Nashville, Day 5: Week-long, Expensive, and Out Of Control

Valentine's Day! Let me tell you from experience: this is not an ideal day to be 2,000 miles away from your sweetie. Just FYI. (Hi Ash!)

Nineteen degrees this morning. Up before sunrise to do some sight-seeing. I hit all the attractions that were even multiples of 100: Centennial Park to see the Parthenon, and Bicentennial Mall to see many informative placards. Also, tried to find some good bushes to pee behind. No luck.

On the way to class, discovered that XM does in fact have commercials -- they're the same type of crappy stuff you hear on AM radio. My favorite was an ad for some video tape that promised to teach you "advanced sexual techniques". Holy crap! That caught my attention. What necessarily qualifies as advanced? Is light yoga or stretching required beforehand?

Training fell apart somewhat today -- it was pretty chaotic. Lab work was complicated, slides skipped, chaos reigned in the classroom, the instructor vying for airtime. Of course, it was very amusing to watch. Pretty much just cruised through a good deal of the material: "Well, we're out of time here, let's just move on, shall we?".

Weather after class was gorgeous, 55F, clear, air smelling of oak and dry grass. Parked overlooking a grassy parkway near the hotel, sat on the hood of the Pontiac ManHammer and enjoy a lovely repast of Taco Bell. The windows were rolled down, Van Halen on the XM, sun had just set, leaving a dusky glow on everything. Rockin'. I contemplated growing a mustache.

Back in the room, I tried to read the free hotel copy of USA Today. I'm a big news junkie, but I could really give a crap about most of this fluff. Most amusing was an article about astronauts on page four subtitled "Even tying shoes can be hassle in orbit". It had subsections discussing important space-related issues, entitled as follows:

• "Tying your shoes"
• "Moving from one place to another"
• "Handling electrical cables or other items that tend to coil"
• "Using the bathroom"
  

Very important stuff. I am not making this up.

And, as promised! Tonight there were Balls of Fury. Initially brilliant, finishing quite disappointingly. Wah. Message to my Reno 911 homies: "Good heavens, people!"