Well good ol’ pkenagy.com is sorta-kinda-almost working.  I remain bitterly distressed that it is not working like I want it to though.  My home network is in an utter shambles, a piecemeal hodgepodge of routers, switches, and cables strung everywhere in a desperate attempt to achieve basic functionality.  Sigh.  As soon as my uverse contract is up I will likely switch providers over this.  Until then, I will most likely lay awake many nights fretting about my current situation.  This is a very stressful time in my life, as you can imagine.

As to more interesting facets of the Kenagy household?  Well, there aren’t any, I spent my whole weekend working on my network.  I would be more than happy to detail my attempted resolutions and the resulting outcomes, but the backlash from Munkirs would be more than I could bear in my current fragile state.  And as for my recently reunited spouse, well I guess you could say the honeymoon is over.  She happily abandoned me to my troubles and went out with friends, professing to not really give a flying crap what I was blithering on about;  She just wanted her phone to work.  Geez, all this stress over a stupid phone line.  Who even has home phones these days?!?!?!  Well, people with home offices I guess.

Anyway, that was not really the exact circumstances of the weekend.  While I was indeed preoccupied with my uverse service, I was also sort of stuck in the house attending to a weekend-long project at work.  Who schedules these things on Mother’s Day weekend, sheesh.  She went out with a large group to a brunch in nearby Placerville, and then they spent the rest of the day wine tasting.  Glad somebody enjoyed the wonderful weekend weather.  While they were out, I took my highly anticipated new sous vide cooker for a test outing.  Much like my home networking woes, nobody (save my Uncle Roy) seems to really share my enthusiasm for this new interest.  Fear of the unknown is a terrible thing, people.  So, while everyone was gone, I seized the opportunity for a trial cook.  The selected test subject was a 2.5 pound tri tip roast.  After probably way-too-much research, I elected to cook it at 134 degrees for 6 hours, then finished it on the gas grill.  I must say, I was quite pleased with the results.  Definitely the most tender tri tip I’ve fixed, and the marinade flavor was much more pronounced than when done solely on the grill.  That said, I’ll make a few tweaks next time.  It was just a shade too done for my taste, I’ll back it down to 132 or maybe even 130 next time.  And, I finished it for 6 minutes per side on the grill, my thought being that I like a really crunchy exterior.  That was way too long, I’d say a max of 3 minutes per side next time.  Overall I declared it a success, if only in comparison to the disastrous uverse issue.

Sadly, I have no pictures to share this week.  Actually, I DO have some to share, I just can’t get to them because of the ongoing uverse plot against me and….  Oh never mind, I’ve covered that one enough for one day I guess.

Well my website is broken, seemingly irreparably.  After 2.5 years of the exact same setup, my stupid uverse service has decided my website & home phone cannot co-exist.  Since the phone service is for work and the website for play, guess what won.  I shall continue my troubleshooting endeavors but it don’t look good for the kid.  And now, having posted this brief update, I must re-enable the telephone…

Well I’m still by myself in CA, excluding the dog of course.  As you likely know, Doni’s dad passed away so she is helping out with things in KC.  I’ll be joining her later this week, then I think she’s coming back with me next week.  Whew, long time.  In the meantime, I’ve not done whole lot.  The weather has been pretty darn awesome so I’ve been riding my bike some and piddling around in the yard.  And…  Well…  Uh….  That’s about it.  Thank goodness for Royals baseball or I’d go to bed at 6:30 every night.  I’ve had some bits of fun though;  I took Teagan wine tasting once, threw a pork shoulder on the smoker and had people over, and I’ve been up to a friend’s house for tri-tip cooks a few times.  I’m starting to think the tri-tip is a pretty ideal hunk of meat for having people over.  Relatively easy to cook, doesn’t take long, and darn tasty.  Here’s a few random pics.  I expect I’ll get back to more riveting, regular updates in the near future.

So, not much to go on again this weekend.  If I didn’t mention it, Donette has been out of town the last few weekends.  Left to my own devices, it’s a known fact I will typically just sit on the couch and watch TV, eating microwave popcorn and Ritz crackers.  (I was starting to feel a little faint by Sunday afternoon, so I mixed some peanut butter into the diet.  Paired wonderfully with the crackers.)  Both of my friends were otherwise occupied this weekend, so it made my sloth-like ways even more inevitable.  I did have big plans of going bike riding, but it actually rained all weekend and threw that off too.  I watched no small amount of Gunsmoke, several random sporting events, and even ventured out once to wander the aisles at Costco.  The Costco trip netted two items I feel inclined to mention, mostly from lack of anything else to type about.  First was a meyer lemon tree.  I’ve been wanting a lemon tree since we moved into the house.  I was supposed to get one when the backyard got landscaped, but for reasons unknown to me…  I didn’t.  (Never really figured that one out.  Whatever, it was $20 at Costco.)  I see them for sale occasionally, and then after I wait around trying to decide if it’s a good time to plant, if it’s the variety I want, blah blah, they’re all gone.  So, when I saw a few of these out front of Costco, I threw one in the cart.  No, it’s not really the variety I wanted, but I’m tired of waiting.  Second was a fancy new electric razor.  This was another item I’ve probably been over-thinking.  I’m a Braun man myself, but I’ve long been intrigued by the Norelco design.  A few weeks ago when I was wandering Costco, I couldn’t help but notice they had quite nice models of both brands available, for exactly the same price.  This set me on a bout of research between the two:  Which was better for shaving your head?  Which was better overall?  Which had better battery life?  How expensive were replacement parts?  Well, it was pretty much a dead draw, depending on which review you were reading.  I must say I was leaning toward the Norelco, mostly because I’m a bit peeved that my Braun wore out.  The head pops off it while you’re shaving, which is quite annoying.  Not like once a week, like five times every time you use it.  OK, it’s probably eight years old…  But still.  Anyway, when I headed in to make my final decision and saw the Norelco was $30 off, my final decision was made.  Initial results are very positive, I’m happy with the purchase.  Is it “As close as a blade?”  Heck no, I can’t believe anybody ever claimed that.  But, close enough to get me through the work day.  It IS a noticeably closer shave than my old Braun though.  I don’t believe anybody could tell the difference between it and a blade unless they ran their fingers over my face.  And honestly, that very rarely happens during my day-to-day encounters.  Thus concludes my product review, wasn’t that exciting and informative?

Wow, where does the time go.  I’m rather busy this week (and last,) and not with anything that would be of any interest to anyone.  I do however have some pictures I can post of various recent exploits.  I went “mountain biking” by myself Saturday.  I put that in quotes because the truth of the matter is, I walked a fair deal of it.  I’ve got a deep-seated fear of crashing, especially by myself, so if I see anything even remotely difficult-looking I just bail out.  Of course, the downside is I’ll never get any better at riding.  The obvious upside is I might make it to ride another day.  Also of note, I joined a group of youngsters on a fun wine tasting Sunday.  They’d rented a large bus/limo to shuttle us around and celebrate our friend Alaina’s birthday.  I won’t list the actual age, because 1) I don’t think you’re supposed to, and 2) it depresses me.