we survived

The weekend.

Almost intact. The in-laws made it and are headed out back home now. Not too much stress, some craziness and issues. But it wasn't too bad. Getting everyone around and where they needed to be and all that was a challenge. But we got to the Ballet. My oldest had a blast and did well in her role (pretty minor but she's part of the younger cast). And I enjoyed it. Some of the dancing wasn't perfect, but there was great emotion and some was pretty incredible. I never really like canned music for Ballet, but it wasn't all that bad if you didn't mind hearing the violin's sound coming out of the right side (ie the cello side of the orchestra pit). All in all though it was quite the spectacle.

We all headed home and I made a big batch of Pizzas, and a little bit of wine. Sunday was a big brunch. I made some cinnamon rolls from scratch and they were almost edible. Well almost in that I slightly overcooked them being distracted getting everything else ready and the ones that weren't touched after brunch were a bit dark on the bottom but even those were devoured as a desert after dinner. Big brunch, special baked french toast. Our family was introduced to it one spring tour when we stayed in Stone City Iowa at a B&B/Inn/Concert place. It was there that some of Grant Wood's work made a big impression on me. Well the baked french toast I think made even more of one. Simple, easy to feed a crowd, and wicked tasty. add some killer bacon and irish bangers, some fried apples and mimosas and it was a great celebration. And I managed to start drinking in the morning and didn't really stop much until before we headed out to dinner at Red Stripe (Normande Moulles kick ass, mmm bacon, calvados, mushrooms, cream... mmmm). Twas a good day. K went to watch the Nutcracker so she could see the whole show instead of just being in it at 1pm (after which we all met up at Red Stripe - the cheese plate was incredible, the blue cheese from where ever it was, was sooooooooooo amazing) and after dinner she headed back for her final show at 6. Well I guess sometime after getting off stage between it being super hot on stage or something, added with the weekend of stress, dancing, family, and whatnot she got a bit sick after getting out of her costume. Everyone was blaming the moulles but i was fine, I think it was something else. Who knows. She was fine this morning. But her grand parents had to deal with a not feeling great kid all the way home from PPAC. Ah well.

No bike racing for me. My only contact with the results were SMS updates from Skinny and G-ride. 6th, not so bad for that skinny dude. Both days. 5th would have plopped him on the fancy podium but hey, 6th in the 35-39 race is pretty spectacular. Very cool. 6th in the single speed riding his tiny gear. I guess the winners rode a 42x18 and skinny was riding a 39x21 (G-ride tootled over in a 42x24). That's pretty cool.

Treefarm and Compton won as expected as I found out this morning. Lloyd and Page both wound up 3rd. Ah well. That's not so bad. Well done LVG for getting 4th. Someone somewhere mentioned that the tall guys don't do as well in the wind. Well I dunno. We sure as hell can't get as much of a draft as the little skinny f*ckers but i've read somewhere that power to surface area almost always favors the taller folks, something about the surface area difference not being as big of a factor as weight and power and what not. Small skinny guys do great on hills cause of the power to weight ratio, but into the wind it drop the weight factor and suddenly two guys evenly matched at 5w/kg are not so evenly matched. Immaterial mental crap. Ya still gotta be f'ck'n fast to win and do well at Nationals ya know. Who gets picked for the worlds team will be interesting. It'd be great to see those selected all go and kick ass this year. That and I think Skinny needs to head to Moll one of these times (this year?) and give it a shot going against the world's best, no?

There was a moment or two at the ballet (intermission) when I wondered aloud how "they" did. My wife got mad thinking I was wishing I was up at the ice weasels/solobreak's excuse to run around in his underwear race, i explained no, that I was thinking about the race in KC... All was fine... More or less.

Time to start getting everything ready for the trip out west. Travel time looks to be nice and wintery when we get there. My brother's drove back to M.L.T. (north of SEA) after the PDX show saturday night. With the weather they didn't get home until about 6am. Normally it is a ~3 hour drive due north on I-5... Took em a bit longer than that. Yikes. The weather is looking pretty sketchy for the concerts next weekend. I hope it doesn't keep any day of ticket purchasers away.

Anyway - updates may be few and far between. Other than to report on the state of the beer isles in the supermarkets in WA state. I've got a nice shot of the Newport '08 beer, in a glass.

It was good. Father in law went for a quick beer run friday or saturday night (sat? IIRC) and i suggested he get one of those. But. Sadly the guys working there couldn't find any more bottles. WTF? They sold out already? There was a bunch of it there on Thursday or Wed night, where ever it was that I went to get it (maybe Tuesday). I guess a few people tried it and came back and bought it all up. It WAS good stuff.

Might check the froofy beer store over here, the one that doesn't sell ganset but has every bottle/brand of Belgian beer imported to the US. Maybe they have a bottle of it. Or i'll just have to settle for some Ommegang or Allagash or... who knows.

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