I went to Dallas to visit with my brother and sister (-in-law) and had a GREAT time.

Okay, so it’s been waay too long since I started this post, and now I’ve forgotten some of the wonderful things that I was planning to share here. Anyway….

I flew into Dallas on the Friday before Memorial Day and immediately got to spend time with the cutie. My SIL and the Babe picked me up at the airport and took me to the Galleria mall. We moseyed around there for a while until my brother was able to wrap things up at work to meet us for dinner.

Dinner was at the Five Guys burger place there in the mall. I won’t pretend- Five Guys isn’t the most amazing burger, but it IS darn tasty.

After we ate, we made our way back to the car and headed home. We got to the homestead, put the Babe to bed, and, in true Braun fashion, talked into the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Saturday and Sunday were very laid-back, casual days. We went to the park to see the baby ducks, went out for dinner, and then rented a couple of movies to top-off Saturday night. On Sunday, we went to church and then went to my SIL’s brother’s home doe some delicious Puerto Rican fare. After some hood conversation, we went home and chatted a bit more before calling it a night.

Monday, being Memorial Day, we took our time getting ready and then went back to the park for a walk, to see the ducks again, and to enjoy the sunshine. Later in the day we went to a local driving range to practice the ol’ backswing and topped the might off with some wonderful grilled food.

If you haven’t caught on already, I really seem to eat some good food when I travel. (not that I’m complaining or anything….)

Tuesday and Wednesday were just as great, even though they weren’t holidays. On Tuesday, I accompanied the ladies to downtown Dallas to see some of the more historical/touristy sites. We drove through the plaza where JFK was assassinated and went to the north side of the convention center to see a massive sculpture garden of a cattle drive. I didn’t get any pictures of the JFK site, but I took a whole bunch of the life-sized bronze cattle. We then met my brother for lunch at a park near his office. After lunch, the ladies and I went to a different mall – one where they have valet parking at EVERY door and where they practically despise any vehicles that aren’t worth more than my house. Regardless of their dirty looks, we had a fun time shopping around in stores that we could never afford to actually patronize. There was some really great people-watching, though .

Tuesday night found us sharing dinner with the hilarious Mr. and Mrs. Whiteeyebrows at Scotty P’s Hamburgers. After more delicious burgers, we went back home and played Mao (a card game) with the W.E.s until the rooster was about ready to crow.

On Wednesday, the morning was full of my efforts to take as many pictures of the Babe as I possibly could. I think I ended up with about 180 or so for the first half of the day. We met my brother for lunch again at the same park, and the ladies and I went to Historic Downtown McKinney to browse the couture, antique, and trinket shops that line the street and town square. As was the day before, Wednesday was tons of fun and very relaxing. The Babe is an absolute delight to spend the day with, and her mother is incredibly fun, too.

Alas, the trip had to come to an end sometime, so after we finished browsing we ran home, grabbed my luggage, and raced to the airport so I could catch my flight home.

I had an absolutely wonderful time and look forward to the next chance I’ll have to hang with the Fam in Dallas.

Here are a few pictures for you:

First, the Babe:

Next, the Cattle Drive:

Then the Ducks:

And finally, the Egret:

We saw this dude CATCH and SWALLOW a fish, not even 10 feet away from us, while we were feeding the ducks. I have two pictures of the catch/eat, but they’re not really clear enough to show here.

Okay, so there is more to it than that. I used to work for a company called Cobatco, located in Peoria, IL. My two younger brothers worked there at the time, too, and one of them is actually working there again (for the third time, to be exact). This is a mom-and-pop waffle iron factory, and they also sell waffle batter mix to go along with their machines. Their main customers are restaurant chains – Bob Evans, Country Kitchen, Huddle House, and Dairy Queen (for waffle cones) – and Bruster’s happens to be one as well.

I had never before seen a Bruster’s, but I recall many trips on the fork-lift to retrieve pallets of the Bruster’s Waffle Cone mix. So when I saw one tonight, I knew I had to stop in for a taste. (Thanks, Andrew, for verifying that Bruster’s really was one of the Cobatco joints – I wasn’t positive when I first drove by.)

I walked up to the window, still feeling bloated from so much barbeque, and frankly admitted that I had never been to a Bruster’s before. I chatted with the guy that was working the window, and asked for recommendations. He suggested some sort of chocolately-chocolate death trap, which was chocolate ice cream and ANY other topping that had the word chocolate in it: chocolate chips, chocolate-covered peanuts, chocolate-covered strawberries, chocolate-peanut butter cups, and I’m sure there was more.

As we were talking about chocolatey goodness, I glanced over the guys shoulder and noticed the waffle iron. It looked suspiciously like a Cobatco machine, so I asked him to verify. Once he confirmed that it was from the mecca of waffle cone makers, I was sold. I asked for a double-dip in a waffle bowl – one dip of the chocolate madness and one of their mint chip. Somehow he thought I was a starving kid in Africa or something, ’cause this is what I got (for the price of a single-dip, no less ):

Seriously. I don’t think it was any less than a triple scoop, ’cause I could count at LEAST 6 disticnt scoops of ice cream in the dish. It was gianormous. And delicious. Their ice cream is made fresh each morning, and it was totally tasty. In fact, I ate the whole thing.

And, now that I feel like I’m going to explode, I’m going to continue to lie here on the bed until the sugar buzz wears off and I pass out from a chocolate overdose. When do I get to come back here?!

My travel partner had made plans to go out with friends this evening, so I decided to go find some good food on my own. I stopped by the desk at the hotel and asked for a recommendation, and they gave me this:

Fat Matt’s Rib Shack is what was suggested, and I wasn’t quite sold on it by it’s name. However, the gal told me that it was the best southern barbeque in the area and followed that with, “…you’ll smell it before you see it.” I couldn’t argue with that, so I set off to get me some grub.

I’m not all that familiar with this area – I’ve only been here a couple of times. Last time, though, my buddy and I went hunting for a decent place to eat and actually ended up in the same neighborhood as Fat Matt’s. In fact, I think we might have passed it on our trip and decided not to stop because it looks like this:

Fat Matt’s is located in the part of town where ALL of the good restaurants seem to end up – not more than 500 feet from multiple “adult entertainment” establishments. I thought that I had mentioned this fact in previous posts, but a quick review of my blog proved otherwise. Just take my word for it: if you find yourself surrounded by “adult entertainment,” there is a REALLY good chance that the restaurants in that neighborhood are amazing.

I went ahead and stopped at Fat Matt’s this time, and I was NOT disappointed. While it really is a shabby facility, their food was absolutely delicious and they had Live Blues, too!

I ate too much – 1/4 slab of pork ribs, 1/4 (of a whole) chicken, and a chopped BBQ pork sandwich. The meat was all slow-smoked over classic charcoal, and the taste was totally there as evidence. If that wasn’t enough, they drown it all in their homemade, signature BBQ sauce, which tastes more like a nice cayenne hot sauce than anything else. It was perfect. I’ll go back as soon as I return to Atlanta – I promise.

I was retrieved from my abode about 20 minutes later, and we were off – to Chicago! Okay, okay, so we didn’t actually go to Chicago itself, but to a suburb called Naperville. However Naperville is just about as far away as Chi-town (2.5-3 hours of driving each way), and I’ve been to the same pizza joint in downtown Chicago, too.

The place is called Lou Malnati’s, and it’s got to be my favorite deep-dish pizza. It’s not your average pizza – this is really a pie made from/with pizza ingredients. It is absolutely amazing. I would defintely suggest that any of you readers try to make it to Lou’s if you’re in Chicago. And, if it’s possible, I’ll come with you .

Thanks go out to the Lingles for crazy ideas, crazy times, and crazy-good pie! It was a long evening, but it was absolutely worth it!

So this week I was in Glastonbury, CT, which is extremely close to Hartford. So close, in fact, that we rarely make the distinction between the two when referring to the office that our company has here. But though we’re here with (more than) two cities to see, there really isn’t a whole lot to report.

Hartford is a really old city that doesn’t have a whole lot of “new” in it. It has been called the “insurance capitol” of the world, but even that isn’t accurate any more. We were here last year, and the only excitement we found was the not-so-good part of town. And by “not-so-good,” I mean that I slouched completely down in my seat so that I wouldn’t be seen by the people on the street. It was fairly frightening.

Glastonbury is across a river (not sure what it’s called) from Hartford, and is a really, really small, quaint town. There must be a city ordinance of some sort that is in place to preserve the historic, old feel of the town, ’cause even the CVS and Walgreens look like they have been here for a hundred years or more. It’s quite interesting.

So the first day wasn’t too exciting. The most fun came from wandering through ALL of O’Hare Int’l Airport in the morning while we endured our three hour layover. After we landed in Hartford, we hurried to get to the office and worked until the early evening. We found dinner near our hotel, and then relaxed in the jacuzzi for a while before going back to our rooms for the night.

The second day was just as uneventful. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m exhausted from travelling so dang much or what my problem is, but I wasn’t really in the mood to do much. We worked all day and went to dinner with the local office manager at a local favorite. The restaurant is known for it’s FRESH seafood (the lobster is held live in a tank in the lobby area until you order it), which isn’t my fave, but I had a salmon dish that was extremely tasty. One thing that I have noticed, though, is that people here in the Northeast really like their butter. I’m not talkin’ about margerine or butter-like spread. I mean the real, creamy butter that comes from cows. Since I don’t eat a lot of butter on a regular basis, the food has been quite heavy in my tummy — but it still tastes delicious! After dinner, I hung out in the pool and jacuzzi, and then watched some television until I fell asleep.

The third and final day of actual work seemed to take forever. We got to the office fairly early, and the morning dragged on. A couple people from the office wanted to take us out for lunch, so we went to a local burger joint, called Plan B Burger. This place was phenomonal! The lights above the tables were made from old meat hooks and some very interesting light bulbs, and yet the rest of the interior was very contemporary, complete with green-and-silver foil wallpaper. The food was even more amazing than the place, but it wasn’t much more than “burgers and fries.”

After another long afternoon, we finally got to leave the office for a bit of celebration. This was the last (working) day in the last office of this round of travels, so we decided to have more great food. We went to a steakhouse, called J.Gilbert’s, for dinner and then got some delicoius ice cream at a local favorite: Friendly’s.

We were then so hopped up on caffine and sugar that we were absolutely giddy, so we went back to the hotel, sat in the jacuzzi, watched some silly TV, and checked out the latest posts on FailBlog and GraphJam. We laughed until it hurt, and then retired to our rooms for the night.

Now, after a casual morning, filled with a nice, wandering drive though the state od Conneticut, we’re sitting in the airport waiting to fly home. And, upon my return, I don’t plan to leave town for any over-night excursions until September, which is totally awesome!

So the trip started off just fine, although I was responsible for my own rental car. This may not seem very substantial to the casual reader, but this ultimately meant that I wasn’t going to have my compatriot with me for the entire trip. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but I’m going to chalk that up as the first screw that was loose on this trip. We worked together in the first office for a couple days, but then one of our Network Admins and I switched to the second office for the remainder of the week. The work itself wasn’t too hard, but it boiled down to the people that were the problem.

The first office was usurpted by our company more than ten years ago, but it almost seems like the people there haven’t yet got the message. It reminds me of the joke-like stories of prehistoric wars where people fighting at remote battlefronts would keep fighting years and years after the war actually ended. Well, while there isn’t really a war, I kinda got the impression that some of the people still think that they work for their own company intead. Since we hail from the “home office,” there are occasional moments of animosity where the cold shoulders are on full display. I can’t say that I can blame them for it, but it definitely doesn’t make my job any easier.

The second office has always been “ours,” but the culture that exists there is ENTIRELY different than the first. The people in that office are so fun and lively and funny that I felt bad for having to keep them in line. They were an absolute blast.

Then there were two additional travellers with us: the guy and the gal. The guy is from the Network Administrators group, and he was brought along to be an extra set of hands and to share the experience with other people from our IT department. The gal is actually the person that I report to directly. While it was nice to have more help, there were monents when it seemed like having more people was actually a chore. I could go on and say more, but I’ll stop there.

Since we were trying to work in two different offices at the same time, I had dinner with different people almost every night. One night, my compatriot and I drove around for about an hour only to return to the area near the office/hotel to get food from the Waffle House. The next night we had dinner at a decent steakhouse. The following night was dinner from an up-scale sports bar and restaurant, where I apparently looked mad enough to get free dessert. I’m still not sure how that happened, but I didn’t complain about the delicious cheesecake that we didn’t have to buy. The following night was dinner at Benihana, which is a fun place to watch the Japanese guy cook your food directly in front of you. And, again, we got free dessert without saying anything bad or derrogatory. I can’t tell if I look mad all the time or if people think I look like an influential food critic. Regardless, I’m going to see if I can get this to work in more places.

Other than that, though, the trip was quite uneventful. Except for the part when they forgot, or neglected, to place our luggage on the plane for the return trip. We had a direct flight from Atlanta to Peoria, but our luggage apparently wasn’t scheduled to depart at the same time. Since it was the return flight, it wasn’t absolutely terrible for me, except that I wasn’t going to be home for more than 20 hours before driving to Columbus, so that did put me in a bit of a bind. Overall, though, it worked out okay. The luggage was delivered around 9am the next day, I made it to Columbus in good time, and I’ll not be returning to that particular airline for the remainder of my travels.

Otto’s is one of the best places for Texas-style barbeque that I’ve had, and is only beat by the Fort Worth Stockyards. In fact, Otto’s is so good that they can officially claim to be Pres. H.W. Bush’s favorite place to get barbeque, and they have a dish named “the Bush Plate.”

Otto’s is famous for their hickory smoked goods, which include ribs, brisket, and sausages. This place has officially solidified my desire to build a smoke-pit behind the house so I can enjoy this stuff more often!

I had the Bush Plate. It was delish.

So I was up in Chi-town last week - for work, of course. It was an okay trip, but it was missing something…

Our office is only about 2 blocks away from the Sears Tower, Union Station, and the Holiday Inn, so we were definitely in the heart of the action. And by “action,” I mean that we were able to dodge the sleeping bums on the sidewalk as we hoofed it from place to place.

The drive up to Chicago is not the most exciting, nor is the drive home. But I did manage to make it from our Peoria office to the Chicago office in exactly three hours – to the MINUTE! That takes talent, I swear.

During the trip I learned some interesting details about the two gents that I was travelling with. I won’t share any of them here at this time, just in case they are able to find this blog and get offended by my humble observations. I wasn’t travelling with my buddy this time, so it made the trip less bearable. In the long run, though, it all worked out.

The most exciting thing that we did was eat dinner at the House of Blues. If you’ve never been to one, I definitely recommend going at least once, even if it is just to be able to say “I’ve been there.” I must warn you, though, that there was a decent-sized black guy in the bathroom that was being paid (hourly + tips) to watch me do my business. Of course, he was actually waiting to assist me with washing my hands, refreshing my cologne (provided), and freshening up my breath with any of about fifty varieties of mints on a tray near the sink. I’m told that this is something quite common in Europe, but here in the ‘States we don’t typically get so inebriated that we are unable to wash our own hands after using the restroom…

Oh well… Off to Houston!

The atmosphere was really hip, too. They were playing a mix of “chill” techno and “drum and bass” techno the whole time, which was almost awkward to hear while sitting in a place that feels like the basement of a 2000-year-old castle. At times the music really caught my attention, and at other times it appropriately faded into the background. The lights were quite low, which allowed for deep shadows to penetrate the detail work in all of the wood accents. There were gargoyles EVERYwhere, too!

They have a bar area, a “sit at a table and eat” area, and then a substantial lounge area filled with couches, ottomans, and low tables. This is TOTALLY a place that I would frequent if I lived here in the city.

The food was also good – we had a few appetizers: Garlic Shrimp, Fried Ravioli, and miniature Lamb Chops. I followed that with their signature hamburger, which was quite tasty as well.  I had never eaten lamb before, so that was my adventurous food for this trip, and it was also my excuse for sticking with a burger for dinner.

Here are some pictures from the outing:

First, the door to the place:

A view of the lounge/bar area:

The seating area for eating REAL food:

Since my pictures don’t do it any justice, check out their official website: http://medusaloungela.com