I was all poised to tell you about my great and amazing Saturday.

It started with a 5:40am wakeup (no alarm required, since I'm a freak like that). I hit the treadmill at 6:10am, only to get a quick interruption from the wife who, apparently, does NOT enjoy the sound of an alarm going off, especially when she doesn't know how to shut it off.

Then I returned to the treadmill to finish my 4.11 miles, followed by a shower and some furnace repair. I didn't really "repair" per se, but since our furnace upstairs stopped working during the nighgt and started again while I was up there, I'd say that was soem fixin'."

Shortly thereafter I cleaned out the van and returned inside to hear...

monkey sobs from the top of the stairs.

It seems that Lauren didn't want me to go away that morning. But to solve this, I promised to take her for ice cream when I got home and after lunch. She also had to attend a birthday party at 9am so she wouldn't really be missing me anyway, given all of the "jumpin" she'd be doing at the party.

So with the car cleaned, we headed out. We was my B-I-L Todd, his brother Adam, Todd's two sons, Adam's boy and Chase, a friend of my nephew.

Where were we going, you might ask?

Why, we were off to the 1800-be-petty at Atlanta Motor Speedway!!!

WOOT!111!11!!!!1

We were delayed slightly leaving waiting for one nephew to finish arguing that he didn't need shoes, didn't own any shoes, etc.

Finally, he was able to locate proper footwear, and we were off.

I did this ride-along program about 3 years ago and it was AWEOME! It was on that day that I told everyone I knew that if they ever wanted to go to let me kknow, because I'd either drive them down there, do another ridelaong or both. It's that fun.

We got there when there was no line, and I proceeded to hustle our group through the application of firesuits, helpmets, HANS devlices, etc. The highlight of this portion was Adam wearing nicely worn big brown cowboy workboots with his driver's suit. it ruled.

I then got to do my favorite thing BESIDES the riding portion, and that's to watch the excitement of everyone getting into a car and then seeing their painfully full smile as they get out. It's too damn cool!! Every person that goes gets so excited that they can barely get in the car. Then, regardless of how they were acting before they got into the car, they all always act the same when they get out:

Woooooooooooo!!!!

Then they prattle on and on making me laugh as they ask me how cool I thought it was. I love having friends (and now family) that have done this so we can compare notes now and they won't think I'm completely insane.

And a sidenote, RPDE (Richard Petty Driving Experience), if you're listening, my wife came up with a bonus program for your customers.

It ordinarily costs $99 to do the ridealong, but we got a kickass coupon from a friend of mine that let us buy as many as we wantd by New Year's Eve for just $49. But the wife pointed out that, once the adrenaline hits, you'd do anything to extend that ride. I figure that they could radio the guy once you're in the car and he could say "for $50 you get four more laps. Whaddya think?"

I know this for sure. Every person that we proposed that to said that they'd like, no LOVE to add laps. That can't be a bad way to mae money, can it?

Anyway, we all took the track and got our four laps at over 160mph and then everyone was suitably convinced that these cup drivers are physically and emotional ready to run these races, and that they are athletes in every sense of the word.

Then it was home for grocery shopping, a trip to the cow and pig store (ye olde butcher shoppe), and playing on the neighbor's moonwalk, which I really figured would tire urchin 1.0 out but good, and it did.

We got the kids to bed and celebrated the B-I-L's birfday some prime veal rib chops. They're expensive but MAN do they rock!! They are still, without question, my favorite meal that we've ever had on the Big Green Egg, and believe me, we've had alot of meals on the eggs.

Then it was a couple of cold beers, a game or two of yahtzee and off to bed.

That's all for now folks. Please tune in again for another exicting episode of "Glenn's Talking Ass."

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