Well I suppose it’s time to make at least a weak effort towards typing some content in here. Problem is, I haven’t really done anything. Donette just returned from a 3 week (!!) stay in KC, which left me mostly sitting at home watching our anxiety-plagued puppies. They do ok IF (and that is a very important if) you walk around and make sure anything semi-destructible is removed from reach. This includes throw pillows, shoes, sunglasses, ear phones… anything that can be grabbed. They are only 5 years old though, maybe they will grow out of this phase. (How’s that for optimism.) I also watched an extra pup for the neighbors while they went out of town. This little girl is about six months, and she proved a bit of a challenge. Not too much, but she definitely has some puppy tendencies. Quinn had a bang-up time playing with her though. Now Nacho is a different story… Heck, she barely tolerates Quinn. There were a few good scraps, but with each of them weighing in around 12 pounds I didn’t have to worry about anybody getting hurt.

Other than a few trips to the office and an emergency voyage to the grocery store, I can’t think that I really left the house the whole time. I am definitely ready for our upcoming camping trip this coming weekend, get out of here for a bit. The bad news there is (and there is always bad news…) the forecast is back in the triple digits starting Saturday. Hmmm. We can make a game time decision when the time gets closer.

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Next week… NEXT week I will get back to and actual update. Yep, definitely next week. Here are a few more pics in the meantime.

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I’m on break. Lemme alone. Here are some pictures of food.

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What are the “dog days of summer” anyway? I am not too sure, but I feel like we’re in them. HOT!! Just melting hot. Step outside and you want to go right back in. Unless you’re Quinn, then you lay on the concrete and soak it in. Odd puppy. Yeah, so that is my lead in excuse for “we didn’t do anything last weekend.” We had no plans, and nothing came up, so we just stared at the TV. Sunday was mildly productive. We got outside pretty early and assembled the little storage shed that has been sitting in pieces on the back patio for… A long time. Not entirely our fault. They shorted us one of the wall sections so there wasn’t much point in putting together the rest of it. The manufacturer shipped us a replacement piece, but by the time it got here the extreme heat had kicked in. But, it ain’t going to be any cooler for a while, so we finally got after it. We spent four hours putting that silly thing together. The instructions were like a book. A slow reading, poorly written book at that. At the end of the day, it looks sort of shed-ish though. Just a little spot to store the lawn mower and maybe a few other things. After that project we felt we’d earned a splurge, so we headed Into Town and got a big ol’ porterhouse steak at the butcher shop. Man, it was good. Don’t really remember the last time I had a porterhouse. As usual, the decision was driven by the sales, and it was pretty well discounted. Nice big 2.5 lb’er, it fed both of us and a decent sized lunch left over. I cooked it on the rather neglected Weber kettle, which was a good call. The wife deemed it “too smokey,” which I can’t really argue, but it was darn awesome all the same. Looking forward to firing the trusty kettle up again soon.

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That was a nice, relaxing weekend. Well, sort of. Donette headed up to Lake Tahoe with a big group to see the annual Celebrity Golf Tournament, while I stayed behind this year. Somebody had to watch the dogs, and I drew the short straw. Actually I was a willing volunteer, I just don’t enjoy the tournament that much. It’s hot, expensive, I don’t know many of the “celebrities,” and golf is probably the most boring spectator sport ever created. I always enjoy the activities outside of the tournament, like concerts and nice restaurants, but it didn’t break my heart one bit to stay behind. That said… Whew, those dogs are a handful. Mostly (exclusively) Quinn and his friend Renfield. They are just nonstop. If you don’t see them for about 15 minutes, you would do well to go find out what they are doing. They find trouble in ways I never even thought of. On the upside, Quinny usually sleeps for about 2 days straight after Renfield leaves, so I’ve got that to look forward to.

My big excitement for the weekend was firing up the smoker and putting on some ribs. With all my recent forays up to Ring of Fire I’ve gotten a little interested in que’ing at home again. I had fun cooking the brisket last weekend, but it’s a little time consuming, not to mention expensive. Besides chicken, I figured ribs were about the easiest and most moderately priced thing to cook. My big plan went just a bit askew when I got to the butcher shop and spare ribs were $8 per pound. Eight dollars!?!?! That’s just crazy. Granted, they looked fantastic, but so did the baby backs next to them for $5.50. I like spare ribs better, but I guess not that much better because I quickly decided on the cheaper option. My excitement for the day was to cook two slabs. Identical dry rub, but wrap one slab in butcher paper about 1/2-way through the cook. Yep, doesn’t take much to excite me. Well, it was fun, so whatever. I really didn’t notice any difference between the two slabs though. I expected the wrapped ones to be more tender, but they weren’t that I could tell. The unwrapped ones were quite a bit darker, but it’s not like I was turning them in at a competition so who cares. They were both pretty darn good. I’m ready to start tweaking the recipe a bit and try again, but first I have an entire fridge full of leftover ribs to eat.

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