I know that most of you can't get your week started just right until you've read how my weekend was, and I'm sorry about not getting it put up yesterday. I was terribly busy at work and then had to do an off-site backup tape audit and physical inventory. And before you ask, yes, it was tough to walk around with a raging boner all afternoon while doing such an exciting thing.

Anyway, Friday I was in Anderson, SC with our consultant and Louise to my Thelma for the purposes of this road trip, David. He's a certified Compaq / HP badass and all around good guy, so I was actually looking forward to the trip.

We hit the McDonald's on the way out of town and I got two sausage burritos. My thought was that anything was better than a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit nutrition wise. The jury's still out on that call.

We got to Anderson around 7:30am and got to work disassembling the old server and other equipment to make way for the new server, tape drive and badass UPS. We figured on around two hours.

About three hours later, we realized that the ups wouldn't accept regular plugs but had only these fucked up proprietary ones, so all of our work was more or less in vain. Next stop, reassembling and connecting for temporary purposes until we get acceptable cords.

In the meantime, I was unable to defend myself any longer from the bag of bacon, egg and cheese biscuits from Hardee's that sat in the breakroom, so I ate one.

Dammit.

At around 12:30pm, one of the guys up there brought us back lunch which for me was a fried grouper sandwhich. I skipped the fries.

Good for me.

We got home around 4pm and I took urchin 1.0 complete with her own grocery list and headed for Sam's to pickup the carnivore's trifecta: a whole ribeye, two boston butts and a three-pak of babyback ribs.

Yummy.

When I returned home, it was time to relax and have Friday cold beers, which we did. Another friend came over with two bacon wrapped filets and we continued our tradition of Friday night steaks with no sides eaten off of paper plates. Man how I love the simple things.

After several hours of cold beers and good company, it was time for bed. The next day I would find out that something must have been wrong with the beers, as some of our guests weren't feeling too well...

Saturday morning came early with a 5am feeding for urchin 2.0, which was great given that she last ate at 10pm. For an 11 week old to be sleeping 7 hours at night is absurd to me, but we are on a roll and Sophia is a very acommodating baby.

After an hour or so of playing WSOP (World Series of Poker) on the X-Box, I was on the treadmill at 6:30 for my usual 75 minute workout. Of course, Lauren was up about 40 minutes in and came in and sat next to me and repeatedly asked me "How much longer, Daddy?" and "Why are you so sweaty and gross, Daddy?" and "Can we have breakfast?" Sometimes, it takes a lot to get your workout in, even before 7am.

After getting everyone up and at it, it was breakfast courtesy of a Friday stop at Krispy Kreme for the girls and a peanut butter sammich for me. And one donut hole. I am human, after all.

Soccer started at 11am and ran long, which was great because I had to get home and get ready to go to the funeral. We didn't get home until 12:30 which left me about 15 minutes to get ready. It also had me finding that none of my true dress clothes fit since they were made for the fatter me.

I went with slacks and the black shirt, but I knew I was going to feel underdressed.

For the record, I was certain beforehand that going to a child's funeral was probably going to be the worst thing I'd ever had to do. I didn't consider that being a parent and going to the funeral of a friend's child would far worse than I could have imagined.

I rode with a friend from work and we talked about how we felt and our sorrow for Lisa and Greg. The ride focused around the funeral.

I don't know where friends and family found the strength to stand up and speak, but I was inspired by their words, their fortitude and their faith. Lisa's mom read a beautiful letter to Amelia and was followed by a friend and colleague of her father's.

When her husband Greg stood and gathered himself to speak, it was almost more than I could bear. I felt so deeply for them both, for them all for that matter, but what hurt the most was knowing that I was only feeling a scintilla of the pain and suffering they were not only enduring, but surviving and pushing through.

I wish I had a copy of Greg's words. I would surely post them here as they were amazing. Maybe someday that will happen. The words he spoke were pained and sorrowful and filled with hurt but at times were happy, proud and even funny.

I have no words of comfort for Lisa or Greg or their families. People better with words than me have surely done everything that can be done from that end. All I could tell them was that I loved them, that I was so sorry, and that I would do anything I could for them. I didn't know what else to add.

After that ride home (which consisted of talk about anything but the funeral, our kids, etc.), I headed up north a little (with Uncle Todd as my co-pilot) to pick up my bowflex (used for a hundred bucks) and head home to get drunk.

I don't often start drinking with the goal of getting drunk, but I knew way earlier in the day that this would be my goal on Saturday night.

I was also responsible for cooking two Boston Butts that night, so I got the fire right and threw them on along with uncle Todd's 7 pound brisket and planned for a midday Sunday removal. Once the Big Green Egg was settled, we commenced to drinking.

For the record, the butts were rubbed with Chris Lilly's butt rub. If you don't know who Chris is, he's a nine-time bbq champ and is one of the principals at Big Bob Gibson's BBQ in Decatur, Alabama.

The brisket was rubbed heavily with Dizzy Pig Cow Lick and injected with some EVOO and placed under the two butts on the Egg.


I also learned something Saturday afternoon/evening/night. If there are four of you sitting around wondering what to eat, make or get for dinner, if two of you (Me and Todd in this instance) continue drinking and saying "I don't care. What do YOU want to make/order/get?", then you'll end up drunk and not eat any dinner at all except for a pound of spinach dip and a bag of nacho chips.

The upside of drinking with no dinner is that you can be in bed by 10pm without even trying.

Sunday was a whirlwind, to say the least.

We had breakfast with the neighbors at Cracker Barrel. This week I had the same thing as last week (oatmeal, sliced bananas, 3 bites of a blueberry muffin and 2 eggbeaters scrambled with cheese). The only thing I added was a smidge of brown sugar to the oatmeal, and it was WAY better than before.

This was followed by a trip to the WallyWorld for various things. We had the usual "I hafta go potty" from Lauren while we were in the far opposite corner of the store from the bathrooms, but this was unique because the wife had just headed for the head 30 seconds earlier and had been told by the urchin that there was no need for her to go along.

Instead, I'm huffing after the wife with the baby in one arm, pushing the cart with the other and trying to keep Lauren on task since she's stopping for every shiny thing on the way. We made it, but I was a tick cranky after that.

We rushed home to get Todd's hot dog buns for his alta match at 11:30am, and then I started my rib prep work and fire starting, because the ribs had to be on by 12:30pm to make gametime.

Once the ribs had cooked a few hours and then were foiled, I had a couple of beers and remembered that I hadn't worked out yet. I knew that if I didn't do it right then, it wouldn't happen. And since I had planned to eat poorly, I knew I needed to do the work.

So I headed up and did my 75 minutes, showered, and came back down to continue the superbowl and cooking extravaganza.

At around 5:30pm the butts were done so we pulled the brisket then as well, which we were hoping would turn out more like pulled beef than sliceable brisket. Oh, and when I'd gotten up at 5am again on Sunday, I came down, stoked the fire and wrapped the brisket in double layers of aluminum foil and returned it to the Egg for the remainder of the cook.

The result: Perfectly pullable brisket as juicy as could be. We could have stood right there and eaten it all in my kitchen, it was so good. (The pulled pork would turn out great too as luck would have it).

So for dinner we had nachos with brisket, ribs, many appetizers and beer. Yum.

At halftime we kind of broke up the party and headed home, as did my folks. We cleaned up the day's mess, I pulled the two butts for my friend Susan, and we called it a day.

We both managed to stay awake until the end of the game, and I was glad to see Bettis hold the trophy and call it a career. That's classy stuff.

I am still tired from the weekend, but I hope to recover in time for this weekend, which will see the running of the Bud Shootout at Daytona (Yeah, Come on!!)

Hope everyone has a great rest of the week...