The quick of it is: we had the BBQ and met Druisan plus got to see Atreides, Welsh Girl + sister, riceowlguy and a bunch of people from former workplaces, current workplaces, and future workplaces.
The menu:

1. 24 pounds of beef brisket, marinated overnight in dry rub, onion, garlic, beer, pepper, and jalapenos, then dry rubbed with secret rub mix, then smoked for ten hours. Finished in the oven until it fell apart, which was not the intended effect.
2. A pork butt roast from a feral hog, roughly 11 pounds.  Marinated on vinegar, oil, orange juice, paprika, and allspice, then rubbed with secret dry rub #2, smoked, basted on the hour with a vinegar, brown sugar, lemon, and oil baste.
3. A leg of lamb from the same ranch that supplied the feral hog. The leg was 11 pounds before boning. Butterflied it, marinated on buttermilk, white whine, rosemary, mint, soy sauce, and a ton of garlic overnight, then cooked on direct heat like a steak: hot and heavy for 40 minutes.  In theory; in practice it took nearly 90 minutes to hit the proper internal temp.
4. Ten pounds of beef and pork sausage from Meyer's in Elgin.
5. Veggie choices included tofu steaks, Quorn steaks.
6. A side of caldo + audrey 2 brought her potato salad, which is like crack to me.

There was other stuff as well...people brought desserts, there were veggies and home-made salsa...it was a good spread.  It was also a great time, and we stayed with it until 2:30am.  I never have time to visit everyone as much as I want, but I made it a point to talk to everyone there for a bit.  Ended the night talking with Brent and Philip...for some odd reason I have entirely forgotten Brent's username here...and I realize that we need to hang out with them more. Some great conversation.

Had a great time, though, and I like HuSi users...in real life, they're like they are online.

Other stuff: my car was hit pretty bad by the hail two weeks ago.  A softball-sized piece of hail hit my left front fender at about mach 2, and the rest of my car was golfballed pretty badly.  By the time I got it to Progressive the dents had worked out a bit so it didn't look too bad, but still.  Picked the car up on Friday, and it looks better than it ever has in my hands (I got it used, so it had some small dents in it already).  They got every dent out without having to fill or spray, and detailed it.  Damn thing looks new.

Unfortunately, I got to drive a new Saturn Aura XR.  It is unfortunate because, well, it was a nice car.  Not like passably nice, but really very nice.  It's an Opel rebadged, and the only bad thing about it was the interior plastic around the dash, which was brittle and awful.  But the rest of it...this was an XR 4, so the 4 cylinder was overmatched a bit but the transmission was awesome at keeping the car nimble.  

I drive a harsh, tiny, quick-reflexed little car.  It is noisy.  It is difficult to get in and out of.  The back seats can fit my wife and other dwarves, but not a full-sized adult. And I am lucky, with a high strung 200hp 4 cylinder, to get 24mpg, and I have to use premium (the 11 to 1 compression dictates it).  I recently paid someone $85 bucks to balance a tire that was slightly out but caused the entire car to shake due to the suspension being so tight.  I can drive over a coin and tell you whether it is heads or tails.

And it is a fun car, a very, very fun car when the roads are right.  It reads my mind, at times.  But being in a grown-up sedan that still had a tuned suspension?  That was eye opening.  It was comfortable, but I could still plant it into corners and just boost the shit out of it. The feedback from the car changed with how aggressive my driving was.  It was calm when things were calm, and precise when things were exciting.  So now I want a grown up car.  A real, honest-to-god sedan with substantial power and a decent chassis.  So I'm eyeing a used Inifniti G35 X. I don't know if that means I am old or boring, but damn.

Other stuff: work is crazier than normal...we've hired 20 people so far this year, and we're not stopping.  No new hires in IT but we have some on the way.  If you can program in Java, C, or anything, really, and you're a US citizen and you can pass a microscopic background check, message me.  You'd have to reolcate.  Bonus if you are ex-military.

I hate these shopping list diaries but I've been unable to write for some time.  I'll find a groove, damn it, if it is the last thing I do.