We are slowly but surely getting moved into our new house.  Very slowly, maybe not so surely.  I somehow imagined having all kinds of free time out here;  Not really working out that way in practice.  Always some good football game on, or the weather is too nice to sit inside, or other similar monumental events.  It’ll get there.  (Won’t it?)

Friday I made an attempt at keeping up my end-of-week happy hour tradition.  I had a fine evening I guess.  I sat on the back patio at the house and pondered the deep question:  “If you sit alone on your back patio, can you really call it happy hour?”  I didn’t come up with a decisive answer.  If you sit at the Brooksider with a table full of people but don’t talk to anyone, is THAT happy hour?  Heavy thoughts man, heavy thoughts.  I know I enjoyed the 70 degree weather, the fire pit, and a short cigar.  Grilled up some rather nice mahi mahi on the ol’ Weber for dinner, then played a few rounds of Wii with the wife to round out the day.

Saturday never quite got off the ground for some reason.  The Missouri game came on at some unholy hour of morning… 9:00 if I remember right?  This PST is sort of inconvenient in some respects, sporting events being one of them.  We tuned in though, it made for a good start to the day I suppose.  It was evident they had the game well in hand by half time, so Teagan and I strolled up the street and played some ball at the nearby park.  After that the day kind of just went by.  We watched several more college games that we had only marginal interest in, I washed the motorcycle, slept intermittently on the couch…  And that was about it.

Sunday we had a bit more energy, or at least got a bit more accomplished.  I put a little effort into my new home network, with absolutely no progress.  (The temptation here to go on a detailed tangent of my Uverse issues, possible fixes, and past failures, is almost overwhelming.  I shall refrain though.  You’re welcome.)  Given the lack of a Chief’s game, we headed out to get some shopping done.  We are definitely doing better about eating at home now, (mostly because we can barely afford our rent,) but haven’t quite settled on whether to grocery shop day-by-day or once a week.  Both approaches have their own advantage.  At any rate, this week we bought most everything at once.  My major purchase (or at least most interesting) was a tri tip roast from Costco.  I’ve been searching in vain for a brisket since we got here.  I’m not sure they can be found.  Urban legend has it that they occasionally show up at Costco, but I sure haven’t seen them.  Apparently when in California, the beef consumer is relegated to the “tri tip” cut.  Hmmm.  Color me skeptical.  They look sort of like a brisket, but that’s where the similarity ends.  One major difference is they only take about an hour to cook.  What the heck are you supposed to do with the rest of your day??!?!?  Gone is the excuse, “Sorry, can’t do that today, got to keep an eye on my brisket.”  Lame.  Oh well, I guess this is one more major cultural difference I’ll just have to overcome.  (It came out pretty darn tasty though.)