lack of knowledge about sports, and my well-documented propensity for bad luck, this is really quite a remarkable event.  We shall see what happens…

I shoulda put some kind of “Holiday Hours” on here.  Something to relieve me of any responsibility until all the Christmas stuff blows over.  There’s just too much going on.

Anyway… As I alluded to last week, we went and saw “A Christmas Carol” again last Thursday.  Honestly, it wasn’t quite as bad as I anticipated.  I had fully prepared myself for the possibility that I might have to hurtle myself off the top of the building during intermission if it got too unbearable.  We had really good seats though, so that made it a bit more tolerable.  Plus, I had forgotten that the building was only two stories high, so I likely would have only suffered some mild abrasions.  Probably woulda still had to sit through the second half.

Friday was the big Christmas Party down at the Brooksider.  Nothing too extraordinary to relate there, although it was a very good time.  They provide all kinds of good food and stuff.  We actually even stayed a few minutes past nine I think, which is quite late for us.

Saturday, as everyone knows, was the 75th annual Martin Christmas Extravaganza.  Now, I don’t really feel the need to detail that event.  We ate, drank, and made merry with all kinds of good folk.  Had a gift exchange, played some ping-pong… C’mon now, there is about a 99% chance that if you are reading this, you were there.  Therefore, you already KNOW what happened, right?  For me to type it all in here would just be redundant, right?  Right.  And, I forgot my camera so I don’t have any picture.  Now if YOU have any pictures and would like to send them to me, I would of course be more than happy to post them.

Sunday was football day.  I won my first ever playoff game.  Whoop-dee-doo.  Delay the inevitable.  Then Sunday night we went over to Ed and Kim’s to watch the Sopranos and eat Mexican food.  The Sopranos didn’t work out; we’d already seen all the episodes that we rented.  Something got mixed up there… So, we watched “Elf” which was a relatively good flick.

Whoa, that’s a rather tame update.  It was quite a fun weekend, although you wouldn’t know it from that mundane summary.  I better look into doing this on Sunday full time.  Mondays are too depressing anymore to try and portray any kind of merriment.

OH AND I SAW MARK FRANCISCO