Ow.  I am in such physical pain today I almost stayed home from work.  I ain’t as young as I used to be I guess;  That four day weekend, while enjoyable, took quite a bit out of me.

I had Friday off but didn’t really take advantage of it.  I hit Costco and picked up a couple of briskets and took a bunch of crap up to Martin’s house in preparation for the Great American BBQ, which we were heading out to on Saturday.  Probably the highlight of my day was getting pulled over by the po-po on my scooter.  Seriously, why would the man want to hassle somebody on a scooter?  It’s not bad enough that a guy is stuck riding a scooter for transportation, you have to shake him down too?  Well it turned out it was my buddy Mike from college, having some fun at my expense.  Yeah, thanks for that.  Apparently he was in such a state of euphoria at seeing me on a scooter he didn’t notice that my tags expired two months ago, so HA.

Saturday and Sunday ran together into one big blur at the BBQ competition.  I think I might just be getting too old for those things.  I rode out to the site with Bob around 2:00 Saturday afternoon and helped out just a bit with the booth setup.  We had a nice big spot so we got everything arranged and then generally sat around and baked in the heat.  Munkirs, Belanger and Scotten came out and visited us for a while, but for the most part it was a low-key event.  We mostly sat around and lounged.  Later in the evening we went and saw a decent blues band, Martin & Scotten rode some carnie rides, and then before we knew it midnight was upon us and it was time to start cooking.  So, the next 15 hours or so were spent feeding the fire, basting, wrapping, spraying, cutting, and all the other fun stuff that makes me continually wonder why we do these competitions at all.  It was oddly fun this time though.  Our results?  Well, probably the worst showing we have ever made.  Only Martin (ribs) did anywhere near acceptable.  I don’t really know what happened;  We may not have been expecting ribbons, but c’mon, it wasn’t THAT bad.  Or maybe it was and my judgement was skewed by extreme fatigue, I’m just not sure.

After dragging my semi-concious carcass back home and sleeping for 12 hours, I woke up Monday really wanting some barbecue.  Actually, just the thought of it made me want to puke, but we’d invited John & Susan over for ribs, so I fired up the smoker and got to work again.  They came out OK I guess;  I gave myself a break on them because I rarely cook ribs so I was happy with anything considered “edible.”  We had a nice little dinner, took a beating in a game of pitch, and called it a weekend.