Well, that was a fun-but-busy weekend!

On Friday takaza and I finished up the last bit of housecleaning from the week in preparation for guests. I went ahead and bought a gas grill and propane tank, too. We’re not getting rid of the charcoal grill, I assure you! I love that smoker too much. No, this is for weeknight cooking, when we don’t want to fool with getting a proper charcoal fire going but would like something grilled and quick. I still believe that the flavor and cooking qualities of charcoal are superior, but when we had a gas grill in North Carolina we used it at least 3 nights per week. Now…I just need to put the fool thing together 🙂

fordshepherd and baja_hyena drove in on Friday night (arriving late enough that I had already gone to bed!), and r_bear flew in on Saturday. We decided on a late lunch at one of my favorite places that we hadn’t been to in ages, The Firkin. Their beer selection has always been top-notch, but we had found their food so-so. The beer was still excellent, but the big surprise was that the food was fantastic as well! We had a really enjoyable meal. We finished off the rest of the evening hanging out at our place and chatting (and, um, imbibing just a bit).

Sunday brought the Midwest FurFest staff meeting. It was quick and relatively painless, and after the meeting I was able to give some tours to folks who needed to see what was where. We had an early dinner at Red Bar in the Hyatt, and while the food wasn’t bad the prices were, um, hotel-like. In spite of that, I suspect I’ll be eating more than one meal there during the convention. Ford and Baja hit the road after the meeting, but RB and graywolf769 came back to our place and we hung out and chatted for a while. After Gray left for the ride back to Indiana, we watched a bit of TV and went to bed.

Dog-wise, we hit a great milestone this weekend. We tried giving Buddy the run of the house when we went to lunch on Saturday and again when we were at the staff meeting on Sunday. In both cases he behaved himself perfectly! As far as I’m concerned the crate is a thing of the past for him (thanks for the loan, roho and genet!). He seemed so much happier when I went home to walk him at lunch today, so I think we’re making the right decision. Health-wise, his digestive system seems to be working much better and he’s slowly gaining weight back into a more healthy range. We’re going to need to buy him a new harness because the medium-sized one is quickly becoming too tight! He was also a perfect gentleman all weekend with our guests, snuggling right up to them 🙂

So, now the new work week has started. There’s nothing crazy going on at work, thank heavens. I’ve got an appointment with my optician this afternoon, then I’ll probably go to work putting Boxee on an old server we have (not sure if I’ll put Windows or Ubuntu on there for the OS – we’ll see what happens). The new gas grill needs to be put together too – Dan may do that today or I’ll do it tomorrow. Generally speaking, though, it should be a pretty low-stress week.

(Oh, and if you’re waiting to reserve a suite for Midwest FurFest, watch this space! And , and Twitter, and our website, and our forums…)