I haven't eaten in restaurants this much in my life. I've been eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at various places, some of them good. Some of them bad. I thought I would give you all a run down on the places I've eaten at.

1) Joe's Crab Shack. Pretty good seafood... for the middle of the plain states! We enjoyed it. Nice decor, the wait staff was nice. In fact our waitress was also from Illinois.

2)Mexicali Border Cafe. This place looks like a hole in the wall, but it has some great food! They are reasonably priced. The best part was the salsa. I'm not sure if they make their own or if they buy it, but they have some of the greatest salsa I've ever had.

3) The Hideaway. They have some great Pizza. I had one that was called "Big Country". It was topped with pepperoni, Canadian bacon, polish sausage (Kielbasa), hamburger, mozzarella and cheddar cheese! It was a damn good pizza.

4) Jason's Deli. This place is a bit of a conundrom. It's a sandwich and salad shop. They make some pretty good sandwiches and have a nice salad bar. But they have some of the rudest people working there. Think of the soup nazi from Seinfeld. They don't have a menu over the counter, so when I walked up they asked me for my order. I didn't know because I was trying to figure out what they had. Now I wasn't even at the counter, I was a couple of feet back. There was no one else waiting. They lady told me to stand back from the ordering area until I knew what I wanted. They are very strict in their ordering policies. I've eaten there a couple of times despite this. They make a good sandwich, they ARE fast and it's less than five minutes from work.

5)Kilkenny's Irish Pub. They have some great Irish food and a wonderful atmosphere. This is probably my favorite place I've eaten at down here so far. The best part is that it's very reasonably priced. Expect to pay much more if you get a beer or two.

6) The Elephant Bar Restaurant. It is an interesting themed restaurant. It has an African influence in the design and decor. Yet the food is mostly of a southeast Asian influence. They had a great crispy teriyaki chicken. The waitress we had did seem to ignore us, but the food was pretty good.

7)In The Raw. This is a sushi joint. When I asked where the best sushi in town was, this place was recommended by two different people. It's one of those trendy joints with the modern art deco designs and loud modern dance club music playing. The waitress we had was horrible. The hostess was rude as well as the manager. The wait staff ignored us, messed up our orders, it took forever to get the food. One of the Employee-M ordered a sprite and at one point the wait staff came around and topped her Sprite off with water. The sushi wasn't bad, but I've had much better. From the time we arrived until the time we left it was 2 hours.

All the other places we went to were fast food joints or major national chains. Now I'm going to have plenty of time to try other restaurants down here between now and October. So if you are familiar with any other restaurants down here and recommend some, please leave it in the comments.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:21 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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1 If they are still in business there is "Molly Murphey's House of Fine Repute." Was a good steak house when I was last down that direction.

Posted by: Garrett at August 01, 2008 03:14 PM (I4yBD)

2 I forgot to say don't wear a tie there.

Posted by: Garrett at August 01, 2008 03:15 PM (I4yBD)

3 Acambaro if they haven't gotten shut down over there for hiring illegals yet The Pickel Bar is kind of interesting

Posted by: BloodSpite at August 01, 2008 04:27 PM (N5h+e)

4 I seem to remember there being several good places to get lunch right in that "mall" area across the street from the hotel - at least a good Greek place to get gyros, a good sandwich shop, and a decent Chinese place, among others (though of course it's been years so whether or not they're still there I'm not sure). And I seem to remember Bourbon Street being pretty good...

Posted by: Shadoglare at August 01, 2008 08:57 PM (kSATY)

5 I had some pretty good food at Stone Mill BBQ and Bodean Seafood.

Posted by: spurs at August 02, 2008 05:37 PM (SQsl6)

6 Hey this is great! Good for you!!

Posted by: r at August 03, 2008 02:43 PM (Ka+QJ)

7 Sounds great!! Fun to explore new places...

Posted by: Richmond at August 03, 2008 03:19 PM (dmvnc)

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I've been told that all of my posts regarding Oklahoma have been depressing and kind of a downer. So I'm changing my topic for tonight... oh it still involves Tulsa, but a different aspect of it.

Every night as the sun goes down a massive amount of birds comes out and swarms around downtown Tulsa. When I say there is a massive amount of birds, I mean they number in the thousands! It's kind of freaky. They fly around, swarming the buildings. The trees are loaded with them almost bending under the weight of the plague of birds. I'm not sure what kind of birds they are, but it's really disturbing. They are loud. The are everywhere. They crap on everything.

I tried to take a picture, but I only had my picture phone and it didn't turn out too well. So I tried to use the video feature on my phone. All I got was this not so great clip, but it gives you an idea.

It's actually really disturbing. I'm not sure why they are there, I don't know what they are up to, but I'm really glad there is a parking deck for me to park in and a covered walkway so that I don't have to run outside so I don't get covered in bird poop.

Sorry about the sound, I don't know what the hell was causing that.

Posted by: Contagion at 08:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I boarded the bus to leave Rockford at 1 PM today and was able to get into O'Hare by 2:40PM. I was able to get through security rather quickly. I did make one faux pass, I didn't take my lap top out of my case. I wasn't aware that I had to... now I know. I've never traveled with one before.

I have officially decided that O'Hare is the most jacked up airport I've ever flown out of. I want to know what mental midget came up with the layout for this freaking maze? It absolutely is staggering the way they have the gates and concourses laid out. Thank god for a mobile GPS system or I would have been completely lost. Oh, and I thought they had free WI-FI at O'Hare. Nope, they don't. You can get on to check the status of flights, but if you want to get to the internet you need to buy time. Yea, that wasn't about to happen. It's not that I'm cheap, even though I could squeeze a nickle until the buffalo farts, it's that I'm not paying $12.00 to use the internet for 30 minutes.

We got there in plenty of time for our flight, we should have only had to wait for about 20 minutes before boarding. Then they announced they we delaying our flight. Not for weather, not for mechanical problems, but because the First Officer on our flight was flying in a plane from Philadelphia and isn't due to arrive until 4:45PM. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 3:45 PM. United must have had a screw loose to make that kind of scheduling error. Apparently they realized their mistake and found another First Officer to take his place, so we only left 30 minutes behind schedule.

We arrive in Tulsa to a very vacant airport. It's nice, clean and was easy to maneuver through. There wasn't a huge crowd of people you had a fight past. My traveling companion, Employee-M, and I had to laugh when we got the rental car. Apparently my company thought I would love to drive this Kia Rondo. It's like a clown car that I barely fit in. Not because I'm of noble girth, it's because I'm about 2 inches too tall for it. Employee-M nicknamed it "The Clown Car". Because even she, who is inches shorter than I am thought it was awfully small.

When we get to the hotel, we checked in easily enough. I get to my floor and I instantly notice that it smells like mold and mildew. Now, I'm staying at the DoubleTree in Downtown Tulsa. This is supposed to be a really nice hotel. When I get to my room it also smells like mold and mildew. So I go back down to the desk and tell them that it stinks really bad, they where very quick to change rooms for me. They explained that there was some kind of leak on the roof that when it rains hard it leaks all the way down to the third floor... and only the third floor.

Since we hadn't eaten since before noon, both Employee-M and I were hungry. We headed into town to get something to eat... at 7:30PM. We ended up going to Joe's Crab Shack and had a great dinner. I also received all the voice mails and text messages from those of you that called and texted me when I turned my phone back on. Unfortunately it was late, and I didn't feel like responding tonight.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to sleep.

Posted by: Contagion at 09:33 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 Glad to hear you made it ok - and that you found a connection to blog on! I forgot about the crab shack! I love that place! And I don't even like crab!

Posted by: Shadoglare at July 21, 2008 06:08 AM (q1yPG)

2 Mmmm, crab..... Glad you made it down alright.

Posted by: Wes at July 21, 2008 07:12 PM (1crE/)

3 Here's a tip - never...ever... ever travel to Logan in Boston. EVER. It makes O'Hare look like a model of efficiency. Really. Not that it's big - it's just supremely inefficiently run. I try as hard as I can to fly out of Providence RI. It's small, but a terrific airport. O'Hare isn't too bad once you get the hang of it - it's simply huge and that can cause issues all by itself.

Posted by: Teresa at July 21, 2008 09:41 PM (D1AXO)

4 Okay- since I have been on vacation, I had no idea you were in Oklahoma. Going to be here long? I believe you are home this weekend, but are you coming back? And if so, how long are you going to be here? I was in Tulsa on Tuesday. OKC for the past three days. And I leave for Temple Texas day after tomorrow for four days. I will be back in OK on Thursday night. You going to be here? Call Teresa or Tammi or Richmond- they have my number!

Posted by: Rave at July 25, 2008 09:18 PM (hVKpB)

5 货架、 货架

Posted by: Steel pallet" rel="nofollow">钢托盘 at March 07, 2009 08:19 AM (xEqmt)

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Today has been filled with ups and downs. I learned more about my upcoming predicament, aka the Okla-homie trip coming up. It seems each day the news is worse and worse. I was pretty sure on Monday that I would be able to get everything done with in three weeks, but now I'm not so sure. We'll see what the rest of the week brings me.

After work tonight I went with Graumagus down to Tammi's place to grab some furniture she has decided to part with. Grau took much of it for his new bachelor pad and I took the golden throne and foot stool. I agreed to this before the whole Oklahoma trip came up. I still want it, now I'm just wondering if it's going to be making the move out of state anyway.

After grabbing the furniture from Tammi's we all headed to Fritz's so that Tammi and I could have one last beer together down there. It was nice talking to her, and I'm sure going to miss her. Either way yo0u look at it, she's leaving the state, I'm leaving the state... not really boding well for a reunion.

After a couple of quick beers, we returned and unloaded the furniture into the respective houses.

I think I'm going to go to sleep now.

Today really made me think about my situation and I'm not happy about it. I mean things could be much, much worse... but damn.

Posted by: Contagion at 09:35 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Well, first let me state that I'm writing this post from my new lap top. I went out and bought a lap top in preparation for my upcoming and unavoidable trip to Oklahoma. Ktreva and I discussed it and we decided that not only will this help me while I'm gone, but it will help reduce the tension and stress in the house fighting over who gets to use the computer next and when. With two we can both use one or the other at the same time. The lap top is primarily mine, but when she goes on trips to Chicago for work she can take it with her to use after hours.

This last weekend I spent with some good friends. I will have a full blown post about this past weekend sometime later this week. It was good seeing all of my friends again. It was nice being able to talk to them about the upcoming trip. Especially since this may be the last time I see many of them for a long time.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go finish loading all of the software on here that I use on a regular basis.

Posted by: Contagion at 07:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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