Geez, I hate to say it but I’ve got nothing.  It’s been pretty crummy out in the Western world…  I’ve been spending most of my time sitting on conference calls.  Want to hear all about them?  No, I didn’t think so.  Meanwhile all three or four of my friends (the count has gotten so high I’ve lost track) have been out of town partying it up, and left their dogs with me.  What a deal.  The good news is, little Quinn really has a big time with his pup friend.  Unfortunately they got a little destructive, but what can ya’ do.  There were some losses involving a nice  pair of sunglasses, a rug, and no small amount of sod.  Sigh.

I did get out of town for a short time last weekend.  The wife and I got up to Tahoe for a night and caught a concert with Train & O.A.R.  Not a bad show.  I was a little disappointed in OAR…  Their sound was pretty muddy and they didn’t seem too really be interested.  Maybe because it was an outdoors show and hot as blazes, who knows.

This past weekend was just a total bust.  I tried to herd the puppies all day, and walked around with my phone in my hand trying to pay attention to calls.  So lame.  Yesterday I tried to smoke some ribs, which came out marginal at best.  That was just more disappointment piled on.  Not sure what happened there, I guess I needed to give them my full attention.

That was a big week in The Life of Phil.  That’s not necessarily a good thing either;  I don’t like “big.”  I like “consistent,” thank you very much.  Well, things happen.  I went to a conference in Las Vegas all week, and it was a bit overwhelming.  Too many people, too hot, and, at the end of the day, it was work.  They can host those things wherever they want, try as hard as they want to make them fun, but it’s still work.  And by “hot,” I mean 110+.  BRUTAL hot.  You could hardly breathe outside the hotel.  This is not to say I didn’t have any fun.  One of my friends attended with me, and then our wives showed up mid-week.  Once the conference (mercifully) ended, we had one big party day too.  We got all fancy and rented a cabana down at the hotel pool, and that made for a great afternoon of relaxation.  That’s the way to go, I’ll say that.  No laying out in the sun on blistering hot plastic chairs for these high-rollers.  After that we met up with one of my college buddies who has lived out there since…  Well, since we got out of college.  He (again, mercifully) took us off the strip for a while, and was it ever good to get away from that mess.  We hit the new tiki bar in town first.  Ever heard of a tiki bar?  I surely hadn’t, but then I’m old and uncool.  After that he took us to a Thai food place, which was a wonderful change from the hotels, both in terms of taste and price.  Oh, and I’m sure everyone wants to know the results of our time at the tables.  Well, I don’t gamble, so I took all my money home.  Donette was the gambler of the group.  She dropped a ten-spot in the penny slots.  Gave it one pull, doubled her money, and cashed out.  I guess that makes her the top gambler in the group.

That was an exhausting week, but we still had “obligations” when we got back home.  Saturday was our friend Jana’s annual birthday party.  We’ve been three years in a row now, and it’s always a blast.  They’ve got an incredible back yard, pretty much made for such events.  I went over around noon and threw a bunch of ribs on, then Donette joined me later in the afternoon and we proceeded to enjoy the pool until way-too-late.  Good times.  The ribs came out OK too, much to my relief.  I hate cooking for large groups of strangers…  Too much pressure.

We rounded things out with a trip to some of the local wineries.  It occurred to us we hadn’t been wine tasting in quite some time.  The weather was reasonably nice, and our friends had a new car to squire us about, so we hit the tasting circuit.  We hit several favorites, and tried one new place.  Sunday Funday, indeed.

I’ve got an awful lot of pics from my trip, and the weekend.  I’d split them up into multiple posts, but I always forget.  So, here they are.

And just like that, it’s hot.  I feel like I got cheated out of the last few good weekends with some ill-timed stretches of work.  What can ya’ do.  The last few weekends were sunny and 70, now it’s sunny and 108.  108!  Yeah it’s “dry,” but that’s an unpleasant temp all the same.  We did get one last night on the patio Friday before the stifling heat rolled in.  As luck would have it, my favorite cut of steak (lately anyway) was on sale so I fired up the grill and cooked one up.  As a side note, that’s a pretty spot-on article I linked to there.  Yeah, they’re a little overpriced, hard to manage on the grill, and obscenely huge, but they sure are fun.  I get no small amount of entertainment cooking them.  I went the “reverse sear” route cooking it, which is pretty much the only way to get the huge thing cooked.  About 40 minutes on the Weber kettle, then finished it off on a cast iron griddle.

Fast forward to Sunday, the heat was out in full force.  We headed over to a friends house and horned in on his father’s day celebration.  They’ve got a nice big pool in their yard, which has the added bonus of being shaded most of the day.  We planned on just floating around for a few hours to cool off, but ended bobbing around the pool the entire day.  We finished the afternoon off with some fine carne asada tacos, then scurried back to the a/c at our house.

For the second week in a row, I got nuthin.  I’ll at least throw that much out though, last week I didn’t even have that much time.  Why so preoccupied?  Well, unfortunately it’s not because we’ve been out tearing up the town, I’ll tell you that much.  I’ve got a few random pics and that’s about it.

We managed to stretch that out into a four-day weekend, which felt much needed.  The highlight of this little vacation was definitely the Bottlerock festival on Friday.  I’d say probably our favorite thing to do is hit music festivals, and we don’t get to do it nearly enough.  Between the cost, the travel, the vacation…  They’re just hard to attend.  We went to this one in ’15 though and had a great time, so we went ahead and bought tickets to the Friday event this year.  And, once again, had a great time.  A full day of great weather listening to some great music, what’s not to like.  The highlights of my day were Frightened Rabbit and Silversun Pickups, while Donette liked the headliners, Maroon 5.  All great shows, and we made hotel reservations for next year as soon as we got home on Saturday.

Speaking of Saturday, it wasn’t exactly a bad day either.  We had reservations at the Rutherford winery for a nice tour, and it was well worth the 90 minutes.  There were only five couples in the group, so it was a nice little semi-private event.  After that we headed to Soda Rock winery (which was much further than I thought,) for another quick tasting, then wound our way back up the hill to pick up the puppy over at our friends’ house, and enjoyed a delicious bbq while we were at it.

Sunday & Monday, we dialed it back quite a bit.  Worn out.  That’s not to say we didn’t have fun, just more of the “bbq at home” kind of thing.  There were some ribs involved, and lots of Royals games and sunshine time.  Enjoyable relaxation.

And a quick clip of Silversun Pickups playing.  I videoed the entire 6.5 minute Lazy Eye but I’ll spare you that one.