General

I should state up front that I never did get to see the full-size replica of the Parthenon.

For six days in October 2013 I was in Nashville, Tennessee for the Fusion 13 IT conference and three days of KCS (Knowledge Centered Support) training. My place of work finally rolled out KCS to production two months ago. I remembered some of my training!

I made a bunch of posts on Broken Forum before, during and after my trip. It was my first time flying. Below are the relevant posts from the thread I started, up a bit for the blog.

Note: jerri is jerri blank, a member of Broken Forum and Nashville denizen.

[show_more more=”Six days in Nashville” less=”Collapse text” color=”#1E73BE”]

Day 0: Leaving Vancouver and Arrival in Nashville

I’m in the terminal now at Vancouver. The guy ahead of me took off his shoes then his belt and for a moment I thought he was going to keep going. It was equal parts disturbing and intriguing. The whole process didn’t take long at all so I’m sitting here by the gate with almost two and a half hours until the flight leaves. The airport is very big and clean and has a Tim Hortons.

I told one person I’d never flown before and she smiled politely but I could tell she was thinking ‘lol you scrub.’

I’m drinking tea which I know I will regret later.

More exciting reports to come.

***

Also, there will be a singing cowboy on the flight as he is sitting next to me right now. He is wearing cowboy boots, a cowboy hat and has his guitar in a soft carry case. He seems to be napping now, no doubt to save energy for his big number later.

***

I just got in a few minutes ago.

The flying was fine. Take-off is kind of like one of those rollercoasters that shoots out of the station at 70 mph and I love those things. The landing in Dallas was a tad bumpy, the landing in Nashville was smooth because that’s how they roll in Nashville.

The cowboy did not sing.

I saw nothing but an endless sea of white when leaving Vancouver due to low fog. I looked out the window numerous times after the fog cleared and did not scream, not even once!

The Dallas airport or the Cradle of Lud as I like to call it is not merely big, it is Big++. I was a little nervous riding Blaine the mono to Terminal A but arrived safely. If you ever want to live at an airport terminal, Dallas is probably a good choice. You’ll never see the same thing twice.

My hotel room has free wifi (yay) but the chair at the desk is too low and the thingie to adjust it is broken (boo). Since I’m here for six days I may call room service to ask for a new chair or something.

I never got a chance to really eat anything all evening and everything at the hotel is shut down for the night. There’s a vending machine right outside my room but it only takes $1 bills and the smallest I have is a five. The only nearby amenities in the area appear to be other hotels.

I’m going to chew gum and pretend it’s roast turkey.

Then sleep.

Day 1: Nashville, Bar-B-Q Pork Rinds, and Unintentional Sexting

Day 1 of my official trip began much like day 0 — in fog, except this time it was Nashville enshrouded instead of Vancouver. It cleared soon enough and the weather was sunny and pleasant for the rest of the day.

I asked about the broken chair but the woman at the front desk said the hotel is fully booked, otherwise they’d swap the chair with one from another suite. So I hope all you other guests are happy with your fancy working chairs.

Fortunately, the bed in my suite comes with five pillows and I only need one, so two have been conscripted to elevate my butt up higher on the broken chair. I feel like a little kid sitting on the pillows but hey, it works.

I got change for the vending machine in the hallway and bought two things:

1. A bag of Famous Amos chocolate chip cookies. They were okay but I’m not sure what makes Amos so famous. Did he murder someone for the recipe? I guess they’d be called Infamous Amos Cookies, then, which doesn’t have nearly the same ring to it.

2. A bag of “Southern Recipe” Bar-B-Q pork rinds as seen here:

When I opened the bag it smelled of death. Not pork, not Bar-B-Q, something desiccated and dead. I ate a few (the bag was mostly puffed full of air) and they were awful, little styrofoam hellsnacks. But my curiosity over pork rinds has been sated, forever.

Earlier in the day, I had my complementary breakfast in the hotel’s “Great Room.” I put it in quotes because though that is its name, its aspirations to greatness pale before…well, you’ll see. The breakfast, for what it was, was perfectly decent.

I was then off to the first of three days of pre-conference training in KCS. The participants ranged from all over North America, each of us bringing our own funny regional accents. I don’t pretend that I don’t sound funny to the Nashville natives or New Yawkers.

The training is at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Resort. When I signed in for the conference (easy enough, as it was near the lobby and copious signs led me to the counter) I was given a map that was further modified via felt pen with the route I was to follow to get to the actual conference room. Looking at the map it appeared to be quite the expedition.

If the Dallas airport was a hotel it would be the Gaylord Opryland (and yes, I do involuntarily chuckle every time I say the name out loud). There are buildings within buildings here. There are waterfalls and rivers and forests and boat rides and probably caves filled with monsters at night. Surprisingly, given my sense of direction, I found my destination without too much trouble.

The training session went well and we were plied with snacks and non-alcoholic drinks. We were on our own for lunch and although the hotel is replete with restaurants, they are unsurprisingly expensive. I had a $5 slice of pizza and a $3 Diet Pepsi, which came in only one size, Very Big. This seems to be a trend.

After training ended, I checked out my co-worker’s suite at the hotel, expecting it to be palatial compared to my more humble accommodation, but it was much the same, just with two beds instead of one. And her chair worked. This kind of did make it palatial.

With my day’s “work” done I caught a cab back to my hotel and texted jerri so we could make our plans:

Apparently, my phone is more into “sexting” than texting. Stupid phone.

So tomorrow we meet for dinner, a movie, and more Americana than you can shake a giant belt buckle at.

As an aside I have heard more women use the endearment “honey” in the last day and a half than in the previous decade.

Day 2: Driving to Distraction and a Very Big Mall

Day 2 started inauspiciously. Breakfast was sausage links instead of sausage patties and there were biscuits with a huge pan of gravy and bits of something in the gravy. I watched several people ladle this gravy matter (wasn’t that a Stephen King story? I’m pretty sure this stuff was in it) onto their biscuits, smothering the poor things. I opted for a small blueberry muffin instead. The truly bad food choices would come later.

After breakfast, I asked the lady at the front desk to call a cab to take me to the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Mazeworks. She said it would arrive in about 10 minutes. That was going to make it a bit tight for my 8 a.m. workshop start since I needed extra time to retrace the elaborate route through the hotel to the conference room.

No taxi arrived but instead, a red shuttle bus showed up that would take me there for a flat rate of $25. Once I got in the bus (I was the only passenger) the driver introduced herself to me as if we were about to go on a tour (“Hi, my name is…”) We headed out and after a minute or two, she said something about a window being open. I think she wanted me to close it. I could see no open windows and after an awkward bit of fussing about, she said it was OK and was probably thinking I had been dealt a blow to the head and couldn’t understand what she was saying to me.

This seemed even more so when we arrived at the hotel. She informed me that she did not take credit cards for payment. It is, after all, only 2013. I had $3 U.S. in my wallet. I had plenty of Canadian cash on hand, though. “I can pay in Canadian,” I said to her. She looked at me as if I had asked her to close the window. She continued to look at me in that “Don’t you have REAL money?” way. She suggested I find an ATM in the hotel and leave my bag with her so I wouldn’t just slip inside, never to be seen by her (or possibly anyone else) again.

I actually remembered where I’d seen an ATM and dubiously stuck in my 100% Canadian bank card in it. It processed my request, warned me A TRANSACTION FEE OF THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS WILL BE APPLIED, IS THIS OK? then after I said sure, go ahead, it spat out some of that funny-looking American money.

I went back to the shuttle bus, paid the driver and as she took off, I thought to myself, “You’re not a nice lady and I hate your windows.”

I made it three-quarters of the way into the belly of the beast before taking a wrong turn up a flight of stairs. At that point, I’d become turned around and completely lost my bearings. I expected to walk down to the end of a long hallway to find a pair of young twin girls inviting me to play. Fortunately, I found a Fusion 13 info counter and was directed to the right room, arriving only a few minutes late and missing nothing more than some summary from the previous day.

The workshop again went fine. For lunch, I had a turkey and veggie wrap, which was unexceptional but reasonably healthy. My co-worker had an all-veggie wrap and complained that it was sodden and gross. Score one for meat eaters!

After the workshop, I very carefully texted jerri to avoid suggesting that my pants were missing or whatever my phone was planning on writing out for me. We would meet at the Opryland Mall at 5 p.m. Everything here is called Opryland. That gave me one hour to get there, half of which would be spent leaving the hotel.

I asked a nice valet for walkin’ directions, he took me outside, pointed and offered directions with a level of enthusiasm that suggested he was either high on life or cocaine or possibly looking for a big tip. I offered profuse thanks and headed off, arriving at the mall with time to spare.

The mall, like the hotel, is very big. It was crowded and noisy and in the center area was a guy singing country songs accompanied by an old man, possibly his grandpappy:

He was singing “My Shirt’s Two Sizes Too Big But it Sure is Pretty.”

jerri showed up shortly after and we went on a tour of the mall, stopping at the food court. I asked jerri to name the place with the greasiest food because I wanted an authentic American experience. One of the places she suggested was called Charley’s. They serve cheese steak subs. Cheese steak gives me the willies so I ordered a chicken teriyaki with mayo, lettuce, and tomato. jerri said the bun was probably buttered. I think she was right. It was also the saltiest sub I’ve ever had. The teriyaki part was curiously absent. Did I mention the saltiness? I went back and said, “Do you think I’m a deer?” and the guy said, “No, honey.” Okay, I made that up, but still, that sub was seriously salty. Slip one of those to a kid and you’d probably do permanent damage.

We still had some time to kill so we stopped in a few stores, as I wanted to look at shorts. The weather is actually cooling off but I discovered the hotel has a fitness room with several treadmills. I can start working off all the pastries and junk right here and now, with the added bonus of pratfalls, as I’ve never used a treadmill before. I saw several possibilities and may return tomorrow.

Meanwhile, with more time to kill before the movie, we went to a big ol’ arcade and played a couple of racing games. The first one was with cars. Mine was orange. jerri apparently thought the objective was to smash all the houses and I somehow fluked into a first place finish without even realizing there was a turbo button. We next tried a motorcycle game. My motorcycle was purple. My handling of the bike could be summed up as “dead in less than ten seconds” but fortunately the game didn’t model death. I finished a lowly fourth, spending most of the race rubbing up against the invisible border at the edge of the road. The most realistic part of both games were the scantily clad models at the start and finish lines.

We next watched the movie in Imax 3D. jerri graciously treated me and we donned our stylish 3D glasses and watched Sandra Bullock spin and spin and spin. The last time I was in an Imax theater was in San Jose in 1979. I think it was running the first Imax movie ever. Yes, I am super old.

jerri returned me to my hotel and I was thirsty. I counted out my change and found I had eight quarters, just enough to get a Diet Coke from a vending machine. I fed in $1.75 and discovered that the last quarter was Canadian. I imagined if I fed it into the vending machine it would probably spit fire at me. But I had a $1 bill so I put that in, $2.75 total for a $2.00 drink. I selected Diet Coke. SOLD OUT. Fine. I pressed the coin return button and it gave me back my $1 bill and two quarters. It kept the rest. Maybe as a tip, I don’t know. I now had insufficient funds for any sort of drink so spent the buck on some Smarties and drank water in my suite instead. It seems my days are bookended with dubious food and drink.

Speaking of water, the water here is kind of funny. When I took a shower I felt like I needed another shower after to get rid of the weird, just-stepped-out-of-a-swimming-pool feeling from the first one.

Tomorrow morning I am going to ask for a cab and make sure the person at the front desk understands what a cab is. I will draw pictures if I have to, anything to avoid presenting the horror of Canadian money again.

Also, jerri is friendly as all get-out. I am very glad to have met her. The green bandana was bitchin’. Or nice. I’m not up on bandanas so I don’t know which is more appropriate.

Day 3: Dubious Eats and Waffles Yet to Be

First, I’ve decided to go the Waffle House. Too many people I trust (in theory) have insisted it is important to experience it. I was thinking about going tonight but only got close enough to take this picture just as the sun was setting:

Its giant sign taunted me from across the roadway but I was able to resist its gravy and syrup-soaked siren song for at least one more night. I still have two more dinners here in Nashville, one shall be at the Waffle House. If I am not doubled over with stomach cramps after I will report the details.

Day 3 was a bit of a non-event. I figured out the shuttle bus system (quaintly called Driving Miss Daisy Shuttle Service, though I have resisted the urge to break out my Jessica Tandy impression) and if I take a round trip it costs less than a cab and they don’t get all fussin’ and feudin’ with me. It’s also easier to pay by cash since only one driver (the boss, I guess–Morgan Freeman) can take credit and he does it the old-fashioned way, by rubbing an impression on carbon paper like it’s still 1975 or something.

Breakfast at the Holiday Inn was again scrambled eggs and sausage links, with those biscuits and giant pan of gravy matter once more sitting next to them. I know, this is also part of the experience, but that gravy tray scares me. I keep expecting something to poke a huge, unblinking eye out of it, like that monster that was in the trash compactor on the Death Star. Maybe I’ll try tomorrow.

The shuttle dropped me off at the convention entrance of the hotel instead of the lobby, shaving several miles off my journey to my final workshop class. The class went quickly and ended a bit early. I contemplated what to do after and decided to just head back and soak in brine (have a bath) and veg out. The guy driving the shuttle bus on the way back couldn’t help but notice my funny accent and asked where I was from. I said Vancouver. I quickly added “Canada.” He said Nashville has a lot of country music all over. I nodded. This is true. He asked about country music in Vancouver. I said it does not dominate but has its place. Neither of us brought up Nickelback.

He knew about Canadian football and that our rules are slightly different, though he seemed to think the goalposts in Canadian football are about three feet wide. He knew hockey was our national religion. When we got to the hotel I thanked him for the ride and wished the Titans success (they were down 10-0 in the second quarter, I knew this because Mr. Freeman had the game playing at Nickelback volume on the radio).

When dinner time came around I headed out into the neighborhood, past the collection of hotels and on up to Royal Parkway where my choices were mainly a number of fast food places: Arby’s, Wendy’s, KFC and McDonald’s. As all are also available in the frozen north, there would be little novelty in my dining experience. There would be plenty of grease, however. When it comes to dining in Nashville, grease is the word.

I chose McDonald’s because I haven’t been in a very long time and was curious to see if they had any cute regional variations happening. Other than slapping “southwest” on a few sandwiches, it all looked much the same.

I got a quarter pounder with cheese meal and in a moment of Facebook/Twitter possession, took a photo of my food:

To any Canadians reading this, you’re probably thinking this pretty much looks identical to the same thing found north of the border. It was both reassuring and regrettable that the Quarter Pounder tasted exactly like the ones in Vancouver. The fries were more like salt with potato inside them. Why did I eat this? I don’t have a good answer for that.

On the way up to the Royal Parkway, I noticed a hedge next to the KFC. By noticed I mean “had to walk out onto the street since the thing hadn’t been trimmed since 1998.” Is this a normal or is this just a particularly neglectful KFC?

For dessert, I had a Payday bar. I can’t remember if I can get these back home or not. It’s peanuts and caramel and salt, lots of salt. I’ve added it to the same list the pork rinds are on, though one notch lower.

Anyway, the actual conference starts tomorrow. I expect thrills and chills and Powerpoint presentations a-plenty, followed by a trip to the Waffle House of Horrors for dinner and gastrointestinal distress for my evening entertainment.

Day 4: Christmas in October

Day 4 in Nashville and I am now actually finding my way around and affecting a mild southern accent. I still can’t bring myself to say “y’all” but I know it’s close.

Breakfast at the Holiday Inn switched back to pork patties instead of links. I prefer the patties because they seem healthier. I know it’s like the difference between menthol and regular cigarettes but it makes my brain happy.

The biscuits and gravy were still there and I thought, “Should I?” and most of my internal organs cried “No! No!” But then I did, anyway. It was a bit anti-climactic, in truth. The gravy was a bit bland and the bits were mushroom, not parts hewn from unknown animals or something worse. It probably added 500 calories to the meal, though.

The convention officially began today and kicked off with…a group of dancers dressed up 50s-style and singing “We Go Together”. As it is with Nashville, so it is with the Fusion conference: Grease is the word. My reaction to the musical number was the same as it is for any outside of an actual musical: embarrassment for all involved.

Mercifully they brought out the first keynote speaker shortly after, Mike Walsh. He’s half Chinese and half Irish and has a weirdly wonderful accent that sounds like velvet. If velvet could be heard. Quackers would have liked him because he bore a resemblance both in voice and appearance to a certain Tom Hiddleston (or more accurately, Loki but with less evil ambitions). The second keynote speaker was Cindy Solomon, a public speaker with an openly professed love of public speaking. She was incredibly energetic, funny and drew expertly from her own experience to make her points. She did not, however, look or sound like Loki.

The expo hall was pretty much what you’d expect — a vast and noisy space crammed full of vendors hawking their wares and offering pens, buttons and other doodads. I was tempted to go over and yell at the Footprints* guys because Footprints kind of sucks but the guy demoing it looked like he could break me in half without taking one hand off the keyboard.

Lunch was provided and to my surprise, it was healthy and fresh — chicken breasts with crisp salad, steamed veggies and more. It felt weird to eat a meal that wasn’t bad for me.

I made a few rounds of the hall after lunch and between workshops but stopped when I realized I had gone from sampling to scarfing these evil little chocolate truffle horns they had conveniently laid out at strategic points. As far as willpower goes, when it comes to food right now I have none. If I see it, I eat it.

After the second keynote wrapped up, we were bribed back to the expo hall by seven posters that were placed around the venue with the names of seven random attendees, all of whom could claim a shiny new iPad by ID’ing themselves. I already have an iPad so didn’t need another. What I did need were more chocolate truffle horns to shovel into my gaping maw. Alas, they had been taken away.

Luckily there was plenty of new food brought in and I made a pseudo-dinner from various veggie plates, some “Tennessee-style” nachos (the big innovation was barbecue sauce), skewers of meat, cheese wedges and other snacky bits. This left me sated (I still would have polished off another fistful of those horns had I seen them) and so I had no need to find dinner after leaving the convention for the day.

This meant no Waffle House.

My food needs will be taken care of (and 100% free) tomorrow, while Wednesday will be another free breakfast. As the convention wraps up early on Wednesday my plan is to hit Waffle House for lunch and have a nice (?) meal that will tide me over on my flight back to Vancouver. Either that or leave me doubled over in agony at 39,000 feet.

I saw very little of the vast interior of the hotel today but did take this crummy photo of the giant Christmas tree they put up the first day I was there. Putting up a Christmas tree before Halloween should be considered unholy. All the music being piped into the hotel is still country but I’m expecting it to switch to country Christmas before the convention ends.

Getting that much close to making Christmas in July sales more than just marketing gimmicks.

I’m going to try to grab a few more photos of the sights around town before heading out and will hopefully get another chance to meet up with jerri again.

What sort of small and/or tacky trinkets should I bring back to remember my experience in Nashville?

ADDENDUM: I got a courtesy twin blade razor and an adorably cute little can of Foamy shaving cream from the front desk, having neglected to pack such things. Now that I’ve shaved I must conclude that I was given a toy razor meant for kids to see what being a grown up is like because the blades were as sharp as my math skills, which is to say not sharp at all. You know those commercials where the sexy girlfriend alluringly rubs a hand across her sexy boyfriend’s freshly-shaved face? Imagine that hand making a dull rasping sound and you get the idea.

Also, I forgot to mention that after events wrapped up for day one of the convention my co-worker went off to shop for wedding dresses. That seemed a little random.

* Footprints is a ticketing system and we’re not using the current version of it. The version we are using is 2.sux or something like that.

Day 5: Waffle House

I have more jungly pictures to share but they will have to wait until I’m in a proper time zone (Pacific).

Day 5 was my last full day in Nashville and without exaggeration, I found myself affecting a slight southern accent when I went to ask about the airport shuttle at the front desk tonight.

Breakfast was back to scrambled eggs and sausage links. I ate them and a cinnamon roll as well because they had a big pile of cinnamon rolls there screaming at me to be eaten. The defining aspect of this trip has been gluttony. More on that in a bit.

It was raining in the morning and it felt more like home. Unlike home, it cleared up shortly after and was sunny and mild for the rest of the day. jerri picked me up (in her car, not her arms) and took me for a ride (heh heh) to the hotel (heh heh) for the second day of the Fusion conference (heh heh). I was disappointed that she did not wear her Cthulhu bandana, though had I peered at the eldritch runes imprinted into its fabric I may have returned to Vancouver gripped by madness.

After enduring the number from Grease before the previous morning’s keynote speech I was hoping for a knife fight from West Side Story today. Instead a band appeared playing a song from School of Rock. The kid on keyboards appeared to be about four years old. The band was very enthusiastic playing whatever it was they were playing. I think everyone agreed it was better than Nickelback.

The two keynotes that bookended the day were both excellent although I am so tired right now I can’t remember the names of the speakers. Larry and Ted, maybe. I’m pretty sure one of them was Larry. He was bald and told us three things to be successful: take responsibility (“yes, I’m the one who accidentally unplugged the server rack”), be flexible (“yes, I can stay late to work on the server rack”) and have fun (“I’m putting frills on the servers”). I made up the examples so don’t blame Larry.

I attended three workshops. One was pretty decent, another was okay (the guy had slides that repeatedly spelled “heroes” as “hero’s”. My nerd rage was ablaze.) The third was…well, Larry did a thing where he showed the audience a bunch of weird/funny signs. One was on a broken gas pump at a station he’d stopped at, written on the back of a Coors case and affixed to the pump with duct tape. Rather than saying “out of order” or anything similar, it said this:

That third workshop should have been tord up. Or maybe it already was. Rather than describe it, let me just paste in verbatim the notes I took during the 60 minutes it lasted:

From Reactive to Proactive (the name of the workshop)

– discovering the mic doesn’t work properly as the workshop starts (reactive)
– testing the mic before the workshop starts (proactive)
– extensive audience participation with another mic that also doesn’t work
– a different kind of drone, kills interest instead of people
– communication is important* (who knew?)
– stock art slides up for long stretches
– my god, still 30 minutes to go
– my face feels like sandpaper when I run up on it with my hand
– more hero talk. I think she wants me to go to work in a cape and tights. I will consider this.
– “Pull the weeds before you plant the seeds”. Here are a few more I made up:
“Don’t set on fire your own attire”
“The sky is blue, this is true”
“Pull the cord before jumping the fjord”
– Assess individuals to build a team*. I’ve got this one:
GOOD: Friendly, helpful, knowledgeable
BAD: Argumentative, serial killer, bad breath
– Document strengths* and weakness then blah blah blah
– 18 minutes to go, I can retain consciousness this much longer
– Leverage strengths* (eg. know how to test mics)
– this room is entirely dull gold in color. DULL. Gold.
– blank slide
– mic almost works 45 minutes in (almost)
– Don’t try to “fix” anyone* (even if their mic is broken)
– remember WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) WIIFM = getting out of here
– “Ask the individual to complete the worksheet over the weekend*”. Everyone loves homework as part of their job. (It’s an assessment worksheet.)
– 8 minutes!
– I need a chocolate truffle horn. Possibly several.
– freedom. God bless America!

* actual slides

The only thing worse so far has been the wireless at the hotel, hopelessly overloaded by the thousands of attendees connecting to it. “Use our free app to track your schedule! Note: You will not be able to load this app during the conference”. Actually, the wireless did work, just sporadically, so it was not worse than “How do microphones work?!” (BTW, all mics are tested before each workshop. I know this because I watched the testing guy do just that before several workshops I attended, so this was almost certainly user error.)

Lunch featured shrimp burritos, chicken fajitas, enough bean dishes to have the roof of the convention hall lifted off from all the tooting, followed by a dessert of churros, chocolate sauce, and cheesecake. My co-worker and one of the people we’d trained with found the churros a bit spicy while I did not, which kind of worried me.

Speaking of my co-worker, she reported that she did not find any suitable wedding dresses.

After lunch, I had some time to kill before the last workshop and keynote of the day so I wandered around the hotel and took a few more pictures and managed to not get lost once. This could only mean one thing: my stay here is almost over.

There were no events planned after the last keynote. I realized I would have to find my own dinner. This could only mean one thing: Waffle House.

jerri again picked me up and as we endured rush hour traffic I questioned her on what would be some good choices. She offered some suggestions and asked if I wanted to be dropped off there directly. I said no, to which she nodded, noting that I probably wanted to return to the hotel to dress up first. How right she was!

It was dark by the time I got there and sadly the giant Waffle House sign was not turned on. There was also no pedestrian path or sidewalk leading from the street to the entrance, so I guess they expect everyone to drive in for their breakfasts. Nashville is not exactly pedestrian-friendly.

Come for the waffles, stay for the waffles. Waffles waffles waffles!

I entered to find a few diners and two staff. The woman who greeted me from behind the counter looked like she had enjoyed a waffle or two in her time. She told me I could sit anywhere (there were signs warning booths are for two or more people, sort of like an HOV thing). I sat down and discovered the menu was already laid out before me. Immediately I was asked if I wanted to order. No, ma’am, I need time to look over the multitude of wonderful waffly choices you have here.

Taking into account what jerri suggested and cross-referencing my own preferences I went with a blueberry waffle and hash browns chunked (diced ham) and covered (melted cheese slathered on top). The menu actually had the calorie count beside each item. I tried not to look. I also noted this was the only menu I’ve ever seen to mention death (in reference to undercooked or raw food).

The waitress did not hear what size I wanted for my orange juice so I upgraded from regular to large because when you’re pushing 1000 calories for “breakfast”, why not?

It arrived quickly:

It was greasy and sticky and sweet and gross yet also yummy. I feel I have successfully completed my American culinary experience.

No stomach cramps yet.

I am now packing up my few belongings to prepare for the trip out tomorrow. I’ll be skipping the last keynote to make sure I have enough time to get to the airport and remove my shoes and such. To my delight I found out the hotel has a complementary shuttle to the airport that runs 24/7. Nice. I still have some American cash so maybe I’ll look for a tacky souvenir at the terminal.

Then I sleep.

Day 6: A Selfie, Weird Dreams and Home Again

Day 6 came and went and I made it back safely to Canada and the time zone I know and love. I would have written about it last night but was dead tired and pretty much went straight to bed.

The night before I had some vivid dreams. One is relevant to my trip. I was back in my hometown of Duncan up at the Moose Lodge. In Duncan, the Moose Lodge overlooks Quamichan Lake and there’s a big hill that slopes down from the grounds of the lodge to the lake. At one time float planes used to come and go at a small dock there. I’m not sure if they still do or not. But yes, planes. This is also relevant because in the dream I was atop the hill with a friend and watching planes fly overhead. One came over especially low and I watched it bank in a steep curve. Except it kept banking and was quickly flying upside down. My dream-self was smart enough to know this wasn’t right and I made a comment about how it might crash. It did. We went down to investigate.

The hill had already turned into a debris field of twisted metal and other bits from the plane. I saw others gathered by the lake who had already been there and wondered if anyone had called 911 yet. I put my phone away when I decided someone must have and also judging from the wreckage this was going to be a cleanup operation, not a rescue.

I spotted one on the passengers. He was wearing a helmet for some reason. Smart, I thought! When I got closer I saw that most of his head was missing. Ouch. I kept looking around and found a nice old lady still safely strapped into her chair. She was very dead, with obvious and very realistic wounds on her face and body.

These were the images that played in my mind the night before I would be spending five hours on two separate flights.

Because my flight out of Nashville came uncomfortably close after the final keynote speaker, I decided to skip the speaker and instead head straight from my hotel to the airport. My final Holiday Inn breakfast was again scrambled eggs and sausage links. And a cinnamon roll because they were still there demanding to be shoved into my mouth and being a polite Canadian, how could I say no?

The morning was a bit chilly but the skies were partly cloudy, so the weather looked to be fine heading out. I got on the shuttle bus with two others. The woman onboard elected to be dropped off at the gas station next to Waffle House (I waved) for reasons unknown but the driver promised to fetch her on his way back.

I got to the airport ridiculously early and checked in. The woman handing me my boarding pass said she was thinking about going on vacation to Vancouver and asked how the weather there right now compared to Nashville. I told her it was about the same, although a little cooler. She said she was planning on visiting in January and I mentioned that our winters are pretty mild and snow is generally not an issue. She was delighted by this. I told her it also rains a lot. This did not delight her. I think in the end she was still set on going.

There was still a copious amount of time to kill so I did a brief tour of the terminal (Nashville airport is the smallest of the three I went through) then sat down and read for a few hours until I convinced myself I was hungry. I went to a food court and bought a slice of pizza that was a technical marvel: it managed to take all the grease you would normally find on an entire pepperoni pizza and condense it to a single slice. This was the last food I ate in Nashville. To the end, grease was the word.

After eating I found myself strangely nervous about the flight and it wasn’t because of the Mayday episode my subconscious had helpfully provided the night before. I think it was more like the first time you go on a scary ride at an amusement park you don’t know entirely what to expect, so you’re only a little nervous. The second time you know exactly what to expect so your brain is much better at making you optimally nervous. Still, I figured I’d be okay.

After take-off, I did actually feel a little nervous (I had the window seat again) and every time I looked out I thought, “My, it sure is amazing how we can be hurtling in this tiny metal tube several miles above the Earth and it sure would suck if something happened to knock out the engines or cause the wings to fall off or something.” Every slight change in the sound of the engines, every slight bump, every slight flight path adjustment brought me a little closer to Shatner’s character in that Twilight Zone episode. And this was before seeing the gremlin peeling open the wing.

I managed to relax eventually and was fine after that. The flight proceeded without incident.

In Dallas (a balmy 78F, though I never felt it inside the hermetically-sealed terminal) I met my good friend Blaine the mono again and rode to Terminal D to board my connecting flight to Vancouver. I again had the exact same seat–13F. Good thing I’m not superstitious about numbers. The jet itself was different so I had a direct view of one of the engines. If it was going to burst into flame/explode/suddenly fall off, I’d be the first to know. Reassuring.

A couple sat next to me and once we took off, something mildly absurd happened. All three of us pulled out Kobo ereaders. Two of us even had the exact same model. So there all three of us sat there, reading our ebooks on our Kobo ereaders. If nothing else this proved we were headed to Canada.

A flight attendant came by and offered drinks. Having the world’s tiniest bladder, I declined. Doing so made my mouth instantly dry and my chewing gum was packed in the overhead storage. I convinced myself I was fine and looked out the window to distract myself. The ground, so very far below, was utterly flat and divided up into neat parcels of farmland. For some reason, this bothered me. I went back to reading.

As we headed into the sunset and day turned into night I could see little out of the window except the darkness. That was okay.

Then the turbulence started. The seatbelt light came on but I was good — I’d never unbuckled mine. At first, it was just a bump or two. These bumps were followed by others more vigorous. The captain came on to apologize, saying that we were near the Rockies and encountering some wind shear and it should be over in a few minutes. I remembered reading here that turbulence is never a serious issue. I sought my inner ka. The turbulence ended after 10 minutes or so and I was fine. I was more than fine. I was mellow.

Also uncomfortable. Economy class seats are not the greatest.

When we began our descent into Vancouver, I gazed out at the sea of lights, trying to spot anything I might recognize. Nothing looked familiar but wait — there were the lights on Grouse Mountain! And there was the Lions Gate Bridge, all twinkly and pretty. Home!

We banked wide over the ocean and suddenly all the lights went away. I looked and saw what looked like a light on top of a cloud. While my mind tried to reconcile what that might be, everything outside the window disappeared. There was no light, no cloud, nothing but dark. How could this be? We were about to land. A few moments later came the answer as we hit the fog bank that had socked in the airport. When the plane broke through it the runway was right below us. The braking on landing always makes me think the pilot is mashing the brake pedal, shouting “Stop! Stop! Stop before we run out of runway! STOP!” Then we stop.

We had to fill out a declaration form to enter Canada (“I do hereby swear I am not carrying $10,000 or more in cash on me nor do I have a cow or other farm animal stuffed in my jacket”), which I had done on the flight, so all I had to do after disembarking was feed the form into a machine which gave me a nice receipt that I showed to some indifferent security dude. Then I only had to walk a few kilometers through the terminal and I was free, free at last! The Tim Hortons was closed so I immediately went to the Canada Line and caught the train downtown, transferred to another, then a third (nightly track maintenance forced the second transfer) and all told, from arrival at the terminal to arrival at home was took about two hours or half the distance to travel between Dallas and Vancouver. If only our SkyTrain moved at 500 mph.

Once home I scrounged for food, ate a bowl of Rice Chex and went to bed. My Nashville adventure was officially over.

This morning I stepped on the scale to survey the damage and was astonished to find I’d only added two pounds. I say astonished because I ate everything. For one week if you looked up ‘glutton’ in the dictionary you’d have found my picture beside it. So I am pleasantly surprised. Now begins the task of not shoving every last bit of food in my mouth.

And a few assorted pictures in completely random order:

These are the pennies I left behind in my suite. In Canada we killed the penny. Bad pennies!

The view from my plane after we arrived at Dallas-Forth Worth Airport. This is 1/100th of the tarmac.

The Presidential Ballroom of the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. The answer to the question is B.

Close-up if you can’t read it from my standard blurry phone photo:

Apparently this is supposed to make you think of pizza. Mmm, horse pizza.

Gift shop Christmas stuff. I think the Halloween stuff was on the other side.

In Nashville a bylaw states that 60% of all businesses must include “Opry” in the name.

My suite with custom pillow chair.

This is part of Delta Island inside the Gaylord Opryland hotel. It is 1/100th of the total hotel space.

I forgot to have anyone take my photo in front of an Opry sign or what have you, so the best I could do was a mirror shot in my suite.

I got the Coke Zero from the front desk. I didn’t trust the vending machines after The Incident.

And thus my week of flight terror, Opry-everything, IT conferencing and waffle-eating has come to an end. I now have a long weekend to rest, recover and ruminate.

I bid you good day (y’all).

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