What? You want me where?

It's 1:37am in the morning, and I'm stuck in the seemingly endless tunnel of yet another pointless conference call about something that happened on a computer system had started a trickle effect the blossomed into a hurricane of finger pointing and blame shuffling.

And yet, I'm pleasantly aware that I can take some "me time" in the middle of this long-distance multi-continented chaos to post about the goings on in my life over the past few days.

I missed a posting for Friday... yeah, I know, I blew it... but, really, I have an excuse!

Dad and I took a trip (one that I had begged for over the past years) and travelled down to Kentucky to visit my "cousins".

My family down there exists in a sort of mental blood relationship that lacks a real tree linkage but is cemented in a partnership of friendship that started between two men in their first year of college: Dad and Dale. Dale's sons, Al and Chris, are more my "cousins" than I'd ever imagined I could have, and I would give life and limb defeating any that quarrel this fact (that includes you, Clay... you know who you are).

An annual "Varmint Dinner" is hosted in the rustic town of Shelbyville, KY at which every sort of meal gracing back-yard animal is served in chefly style in a dish-to-pass format.

As my wife was so convinced, the term "varmint" does no justice to the actual dinner.

That which was served was worthy of the top percent of restaurants in any given large city: I would have spent more on these meals under the guise of a multistarred establishment than my neighbor does for their month old luxary car turned SUV.

Attendees of this occasion work for many long hours (even days in some circumstances) to craft a dish so stunning as to steal the thunder of neighboring entrees on the display table, and the competition is fierce.

This really is a feast for the curious yet fit for the pallet of the most discerning culinist (I think Joey would have found himself right at home).

And this, after a day spent searching the "back 80" for pheasant and quail in true sportsman fashion. Ok, so my cousin's father in-law Tom may not be so impressed with our methods of outdoors man (I think his exact analogy revolved around the picture of five hunters driving over to the edge of the neighboring cow pasture and shooting the nearest animal and praising our selves as the great providers that return home victorious after a Roman style victory) but, I really think he's just fighting a deep seated neanderthal urge to return to more primitive times where we eat with our hands tearing meat from limb like the true savages our spirit decries.

Come one in Tom, you're always welcome here.

Reminiscing from a recent NetFlix delivery named Elizabethtown, I must say that the environment there was the most warm that I could have ever imagined. I honestly felt like family that was returning home after a decades long separation. The thought of stowing away in the upper bedroom of the villa meets log cabin multiplied by late '70's ultra modern Better Homes and Gardens front page gracing hostel that we stayed in crossed my mind more than once.

Yet, here I am, typing away, as little voices in my ear talk about mitigation plans and responsibility graphs versus time lines.

Ahh, progress... I doth hate thee yet an intertwined with thine fate like a rose bush in a jungle.

Ouch.

jp