Senior Olympian Sprinter

Linda helped me celebrate my 58th birthday this week.   The actual birth date was on Monday the 17th, but I managed to milk the event into a several day event.   We went to see Daughtry do a show at the Ryman on the 16th,  and he was a lot of fun.  His voice is  unique and they put on a good show. He has recorded several commercial pop hits in the last 10 years and did them all.   He spent time between songs talking about the music and trying to connect to the audience and they seemed to have a great time.  Fun show.. On Monday the 17th, Linda got us a hotel room at the Union Station in downtown Nashville.  Union Station is a railroad depot/ hotel that was built over a 100 years ago and it is a gorgeous old building.  The stone building is still in great shape, with great service, and they have a very interesting restaurant where we had complimentary breakfast he next day. The central hall is really spectacular, with all the turn of the century architectural details. Check it out if

Flying home today we had an oil leak of some sort in St Louis on the SWA plane I had just loaded.    We had boarded the plane and were basically ready to hit the switch and leave for Nashville.    There was an eerie lack of activity from the crew after we loaded,   and then some pounding underneath the plane—and shortly thereafter the announcement to deplane.   There was on oil spot that someone had noticed on the tarmac.      I will give the people from the Midwest a huge amount of credit, no moaning, groaning, bitching and the expected outbursts you could expect as we unloaded.     Midwesterners take this crap is stride.   We got up,   grabbed our stuff and shuffled off the plane.      In the Eastern US, where everyone is infinitely more important, the reaction would have been chaos and some uproar.    Not the Midwest.   The Midwest  gets over looked on the news constantly,   while living thru hot summers, tornadoes, floods and bitter winters. God bless the Midwest, he blessed us w