I like to begin my posts with an immediate excuse as to why I’m (still) boring this week.  Get it out of the way early.  So, for this week, I’ll quickly throw out the qualifier that I was oncall, so I had to sort of stay close to home base most of the time.  Friday, case in point, we did one whole lot of nothing.  And on a holiday to boot, tsk tsk.  I thought about crossing the county line and bootlegging some firecrackers in, but it seemed they were taking the ban rather seriously so I nixed that idea.  I really can’t say I saw or heard so much as a single firework go off the entire weekend.  A little eerie, honestly.  We did cruise down to check progress on the house, which seemed to be going just swimmingly.  We’ve got drywall, all taped and mudded, and one layer of stucco on the outside.  The way it’s going it doesn’t seem like it should take them two more months to finish, but I guess the slow part is coming.  That was about it for our big Fourth.  We picked up some tuna steaks at the grocery store and grilled those for dinner.  Not even a very Fourth-ish kind of meal, but it was on sale and it sounded good. (And, matter of fact, it WAS good.)

Saturday, determined to leave our circle for at least a short while, we decided to drive up the hill a bit to Placerville and visit Jodar Winery.  This was sort of a random destination, based mostly on location and the fact that they served tasty-sounding food.  It turned out to be a nice place, we killed the better part of the afternoon there.  We split an enormous gorgonzola burger and fries, had a glass of wine, and sat in the shade listening to a couple of entertaining guys play harmonica and guitar.  Cheap entertainment to be sure, which seems to be in short supply around here.  We stopped by K-Mart on the way home and picked up a kiddy pool for Teagan, and spent the rest of the scorching afternoon playing ball with her in the back yard.  (Poor girl isn’t smart enough to stop chasing the ball when she gets too hot, but she’ll cool off in the pool if it’s there.)

Sunday was roughly the same, but we headed the opposite direction on the freeway to Device Brewing.  I’d heard positive reviews from a few co-workers, and it didn’t disappoint.  Like nearly every other brewery we’ve visited here, it was located in a warehouse.  Not exactly big on “character,” but effective I guess.  We sampled some very nice brews there, and passed the time playing Jenga.  They had a food truck outside serving sausages, so we picked up a few of those for lunch.  Honestly I’d have enjoyed them a lot more if I hadn’t just got a huge cheeseburger and fries for the same price the previous day, but it was OK.  It seems the only food trucks we ever run into here serve “gourmet sausages” too;  Could we hit the taco or BBQ truck once in a while?  (Maybe they don’t exist, who knows.)

Wow, the forecast today is calling for 107 degrees.  That’s just flat kooky.  And don’t give me the “dry heat” qualifier either, that’s just hot.  Bone-melting, gasping, stay inside all day, HOT.  I guess it could be worse.  I don’t know how exactly, but I’m sure it could be.  (I could be mowing lawns?  Striping parking lots?  Digging a ditch?  All kinds of ways, now that I think about it.)  Anyway, the weather over the weekend was quite a bit nicer than today, and we got some good use out of it.  Maybe not so much Friday, but we had a little fun that day too.  I had to work a bit later than expected, so we ended up just heading to the weekly wine tasting at the good ol’ grocery store.  If nothing else, the sheer lameness of going to the grocery store for entertainment on a Friday night amuses me.  And, it’s sorta fun too.  They have a decent band, usually throw out some good pizza, and you get to taste a few new wines;  Good stuff!  We hung out there for an hour or so, then picked up a few groceries and went home to cook up a tasty shrimp pasta.

Saturday started off a bit slow.  We spent a decent amount of time out looking for new patio furniture.  Wow, that was a shock, or disappointment, or something along those lines.  I had a few numbers floating around in my head for a budget, and I don’t think they covered the umbrella stand on most sets we found.  Good grief, when did outdoor furniture start costing more than good living room furniture?  I might well just be sitting in my Cabela’s folding chairs on the back porch, ’cause I ain’t paying that much.  After that waste of an afternoon, we headed “up the hill” to Placerville, to attend the 14th annual Bell Tower Brewfest.  We’d heard good things about it from a few people, and indeed it was a fine event.  It was a bit different than the usual setup, in that the different distributors were located inside several shops along the town’s main street.  It was pretty cool;  You could check out the shops and sample some good local brews at the same time.  It was also in the evening, so it was considerably cooler than the recent one we attended in Folsom.  Good event, I’m sure we’ll return next year.

Sunday was moderately productive.  We again headed up the hill, even further to Tahoe this time.  It’s really not a bad drive, and has the added benefit of dropping 10-15 degrees in temp.  We timed our trip for a lunch stop, and had our spot all picked out, but when we got there we found it was inside a day-use area and they wanted $8 to park.  For lunch?  No thanks.  We headed over to the south side, which we’re a bit more familiar with anyway, and ended up at a place called Steamers.  In something of a rarity, it worked out well for us, it was a solid lunch.  Their menu was just what we were in the mood for (sandwiches) and it was remarkably inexpensive too.  Donette got a turkey melt, which was great, and I let the waitress talk me into the taco special.  The tacos were…. “different.”  Like several other dishes around here, if you can get past the fact that they call it a “taco,” they were really pretty good.  The corn tortillas were coated in parmesan cheese and lightly fried…  weird.  Yet tasty.  Hmmm.  They also had about three heads of iceberg lettuce shredded up on them, which I’m not particularly fond of, but the spicy shredded chicken under that made up for it.  After lunch we headed to our favorite fine art gallery to pick up the painting we’d purchased several weeks ago.  Our first piece of “fine art,” how exciting.  I was a little excited, honestly, I’m rather fond of it.  In an added bonus, the artist was there doing a show, so we got to meet him.  I’ll admit he wasn’t exactly what I expected.  (Just like the tacos.)  Let’s see, 1) goes by one name, and 2) artist; just those two qualifiers pretty much scream “WEIRDO” to me.  On the contrary, he was really an interesting guy, quite personable.  If I was the least bit personable myself I’m sure we would have had a great conversation.  We hung out there for quite a while, mingling with all our new art collector friends, then headed back home and went to a friend’s house for dinner.  All-in-all, a fine weekend.

I got nothing from this weekend.  In an unfortunate twist to my usual revelry, I had to work all day Saturday, which in turn left me too worn out to do anything Sunday.  I guess we did leave the house briefly Sunday.  We drove to Fry’s, the geek mecca of the west, to pick up a few necessities.  Since we made the long drive we hit a few other spots too, namely Harbor Freight, Office Depot, and Yard House for lunch.  Anddddd that’s my weekend.  I have to hope our next one is slightly more entertaining.

Happy Father’s Day to all.  It was a fine weekend indeed.  While I’m not technically in the Father category, I tend to go with any excuse I can to celebrate.  We kicked things off on Thursday with a little warmup in Sacramento.  We’ve talked several times about driving to Raley Field to watch the River Cats.  They’re the AAA team affiliated with Oakland, and the closest thing to watching a baseball game we have around here.  We were talking about it again Wednesday night, and when we looked up their schedule we found the Omaha Storm Chasers were in town!  Closest thing to a Royals game we are gonna have for a while, so we put on some team gear and made the 30 minute drive.  Since we were making the drive to the Big City, we decided to try a new dining spot, and after some research came up with River City Brewing.  As far as dinner goes, we were both rather underwhelmed.  It wasn’t terrible, but with so many other new places to try it didn’t have anything to bring us back either.  The game was a great time though, we’ll be back there.  It wasn’t watching the Royals at Kauffman by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a nice stadium and the seats were cheap.  Guess it’s going to have to do, because I have no intention of driving two hours to watch the Giants or A’s.

Since we had an outing Thursday, we sort of laid low on Friday.  We headed over to Folsom and went to a pseudo-wine-tasting at a lawn and garden center I guess.  I didn’t have much interest in the wines, but they were demo’ing a few grills I wanted to see.  Our gas grill didn’t survive the move, so I’ve been lightly shopping those for a while.  Might just stick with the good ol’ charcoal for a while, we’ll see.  They did have a very nice one I was impressed with, but it had an impressive price tag to match.  After that, it was back home to enjoy the nice weather on the patio, and watch the baseball games.  Quiet night.

Saturday we spent the better part of the day back in Folsom, at the second annual Rhythm & Brews festival.  I’d heard horror stories of last year, I guess they weren’t quite ready for the size of the crowd that showed up.  I was hoping that would keep everybody away this year, but that didn’t seem to be the case, it was plenty crowded.  It was a good time, we’ll probably put that one on the list for next year.  Of course we got a little lucky with the weather, it was quite a bit cooler than it has been.  We actually stayed for the whole thing, which surprised me.  After that we stopped for a light dinner at Bistro 33, then called it a day.

Sunday was a quiet one.  We were a little slow getting around, but finally got up and went for a nice bike ride around noon.  It was a fine day for a ride, and we managed to get in nearly 12 miles of mixed on-and-off road.  For dinner I made myself a Father’s Day Feast;  Grilled ribeye and lobster tail.  Man, it came out good.  Unfortunately I managed to about lop off the end of my finger working on the lobster tails, dang it.  Sure was good though, even if I’m typing with a sore finger tip for the next week.

Oh boy, where have I moved to.  Early June and it’s 105 degrees already?  Whew.  Time to pay for that extra-mild winter everybody kept talking about I guess.  At least it’s a dry heat.  (One-oh-five is HOT, I don’t care how dry it is.)  We didn’t hunker down in the a/c ALL weekend, though.  Just most of it.  Friday, as it happens, that was exactly the case.  I couldn’t even bear the back patio, so I just sat in front of the TV.  Predictably, that led to falling asleep about 7:30.  Big Friday at the Kenagy’s.

Saturday we headed to Folsom Lake to try the beach again.  Since our trip a few weeks ago, we’d refined our plan of attack a bit.  We picked up a cheapy ez-up to give us a little shade, drove a bit farther to a spot that was less crowded, and found a location where you could drive right down to the beach.  Granted, there weren’t a lot of other passenger cars there, mostly four-wheel-drive trucks and Jeeps, but the ol’ Honda did just fine.  We took Teagan with us this time too, having determined that, on the whole, the lake is pretty dog-friendly.  For once, our plans went relatively flawlessly.  Teagan got so tired I thought I was going to have to lift her in the car to go home, which was one of the primary reasons for going in the first place.  We were shaded and comfy under our tent, and most importantly I didn’t sink the car in the sand.  All good things.  We were there three hours or so, then headed home and fired up the grill.  Tri-tip was the flavor of the evening, and it came out well if I say so my darn self.  Might have gotten it a bit too smokey…  Jury’s still out on that one.

Sunday we actually got in a bit of physical activity, which is an increasing rarity.  We loaded up the bicycles and headed to Folsom, where we got on the American River Trail (a.k.a. Jedediah Smith Memorial Trail) for a ride.  It’s a very nice resource, we plan on getting back there soon.  The cycling was nice and easy, and relatively flat considering the surrounding areas.  We kept the distance down to ten miles since 1) neither of us have ridden all year, and 2) it was 100+ degrees out.  I must admit, the kayaks down in the water looked like they’d chosen the better recreation for the day, but we enjoyed ourselves all the same.  After that we headed home and cleaned up, then went BACK to Folsom (whew, that’s a lot of driving,) to see a show at the Harris Center.  The Hit Men were on stage, and they weren’t terrible.  The guitarist and drummer were actually very good, I just despise that type of music so it made it a bit harder to enjoy.  Let’s just say it looks like it will be more difficult to find an enjoyable show since we made the move to the ‘burbs.  What can ya’ do.