Trail Dust SteakHouse

 Penta-Date was Saturday night and Paul had mentioned to me how he wanted to go to "Trail Dust Steakhouse."  I looked at their website and saw that they had a band playing which went with our dinner and dancing theme.  The thing about Trail Dust in another town is when you wear a tie they cut it off.  Kind of like saying we are relaxed in this place but, this Trail Dust is owned by a different group and they had nothing on the website about cutting the ties off.

 From the pictures you can see that they surely do cut off your tie if you wear one (OK, so they do it if you want them to).  Which my son wanted to wear a tie just in case they did cut them off and surely they did.  You can see him in the top picture getting it cut off and in the picture above you can see him with his date.

 Then Paul also wore a tie and had it cut off.  I totally messed up and was left out of all the fun.  You can see the wall of ties behind Paul and his wife Deb.  Now the bad part about the date or at least the parts that could be improved upon would be to next time go to a bigger place where we could have more conversation.  The band was good but they were loud, then throw in all the graduation parties, birthday parties and us with the band noise and you couldn't hear yourself think.  Then the food was not exactly the finest of foods but it was good.  I would say next time we need to go a little higher class on the food.  This place even had a slide that you could go down and it dumped you right on the dance floor.

Here Zaine is tacking Paul's tie up on the wall o' ties.  The funny thing is on his place card Paul put down the date and also the "Penta-Date" minus one.  The reason for the minus one was that Paul's youngest son's date had fallen through so we were four couples and a stag.  Paul's oldest son had a funny joke where he kept going "Neil, party of one" and that cracked me up.  We tried to get him to dance with the million girls in the place but he had no game to even go up and ask one to dance.  The other boys did get on the dance floor and performed a little two stepping.  I would say Penta-Date was a success and now I know what to improve on for next time.

Penta-Date

This Saturday is the first annual "Penta-Date" ever or at least organized as this type of date.  The question is what is a "Penta-Date," and of course we have all been on a date, and most of us have been on a double date, but what do you call it when you have 5 couples on a organized date.  I like to call it "Penta-Date."  What is this Penta-Date, well it is myself and my wife (couple number 1), my friend Paul and his wife (couple number 2), Paul's oldest son Sean and his date (couple number 3), his other son Neil and his date (couple number 4), and finally my son Zaine and his date (couple number 5).

This whole thing started with Sean and his great leadership skills he shows in scouts but he is timid and scared of people.  I told him he needs to work up his self confidence by asking a girl out on a date and get used to the idea that someone telling him no is not the end of the world.  Then I had the idea of Paul and I taking our wives on a date because they have never really had the chance to get to know one another so a double date sounded fun.  Then it all just rolled into one with making all the boys get dates and we could just have a Penta-Date.  This is all the boys first dates so it will be interesting to see how they act with a lady and with their friends watching and with their parents around.  We are going to a steak place where they will have a live country and western band playing so of course I told the boys they had to dance with their dates and after all of that we plan on heading over to Chick-fil-A where another of the boys friends works at and we will all get ice cream then head home for the evening.  In the picture above you see me in the blue shirt and wearing my ball cap under my helmet like the dork I am.  The behind me to the right all the way to the back in the brown shirt with the helmet strap undone is Zaine my son, then in the green shirt to the far left is Neil.  Next to me is Aaron another gentleman but not part of the Penta-Date.  This whole thing is an experiment in observing our boys on their first date and getting the opportunity to help them out in a positive role model for them when looking for the right lady to eventually settle down with.  If the Penta-Date goes well we will add additional families to the party and we can all help our boys by setting up a safe fun environment for our boys to date in.

It will never happen if you don't plan it.

 Last weekend I told you all about an orienteering event my son and I participated in.  I found this event by scouring the inter-web for search words that I enjoy.  One of them was orienteering and I live in north Texas so I start with orienteering then add in north Texas and see what I get.  Then I found NTOA (North Texas Orienteering Association) and I mark their calendar on my Windows smart phone and also added the inter-web site as a favorite so I can visit the site regularly to keep track of what they have in the pipeline.

 When you have a free weekend like I did last weekend doing a little research and pre-planning can get you a cheap fun event.  What I do is search the inter-web for anything I like which includes, gun and knife shows, coin collecting, camping, outdoor events, festivals, 5k running events, and anything else.  With those searches I can see what is local and cheap.  Last weekends orienteering event cost my son and I a combined 10 bucks and it was close to the house and a ton of fun.  Local clubs have lots of small events that can introduce you to a new activity, usually at a low price and they love to have newbies come and learn.  So next time you have a free weekend get on your old desktop computer and look on that inter-web for local outdoor activities.  You never know what you will dig up or who you will run into.  You might even find an organization that wants you as much as you want to join.

I have an update on my front porch doves.  Sad news is the mother aborted her eggs so now I have to throw them in the trash before they start to rot.  This is good news as well because having baby birds eye level on my front porch did not seem like a safe thing nor did having the mother fly into my face every morning seem safe.  I hope she found a better home where she can raise her kids to be productive citizens in the dove community.  The mother was a beautiful bird not like those pigeons that are kind of ugly and poop everywhere.  The dove didn't make a mess at all.