Well, we’ve been here two weeks and we’re already taking vacations. That’s alright, I think we earned one with the move. (Which, incidentally, still isn’t completed. The second truck should show up later this week. If I was to guess, most likely while we’re still out of town.) Anyway, I’m compelled to keep things brief for a few reasons: 1. I’m on vacation and have better things to do. Actually I don’t but I probably should. 2. I’m relying on our Verizon hotspot to post this, and we’re teetering on the edge of data overage.

So, as it happens, we’re in wonderful South Lake Tahoe for a bit. At an hour and a half from our new house, I imagine we’ll be making short trips up here quite a bit. So far I don’t have any exciting ski trips or anything to relate; We’re just kind of checking things out this time. We arrived Saturday, threw our stuff in the hotel room, and hiked to a nearby place to watch the Missouri game. Sunday, we walked all the way to Nevada (about a mile) and found the Chiefs game on a big screen at Harrah’s. We ended up next to a couple from Overland Park, so we made for a nice cheering section. The smoke in that place drove me out though, I watched the second half by myself at a different place nearby. After the game we wandered around the lake for a bit, then spent the rest of the day at the resort watching football.

We’re here until (maybe) Wednesday, so we’ll see what other opportunities come up. There isn’t much of a schedule involved so we’re just kind of winging it. The one place we found so far to board the dog is rather exorbitantly expensive so we might head back and bail her out early. (Her per-night boarding rate is more than our condo in Tahoe. Seriously. Something is wrong there…)

I apologize for the extended (2 week?) down-time.  We’ve been in the process of moving, and I had no idea it would take this long.  More on those painful details later I guess.  As to the move, we are now in the process of getting settled in at a temporary (rental) house in El Dorado Hills, CA.  Not to be confused with the more glamorous parts of California, this is still a great place so far.  And, it’s CLOSE to lots of them there fancy places.  We’re a mere hour and a half drive from several great places like Lake Tahoe, San Francisco, and Napa/Sonoma.  No need to drive to Napa though, there are several (hundred) wineries right here in El Dorado County if that’s your thing.  The drive here was rather arduous, if pleasantly uneventful.  I cannot, in good faith, recommend driving 1,800 miles with a cat in the car though.  Poor little guy, he just sat in Donette’s lap and moaned.  For three days….  Ugh.  He’s adjusting well to the new house though, better than I expected.

Once we finally arrived at the house on the afternoon of the 21rst, we were relegated to living with what we could carry in the car with us, as the truck with our stuff wouldn’t arrive until Friday.  That consisted of a few towels, an air mattress, and some sheets.  Sort of like an indoors camping trip.  It was a longggg week.  Our stuff did finally arrive Friday though, and mostly (but not entirely) intact.  So far there haven’t been any big losses discovered.  There are a few outstanding issues:

1.  All our stuff couldn’t fit on the first truck, so it was loaded on an “overflow” truck.  No big deal.  When is that one coming?  Saturday?  Monday the 28th maybe?  Friday.  Not THIS Friday, Friday the 8th of November.  Ouch.  Had I known this to start with, there would have definitely been some adjustments made.  There are some must-have items on the second truck that are driving me nuts.  (At least we HOPE they are on the second truck.)

2.  They lost one of the “feet” off our dryer, and wouldn’t hook it up without it.  So, they ordered a replacement from LG.  No biggie.  Well, it still hasn’t come in, and we are coming up on two weeks without doing laundry.  Things are getting critical.  I’m quickly coming to the decision of propping it up with whatever I can find and hooking it up myself.  (Much like all the furniture I ended up having to reassemble myself because they lost all the parts from the disassembly.)  It might not have gone any better, but I definitely wish I would have selected the other moving company when I had the chance.

3.  Me and my new Uverse service aren’t getting along too well thus far.  I found my Surewest service in KC to be very flexible and accommodating to some of my more “unique” arrangements.  Uverse, not so much.  They force you into using their router, which naturally they make as difficult as possible to muck around with.  But, muck around I did of course, and lost our DVR services in the process.  I am pretty sure this router will become the bane of my very existence.  It’s about the size of a small refrigerator, and has four 10/100 ports, one of which is taken up by their odd external wireless access point.  All this would be fine if  this was, say, the year 2001.  My only hope is that I can somehow figure out how to daisy chain my personal routers off the back of it.  (That is, if they ever actually get here!!!!!)

That’s enough typing for now I suppose.  I broke down last night and plugged my webserver into that evil router of theirs, and eventually managed to navigate their cryptic menus enough to get it up and running for the time being.  I will be sure and keep everyone abreast of the status of my home network as more equipment arrives.

I’d have to say the highlight of that weekend was a trip to Jack Stack for dinner with the family.  Not one of the foo-foo locations either;  THE Jack Stack Martin City location.  The other locations have their own perks, mainly being close to my house, but at the end of the day the Martin City location has consistently better food.  I’d already made up my mind on the rib dinner before we got there, and stuck to my plan.  I did switch from the 1/2-slab plate to the “dinner,” which worked out favorably as they gave me the short end anyway.  Definitely one of those dinners that made me want to work on my ribs at home, they were delicious.  My home-cooked ribs have been an unprecedented disaster as of late;  Time to get serious.  I do believe at some point pork spare ribs supplanted brisket as my favorite ‘que, but for whatever reason I find them hard to cook.  Tips????  Anyone????

The rest of the weekend was a wash.  Watched football all day Sunday, didn’t do anything Friday.  That is all.

Well, I do believe the last American Royal BBQ for team TFB is officially in the books.  Never say never, though.  If it was the last, I think we got our money’s worth;  I know I did.  I headed down Thursday afternoon to get things started.  Thursday is kind of our “team-building” night.  We hang out, catch up with team members we haven’t seen since LAST year, and go over our respective cooking plans for the weekend.  Honestly, I’d say a lot of the first two items, not so much the last one.  It was, as is usually the case, my “late night” for the weekend too.  I don’t know what time I called it a day (morning) but it was later than common sense would dictate.

Friday is the big party day of the weekend.  We all spend most of the day decorating the spot, preparing all the side dishes, putting on the tablecloths, etc.  I must say, the guys who did the centerpieces this year really went over the top, they were breathtaking.  Our first guests arrived around 6:00, and it was all downhill from there.  I won’t rate it our best party in the 10-year history of the team, but it was a good one.  And, while nobody will say it out loud, the rain storm around 10:00 was a blessing;  It effectively cleared out most of the riff-raff and left only a handful of people.  The second storm that rolled through around midnight got rid of the stragglers, and we had the spot to ourselves.  Perfect crime.

Saturday is usually a rather brutal day.  Generally there are only a few of us left onsite, left to deal with a sea of half-full plastic cups, broken glass, discarded plates, and other assorted trash.  I stumbled out of the trailer early in the morning to find that this year would be no different.  In his last declaration as acting CEO though, Martin declared that the remaining four of us should take the day off and go get some rest.  Hey, no need to tell me twice, I was on the phone with Donette in about two seconds.  She was so overjoyed to hear from me at 7:30 in the morning she could barely form a sentence.  Once she got past the excitement of getting to see me, she rushed down to pick me up and took me home to a hastily prepared breakfast of smoked salmon and bagels.  I then took a hot shower and crashed for about three hours.  (That last sentence is actually true;  The ones before that, not so much.  She DID actually come get me though.)  After catching up on some sleep, we headed up to The Well for a tasty dinner, then I loaded a few bare essentials and headed back down to the BBQ.  It was with much delight that I arrived to find the site pretty well cleaned up, courtesy of Schmidt.  There were still only four of us Saturday night, and we all were a little worse for wear.  We had the good fortune to find the MU game on TV and watched that, then everybody kind of dozed off where they sat.

Sunday started off around 4:00 with the smokers getting fired up, food prepped, and detailed plans drawn up.  All went well, or at least as well as it ever does.  To tell the truth, there was at least an 80% chance of chicken and brisket not even being turned in, as Martin and I had already discussed the fact that since we had no plans of returning in 2014 there was no reason to bother with it.  But, in the interests of the team members who may or may not choose to carry on the tradition next year, we grudgingly decided to at least submit them.  Judging from the results this morning, we’d have been just as well served to stay in bed, but at least we didn’t get disqualified.  (Barely.)  Actually, chicken turned out to be our team’s best-scoring entry, although it was certainly nothing to brag about.  Brisket…  Well…  Again, we didn’t get disqualified and that’s what is important, right?  I had a good day of it though, it was certainly a lot more relaxing not really caring how our entries did.  Part of this was the due to our arch-rivals, The Red Gloves, not showing up this year for the contest.  In the grand scheme of things, we historically have only cared how we did against them anyway.  (And it might be worth mentioning, we historically whup them too.)  Without them to compete against, we didn’t really have any motivation.

Whew, first chilly ride of the season on the scooter this morning!  Note to self, check temperature before heading off to work.  ‘Bout froze my face off.  But then, that’s just random commentary, and not related to what I did over the weekend.  So, on to that.

Overall, I will rate that weekend an 8 out of 10.  Friday I intended to just call it a day and watch TV at home, but alas, Martin & Brice turned up at the Brooksider, forcing me to show up also.  It would have been a crime to sit home when the weather was so nice though, so it worked out for the best.  Donette came down and joined the revelry after a bit, and then we decided to head out to dinner.  Last Friday of the month means chicken verde burrito at Jalapenos, my favorite.  Alas, it appeared to be everyone else’s favorite too, as the line was out the door.  We were extra-hungry, so we bailed and crossed the street to Carmen’s.  In my book that’s a definite menu upgrade, while unfortunately a rather significant tab upgrade also.  Hey, we’re broke anyway, why not pile on.  We haven’t been there in quite a while, making the dinner seem even tastier.  I had lobster ravioli, while Donette went with the always-solid lasagna.

Saturday we had a little private pub crawl on the calendar with the Martins.  The weather slightly altered our plans, but we made the best of it.  We kicked the afternoon off with a stop at The Flying Saucer.  That represented the northern end of our tour, and from there we made stops at The Velvet Dog, Kelly’s, Davies, Bobby Baker’s, District Pour House, and wrapped up at The Beer Station.  A fine day indeed.  Once the rain burned off and we could get out on patios it was even better.  New on the agenda was the District Pour House;  They just opened about a week ago right up the street from our house in the spot formerly occupied by The Gaff.  They’ve done some very extensive remodeling, it’s barely recognizable inside.  Very nice place…  Probably a bit TOO nice for us.  Between their new menu and Louie’s at the other end of the block, it’s a rather pricey area these days.   We’ll have to make a few more visits and decide if it holds a spot in our regular rotation.

We kicked off Sunday with an always-exciting trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart.  WOOO HOOOO!!!  One of those places we love to hate.  They took all our money, as usual, and then we headed to lunch at Amigos to contemplate our dire financial straights.  Ahhh, nothing like a good plate of tamales to cheer me up.  After lunch I was scheduled to head up to Martin’s and do some cooking for the upcoming BBQ next weekend.  In a wonderful bit of good fortune though, he called and said he would rather head to a party out near my house if that was OK.  Hmmm…  Drive an hour north of the river and slave over a hot cooker all day, or sit outside and eat BBQ cooked by somebody else, while listening to local blues bands.  Let me cipher on that for about 1/10 of a second.  We went with the blues & BBQ option, and it worked out very nicely.  A fine day indeed.  Of course we only delayed the inevitable on cooking for the Royal, but that’s just how we roll.