I AM BACK FROM NASHVILLE!!!!! What a weekend! I stayed at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. Let me tell you it was huge. It took me 20 minutes to walk from my room to the meeting rooms. The hotel itself is the largest non-gambling hotel in America. It may even be larger than the state of Rhode Island. The inside of the hotel was designed to look like a city within a rainforest. (Does that make sense?) There was even a river going through the hotel! Reminded me of a cross between Disney World, Las Vegas, and the sealed city in Logan’s Run. On Friday night we went to the Grand Ole Opry!!!! Charlie Pride performed!! Actually, I didn’t know Charlie Pride until he started singing: “Kiss an Angel good morning, love her like a devil when you get back home” I almost jumped out of my seat and bellowed: “I love that song!” Somehow I never knew a black man sang it, for some reason I thought it was Kenny Rodgers. Here was the lineup: January 10 6:30-7:00 Jimmy Dickens, Jimmy C. Newman, Steve Azar, 7:00-7:30: Jeannie Seely, Charlie Louvin, Osborne Brothers, Joe Nichols, 7:30-8:00: John Conlee, T. Bubba Bechtol, Connie Smith, Jerry Douglas, 8:00-8:30: Jean Shepard, Jesse McReynolds and The Virginia Boys (who sang John Prine’s Muhlenberg County!), Holly Dunn, Darryl Worley, 8:30-9:00: Bill Anderson, Jan Howard, and Charley Pride. At any rate, it was just great. A fabulous slice of Americana and I LOVED it! The next day I had my presentation and it went very, very well. Afterward a number of people came over and complimented me on my presentation skills. They also liked the application. Hopefully when we renegotiate my salary this quarter, they will remember this meeting and realize that I am drastically underpaid. Saturday we went to the Wildhorse Saloon and watched the Titans vs. the Steelers. Thankfully the Titans won and all the locals were in a good mood. Once the game was finished they cleared off the dance floor and held Line Dance Lessons. Guillermo asked me to dance and I took him up on his offer. For a Yankee and a Cuban, we line danced our hearts out! At 10:00 the bus came to pick us up but I said that I was having a good time and didn’t want to go back to the hotel. A few others agreed and we went to a club right next door that had 4 tiers of dance floors. We initally stayed on the first floor and I actually found myself dancing to an Eminem song ,”I’m Slim Shady yes I’m Slim Shady.” Personally, I find him repugnant but the song had a good beat and I could dance to it. I eventually convinced everyone to go down to the 80’s dance floor. There were 2 big cages on either side of the dance floor and…. yes, I got into the one cage and danced!!! I felt like a 1960’s go go girl… kinda like in the movie, It’s a Bikini World… anyone ever see it? At any rate, the evening ended rather dramatically when I had to convince a Security Guard not to arrest one of my colleagues who had drank too much and apparently became violent before passing out. Talk about negotiation skills, once the police came I was able to get the charge changed from assault to a misdemeanor and he avoided a night in jail and walked (or rather carried) away with only an incident report. I eventually got to bed at around 3:30. The meetings on Sunday started at 7:30 and somehow I was able to wake up looking refreshed and rested. The flight home was uneventful. Today I worked a full day despite the weekend full of meetings. Regardless, I had a great time and I can’t wait to go back to Nashville again!