Curly Brackets

Real quick FYI, one of the software packages we use at work is from across the pond. I called today and got a guy with a real thick British accent. Have you ever heard someone from England say the phrase "Curly Brackets" several times in few sentences. I almost laughed out loud on the phone. Hilarious.

City Review: Nashville

I recently spent 5 days in Nashville for work. Apparantly, they are marketing it now as Nash-Vegas. What happens in Nashville, stays in Nashville. My manager didn't agree though, and still wanted a full report of everything I worked on and how it went.

Previous visits: I'd been through there before about 15 years ago (back was Opryland was a theme park and not a mall) and I've been through there and shopped at Opryland Mills twice before when staying near Nashville and spent one night there for work before. (although with my job, that means I got there, worked until the wee hours of the night, slept 4-5 hours, drove back).

Downtown and Dining: I was very impressed by my downtown dining options every night of the week. With few exceptions, most downtown areas in a city that size or larger are ghost towns by 7 pm. At the end of a 4 block walk in most large cities, you'll be forced to give 32 people money, forced to purchase drugs, be mugged 3 times, pick pocketed, punched in the face, threatened within inches of your life, and have all your drugs taken from you at gunpoint. And that's just 4 blocks. And no stores or restaraunts would have been open. Nashville was quite the opposite. There were several blocks worth that were hopping every night of the week. Most restaraunts were of a bar and grill type format, several with musicians performing every night. And it was crowded. Downtown is the place to be it seemed like. I never had to wait long for a table, but at the same time felt safety in numbers.
That said, I really enjoyed Demo's Steak and Spaghetti House. Rotiers was a hole in the wall near Vanderbilt that was excellent (try the cheeseburger and fried zucchini). Also, Big River Grille and Brewing Works was so good, I went two nights. The homemade root beer was great, so was the Chicken Fried Chicken. All in all, I was impressed that they were able to keep the downtown area clean and safe.

Music: Like I said before, if you like live music, Nashville is the place to be. Walking down 2nd Ave and Broadway on Saturday and Sunday night looking for a place to eat, I'd say every other establishment had someone performing. Also, I saw two music videos being shot and one band playing on the sidewalk outside the smallest record store I've ever seen.

Navigation: One of the important aspects of any city to me is how well I can get around. Nashville was laid out pretty well and lots of one-way streets helped keep traffic flowing. Aside from parking being a bit of a problem, I'd say getting around in, as well as in and out of the downtown area was pretty good.

Overall, Nashville was a nice city. I could see going back there, but I'm not sure that there would be much to do if you didn't like live music (especially country music) or eating. Those seemed to be the two main attractions.

I'm old

Yesterday, I got invited to my 10 year high school reunion.  That one stung a little, I knew it was coming up, but the reality sunk in yesterday.  10 years?  Has it really been that long since I packed up the "Yellow Dream" and headed off to college?  Where has the time gone?  I guess I spent half that time in college and the other half working my tail off and wooing the girl of my dreams.  I think I still have some work to do, I'm supposed to be halfway to a million by now, according to the plan. 
Oh well, its been a fun ride.  Thinking back to who I was then, I'm certainly glad that I've changed a lot since those days.  Now if I can just find my cane so I can get back to making the benjamins.

Maybe i'm not saying it right

I went out to dinner last night w/my friend Jaygirl Jones on Woodruff Road. After dinner I headed over to a store we'll call "Bircuit Bity" to get a gift card for another friend's birthday. While I was in line I noticed that among the normal looking cards there was one that was a small CD that you could load on your computer & get free tunes. I was looking on the card to see if there was a fee for this & couldn't find it. I hand the card to the check-out girl.

Me - Is there a fee for this since you can download music?
-she looks over the card front & back & then up @ me-

CO Girl - Now what was your question again?

Me - Is there a fee for the card since you can download music?

CO Girl (still looking confused): I'll have to go ask
-She walks away to go & talk to someone. I don't see the interaction but she seems to have a smirk replacing the confused look earlier-

CO Girl - It's a gift card, ma'm, you put money on it to spend in the store

Me - Yes I know that, just put the $ on there

Somehow I walked out feeling like I was the moron in that scenario.

Irregardless and Whelmed

One of my coworkers new favorite word is 'irregardless'. It's driving me crazy? Why? Because its not a real word. How is something irregardless of another. By being in regard to it. It's a double negative. The ir- prefix means not, so the meaning would be 'not regardless.' But that's not how it's being used in context. If statement A that was just uttered has nothing to do with upcoming statement B, the correct word to use is regardless. Otherwise, you would say, 'with regard to' or similar.
What drives me even more crazy is that after sitting in a meeting where the made up word was used like 6-8 times in 90 minutes, I ended up using it later in the day. Twice!!

In other wordplay, lately I've been finding myself overwhelmed. Which makes me wonder, in times when I'm not overwhelmed, am I just whelmed? On vacation, am I underwhelmed? The guy down the hall, he seems pretty underwhelmed by his workload. Oh, to be whelmed more often, I look forward to the day.

The story that never leaks

Cross posted on redshirtfootball.blogspot.com, where I'll be blogging most of March.

Ah, March Madness is back. The time of year when pens are once again relegated to second class material and good, old fashioned pencils (and most importantly, erasers) get brought out of the closet to help fill out those NCAA brackets.

One of the interesting things to me that just dawned on me this year, the selection committee has no leaks. It seems like almost everything these days gets leaked to the media before it actually happens. We've known the #1 draft pick the last 10 years or so, I almost always know which bowl game my Alma mater is playing in prior to the announcement, all trades get leaked and circle the Internet a dozen times, and so on and so forth. But no one ever knows those bubble teams. No one even posts the #1 seeds on the Internet at 2:30. It's all speculation right up until 6 pm.

It pretty amazing they've been able to keep everything that quiet for this many years. You'd think that surely someone is texting their best bud who's a alum that they are in or out. They won't let anyone near this selection committee and when questioned, they never mention any names of any schools about who the last team in or out was and why. You know what that means, Congress will launch a full scale investigation on that soon. Let's see, Virginia Tech was left out, so was Arizona State, Illinois State? What about that four bubble teams that got in all had a Wildcat as a mascot (Arizona, Kentucky, Villanova and Kansas State), sounds like conspiracy to me. That's several eligible senators right there to lead the charge against the NCAA. We have Congress investigating the MLB and NFL, the NCAA seems like a likely next target. I'm sure in a couple months, they'll be investigating the shady move of the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City. It's not like our country has any real problems for them to solve, they might as well spend 100% of their time tearing down the establishment of American sport. It's obvious that it has done well on its own and needs governmental intervention to lead to its downfall, that may not occur if left to govern itself. They've done well at deconstructing the American government so that it operates nothing like it was designed to, we are stuck in a war we can not win nor get out of easily, we have a huge debt problem, immigration is a mess, obviously, these are not the people the commissioners of these leagues want investigating their sports. If they can't run a country, why stretch themselves further and try to investigate and poke into privately owned and operated sports leagues and screw those up too?

Anyway, I completely digressed there, all that to say, I think it makes it all the more special and unique that the seeds don't get leaked to the media beforehand. Maybe some of the other sports could get a clue and tighten down their security or the media could respect the information is does get and not publish it until due time. I don't see the media changing its evil ways though, better work on battening down the hatches at league headquarters.

Dan In Real Life

Phil & I watched this movie last night. Before I go into my review on it I have to give a shout out to redbox for having great movies at $1.06 after tax. A friend of mine had already seen Dan & said she was let down because there wasn't constant humor in the movie. I was okay with that going in & I'm a HUGE Steve Carrell fan so his little bits of humor prob. resonate more with me than someone who doesn't watch The Office (best.show.ever.). The movie started out introducing us to the fam and showing Dan's life as a single, widowed, dad of three girls getting ready to head to a family trip in New England. Although there were some obvious plots in the movie they were presented in a different perspective than is normally used & had a softer tone to them. (I'm not going to go into detail for those who haven't seen the movie yet.) On a scale of 1-10 (1 being I'd rather sit in a tub of ants covered in sugar & 10 being elated & winning money) I rate this one at a 7. It had it's funny points. There was quirks that Steve Carrell brings out in everything he does & the performance of the other actors in the movie was well done. Go rentthis one, you won't be disappointed!

I have a blog?

Ok, so, the fact that I have a blog and in theory, a blog audience, completely slipped my mind for the last 2-3 weeks.  I had a horrible month at work, spent a good bit of time studying for and then taking the GMAT exam to try and get into grad school and pursue my MBA (thankfully, I think I got a good enough score), taking care of my sick wife and then subsequent sick self, and countless other distractions.  All that to say, I'm back.  Also, I'm pleased to announce the addition of a guest blogger.  She may already be familiar to a couple of you and she's been mentioned in previous posts.  That's right, its Jeni, my wife.  She'll now have the ability to post as well, and I believe she is especially interested in posting movie, music, and book reviews, as well as other musings.  Opinions from the other side of the household, so to speak.  Behold the beauty of the Internet, everyone gets to have their voice heard, err, read. 
I'll try not to let her out blog me too badly.