Tales fromt the slow cooker...

I made an Italian meatloaf today. The instructions were to garnish the meatloaf with onions... I decided that meant to make it look like bones in a fossil or something. I think it looked pretty cool.



The verdict was that it came out very tasty. It was pretty awesome because the pan is removable from the Crock Pot, so I made it the night before and put it in the fridge. In the morning I just put it in the cooker and left for work. It worked out pretty awesome. Up next is mushroom chicken and then Chinese pot roast. I'm worried about the chicken because I opted for fresh mushrooms over canned like the recipe called for... so we'll see how that goes. Just whenever I think of canned mushrooms... I think of Botox. Gross right?

I'm going to try and run the Warrior Dash this year. It's my new plan to get back into shape. I've cut out soda and my very bad for you but oh so awesome Mexican food lunches, so we'll see how it turns out. I'm pretty stoked!

Lastly, I'm going to try some writing. I've been thinking about it for a while. It's mainly for Joy, she really wants me to try. It'll end up pretty sucky but, hey... it might be fun! Only time will tell.

Man-burgers on a rainy day

Fry up some burgers and get them brown on both sides but still pink in the middle. Wrap them in foil with a healthy dose of onions and bake them at 425 for 15 minutes. They turned out awesome! Of course, the kids needed tons of ketchup and I needed some hot sauce, but other than that they were perfect!

I'll admit that I'm a horrible cook, but sometimes I actually make something edible.

Crock Potting!

In a continuing effort to starve our kids, we've decided to try slow cooker recipes for a while.

The benefit of the slow cooker is that you put all your ingredients into the pot early into the day and then simply have to check back later to find the disgusting mess you are left to eat.

My first attempt was orange chicken. It was shit.

We're going to try something else later... for now, I'm ordering pizza.

Nashville

I think my boss lied to me about the job I took. It was suppose to be Information Assurance, which is a big field that is really emerging right now. I think what I really do is IA. I Argue. For the most part I argue with people over the phone... but on rare occasions, I get to travel somewhere and argue with people face to face. That's way more fun!

We're staying at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel, which is this huge Hotel/Atrium/Conference Center. It's massive! It's a hotel with a huge atrium/shopping area attached, and then another equally large Convention Center connected to that. The place was just wild. The vendors that were there threw receptions each night so we were invited to eat pretty crappy food and have free drinks... so that was nice.

We got to see the Country Music Hall of Fame...

which was unfortunately as boring as it sounds. From what I can tell... Hank Williams Sr is God... and Hank Williams Jr is Jesus. Oh, and Hank Jr killed this bear.

I happen to know it was an actual bear and not a tree stump or a Volkswagen, because it had this shiny little tag on it.

In any other museum... that would be stupid, but in the Country Redneck Mecca Hall of Cousin Dating... it fit right in. I can almost imagine a guy, most likely a Jeb or a Skeeter, walking up to the display and saying "Hey, Lerleen! Stop breastfeeding Walker and Texas Ranger and come over here. Man look at this big ole.... um... wait there's a sign here... B- B-e Beaver!"

We saw Elvis's car. It has a TV, phone and a speaker system with an amp and microphone in it.

All in all it was a good trip. It was way to long for me and after being in Baltimore just two weeks prior was way too long to be away from Joy and the kids. I did get to re-watch every episode of Firefly again! But that always leads to day dreams of storming Fox studio's with a BB gun ala Chevy Chase and Wally World.

Maybe if I shoot a security guard in the ass enough times, I can get them to revive the series.