From the silver lining department:

One advantage of being at work at 3 AM is that you can play your CDs as loud as you want, and no one gets pissy about it. Right now I've got Handel's Messiah going at about 80 decibels.

Ihr Steuergeld an der Arbeit:

Berlin to get trash cans that can talk. Ain't technology grand?

A real Nashville weekend

This weekend was a true Nashville experience. My grandfather and my cousin Laura both showed up in town, and I got to do all that fun touristy stuff that the locals never get around to.

On Saturday, my grandfather went to the Parthenon and the Frist Center. Both were great, but the Frist center has an especially good "Art of Tennessee" exhibit with everything from wood carvings to maps to photos to muskets. It was extremely cool.

Then we went to the airport and picked up Laura. We went home briefly, then headed over to Hatch Show Print. We walked around lower Broad for a bit, and also stopped into Lawrence Record Shop, where we met Mr. Lawrence. This was a very memorable experience -- you can listen right here!

We gave up our coveted $10 parking space and headed back home for a few hours, where we amused ourselves by looking at old photo albums.

That night, we had tickets for the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium. But before the show, we stopped in to Jack's Bar-B-Que. Then a few steps across the alley to the Ryman, where a long line was just beginning to snake through the door. We got to our seats in the balcony just before the show started. One of the first performers was Nanci Griffith, who Laura had seen a few days before in Boston.

The next day we stopped by my office to scan some of the old photos we found, then headed over to Bicentennial Mall, where we explored and played with our cameras until the misty darkness overtook us. (Listen) My grandfather took a detour into the farmer's market, where he purchased a bottle of Dave's Triple XXX Insanity Hot Sauce. The vendor cautioned to only use one drop!

Afterward, we went out to dinner at Basantes (a great Italian restaurant in the lobby of a Day's Inn), and returned home to watch "When Harry Met Sally."

Monday morning, my Grandfather left at the crack of dawn, and Laura and I had breakfast at the Pancake Pantry before her medical school interview at Vanderbilt.

All-in-all, a great weekend. You can view more photos right here.