OK enough with the rain already…  I assume I brought this scourge on the city by deciding to ride a scooter to work.  At the current rate of precipitation I’ll get to ride to work like 4 days this year.

Whew that made two busy weekends in a row, save Friday. All we did Friday was stop by the Brooksider to say a quick “happy weekend” to everybody and then went home and shut down.  I went oncall so I had to spend an evening hunkered down in the dark sulking; it helps me get adjusted to the odd hours.

Saturday we got up relatively early and took the dogs on a nice long walk.  They like the exercise and I doubt it hurts us any either.  After that I took my bicycle up to a shop in Waldo to get it worked on, in preparation for my good intentions of riding again this summer.  This marked the first time, literally, that the bike has been off the garage wall since the ill-fated Katy Trail ride of ’05.  It still has like 2 lbs. of gravel dust caked on it as evidence of this, which might have something to do with why it doesn’t quite shift right.  I’m supposed to pick it back up today, hopefully they got it all working again.  For afternoon entertainment, we put our helmets on and went for a little ride.  We were a little nervous about the weather, but after keeping an eye on things for a while we decided it was going to stay dry so we rode all the way out to Mom’s house, by way of Y highway.  We visited a while and had a tasty lunch, and then rode back a slightly different route.  I’m for the weekend rides; it was a good time.  Relaxing even.  Kind of looking forward to the end of the 20 mph wind season though.  Donette went home after that, and I rode over to Brice’s house and had a few of the ribs they were smoking up.  BBQ season is officially OPEN!   We didn’t do much that night, sat around at home and watched the Jayhawks get thrashed.  I was a bit sad to see them lose, but that was easily compensated for by the knowledge that their “fans” or whatever they call themselves will be blissfully absent from the area until next year.

Sunday we started out the same way, with a good long dog walk.  According to Caesar Milan this is the surefire route to happy, healthy dogs, so we need a lot of walking.  Then we put the kids down for a nap and took the scooter up to the recently relocated Jake Edwards BBQ.  It earned a “mediocre” rating I would say.  Not too bad but I doubt we go back any time soon.  We had the burnt ends and sausage;  The burnt ends were decent but not smoky enough for me, and neither of us liked the sausage at all.  The sauce was good, the beans livable, and the fries passable.  However, when you factor in that everything was a buck or two overpriced, it knocked the rating down even further.  After that we took our full bellies home and went on a bit of an outdoor spring cleaning binge.  I got the blower fired up and blew all the crap off the back patio, we drug out the chairs and associated patio furniture, and washed the motorcycle and scooter as a bonus.  Then, inspired by the ribs at Brice’s house the day before, I fired up the smoker.  Todd and the Martin’s came over and we threw some chicken breasts and wings on, since that was all we really had time to cook.  We drug the TV out on the patio and watched North Carolina get beat while the chicken cooked.  The wings came out pretty darn good;  Martin may have given new life to the quest for the perfect smoked chicken wings.  The breasts were just OK…  I wonder if the sauce I slathered them in blocked the smoke or something.  Oh well, we were just enjoying the weather more than anything, I don’t think anybody was even hungry.

As a side note, I realize that the “weekly poll” excludes like 50% of the site’s dozen or so readers.  It was a request though, what can I do.