Transformer BBQ

I think its harder to write stuff when you do well.  Its always easy to pick out things that went wrong, a step that was missed, something being over cooked.  Well, Oyster Bay is a little hard to write about since we didn’t have any issues.  

The weekend started out well, boss let me go early, and the truck was already packed.  Made the drive down to long island with no issues, and better yet, no traffic.  Arrived at the hotel about 10:30, got our room and went down to the hotel bar to meet up with Ted and Sheila from Q Haven.  Spent a few hours telling stories, and had a few drinks… and got some great sleep.
 

We were one of the last teams to pull in, around 7:45 (pretty standard move for us), and set up the stuff.   We talked a lot beforehand about “bringing minimal stuff” but for some reason we brought the normal contest rig, minus the lang.  We did bring our new smoker, the Caldera Tall Boy; which we  were a little worried about using it during the contest, but it actually worked perfectly.
 

After all was said and done, we finished with a 1^St in Beef, 1^st in pork chops, 4^th in Chicken, and a 2^nd in Oysters.  And walked with the Grand Champion Trophy for the event.  Was a bit of a shock, and we certainly were excited.  
 

We finished up the weekend by having dinner with Q Haven, great dinner right off 95 on the way home.  Hopefully we’ll see these guys around soon, as their first son is expected mid summer.
 

Hey there.  It has taken over a week, however, I have finally recovered from the party event of the year.  Last weekend, we attended the annual Beirut Tournament/Pig Roast at our friends Tim and Liz’s house.  This is honestly one of the best parties around.  The tourny is well run, teams are random and anything can happen!  I played with Tim and that was a good time, but we didn’t quite get it together and ended up being the first team to lose in the double elimination setup.  Brendan was lucky enough to be the only guy chosen to play on two teams due to the # of players.  His teammates were both really awesome players and of course Bren rocks.  When both teams made it to the final four, things got a little crazy.  Unfortunately (but logistically better) both teams did not make it to the final game.  The big game was on and Bren brought his A game.  His team won the tourny and all the glory that comes with it!  Along with being on top ‘athletic’ wise, Bren got lots of props for the fantastic BBQ.  In addition to the PIG, this year we also cooked up ten racks of ribs, two pork butts and a bunch of chicken.  No one went hungry this night.  And food was very necessary after all that beer.  I think 25 30 packs of coors light were put down that night.  It was a fantastic time and we can’t wait for next year!  -jc