Memphis Most Walkable - Makes Me Sick

Scene from Belmont Boulevard. The 3 mile stretch of sidewalks, bike paths and pedestrian friendly roadway.

Prevention Magazine named Nashville the 7th most walkable city in Tennessee and it didn't even make the top 100 in the United States. Memphis on the other hand, is the most walkable city in Tennessee and is #73 in the United States.

I have a problem with this ranking, as some would assume I would. The ranking is based on pollution levels, number of people who walk for exercise, crime rates and sidewalk availability. I agree that Nashville lacks sidewalks in the residential areas. Moving to Nashville from Detroit many years ago, that is one of the first things my Mom noticed (I know, the little things surprise her).

However, have you been downtown recently? Have you encountered any pollution? Probably not. Have you seen a lot of people walking on sidewalks? Probably. Did you know that you can walk from the residential ares of East Nash, to Germantown, to Downtown, to SoBro, to the Gulch, to Demumbreun and to Vandy (that new 20th and Grand residential building), all using sidewalks?

I have a friend that walked back to my condo at 2:30am from Demumbreun because he didn't have money for a cab, and that is about 2.5 miles... and he used sidewalks!

In case you were wondering, Cambridge, Massachusetts is the #1 most walkable city in the U.S.

All this being said, I think that Nashville is already making progress to increase the walkability of the city, but this should be a wake up call to Mayor Karl Dean.

Nashville Madness

Nashville sports is once again in the news. This time its not for Pacman Jones, Jordin Tootoo, Dario Franchitti or Hope Hines. This time, the city of Nashville is sending 3 college basketball teams to the big dance. Not only is the city of Nashville sending 3 teams, the entire state of Tennessee is sending 5 teams.

Watch out Indiana and North Carolina, we've got Austin Peay!

Vanderbilt, Belmont and Austin Peay have all been selected to go to the tournament, with Vandy and Belmont returning for consecutive years.

Unfortunately, I passed on the multiple chances I had to see Belmont play this year, but I wish them, and the rest of the teams good luck on Thursday and Friday and throughout the tournament.

Airport Entertainment

For those of you who haven't seen or heard the multiple TV, radio and print advertisements, the Nashville International Airport has been renovated. I have to admit, I'm very impressed.

Included in the renovation is live entertainment at the legendary Tootsie's Orchid Lounge. Tootsies is well known in Nashville for providing some of the best live music on Broadway.

I watched an episode of Tuckerville about 3 years ago and Tanya Tucker's underage daughter snuck into the bar and started singing on stage. This is where people become famous.

Since I try to do all things Nashville, I decided to get dinner at Tootsie's Airport location, instead of going down the terminal for something much cheaper. Turns out, Tootsie's Airport location is pretty cool, and people were cheering for the music and requesting a bunch of songs.

One problem. The 16-year-old kid playing the guitar didn't know half of the songs. He didn't even know one of the most popular honky tonk songs, "Gone Fishin' in the Dark" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

Overall, even though the bar is over priced and the music has a lot of room to improve, I'm once again proud that Nashville is trying something new by offering live music in the airport. That is something unique that not many other airports offer.

Bizzard 2008

Well, if you were in Nashville, you saw it. The snow started falling at 6 p.m. on Friday night. Nashville received the most snow I have seen in over 10 years. (I wasn't here for the 7 inches in 2002.)

My parents next door neighbors made a snowman and one of the big snowballs ended up on our yard. Rocky, our dog, was barking at it all night. That's about a year after he barked at a black plastic trash bag in our yard all night.

The best part of the snow is the picture below. The fine music establishment "The Stage" on Broadway felt that it was necessary to tell its patrons that they were in fact open.

Then, the band arrived late. They did not start playing music until 11:45 p.m. We all know that everyone goes to the Stage at 11 because that's when the music starts. I heard the lead singer say they got stuck in the snow. Really? You got stuck in the snow? All 2 inches? We knew it was coming for 8 days, and you couldn't leave a few minutes early to get to the bar on time? Poor excuse music man.