Greg

I think I've angered the bbq gods...

Small things have gone inexplicably wrong over the last few days and the only thing I can think of causing it is that I must have angered the bbq gods by ruining a perfectly good brisket.  I know, I know, you're sitting there thinking "Greg, how do you ruin a brisket?  Don't you just smoke it low and slow and then voila - meaty goodness?"  And yes, you'd think it would be that easy.  Unfortunately, if you accidentally read the wrong 'cooking times' table and take it off the smoker waaaaay too early, it ends up tough and essentially inedible.  A makeshift attempt at finishing it up in the slow cooker the next day was to no avail.

So how have the BBQ gods taken their revenge?  First was me sleepily sliding down the stairs on my butt as I was on my way to make coffee - I have the carpet burns and bruises on my arms to prove it happened.  Seriously.  Then on Saturday we tried mounting the LCD to the wall and one of the sets of screws hit something and would go no further.  Not wanting to give up, I tried to turn harder until I got blisters on my hands.  Unfortunately I didn't realize that until I ripped one of them open trying to turn it just a litte bit more :(.

So, like the tourists sending the lava rocks back to Hawaii to appease Pele, I prepare to smoke another brisket.  This one I'm marinating over night instead of just for an hour or two beforehand.  Since I have to be home to recieve a delivery anyway, I'm just going to smoke it from lunch time onwards to ensure that it actually has the right length of time and ends up falling-apart-tender. 

Mmmmmm.  Brisket.

no more condo :)

Yep, the sale of the condo has gone through and everything is closed - we're now down to being proud to only own one property instead of two...  I'll have to admit that as things were coming down to the wire and I kept reading the steady stream of articles about the real estate market and the tightening credit situation I had a bad feeling that this was going to fall through and we'd be screwed.  Needless to say it's a bit of a sigh of relief over here in quietville.  Er.  I mean, Redmond.

the last hurrah

Well, not quite the last hurrah, but Friday was the last Fourth of July fireworks that we'll be able to watch from our condo on Eastlake.  There's a lot about living in town, and Eastlake specifically, that we'll miss over the coming months and the ability to watch the fireworks from our own place is definitely one of them...  I'll admit that past years the experience may have been a bit nicer due to having actual furniture and our normal BBQ and whatnot there :)  While we may have been down furnishings and trappings, the view (the important bit for a fireworks display) was same as usual  - now if only we'd managed to convince the neighors to trim that damn tree :)