Doctor Q in Nashville

[iMeowbot]

3. I've head of gold records and platinum records, but it looked like more than two colors to me. Are some of these silver records instead of platinum? Being color blind, I can't really tell, and I don't know what they put on the wall when your album goes double gold or triple platinum. Anyone care to explain?

Yeah, some countries (but not the US) have silver, and a few have diamond at the top end. Platinum is a fairly recent addition, 1970s-ish depending on the country.

In the old days labels did all the awarding on their own, and they still often produce the awards themselves even if there is an industry certification. That's why the appearance isn't very consistent.

[edit: Oo, who belongs to that Wurlitzer piano? I used to love the sound of those things.]

 

[skoker]

Yes, I had a knee-slappin' foot-stompin' good time.

I tried to take some interesting photos along the way. For starters, I jumped off the plane and ran alongside as it taxied on the runway, so I could get a good shot. I was unable to wave out the window and then get outside fast enough to beat the light waves, however, so you can't see me in the window.

It took a little more skill to race ahead of the plane and get a shot of it coming at me head-on during takeoff, and then jump back on just as it lifted off so I didn't miss my flight, but I manged to do that too.

Perhaps I've twisted this story just a bit but I really did take these shots while my plane was on the runway.

Meanwhile, the 3rd photo (the Bell South building) is the coolest building I saw downtown. And I recognize the three stars in a circle from the Tennessee state flag. Pretty good for a Northerner, eh?

Does Dr. Q have the amazing power to change a Boeing 737-800 into an McDonnel-Douglas MD-80?

 

[baby duck monge]

Meanwhile, the 3rd photo (the Bell South building) is the coolest building I saw downtown.

You wouldn't be the only person to think this building is particularly pronounced - down here it's affectionately refered to as the "Batman building" or some other, similar, moniker.

 

[w_parietti22]

BBQ??!?!? NO!!! I have lived in Nashville since 2000 and been in the hospitality business. Many hotel guests ask about BBQ places and there are not many that I am aware of...at least Local. here's a link to some BBQ listings here in Music City: http://www.musiccityusa.com/dining/dining.aspx?menu=Visitors. I mean, it appears that ppl have this misconception that Nashville is known for BBQ! Ummmmm..... no. Guests also ask for LOCAL bbq restaurants.... ummmm... no. Now, there is Jack's BBQ downtown on Broadway, but that is more of a pick-up and go place. Not really a comfortable place to go eat at, you know?

Suggestion: although I have never taken the time to do it... try calling the Nashville CVB and see what they say: 800-657-6910.

Definately checkout Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center. I worked there for 5 years. It's not a fun place to work, but a fun place to visit. They have 10 acres of tropical gardens inside the hotel in three seperate atriums (temperature controlled). Also, they have an hourly watershow called Aqua in the Delta atrium, along with a flatboat ride inside the hotel. I highly recommend it for anyone...seriously. Parking is insane there, so my suggestion is to park at the far end corner of the Opry Mills Mall parking lot (same complex as the resort) and walk over to the hotel - It'll save you $12 in parking check em out: www.gaylordopryland.com

Country Music Hall of Fame is interesting to go to - maybe tour the Hermitage Mansion if you are interested in Hisotry. Downtown they also have a replica of the Parthenon.

I will warn you, although Nashville is fun, the construction is pretty bad. I-65, I-40, I-24 are ALL under construction around downtown and in the suburb parts. Allow yourself some traffic time and a little slower travel time b/c of this. Nashville is definately growing and I'm excited about it. That's why the construction doesn't bother me, because it means development and growth. It does become frustrating for a visitor though.

Have fun while you're here!

OP: What part of Nashville will you be staying at?

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I skipped your entire post because of the font.

 

[Doctor Q]

The Grand Ole Opry

1. I got a front-row seat at the Grand Ole Opry. However, it was the front row of the back section. The seats are modeled after church pews but are well padded and comfortable, which was good because the show was many hours long.

2. I was surprised that they let you take all the photos you want during the show. You can walk down the aisles and take photos a few feet from the stage, so I could take all the closeups of accordian players that I needed. How many photos of accordian players one needs is another question entirely.

3. The Grand Ole Opry is a radio show, so performers generally stand in one place while playing and singing, unlike the cavorting on stage that rock performers are known for. The surprising part for me was that we had to listen to the radio ads, read by the announcer in a booming voice every few minutes. It seemed odd that people would pay to go to a show and listen to somebody read them ads for Cracker Barrel (and other sponsors; it varied for each half-hour segment). But I suppose we have to sit through ads at movie threaters too these days.

Despite the almost-exclusively auditory show, a troupe of clog dancers did perform for a minute or two at the start of the show, and dancers did one quick number at the end of the show too.

4. As you would guess, once the country stars heard that I was a MacRumors member, they gave me an extra dose of their famous Southern hospitality, inviting me onstage, giving me presents, and inviting me to spend the summer at their homes. In particular, this clog dancer is probably still telling her friends how wonderful it was to pose with a geek from the famous MacRumors forums.

I've now had my fill of country music for the month. Now I will go back to listening to my rock and roll (and the Wicked original Broadway cast album. of course). A new friend that I just got will help me listen.

 

[Doctor Q]

The Hermitage

I went to visit Andrew Jackson, but he wasn't home. Actually, he was there; that's his tomb behind me; he's on the left side and his wife is on the right side.

The Hermitage is Andrew Jackson's plantation and it was a cool place to visit, in both senses of the word: interesting to see, and the temperature in the museum was a relief from the 95 degree heat and 80% humidity outside.

The mansion there is actually the third version built. It was rebuilt larger each time. The last time they put the kitchen in a separate building to reduce the fire threat. Perhaps they got tired of rebuilding it!

The Hermitage mansion was quite the place for guests to visit and be entertained. No indoor plumbing, but fancy furnishings and they even had dances in the dining room. It took weeks for people to travel from other parts of the (then much small) U.S.A., so guests would stay many days when they came to the Hermitage.

I learned a lot about Andrew Jackson's personal history and how "Old Hickory" went from being orphaned to being a lawyer, a war hero, Governor of the Florida territory, and eventually U.S. president. There was plenty of controversy about him: He had a temper (he killed a man in a duel), he kept slaves, he moved Indians off their land "for their own good", and he accidentally married his wife Rachel before her divorce was final (he remarried her once he found out about that, but it was used against him by political opponents). But he was also a thoughtful statesman, a good businessman, and had concern for the good of the country.

I learned that his wife died within days of his leaving for Washington as president and his adopted son died within days of the end of the civil war. I toured the plantation buildings and tried to imagine that the grass all around the plantation was previously cotton fields. The original Jackson family living quarters was a simple two story house. When the first mansion was built, he had the original house turned into slave quarters. The museum had a special exhibit about the lives of the slaves there, who were in two groups - the house slaves and the field workers. It was not an easy life for any of them.

Little known fact: Michael Jackson is not a descendant of Andrew Jackson. In fact, Andrew Jackson had no biological children at all.

As soon as I can afford it, I will save enough money to buy a $20 bill and see if it's true that Andrew Jackson's picture is on it!

 

[Doctor Q]

The Loveless Cafe

The Loveless Cafe was one of the Nashville tourist sites promoted by websites and in brochures, so I went there to check it out. It's away from town, not in Nashville itself.

Frankly, I found it to be a tourist trap, and not worth the drive to get to it. Look at the photo - you can't even tell what the Friday and Saturday specials are from the sign!

The biscuits and (homemade I assume) jam were fine, and the meal was OK but not especially notable. The shops around the restaurant weren't much of a thrill either: a small art studio, a ceramics shop, a jewelry shop, a gift/novelty store, and a bicycle shop. Huh - a bicycle shop? However, the people were all friendly.

I spotted the letter Q on a few signs, so I posed with them. Then it was back to Nashville.

Along the road, I was surprised how much of the land is covered by forest. I saw this from the plane too when I first got to Tennessee. It appears that the whole state is covered with forests, except of course where we humans have cleared land for our own purposes.

 

[Applespider]

2. I noticed that the Country Music Hall of Fame building has windows that look like a piano keyboard, which I assume is on purpose. They also have shapes that look like notes on a musical staff on the outside of the building that houses the Hall of Fame plaques. Very clever.

It was designed to have several musical themes in the building.

The new building's exterior is laced with symbolic images. The most obvious of these are the windows that look like the black keys of a piano. More conspicuous images include the diamond-shaped radio mast, which is a miniaturized replica of the WSM tower located a few miles south of Nashville. The round discs surrounding the tower symbolize the different size records and CDs country music has been recorded upon. When viewed from the air [1], the building is in the shape of a bass clef. The north-west corner of the building juts out like the tail fin of a '57 Chevy.

 

[Doctor Q]

The Green Hills Apple Store

On my last day in Nashville, I managed to find my way to the Green Hills Apple Store.

(By the way, I find it odd that Apple's Where to buy page uses a huge drop-down list of retail stores while the Retail page has separate "Select a State" and "Select a Store" drop-downs.)

Photo #1: When I got to the store, I was surprised to find a line outside, since it wasn't a grand opening, there wasn't a new Mac OS X out, and no new products had yet been announced (this was pre-WWDC).

Photo #2: You can see that the entrance is roped off. They were letting people in only a few at a time as others left, as they do at big events.

The employee I asked explained why: There was a no-sales-tax weekend in progress (was it state wide?), and customers were at this and other stores ready to save big bucks by making big purchases. However, Apple had the only store in the mall with a line like that.

Photo #3: When they saw my Q hat, they of course ushered me to the front of the line and let me in right away. Of course.

Photo #4: Guess what? The inside of the store looked like the insides of many other Apple stores! What a surprise!

They could easily have let more people in the store at once; it wasn't crowded at all. Perhaps they liked having a line outside to make the Store look more in demand?

I had a question about replacing a Superdrive, so I asked at the Genius Bar, but I was told that the geniuses had the day off - they were providing no technical support during the no-sales-tax event. I guess people buying new Macs and needing help setting them up had to come back another day.

 

[Doctor Q]

Doctor Q gets bumped but not jostled

I never finished the story of my trip.

On Sunday, while I was waiting in the Nashville airport for my flight home to Los Angeles (and pestering the people at the check in desk because I was curious why the airport is called "BNA"), they made an announcement that they had overbooked my flight. They even offered to pay volunteers $200 to take a flight the next day instead. I didn't have to be home by a particular deadline, but I didn't want to miss the WWDC coverage the next morning, and the weather was so muggy I didn't really want to stay in Nashville an extra day, so I didn't jump at the chance.

However, I knew that they often sweeten the offer if they don't get any volunteers, so I stayed nearby to listen for further announcements. Sure enough, they made a second announcement a bit later, offering $350, a paid meal and overnight stay, and flying first class to anyone who would be voluntarily bumped from the flight. I went for it! Even though I'd be flying during WWDC, I figured I could catch up with keynote details soon enough.

As it turned out, I didn't have to stay in Nashville. They let me take a flight to Dallas on Sunday and another flight from Dallas to Los Angeles Monday morning. So I ended up staying in Dallas on Sunday night!

I haven't flown first class for years, and it was a treat, mostly for my legs. Having enough leg room (and elbow room) can make a flight much more restful, although I still think it's silly to pay the extra $$$ they charge for it. But it's fine when somebody else is paying!

I thought that first class passengers would somehow look different (better dressed or carrying MacBooks instead of PC notebooks ), but you couldn't tell who was a first class passenger and who was "steerage" before we boarded. They were all "regular folks" like me. We got to board first, a privilege I don't understand. Shouldn't it be a privilege to board last and not have to stay in your seat so long, with other passengers walking by banging their carry-on luggage into your seat?

Tiny first class amenities: The mixed nuts they give passengers came in a warmed ceramic dish instead of in a tear-open packet. I got a small meal (a sandwich) while regular passengers got zilch. My tray came with a cloth cover and a linen napkin (but still with plastic utensils). And we VIPs could have free wine.

Perhaps the nicest part of being a first-class passenger is that I got to bypass the big line when checking in and go straight to the guy at the first-class desk. No waiting.

Here's a photo of me relaxing and being more important than all those hoi polloi commonfolk.

 

[Doctor Q]

I have two final photos from my trip, and each comes with a question.

The first is a baseball stadium I spotted out of the airplane window shortly after we took off from the Nashville airport. Is this Greer Stadium? If not, please forgive my lack of knowledge about Nashville and set me straight about what stadium it is.

The second is another photo from the airplane. It looks like a design inspired by the Apple Computer logo, don't you think? But is it a high-tech version of a crop circle, left there by an alien race (perhaps Steve Jovians)? Or is it a secret Apple R&D lab that has now been revealed for the first time?

 

[e-clipse]

I am glad you had a blast here in Nashville! The people here are really friendly. We are rapidly growing into a diverse city. I love your pics of our beautiful culture, both past and present.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Looks like you had a flipping awesome time.

I wonder if anyone recognized you as Q with that hat on in the Apple Store.

 

[Doctor Q]

Yes, the entire state of Tennessee is full of people who show you the utmost in hospitality.

I wonder if anyone recognized you as Q with that hat on in the Apple Store.

I guess they knew I was a Q, but perhaps not the Q.

It was tricky getting my photo in the doorway since there was the crowd out front and an employee minding the rope across the entrance as they let people in a few at a time. But once it was my turn to go in, I stopped there, used my MacRumors powers to ban everyone in the immediate area, and posed for my photo.

 

[xsedrinam]

Great pics, as alway, Doctor Q. I believe that IS Greer Stadium, the new location for the Nashville Sounds (AA?) baseball team. I especially enjoyed the story of the "upgrade"/"bump" i.e. smart move to wait for the second voucher announcement which paid up to a $350 value. I've waited in Miami where it has jumped to $950 once. Anyway, great to know you enjoyed yourself. And coming home in First Class is usually preferred to going out in First and returning in Coach. Thanks for the interesting read.