Right then: The weekend.

We had all kinds of plans for Friday night; rasslor was going to have dinner with friends, we were going to join linnaeus for dinner, and we were just rarin’ to go…until we actually got home. Traffic was sucky, it was cold and windy outside, and Rasslor’s plans fell through. None of us were motivated in the least, so we wound up huddling ’round the TiVo and ordering pizza. Not a bad alternative, though.

On Saturday I was up moderately early to face the day. Rasslor, Linnaeus and I drove down to the so-hidden-don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it Intelligencia Roasting Works (seriously – they only put a sign outside their door when they give tours) for a tour of their facilities. Naturally they supplied copious coffee to drink, and walked us through roasting a batch of coffee (Guatamalan El Cuervo, to be specific), then we all got a half-pound of the fresh-roasted El Cuervo at the end of the tour. We also got a nice look at their barista training room and QA/QC lab, where they not only test the roasted coffees for quality, they also review samples of green beans sent by farmers from all over the world for quality and suitability. I came away extremely impressed by Intelligencia; they’re a small company (75 employees, including their two – soon to be three – coffee shops) who care about doing things right. I’ll be buying my beans from Intelligencia in the foreseeable future.

After the tour, we drove over to Hot Doug’s, where we were joined by sabotlours, carol_kitty, and takaza. mstegosaurus, fritzywolf, and circafox were there as well (Sorry we couldn’t socialize more, guys! Unfortunately Hot Doug’s is about the food and not so much about the sitting and chatting). I had the Italian-seasoned wild boar sausage with sun-dried tomato mustard and Romano cheese, as well as the merguez lamb sausage with spicy harissa and goat cheese. Both were quite tasty, but definitely not the best I’d ever had there. After lunch we adjourned back to Linnaeus’ place to wallow a bit in postprandial torpor before getting back into the car and driving out to datahawk and posicat place for their annual St. Patrick’s Day party. Much fun and socializing ensued, and I had a really good time.

Sunday morning, I awoke to find Rasslor plotting out various bus routes to get himself back to Midway. Given that he had a huge, heavy suitcase and several changes of transportation were to be involved, I volunteered to just drive him down – it was a beautiful day out, anyway. After seeing him off, Paul, Dan and I went to the Midwest FurFest staff meeting which, due to various illnesses and schedule conflicts, was rather lightly attended. This made for a fast meeting, though, and we migrated to the Curragh for one last meal before it closes at the end of the month. The meal reminded me that the best thing about going there on the Monday after MFF has always been that it was the Monday after MFF – the food has never really been all that. The Magner’s Cider on tap helped a good bit, though. Still, it was fun to hang out and chat with hartree, taren_, Puma, mirkowuff, wyldekyttin and Datahawk. After the meeting Paul, Dan and I headed home to lay about and be generally useless for the rest of the evening.

I was a bad boy and skipped going to the gym yesterday, this after skipping all of last week due to some nasty blisters on my heels. Those are all healed up, now, and I intend to go tonight and tomorrow. Thursday night, we’ll be up in Racine since Dan has to work in Milwaukee on Friday and he wanted my company 🙂 Then after work on Friday it’s time for Congenial! I intend to revel in the spirit of the convention, doing exceedingly little and relaxing. Maybe some nice swimming and relaxing in the hot tub, too. I’m quite looking forward to it.

And now, it’s back to making Visio do things that it’s not meant to do. What fun!