Nashville @ MindSay

   On the last cruise, we became friends with a fantastic musician named Tim Starnes. He is from Chattanooga, and is a professional musician who sometimes tours with some pretty famous people, and also does studio work.
Here is our picture with him.


Several weeks after the cruise, we were laid over in Nashville, so we went downtown. We first went to Legends Corner where we saw a guy named Thom Shepard perform. He wrote the David Ball song, "Riding With Private Malone" and the Craig Morgan song, "Redneck Yacht Club". We spotted Mark Wills in the back of the room and got our picture taken with him.


   After an hour or so, we decided to walk down Broadway to see what else was going on. We saw several tour buses parked on the street and when we got to them we saw one of those velvet ropes, like they have in Hollywood, going into one of the venues with a long line of people behind it. We didn't bother getting in line because we figured the odds of us getting in were between 0 and 0. But as we walked on down the sidewalk we heard someone yelling "Eddie, Eddie". I thought, "That would be quite a coincidence if we ran into somebody we know here in Nashville". Then we spotted our new buddy from the cruise, Tim, coming down the sidewalk.
   He asked us if we were here for the showcase. I said "What showcase"? He said "Cody and some other country music stars were having a showcase there". Cody McCarver is the keyboard player for the "Confederate Railroad Band" and he has a couple of country hits himself. Then Tim said, "Come on. I'll get you in". It's a good thing nobody in the line behind the velvet rope had a feather, because they could have knocked us over with it as we walked by them and were escorted inside.
   One of the first country stars that we saw was "Cledus T Judd". He was a co-host for the event.


The other co-host was "Mr Belding" (Dennis Haskins) from "Saved By The Bell".


Here is Cody McCarver performing. That's Jimmy Dormire in the background. He's a great guitar player.


Cody spotted us and came over and told us how much he appreciated us coming "all the way to Nashville to be at his showcase". I didn't know what to say at first, but then I thought, no, I'm not going to lie. I said, "Man, we were just walking down the street and Tim ran us down". He looked a little disappointed and I quickly said, "But we're sure glad to be here", so the awkward moment passed quickly. We saw him in Knoxville a few weeks later and he told his buddies that story and we all got a laugh out of it.
   Several other new country stars performed as well.




This is Amanda Hinkel.


And this is Daryle Singletary, who performed several songs.


About half way through the the night, Danny Shirley, Confederate Railroad's lead singer, came strolling in. He came over to where we were and talked to us a bunch. Then Mark Wills came in and he and Danny stood there beside us, talking up a storm. How cool is that?


I didn't have to move to take this picture. This is where we were all standing. Danny did a radio interview during the time he was there and they gave him some very nice T shirts, which he gave to us before he left. It sure is nice to be liked.

Sorry to post such a long blog but nights like this don't happen very often and I wanted to post quite a bit about it. Here is one more picture of our buddy, Tim, playing fiddle on stage. He also played harmonica and lap steel.

It's Sunday. I am a lazy shit on Sundays.

 

Probably the only predictable thing I appreciate about my life is Pajama Day.

 

You could throw out a time of the day from 12:00am to 11:59pm and I could tell you exactly what would be happening. Once a week, 4 times a month, we take a happy little vacation in our apartment. Nothing too crazy, but I find it to be monumentally entertaining and satisfying.

 

Right now it's too early to start making dinner--Nathan is napping on the couch and I'm randomly playing what's on our DVR and surfing Realtor.com...do you know that they have GORGEOUS houses for like 400,000 outside of Nashville?? I mean, I'm talking a home theater and a pool for a $2,000 a month mortgage...What do they pay people down there? Slim Jims? Yikes. ...Mmmm. :) A slim jim is totally in the fruit group.

 

Anyway. I guess that's it. Maybe I'll do something super adventuresome and utilize a whole other room.

Wow, that was fast. I have never been so far off in my life. It seems America wasn't as interested in Justin as I was.

http://rancettela.mindsay.com/justin_gaston_swoon.mws  

I watched last night's episode (this morning) and there's really no one else I care about so much. I like Melissa Lawson, Pearl Heart, and maybe Coffey even though some of his "decisions" are driving me crazy.

Justin's choice for a final song was "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and that was so messed up. Okay, bye Justin.

I'm not sure I will continue watching this show now.

I spent this morning reading about correct bike riding posture, but I’m fairly certain that is not the source of my back pain. I’ve been stretching more to help it out but I think maybe I should take up yoga to help with my back and neck. Yoga isn’t a form of exercise I’ve done a lot of before, but I know a few women around here who use to really be into it. Anyone got advice for getting started?

 

In other news, less than 59 days till I leave for Nicaragua. The only problem I’m having with this trip is that I am too excited to wait for it. Patience may very well be a virtue, but I never did come up to par in the virtues area. I wanted to do a blog while I was in Nicaragua, but I won’t be able to because I won’t have internet access. A little disappointing to me, but I will post all about it when I’m back.

 

Even more exciting (because it is sooner and takes less patience) is my trip to Nashville. Sixteen days and I am free from my house! I can’t wait.