It's been a busy weekend...

Friday night, we went to the local theater to try and get in to see "Pirates of the Caribbean 3", and I was forcefully reminded just why I don't do this opening weekend crap anymore. Way too crowded for my liking, shows were sold out anyway, so we picked up tickets for the first Saturday showing at 9:30.... am... and retired to a friend's house for the remainder of the evening.
Saturday morning , we all got up and raced to the theater for our matinee.
"Pirates"? meh. The plot line seemed like it was all over the place to me, plus we start learning about all these new things, like the 9 pirate lords, and the goddess Calypso, and how she was imprisoned, and, and, and,..... it was all a bit too much for me. Watching a triple gun-decked British ship of the line get smashed to splinters by the equivalent of a couple of frigates was a bit silly, but hey, there's guys running around with octopuses for heads already, right? I may have to see it again to get a more complete impression. I'll be waiting for DVD though - I do NOT think it's worth any more of my hard earned scratch at the theater.
So, after that, wifey and I dumped the kids off at our friend's for a sleep over, picked up some snacks and books, and headed to the family's cabin in Forest Falls for a quiet night together.
Got up Sunday, decided to head further up the hill to Angelus Oaks to grab breakfast at The Oaks. Excellent food; a bit pricey, but very tasty and well put together. I was very fond of the "serve yourself" coffee bar - no waiting for the waitress to notice you're dry.
Sooo.... jammed back down the hill to the pad, fed dogs, watered plants, packed for another night out and headed out to grab the kids...
Found them in the parking lot of the local Catholic church (the family they'd stayed with had just got out of mass), hustled them into the truck and headed for Oceanside, to hang with the wife's folks for the next coupla days.
I love their place at Oceanside. You have the beach, then a row of houses, then a street, then another row. That's where their condo is. It's on the third floor, so it overlooks the houses across the street and you can see the ocean just fine, as well as hear it. Very therapeutic. I love waking up and stumbling out into the front room to be greeted with the sight of surf rolling across the beach. Oh yeah, the kids like the beach, too.
Spent a pleasant evening with my family and had a nice brunch the next day. Settled in for a relaxing Memorial Day, which was interrupted by a phone call from my buddy.
Turns out that the deadline for the annual drawing for deer tags in CA is June 4th and he needed my deer tag application NOW to mail up north to the party leader.
Great. Rolled out to Wal Mart to try to pick up a new hunting license and deer tag (can't have one without the other) only to find out that Wally World hadn't got any of their hunting stuff in yet. OK.... "Is there a Big 5 around?"
The clerks were clueless, but another shopper helped me out and pointed me to one down the street.
Got to Big 5, asked for a new hunting license and deer tag. Since I was over 70 miles from home, and had no idea that we were going to have to do this right now, I did not have my current hunting license with me. This means I had to fill out a declaration, stating that I had had a license the previous year, in order to get a new license. OK.... "Um... we're out of declarations"... at this point, if I'd had any hair, I'd be pulling it out.
The guy called another store and had them fax over some copies..... half an hour later...
Finally got all my crap together - over $60 to hunt the Governor's forest this year, by the way - and jammed back to the beach house, only to find that the poker game had already started. Fortunately for me, my loving wife bowed out and let me take her chips and get stuck in...
Got back home later that evening, turned over my tag stuff to my friend, made dinner and went to bed.
So... how was your weekend?