Last night for dinner I recreated a dish I ate as a child. I believe I was introduced to it by my babysitter, but the details are fuzzy. I have no idea if it even had a name, but I'm calling it southern ratatouille. Take a piece of bologna and fry it up. If all goes well it should curl up and form a bowl (even though mine didn't last night). In the bologna bowl, put a nice scoop of mashed potatoes. Make the potatoes however you like: smooth, lumpy, with butter, instant, etc. Put a piece of cheese on top of the potatoes, and heat the dish in the microwave for 15-20 seconds just to melt the cheese. I liked it as a kid, but last night I think I piled on too much of the mashed potatoes.

Honestly, I named the dish southern ratatouille because I had just finished my review for Ratatouille. Frankly, I was completely disappointed, but a lot of people really like it. The review has been posted, so take a look at it and decide for yourself if it's worth seeing.

Chicago was a pleasant surprise. I didn't really have any expectations, but when compared to New York and Cleveland, Chicago seems like a much nicer place to live. The city was clean and seemed safe. I didn't feel like I had to keep looking over my shoulder as I walked around at night to/from the subway.

The conference was pretty boring, but I did get a few ideas. The most intriguing thing I learned at the conference was that an active mind helps reduce the chance of Alzheimer's disease and apparently video games help activate the mind. And people think video games are a waste of time.

I guess it's expected that conference attendees won't go to every presentation. I was encouraged to leave the opening night reception so that I would make it to the White Sox game on time. My boss also gave me permission to skip out of the conference Wednesday afternoon for a trip to The Field Museum. I had planned to be responsible and attend every session, but when you get the green light from your boss to do what you want, why turn it down?

Thursday night I went down to see Second City at its place of origin. Second City has been the home of several notable comedians such as Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Mike Myers and Steve Carell. Some of the skits were really funny. More of the skits would have been funnier if the guy behind me didn't repeat the punchline every time before laughing. I ended up being slightly annoyed rather than humored.

Friday was low-key in the beginning. I attended a workshop that lasted until noon and then went across the street to grab lunch at an Italian deli. That was some of the best food I'd eaten since I had been there. After buying my food, I went out to a little plaza in front of the deli to eat. The fountain in the plaza was turned off for some reason, but it was a nice day out, slightly overcast and not too hot.

As luck would have it, when I was ready to catch a shuttle for the airport, the trip turned into frustration. A shuttle was scheduled to pick me up at 1:35. I was outside ready and waiting well in advance. I even got to see a few of the Toronto Blue Jays players coming out of the hotel. I got a couple pics of them but no autographs. Anyway, the shuttle never showed up. As a small group of us were waiting, we found out one lady had been waiting for the shuttle for 2 hours. The shuttle was supposed to run every half hour. Eventually a shuttle showed up after 2, but the driver suggested I make alternate arrangements to get to the airport. "I don't want that kind of pressure," he said since my flight was at 3:30. I had already paid for a round-trip ticket, so I sold it to another member of the group riding the shuttle who didn't have a ticket. The lady that had been waiting 2 hours, decided to split a cab with me. When it was over, I made $5 off the deal and got to the airport and my gate with about 20 minutes to spare.

I'm back and had a lot of fun. Now if someone could kindly explain this American Girl phenomenon. Every girl I saw was either carrying a bag (or doll) from American Girl or talking about going to American Girl.

I posted my trip pictures on Kodak Gallery. If you don't get an invitation to view them by Monday morning, send me a message with your e-mail address and I'll send an invitation out to you.

I didn't have a chance to post this yesterday thanks to packing and such. Yesterday afternoon after work, I went to the rec center to work out since I won't get any other opportunities this week (save walking to the subway terminal). The first thing I did was sit down at the leg curls weight machine doing curls at 150 pounds. Halfway through my third set, the leg rest fell off the machine. "What happened?" I thought. I looked around for a second to see if the cable snapped. I didn't see anything there. I got up to tell the student workers that it broke when one of them went over and picked up the leg rest to look at it. Upon closer examination, the bolt holding the leg rest onto the machine had been sheared in half. I broke an inch thick piece of steel. I apologized to them for it breaking, but at the same time I was jumping for joy on the inside. It is one of the few times I wished I had a camera phone.

I guess all the hours and work I put in last week has paid off. Today in my mailbox was an envelope from the Dean's office stamped "CONFIDENTIAL". In the envelope was a form letter typed up by the dean's secretary about merit increases. None of it made any sense to be completely honest except for the last paragraph telling me how much of a raise I got. I've made a big enough impression on these folks to get a 5.3% raise. That is larger than any raise I've ever had. These people gush over everything I do. I can't tell you how nice it feels to be wanted, especially after working for places like ITT and Safeguard. ITT's way of showing they liked having you was to give you more classes in as many different areas as possible to teach. I don't think Safeguard knew how to reward anyone for putting up with the crazy owner. I never got a raise while I was there. It wasn't until right before I left for ITT that Safeguard considered giving me a raise, but I'm not bitter.

What a mess the past seven days have been. I'm not usually the type to live for the weekend, but after this week, I want nothing more than a couple days off. After the Access 2007 debacle from last week, the weekend left me refreshed and ready to start a database migration this week. I spent Tuesday finishing up some Access reports and then the move started on Wednesday. I allotted two days for the migration to give me ample time to test and fix any errors I caught. This was an insanely tedious process especially when almost every form and report required a tweak. I completed the migration yesterday and presented it today, complete with a major report that I hadn't finished before the migration. Overall, I probably put in 70 hours over the past two weeks on this database. I was even going in 30 - 45 minutes early everyday this week just to work on the database.

On top of all of the database work, Kitty decided to play Hide and Seek with us on Tuesday. I had to leave work to come hunt for her. We were afraid that she had slipped outside when someone left the apartment. There will be more about that forthcoming.

While all of this was going on, we had guests this week. Erika's parents dropped by on their way back from Dallas to Ohio. Not that Tuscaloosa is anywhere close to that route, but it was nice of them to make the effort and come by. Oddly enough, the in-laws visit went rather well. I didn't spend as much time around them as Erika did, so maybe that's why the visit seemed ok. The worst part about the visit was not being able to sleep in my own bed. It seemed easier to let them sleep in the bed since I had to get up early and go into the living room and kitchen. Erika and I slept on an inflatable mattress in the living room. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't my bed either. I look forward to my comfy bed this evening. There will be no Harry Potter hoopla for me.

Tuesday I head to Chicago for a conference. I've never been there and wish I had a little more downtime than they are giving us to explore. But first, I want to enjoy my weekend. Let the party begin. In honor of Chicago and Friday, here's a little Cowboy Mouth to enjoy - Jenny Says off of Live At The Zoo, a concert recorded at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chi-Town.

Usually, Friday the 13th is not the bad luck producer that everyone makes it out to be. The number 13 has always been one of my favorite numbers. That spawned from the fact that 13 was the jersey number of my childhood hero (Dan Marino), but I digress.

Today has been one of the worst days I've ever had. I was almost in tears working with Access 2007 today. For the record, I absolutely hate Office 2007 (particularly Access). It's one thing to build a secure product and entirely another thing to make a product that's paranoid. Guess which one Office 2007 is. Rather than build a quality product that closes up the loopholes, Microsoft has elected to build a product that puts an iron fence around the holes instead of filling the holes in. That iron fence doesn't let anything in or out without a hall pass that's been handed down from Bill Gates himself. A perfectly functional database I created with the last version of Access is now throwing up problems for no reason. The more I tried to work with Access 2007 security, the worse things got. Eventually I said screw it and turned off the security (once I figured out how to get a working copy of the database).

So I turn this over to my friends in Cowboy Mouth to help get my weekend started, a weekend that involves much cleaning in preparation for a visit from the in-laws.

Last night, Erika and I headed up to Birmingham to see a concert that wasn't Sister Hazel or Cowboy Mouth. *shock* We had the opportunity to see 311 for the first time in several years. Being with the same basic crowd of people for every concert over the past year, it was interesting how the concert scene has changed. Apparently, it is now perfectly normal to go to a concert in lingerie. I'm not talking just bras and panties here. One girl was wearing a boustier with garters attached and had the garters tucked into her jeans.

When we walked through the gate into the venue, there was a small group of Jewish boys and girls congregating. That seemed really odd to see a congregation of Jewish teens at a concert. Not that there was anything wrong with them being there, I just wasn't expecting it. The reason they were there became clear shortly. Opening for 311 was Matisyahu, a Jewish reggae singer. I 'm not sure if he was singing in Hebrew or English or a combination of both, but most everyone seemed to enjoy him. Who knew that heathenistic frat guys and Jews could join together in musical harmony?

A newspaper is reporting that a pit bull sexually assaulted a two year old boy in a northern New York town. Apparently, the mother was changing the boy and left the room for a few minutes. She returned when she heard the boy scream and discovered the dog was "in the action". The mother screamed and the dog ran out of the house still, uhm... connected. The boy is in the hospital with pretty serious injuries. A vet is coming in to take some DNA samples from the dog presumably to verify this isn't a cover-up for something else.

The story sounds pretty phony. How could a dog get a two year old into a proper position? I find it odd that the dog was able to drag the child outside. Is he that smart that he can open doors or was the mother raised in a barn? I don't know if a two-year old could fit through a doggie door, but I suppose it is possible. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Penguins and surfing. Even for an animated movie, this is an odd concept. Sony might want to spend some time talking to Dreamworks or Pixar. They have a long way to go before getting a quality product on the screen. The review for Surf's Up is posted.

I hated the first trailer for Transformers. The more I heard and saw about the movie the more I feared that it would suck. Yet, as opening day approached, I couldn't help but feel giddy. Even though opening day changed from July 4th to July 3rd and then finally July 2nd, my plans didn't budge; the Fourth of July would be judgment day. The verdict is in. The review for Transformers is up.

It's time to go into two-a-week mode. Movies are spilling out like boiling water in an unwatched pot. Just missing one weekend of movies can knock you off track until August. The review for Ocean's Thirteen has been posted. A review for Transformers should be posted this weekend with a review of Surf's Up to follow.

Welcome to the holiday edition (or the sorry that last week's edition is so late edition). I tried to post this yesterday, but for some reason the mp3 was not cooperating when it was uploaded. It was more like Chipmunk Mouth instead of Cowboy Mouth which forced me to change songs.

Here we have I Told Ya off of Cowboy Mouth's latest CD, VooDoo Shoppe. This is another song that deals with the pain of relationships, but instead of hurt, there is more of a "point and laugh" mentality because an ex came running back after getting hurt.