Alright enough of this slacking.  I’ll type up an accurate, detailed, and thorough account of my past weekend.  It will be just as boring as the brief overviews, but longer.  Friday, naturally, was the revered happy hour at the Brooksider.  It was absolutely melting hot out, but we toughed it out on the patio.  In case I wasn’t sweaty enough already, I headed home and grilled some chicken quarters after that.  Whew.

Saturday I had a good chunk of work to do, so that ate up my morning and afternoon.  When I got finished, we loaded up the car and started the long journey towards the ‘Dotte, where we planned to attend the KC Wine Festival.  To break up the tedium of the long drive, we stopped at Hayward’s BBQ for a late lunch.  While I’m sure I’ve had their ‘que before, it’s been a long time and I am pretty sure I’ve never been to the restaurant.  I was pretty hungry, but I opted to stick with the small beef sandwich, while Doni ordered the Luncheon Special, also with the beef.  Both were very good plates.  We both liked the beef a lot, and I’ve always liked their sauce.  One of us should have probably gotten beans to give them a try, but we ended up with fries.  While quite tasty, I couldn’t help but feel the lunches were a bit overpriced.  Coulda just been my inherent cheap nature sneaking in there.  After lunch we continued out to the ‘Dotte, and checked in to a hotel at the Legends.  From there it was off to the Wine Fest.  That was a great event, we both really enjoyed it.  The only snafu occurred when, in one of our typical bouts of over-researching, we somehow came across this FAQ page.  Looking back, I really don’t know how we found that page, I can’t find the link to it again to save my life.  But, find it we did, and if you skim through it, it clearly states: “For men, clothing ranges from suits to polo shirts paired with khaki pants or jeans.”  Very unfortunate, considering it was about 105 degrees out.  But, I didn’t want to show up as the only guy in shorts, and if you browse through the photos of past events (which I did, still looking for an out,) everybody is definitely dressed semi-nice.  So, I put my khakis on and headed out there, and as you well might guess I was one of about five guys actually wearing pants, vs. about 5,005 wearing shorts and tee-shirts.  Sigh.  Oh well, I bet they felt under-dressed when I walked by. Yeah, I bet.

Sunday we headed back to KC, where again I was scheduled for work.  The good news was, I was in a nice 68-degree underground cave all day, and as an added bonus they brought in Big T’s BBQ for lunch.  (Doesn’t look like they have a website, so no link.)  In retrospect, I should have ordered a sliced beef sandwich so I could do a head-to-head comparison with Hayward’s while both were fresh in my mind.  But, I saw the burnt end platter on the menu and it called to me.  So, while I can’t do a fair food comparison, I can say the prices are much more reasonable:  $10 for an enormous plate of burnt ends and fries.  It’s sort of near our office so we eat there pretty regularly, if you’ve never tried it I would recommend giving them a shot.  After work, I made the somewhat questionable decision to drop by the ‘Sider to see if anybody was watching the Chief’s game.  Well, of course everybody was there, and of course they were sitting on the patio.  Wow, it was just BRUTALLY hot.  I sat out there like a numb-skull and watched the rest of the game though, sweating like I was about to pass out.

Now as to what i DIDN’T do this weekend…  This was the weekend I was scheduled to do my annual century (100 mile) bicycle ride.  This year I’d signed up for the MS-150 out of Columbia, MO.  I really did not care for the ride to Lawrence last year much, and it pains me to give my tax dollars to KS, so this year it was decided Columbia was a good option.  Alas, stuff came up, I didn’t train adequately, and several weeks ago conceded it just wasn’t going to happen.  Munkirs, on the other hand, made the ride.  So, in addition to my familiar feelings of personal inadequacy, I got pelted with taunting texts all day too.  Oh well, maybe I’ll get back in the saddle next year.