Wild Tangents
Marc talks about life in Nashville, life as a Catholic and life as a geek.

I don’t think I mentioned it when it happened, but Suzette and I recently moved from Nashville to Gallatin to be closer to the school she’s attending. This had it’s pros and cons, with most of the cons being in my court. It being much farther from the airport (my office commute) being the biggest con. The pros were mostly for Suzette. The biggest pro being that she now drive two minutes to get to school. Since I am out of town so much these days, we went with Suzette’s pros. I want to make sure she has the easiest time at school possible. Well, it turns out the biggest pro of all is in both our favor.

Since we’ve moved to Nashville, I’ve been somewhat disappointed with the state of the Church here as I have seen it. Since moving to the area, I’ve been to Thyatira. I’ve been to Sardis. I’ve been to Laodicea. I have to admit it has been a spiritually dry time for me, as I struggled with my own faith as I saw a lack of faith(fulness) in the environment around me. Please don’t misunderstand me. I have attended Mass at four parishes (well, I think most of them refuse the moniker “parish” and prefer “Catholic community”). The Diocese of Nashville has a huge Catholic presence that includes 51 parishes and 3 missions. So, what I have seen so far is probably not representative of the diocese as a whole. Nowhere is perfect though, not even Memphis. I know that. I am just speaking of my experinces. I am not trying to discredit the diocese.

Well now that we have moved to Gallatin, I can happily proclaim that I have found myself in Philadelphia. We are now attending Saint John Vianney in Gallatin. This parish is the stuff of dreams for an orthodox Roman Catholic. Now don’t get me wrong, the holy sacrifice of the Mass is always awesome. No matter how much someone tries to mess with it, it still has the same power and bestows the same graces as long as it’s valid. But it certainly warms this crusty old Roman Catholic’s heart to participate in the Mass where prayers are chanted, you hear the Greek “kyrie eleison”, the hymns are actually hymns and not some sixties feel good ditty that has no theological value and the priest never abandons Christ at the altar during the liturgy of the Eucharist. Don’t get me wrong, some of those feel good songs are catchy. “On Eagle’s Wings” has a lot of sentimental value for me. But they don’t belong in the Mass. I also can’t stand to hear the prayers of the Mass (holy holy holy, etc.) reduced to simple songs sung during the Mass. They are prayers and should be recited as such, not sung as songs where parts of them of turned into a chorus. It makes you forget that you are speaking with God.

I have also been to the Sacrament of Reconciliation at Saint John. I think I can say without breaking the seal of confession that these were a wonderful change of pace for me spiritually. Father gave good advice and penance that would not only fit the sin to make amends, but that would also help fight against the temptation to commit those sins again.

I am very happy to have found Saint John. I personally have renewed faith and spirituality and hope for the future of the Church here in Nashville now. I know it was The Blessed Virgin Mary that led me back to here son, just like she always does by leading me to Saint John. Rosaries always help like that.

We have a lot going on right now. We’re moving over the next month and have a lot of expenses going out. For this reason, I decided to do a reality check by logging on to regions.net and taking a look at at our checking account. You can imagine my surprise when I saw the bottom line at left showed our account was in the hole for seven hundred thirty nine dollars and fifty eight cents. Well, since I just deposited my check for accrued vacation from last job yesterday, I knew that wasn’t right. I mean really not right. I went ahead and changed the dates to be display to 01/01/06 to today. Well, it shows that I have had a negative balance pretty much the whole year so far. That’s not right. I called their automated number (901-580-6531 I only have one for Memphis, I anyone has the one for Nashville, let me know what it is please!), which told me what turns out to be an accurate number. Now I know I should take what data I can get through the website with a grain of salt, but I’m sure you can understand why I was a little concerned.

I can say I don’t remember having any trouble like with the Union Planters website….

Yesterday was bad day in Gallatin Tennessee. A tornado ripped though there yesterday around 2:30, killing 8+ people and doing as yet undetermined damage. One place that was very hard hit was Vol State Community College. This is of course where Suzette is going to school. Fortunately, she got a bug in her ear around 2:00 telling her that because of the storm outside, she needed to leave. As you may know, she is a very inexperienced driver and feels uncomfortable driving in bad weather. We are obviously lucky she left when she did.

I was still in San Francisco when this happened…..

UPDATE: Click here to see a picture of an 18 wheeler that wass picked up by the tornado and dropped on top of a car.  THis happened at an intersection in Gallatin not twenty minutes after Suzette drove through it.

This is going on mere feet from my apartment. They have the roads in all four directions blocked off. I came home for lunch and didn’t think I was going to make it. Now I am worried about getting back out again to get to work, as it looks like more police and other emergency vehicles are showing up. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. If I make it back to work, I’ll break my “no work blogging” rule to do an update.

[Breaking News: Shots Fired in Hermitage | WKRN.COM]

UPDATE: Well, I made it back out alive. I was able to see a little of the site from my complex. It didn’t look good. I wasn’t close enough to see any kind of damage on any of the cars, but it looks like there quite a few involved. They have also moved in the big orange ticker highway sign saying “Road Closed” on Central Pike on the I-40 side. I would assume they have done something similar on the other three legs from that intersection. Now I also have to assume that since they’ve gone to the trouble to place something of that nature there, that they don’t expect it to be cleared up anytime soon. If any one is reading this today and either of these two streets are part of your route home, my advice to you is to take the long way home today.

Today is my wife Suzette’s birthday. I am so happy to have her in my life and I want to wish her a very happy birthday today. I don’t know what I do without you! I love you!

Please feel free to click on the link below to wish her a happy birthday in the comments of her blog.

[Foxy Suzy » Happy birthday to Suzette!]

As I was getting in my car to go to work this morning, I noticed a bunch of little white pellets on the hood. It’s snowing! It’s weird snow too, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s shape reminds me of the spherical little bits of Styrofoam packing when it comes apart. It’s not ice though, because it’s still soft when it hits my face.

It’s wasn’t snowing real hard in Antioch (where I work) or in Hermitage (where I live). It was however coming down pretty hard in the Nashboro Village area when I drove through there this morning. It doesn’t appear to be accumulating yet, but you can see it whip up a little on the streets in the wind.

If it keeps it up and accumulates, I’ll gets some pictures up.

UPDATE:Well, it’s still coming down at lunchtime. But the ground is only getting wet, and not covered. It’s heated up to blistering 36° F now, so nothing will stick. I am wondering what tonight will bring though, since it’s supposed to get down to 29° F. Whatever happens though, it won’t last long. The forecast has it getting up to 51° F tomorrow.

UPDATE #2: How anti-climactic. It didn’t do much of anything. It didn’t even snow hard enough for the Memphis City School to have closed, which means it didn’t really snow at all. Sorry to let you all down, but no pics of this non-event.

OK. I move to Nashville and the murder rate goes up. That is disconcerting.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Nashville could end up with 100 homicides in 2005 — nearly double the previous year’s mark and one of the city’s deadliest years on record.
The total will reach 100 if police determine a woman whose body was found burned under a pile of debris Tuesday was a homicide victim.

That would make last year the third deadliest since countywide record keeping began in 1963 and approaches the record high of 112 in 1997.

In 2004, 58 homicides were recorded.

The homicide total excludes justifiable homicide or killings that were ruled self-defense.

One of the reasons I moved from Memphis to Nashville is the crime. I shouldn’t have to explain that. But for the uninitiated, Memphis has a bad crime problem. I don’t say that after looking at numbers or anything. I say that after living there. Nashville on the other hand seem to be much better, if we could only keep the politicians from Memphis out of the city.

I swear though. I did not bring it with me….

I also wonder about this anyway. Why is it being reported on the website for a TV station in Memphis?

[WREG-TV Memphis - Nashville homicides spike in 2005]

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