Now this is weather.  It would be this way all year if I had any say in it.  Hopefully it holds out for the big BBQ this weekend…  (Jinx.)  By the way, I know everybody has been on the edge of their seats waiting for status on my web server instability issue.  Well, after turning on some logging here and there and watching things for a while, it turned out there were about 150 or more spam-bots hitting my message boards every twenty minutes or so.  Given the rather anemic specs of the little server I use, it would just puke all over itself.  After ciphering on a few different solutions for a while, I took the easy way out and just deleted the message board.  Bah, nobody (except the spammers) has used it for several months anyway.  Done.

That weekend was definitely a bit toned down after last.  That was a good thing, I need my rest.  Friday, case in point, I didn’t do much at all.  I stopped by the Brooksider for a bit and sat out on the deck, enjoying the fine weather and catching up on the latest local news, then went home and watched TV.  Donette, meanwhile, stood in as Susan’s date to a highschool reunion.  She stayed out quite a bit later than I, and that’s all the info I was privy too…

Saturday, after sleeping in just a bit, we headed down to Brookside & joined John and Susan for breakfast at Sharp’s.  I had the biscuits and gravy for about the tenth time in a row;  Probably need to branch out a bit.  Then again, I like their biscuits and gravy, so why risk it?  We ate breakfast, then walked around the Wayside Waifs event for a little bit, checking out all the puppies.  (I didn’t know that was going on or I would have probably gone elsewhere for breakfast…  It was pretty crazy with all the streets blocked off and mutts everywhere.)  After that, with a nice full belly, I headed to the wilds of the northlands, to join Martin and crew (skeleton crew, I might add) working the smoker up at Chris’ house.  Brice & Zim showed up to help out too, and I think we got everything pretty well prepped for next weekend.  Of note, while we had the smoker running, Chris turned out what could have been the best slab of ribs he has ever prepared.  Bold statement, but quite possibly true.  Deeee-licious.  Fluke, or can they be duplicated next weekend under the pressure of competition?  Time will tell.  (If we even bother turning in our entries…  Time will tell that too.)  After all that, I headed back home for another evening of nothing.  I had been snacking on ribs and chicken all day and wasn’t even hungry, so I skipped dinner and just hit the TV again.

Sunday, after the previous evening of nothing, I was well rested and ready to enjoy the day.  I drove over to Mark’s house and picked him up, and we headed to the shooting range out by Parkville for a few hours.  Can’t beat that for a fine Sunday afternoon’s entertainment.  We killed a few dozen pieces of paper, then scurried back to midtown.  There was still plenty of afternoon left, and the weather couldn’t get much better, so Donette and I made the arduous .5-mile trip to The Well to enjoy the weather.  I had the best pastrami sandwich I’d had in recent memory, and Donette gave her burger high marks too.  That was the first time we’d eaten there, and I must say it easily rivals 75th Street for food.  The downside is that every time we’ve been there, (admittedly not many) there has been something a little “off” about it that almost, if not quite, ruins it.  For instance, last time we were there, one of the neighboring businesses had some kind of sewer issue going on, and every so often you’d get an overwhelming whiff of rotten eggs.  (It was still there yesterday actually, but we had a more favorable breeze.)  Then yesterday it was the bees;  Friggin’ honey bees everywhere.  What the heck?  They even kept getting in our tea, which wasn’t even sweetened.  It was a bit unnerving.  But, the pastrami was excellent and I didn’t get stung, so I guess in the end it worked out OK.