After three long weeks, I finally got to spend a weekend (at least part of it) in Kansas City.  It was such a jumbled mess I can’t really remember everything though.  I’ll skim some highlights.  One day or another, we ended up at a newer restaurant in Midtown, Anton’s.  Man, that place was crazy-good.  It had a few unusual (read “expensive”) features too, that were rather interesting.  For one, they had an awesome patio out back.  Maybe not as functional as the ‘Sider, but just in a cooler part of town so it was fun to people-watch.  They also have a fresh meat counter in an attached room, where you can buy organic cuts of meat, artisan sausages, etc.  I’ll grant you, they aren’t exactly giving the stuff away, but it sure did look good.  Might have to splurge on a slab of ribs from them some day soon.  Down in the basement, they had a glass room where they grow all their herbs in-house.  Pretty standard herb garden…  Except they have it over a big pool of Tilapia fish.  Built in fertilizer system, sweet!  I’ve got pictures, but going with my current trend I’m too lazy to post them.  After a great steak dinner we headed to the nearby Uptown Theater to see Big Head Todd & The Monsters.  That’s probably one of my favorite places to see a smaller show, and it didn’t disappoint.

Some other night, (I swear, they’ve all run together,) we headed up north and joined the Martin’s in Liberty for my favorite kind of concert:  Free.  Somehow their fair city had managed to book Samantha Fish to play a free show on the square downtown, and it was great.  The wife and I have a running disagreement on if I’ve seen her play before or not, but it’s been too long if I actually have.  She puts on a great show.  That entertained us for the evening, then we rolled back to Martin’s and watched the Royal’s losing effort on the DVR.

I realize that’s a rather disjointed update, but that’s sort of how things have been.  I’ll settle back into my familiar routine soon I’m sure.

Well, I still haven’t returned from sunny CA.  I did move inland a bit, however;  I spent last weekend in El Dorado Hills, about 20 minutes outside of Sacramento.  (Or an hour if you get lost.  But that’s another story.  Note to self:  Don’t second-guess the GPS in unfamiliar territory.)  This was still a work-related venture, so I still don’t have any riveting tales of revelry to relate.  I’m more given to holing up in the hotel and watching TV, which consumed no small part of my free time.  I did frequently take advantage of the nice gas grill at the hotel, in conjunction with the Whole Foods right across the street.  I enjoyed several awesome steaks, and a blue cheese hamburger of such a size that it more closely resembled a meatloaf.  I packed stuff to go cycling, but, just like at home, that didn’t happen.

I spent last week in San Francisco, so at least I can’t claim the “same ol’ weekend” story as I usually do.  However, it was spent at a work conference so I really don’t have to that much anybody would like to hear about.  Ate some awesome food;  If only I remembered the name of the restaurants I’d do some quick reviews on them.  Alas, I didn’t keep very good records.  I spent the week getting to know several of my industry peers (at least as much as my boring personality allowed for) and walking around the city.  I didn’t have a car so my range was a bit limited, but I got to see some cool stuff.  And, some not so cool stuff…  A downfall of the “I’ll just walk that direction and see what I run into” plan I supposed.  At the end of the conference our hosts took us all to AT&T Park, where they’d rented the entire place for the evening.  Obviously there wasn’t a game going on, but we got to tour the stadium, including going down on the field.  If you’re sure you don’t want to hear about traffic load-balancing techniques, that’s about all I got.

Wow I sloughed off that weekend.  Beautiful weather outside, and I opted to do a whole lot of nothing.  I got outside a bit, just to say I didn’t totally waste it, but not nearly enough.  Friday I made a late appearance at the Brooksider, just long enough to say hello to the gang.  They were on their way out the door by the time I got there though, so I didn’t stay long.  I headed out right behind them, and went home to cook some bratwursts and veggies I’d bought that afternoon at Corollo’s down in the River Market.  (If I haven’t mentioned, I got moved downtown again…  Corollo’s is one of the few benefits of this latest relocation.)  I’m not a particularly huge fan of bratwurst;  I am, however, a fan of sitting outside and grilling on a nice Friday evening, so it was all good.

Saturday, I watched the morning slip by, then finally got it in gear and went on a quick bike ride around noon.  Great day for a ride, I was glad I put out the minimal effort required to step outside.  After that, I met up with Donette and her family at 75th Street for a little lunch, then shut down for the rest of the day.  I think I may have done something fun that evening, but the details escape me.  (Guess it wasn’t THAT fun, then.)  We did finally get around to watching Identity Thief.  If you haven’t yet seen this blockbuster film…  Don’t bother.

Sunday again brought glorious weather.  And I, again, let it waste away.  I actually gave brief thought to joining Munkirs on the Cider Mill bike ride, just because it was so nice out.  I’ve ridden that one the last several years, but just didn’t feel like I had it in me this year.  After about 15 seconds of debating between the ride and walking to QT for a cup of coffee, I opted for the coffee.  The rest of the day went by in a similar fashion to the rest of the weekend.  I filled up Teagan’s little play pool for her and had a rather epic round of fetch, but that was about it.  Oh, and I took the glass recycle down to Brookside and dumped it.  Whew, exhausting.

This week I have a valid excuse for my continued erratic posting schedule.  It is, in my opinion, actually too hot out to type.  I get overheated very easily.  It’s a health concern.  So there you have it.  Well that, and an utter lack of interesting events in my life.  I spent all last week in beautiful Earth City, MO;  Not exactly a tropical oasis.  Donette joined me for a few days though, and we managed to have a little fun, or at least we ate well.

As to this weekend, it was somewhat low-key.  Now LAST weekend, that was a good one.  Unfortunately it wore me out so much I didn’t have enough strength left to recap it, and now it’s too late.  So, back to this weekend.  Friday we had a wedding reception on the calendar.  We didn’t make it though.  Donette fell asleep, and I “forgot” to wake her up in time to make it.  (Wink wink, nudge nudge.)  Ended up being a night on the couch, which was just fine by me as I’d just completed the arduous drive back from Earth City.

Saturday we accomplished a whole bunch of nothing.  Our friend’s daughter was getting married at 4:00, so we pretty much laid around killing time until then.  I spent the day with what passes in my mind as “chores.”  This included loading Ubuntu on my laptop, and getting the multimedia server working so I can stream movies throughout the house.  These projects didn’t go far towards getting the outside of the house painted, but I say stick with what you know.  Both were completed on time and under budget, successful projects indeed.  The Ubuntu is just slick;  Once again I am left wondering why I spent money on the new version of Windows.  It is honestly a more than capable replacement, and in some respects even better.  The media streaming project went well too, although it took a bit longer.  The idea was to copy movies onto my little NAS server, so we can watch them on various devices around the house.  My full sized PC upstairs has served this function for a long time, but we don’t really leave it turned on that much any more.  The little server is turned on 24×7, uses a lot less electricity, and puts out a lot less heat.  And, as it turned out after getting it working, it actually serves the purpose much better.  It streams to our iPads as well, which I could never get working from the PC.  If you aren’t already bored to sleep, I shall continue on to the aforementioned wedding festivities.  Well, it was a wedding, and a fine one at that.  It makes me feel a bit old(er) to be attending the nuptials of my friend’s kids, but I guess then I AM old so what can you do.  After a nice ceremony, we headed down to the west bottoms for a fun reception.  We spent the evening dancing and cavorting, and before we knew it, it was 1:00 and the lights were coming on.  OR, we sat at the table with our friends, then scurried back to Brookside at 9:00.  You have to guess which of those actually happened.

Sunday didn’t bring much entertainment value.  I had grand plans of firing up the grill and cooking something, but the promised thunderstorms (which never materialized) scared me off.  Instead, I walked up to 75th Street and watched the Royals game by myself.  Literally, by myself;  There wasn’t another soul in the place.  Hey, didn’t have to worry about getting the game turned on the TV that way.  I watched the entire game there, then Donette picked me up and we ran a few quick errands.  That included picking up a little kiddie pool for Teagan, which we filled up when we got home, much to her delight.  She does enjoy laying in the pool on a hot day, especially after a good game of fetch.  Rather comical actually;  She likes to run across the yard, get the ball, then blunder straight back to the pool for five minutes or so.  When she decides she has cooled off sufficiently, she’ll bring the ball back and do it again.  We ran that routine for a while, and never did get around to grilling.  As a reasonable substitute, I laid on the couch and watched back-to-back episodes of Pitmasters.  Much as I  despise any and all reality shows, this one has kind of sucked me in.  Pretty darn exciting, and interesting.  Local team Pellet Envy came out on top at the end of the evening, which was sort of expected, at least by me.