Either I’m so bored I’m updating my page at 2:00 in the morning, or I’m in an extremely different time zone.  The latter would be a safe bet.  Indeed, I’ve been sentenced to a week “across the pond,” with the accompanying 8-hour time difference.  I haven’t even fully adjusted to PST yet and they throw this at me?  It remains to be seen if I get any sleep at all.  Case in point, I enjoyed the entire Royals game last night (or, this morning, as was actually the case,) complete with rain delay.  I got to cheer them on to victory, and barely had enough time left to make it in to the office.  Odd feeling, I’ll tell you.

So, travelling over here (the UK, I guess I forgot to mention,) consumed the vast majority of my weekend.  I left the house at 1:00 Saturday afternoon, convinced as always that there would be some unforeseen delay at the airport which would in turn cause me to miss my flight.  And, as always, this resulted in me sitting around a terminal bored out of my mind for three hours.  Better safe than sorry I guess.  (Not really.)  From there I flew to LA, enjoyed another three hour layover, then took an overnight flight to London.

By the time I hit Heathrow, it was 4:00 in the afternoon with the time change.  After suffering through a good bit of trouble finding my driver, I finally made it to the hotel around 6:00, thoroughly exhausted but just a bit hungry.  The Google led me on a short hike to a place called The Antelope, which I was quite fond of.  I imagine I’ll find my way back there a time or two over the course of the week.  Due to some technical issues with the international service on my phone, I don’t seem to be able to upload any of the pics I took.  Guess that’ll have to wait until next week.

We branched out quite a bit on the entertainment front this weekend.  While Friday & Saturday were standard bouts of nothing, Saturday we got all wacky and bucked up for the big pay-per-view boxing match, and invited a few other couples over to watch it.  Between the baseball games, the Kentucky Derby, and the fight itself we definitely had a good day of it.  I definitely foresee getting some use out of our backyard setup.  It was just pretty fun sitting around watching TV outside, grilling up some dinner (chicken tacos,) and enjoying the awesome weather.  Yeah, it’ll get hot sooner or later, but I’m hoping for enough shade to keep it bearable.  As far as the actual fight?  Eh, waste of money.  I’ve never watched boxing before, and now I know why:  BORING!  I was left with a definite sense of, “Dang, I PAID for that?”  And due to whatever rock I’ve been living under the past half century, I honestly didn’t know about all Mayweather’s “issues,” or I probably wouldn’t have paid to watch him in the first place.  I knew he was pretty universally disliked, but never had enough interest to find out why.  Well, we had a great time at any rate, even if the tacos were infinitely better than the TV event.

Sunday, Donette left for a work convention in San Diego.  I immediately went to the grocery store and bought the biggest pack of chicken legs they had, and set about grilling.  I’m not really sure why, but every time I get left home alone I get an unnatural urge to grill chicken legs.  Oh well, there’s worse hobbies I suppose.

Rest assured, I have good intentions of posting a full update, however lame it may be.  In the meantime I wanted to share this pic I took at Costco the other day.  Now I know why Chocolate Ale is so hard to get in KC, they shipped it all to the CA Costco stores!  There were pallets and pallets of the stuff.  (Nope, didn’t get any.)

Boulevard Chocolate Ale. In May?!?!

Another weekend, another wine tour.  Not a bad pastime really, mostly if just to get outside and enjoy the weather.  We met some friends for lunch at one of our favorite local wineries, hit one more, then they continued on the the trip while we headed back home.  In a rather…  “unique” twist to the afternoon, their baby came home with us and we (errr…  Donette) did some babysitting while they enjoyed a little alone-time.  Granted, the babysitting essentially consisted of Donette taking a nap with the baby while I sat on the back porch and watched tv, but it seemed stressful at the time.  (OK not really.)  When they got back from their trip we headed over for a bbq at their house, more than enough payment.

Saturday and Sunday were sort of a blur.  I remember a lot of errands Saturday, a delicious dinner at a new (for us) place in Folsom, and then an excellent brunch at Sienna on Sunday afternoon.  Man that brunch was good, I tore that up.  Unfortunately after that, we broke our own strict rule of No Costco On Sunday.  Bad, terrible, horrific idea.  Quite possibly the worst lines I’ve ever seen there.  But, we were perilously low on staples at the house, it had to be done.  Next time maybe we’ll plan ahead a little better.  But we all know differently.

Wow it’s getting hot here already.  The A/C kicked on yesterday out of the blue, sort of surprised me.  It’s in the mid-80’s though, pretty toasty.  The good news is our solar system is loving the longer, sunny days.  Most of this month it’s put out over twice what we use, leading to a quite attractive negative bill.  I’m sure that will change when the air starts running regularly, but I like looking at it now.  Overall we’ve been really happy with the solar, it’s definitely paying off.  As an added bonus, we got to claim a healthy chunk of the cost on our tax return, which was looking pretty grim after renting all last year.  That’s me, saving the planet and a few bucks.

That was a hit-and-miss weekend.  Mostly hit if I had to weight it though.  Friday we went over to a friend’s house and took it easy on their back patio.  While we enjoyed the nice weather we came up with a fine plan to go wine tasting on Saturday.  In a rather shocking decision, we headed the opposite direction from our standard Amador County staples, opting instead for Toogood.  We’d been there a handful of times before, but not recently.  One of the driving factors was the free cookout they sent me an email on.  I’m always up for a free lunch.  It was a great deal and pretty tasty, especially if you overlook the $20 in gas it likely cost.  Eh, it evens out somewhere I suppose.  We made a quick stop by one other spot on our way home, then headed back to their house for some awesome carne asada tacos.  After a while I had to head home and work, which definitely put a cramp in my day.  It was an all-nighter too, which I’m getting far too old for.

Sunday was an off day, at least for me.  I was out of sorts from the long night of work, so I hit the back porch and watched TV for the majority of the day.  Doni went to a brunch with some friends at Sienna, which she gave high marks;  We’re planning to hit it again next weekend as a matter of fact.  I did manage to struggle up to the grocery store and pick up some chicken and corn on the cob for dinner, which made for a nice little bbq.