Whew, that was one exhausting weekend.  Punishing, even.  It started early on last Thursday when we flew to KC for Martin’s sort-of-kind-of-not-really-surprise 50th birthday party.  The very fact that I went to school with people who are now turning 50 troubles me deeply, but I’m just to avoid the issue for the time being, and stick with a brief overview of the festivities.

Friday was a fun day, at least for me.  I do miss my little self-styled KC pub crawls.  That wasn’t even really the plan, it just kind of worked out that way.  I met up with Kobe around 11:00 at the Blue Line, a place I’d never been to before.  Actually, I’d definitely been there before, but I think it was under a different name last time I was there.  At any rate, it’s now The Blue Line, a self-proclaimed “Hockey Bar.”  Huh, didn’t know KC had one of those, or for that matter needed one.  At least for the day of the US vs. Canada game, it proved a very successful theme though.  It was just crazy-crowded, there was no use even looking for a seat.  We stood around and watched the entire game, which I found oddly entertaining.  After the US loss, the crowd magically disappeared.  They left the TV’s turned up deafeningly loud though, so I decided to walk up to the Phoenix for some lunch.  Ah, I miss that place.  I sat around there for a while, joined briefly by a few coworkers, then Martin picked me up and we headed south to my old stomping grounds.  “The Boys” were all at Hooper’s;  Not my favorite place but hey, I got to see a lot of people in one spot so it worked out OK.  From there, we headed further south to Tommy’s, which our friend Susan recently purchased.  After checking out her remodel of the place (she was out of town so we didn’t get to see her,) we headed back downtown to one of my favorite spots, the Peanut.  I know the one on Main is the original, but I have always preferred the downtown location.  I maintain those are the best wings in the city, I love them.  I generally am a bit self-conscious of eating them in public, as I tend to… errrrr… sweat just a bit.  I figured what the heck though, I was on vacation, so I grabbed a roll of paper towels and tore them up.  That and a double BLT were more than enough for the four of us.

Saturday was the day of Martin’s party, so I was tasked with keeping him occupied while the girls made preparations.  Of course, I can’t even keep myself occupied most of the time, so I deferred to Schmidt.  He put together a little shootin’ party with Lueck, Martin, Brown and myself up at the Brown Ranch in Kearney.  Good times, although none of us were exactly tearing up the clay pigeons.   By the time we got cleaned up it was time for the party, which was down in Westport at Californos.  Much like Hooper’s, I had the benefit of seeing a bunch of people in one spot, so I had a great time catching up with everybody.  After the party, a handful of us headed up the street to Kelly’s to keep the festivities going.  All we did was prove the adage “there is nothing to do after 10:00 but get in trouble.”  That’s all I have to say about that.

Sunday we had carved out for some family time.  We started off meeting my family down at Classic Cup for brunch.  I’d had a cup of coffee there before, but never eaten;  It was quite good!  As usual I ordered rather oddly, in a misplaced effort at being healthy.  I must admit my omelette would have benefited greatly from a liberal dose of sausage gravy like Donette had.  Oh well, there’s always next time, and it wasn’t bad at all; I just had a little gravy envy.  After that we rolled up north to her parent’s house, where we spent the rest of the afternoon socializing while waiting for our flight to Sacramento.  Ugh, the flight home was miserable, we didn’t step in our front door until 2:00 AM, and that’s including the two-hour time change.  Friggin’ Denver.