Thanks to Andy...

...  I'm running on Rails at last.

I had problems getting Rails talking to a database - either Sqlite or MySql. I figured since I'll be at  Ruby on Rails TDD Boot Camp next week, and Andy Maleh's teaching it, I could ask him for help. And help he did: we spent over two hours at the Red Eye Cafe (4164 N. Lincoln - free wifi, free parking!! and best of all, AC outlets by our table!!!) working through the combinations of versions of MySql, the mysql gem and 32/64 option in Snow Leopard.  Without going into the boring details, the combo that works is  MySql 5.1.41-osx10.5-x86_64 and mysql gem v. 2.7 installed with x86-64 support.  The kernel default in Snow Leopard is set to 32 bits because I haven't upgraded VMWare Fusion to support 64 (they want $40 - I'll try VirtualBox before I spend that!).  Other combinations cause various errors in either rake db:create or rake db:migrate.

Thanks again, Andy!