An Evening with the Kings of the Hill

What's up, homies.

We've had ourselves some pretty solid weather around here the last couple days, and today was no exception, as we remained in the low-80s with pure sun most of the day. On account of the good weather and everyone's relatively-open calendars, Tom invited all the Kings of the Hill over to his place for a grill-out. 

He was planning on a taco night, and was smoking a pork shoulder for carnitas, and so, as usual, the rest of us had to come up with something to contribute. I'm not much of a 'grill guy,' and let Kris handle that 90% of the time (neither of us are big 'food' people, we prefer to just eat quick and get it over with), so I struggled a bit with what to bring along. Finally, I decided to bust out the Cooking with Beer book - that I won from Mitch in the White Elephant game from the Sheahan Christmas Party - and whipped up a chipotle cheese dip that not only fit the taco theme for the night, but also tasted awesome.

I headed over to Tom's later on in the afternoon, and for the next several hours we hung out, played some cornhole, had some beers, and feasted like kings. All sans wives and kids.  Pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself - I've spent far shittier Saturdays, that's for sure.

Here you go folks - enjoy.

Sprinkled some cilantro on top. You know, to be fancy and what-not.

Hot and muggy out on Tom's back patio.

I was an idiot and made this cheese mix in a Pyrex bowl instead of a crock pot (never doing that again), so I wasn't prepared for how fast the dip was going to cool off. Tom had an extra crock pot in his kitchen, so we dropped my entire cheese dish inside - ceramic bowl and all - and, as ghetto as it may have been, it worked perfectly. Removing the dish from the crock pot at the end of the night was definitely a bitch, but we finally got it. 

Damn It Tom checks in on his pork shoulder, which had, by this point in time, been smoking for several hours.

Ready for removal.

Erik and Mitch arrived shortly after I did, both bringing bacon-wrapped pieces of awesomeness that they had to smoke for a bit once Tom got his pork out of the way.

One of our friend group staples, bacon-wrapped jalapenos filled with spicy cheese is just about as close to Heaven as someone's gonna get.

We put out some of the dinner stuff for folks to graze upon while the last few things finished cooking on the grill.

This was incredible.

Just about done. Erik's offering is on the left - he had bacon-wrapped pieces of venison.

Props to these two and Tom, who enjoy the actual grilling process and do the whole 'mad scientist' thing with it. The entire ordeal always stresses me out, as I'm just trying to rush through it so I can be done and eat, then do dishes and go about my merry way.

By the time we had all finished eating, Omkar and Ryan rolled in.

We sat around and gorged ourselves stupid for a couple hours. That's why we're all in such great shape.

Omkar's contribution for the evening was his hookah and some authentic hookah tobacco he had purchased overseas.

Whatever the hell this was, it was awesome.

Collier, Omkar and I enjoyed the hookah while the other a-holes broke out Tom's set of cornhole boards.

Wouldn't be much of a Kings of the Hill hangout without cornhole. . .

Omkar and I would take on the winners of this match, then go on to win the next three or four matches handily. I was having the night of my life in terms of cornhole, folks - like, hitting three cornholes per throw, multiple times. Unreal. Probably on account of he hookah, who knows.

Losers smoke on the sidelines, following their humiliating defeat.

By the end of the night, Lonnie and Rob (a new addition to our band of heroes) had also showed up, but by then it was dark out and pics wouldn't have turned out great. . . and we were just sitting around talking anyway, so nothing really photo-worthy. If this summer ends up being compromised of nights like this, I'll be a happy camper indeed.

- Brian