You can find it on a road!

2008 is shaping up to be one of the quietest road construction seasons Nashville has seen in years. The only significant projects going on right now, according to TDOT, are a bridge deck rehabilitation on the TN 155/Thompson Lane overpass over I-65 on the south side, some resurfacing on TN 155/White Bridge Road on the west side and TN 254/Old Hickory Blvd/Bell Road on the southeast side, a bridge replacement on US 70/Lebanon Rd over the Stones River in Hermitage, and soome pothole patching and guardrail repair in various locations. No real major projects going on right now in Metro Nashville/Davidson County! Murfreesboro, as always, has a few projects going on, and there's an interchange modification on I-40 in Mt. Juliet and some bridge painting along I-40 in Dickson. That's about it!



This year, it seems, most of TDOT's resources are focused on Smartfix40 in Knoxville, which is indeed a very important project. I guess if the economy were in better shape and gas tax revenues were higher, they would also be working on Phase II of the I-40/Briley Pkwy/White Bridge Road interchange rebuild and the widening of I-65 south of Franklin.

It's so nice not having anything to do today.

Yesterday was 7 days straight that I've had to work, and I'm finally off today. I might mow the grass later on today, but for now it's nice to just relax. Angie is off too, so it's even nicer.

As far as area roads are concerned, I've noticed a couple of suspicious new signs along I-24 in Rutherford Co. I can't remember exactly what they were for, but I know that one was eastbound before TN 266/Sam Ridley Pkwy. in Smyrna and the other was westbound somewhere in Murfreesboro. They were BGSs for points of interest, and they had the exit tab centered above the main sign! Now Tennessee has been justifying tabs since the mid 90's, so I find it odd that they may be changing their style. I don't think the MUTCD has suggested a change to this standard recently.

Personally, when it comes to BGS or BBrS signage for points of interest off of exits, I prefer it when they put "EXIT XX" at the bottom of the main sign and forget the tab altogether. Tennessee used to do this regularly, and this is Kentucky's standard. The tabs on these signs seem to make it confusing. One might think that the point of interest was the only thing off of that exit.

In other Tennessee road news, as of 5/1/2008 at 00:00, a two-mile or so stretch of I-40 is now officially closed down in Downtown Knoxville. Traffic wanting to get through Knoxville along the I-40 corridor is being detoured onto I-640. Access to Downtown Knoxville and the University of Tennessee is still possible by following I-40 to either of its temporary ends. This 14-month closure will completely reconstruct what was considered to be the worst stretch of I-40 anywhere across the country. http://www.smartfix40.com is TDOT's official website for the project.

Personally, I spoke with my brother-in-law yesterday, who travelled through Knoxville the other day to visit his folks in South Carolina. He says that I-640 flowed well, and he wasn't delayed in traffic at all. Now I believe it was after rush hour when he travelled through there, but at least there was no 24/7 gridlock on I-640. What's interesting is that I recently heard that I-75 through traffic is encouraged to take I-275 and I-40 through the Downtown area in order to ease the burden on I-640. This is a good suggestion, and I hope that I-75 traffic follows that advice.

Also, enough with the fake names!



I'm now married to a wonderful wonderful lady named Angie. She is the love of my life and we are extremely lucky to have one another.

We did sell her house back in February just in time for us to breathe a sigh of relief and enjoy our wedding, which occurred on March 22 at a wedding chapel in Old Hickory, TN. We spent a fabulous honeymoon aboard the Caribbean Princess cruise ship, which we picked up in Ft. Lauderdale and stopped at St. Maarten/Martin, St. Thomas, and Princess Cays (their private resort on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera).

Once I get electronic versions of our wedding photos, I'll post some. We should be getting our wedding albums fairly soon.

My mother, who lives in Murfreesboro, TN but works nearly 30 miles away in Franklin, TN, has finally found a new place to live in Franklin! She'll only be about 2 miles from work at the most, and she'll be very close to just about every store imaginable! She'll officially move there at the end of May.

My stepsister in NC had her baby in early March. I'm afraid to say that I can't remember the exact date. Everything was a blur in early March since our wedding was coming up. His name is Sully (short for his middle name of Sullivan) and he's very healthy! My br0ther-in-law's girlfriend had their child on January 11, a very large baby named Ty. He was over 9 pounds when he was born!

Speaking of my brother-in-law, Chad, he's in the hospital right now. He had this pimple on his leg that apparently was a Staph infection. It got worse and worse to the point where he had to have surgery on it this morning. Everything went well and he's staying tonight at the hospital. Angie is with him and his girlfriend, helping with the baby while he's away from home. It sounded like he's going to be ok when I talked to him earlier today. However, I'm sure he'll be out of work for a bit till he feels good enough to walk again.

Finally, I attended a road meet two weekends ago! Seth (my former roommate) and myself drove up to St. Louis, MO for this event. We left my house early on the morning of Saturday April 19 and made the 5 hour drive to STL just in time for the lunchtime meet, then we toured where they have closed down I-64/US 40 (a.k.a. "Forty" or "Farty") between just E of I-270 and I-170 for a complete reconstruction of the entire roadway. It closed on January 1, 2008 and is supposed to reopen on January 1, 2009. They have made some good progress thus far, but still have a ways to go.

Sometime in June, I will get together with fellow roadgeek H.B. from Kentucky in Knoxville, TN to scout out a tour for a potential road meet that we will hold there sometime in the fall. This Thursday, May 1, a portion of I-40 through Downtown Knoxville will be completely closed down for a complete reconstruction similar to what they're doing in STL. It'll take place along a much shorter stretch of highway, but it will be very complicated, so TDOT has scheduled this closure to last 14 months. Motorists will still be able to access Downtown Knoxville from I-40 or I-275, but they will not be able to move past downtown on the freeway. To travel E-W through the city, motorists will have to use the I-640 bypass. TDOT has widened all of the ramps leading to/from I-40 and I-640 along the detour to three lanes each to soften the blow.

I hope that gets everybody caught up! I'm gonna try as hard as I can to post at least once a week. Until then, go out there and find things on ROADS!

This is my life. Things are so hectic I'll completely forget about certain things, including this blog. It's been nearly one full calendar year since I've last posted! I'll give a quick rundown on things that have happened to me in the past year.



Back last December, my then-girlfriend "Amy" graduated from Belmont University with her BSN in Nursing. She got a new job at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in one of their many ICUs. In January, she and her two dogs moved in with me. It hasn't been an easy transition, but I enjoy the time we spend together. In May, I proposed marriage to her, and she accepted. Once I figure out how to put photos in my posts, I'll try to post a picture of the ring. The wedding will be March 22, 2008.



Right now, we are in the process of getting her old house in Nashville ready to put on the market. Her brother had been living in it, but he couldn't afford to pay her rent, and his girlfriend didn't want to live in that part of town, so he moved to Murfreesboro to be with her. She's preggers, btw, and they're due a few weeks before the wedding.



My stepsister in NC is also preggers. She's due only a couple of weeks before the wedding, but she has guaranteed me that she will not miss my wedding. I visited her last weekend. She and her husband bought a new house in a desirable older section of Greensboro, NC. It will be a great place to start a family.



Let's see..... Amy's parents moved from Columbia, SC to Henderson, NC when her mother accepted a management job at a hospital there. We visited them over the summer and had a good time. I finally feel like I'm growing closer to her family, and I hope they feel like I'm the right person for their daughter.

Shortly after that trip, Amy, her two friends "Tanya" and "Elizabeth", and myself took a weeklong vacation to my dad's condo in Ft. Myers, FL. We flew down there for the first time instead of drove, and it was very enjoyable. My dad and stepmother do keep a vehicle parked down there, and we all drove it to Key West. It was about a 4-5 hour one-way drive, although it probably only takes a couple of hours to get there by boat, but the drive across the keys is something everyone should experience, whether you're a roadgeek or not.

Just when I thought I was through with Florida for the year, my work transfers me down there for pretty much the entire month of August! This time it was Orlando. I worked mostly night shift, which was not easy, and I did work I'm not accustomed to doing, but I started to get the hang of it. Hotel rooms were very reasonable since it was the start of the off season for tourists. I managed to stay in a decent room for less than $50 a night! Since they weren't working on weekends, I would drive down to Ft. Myers to the condo and spend time with my dad's friends who live close by. All in all, it was one of the better transfers I had, and I wouldn't mind going back one day, but not any time soon.

Tonorrow, I am going on transfer again. This time to Memphis, but it will only be for the week. I will work tomorrow in Nashville, go home and pack, and hit 40 west.

I'll try to post more during the week since I'll have a lot of time to myself down there. Right now I have to go work at her old house a little bit.

NashvilleGasPrices.com has really gotten unnecessarily nitpicky as of late. One time they sent me an email saying I posted an incorrect diesel price. I don't think I posted a diesel price at that time. I was pretty sure I posted a price for unleaded. Perhaps I did make that mistake, so at that time, I shrugged that one off.

Then last week, they tell me that I gave an incomplete address for the local Mapco Express here in Kingston Springs. I listed the address as simply "Hwy. 249 (Luyben Hills Rd.)". Luyben Hills Road is only about a mile long at the most, and along it sits the town's only four gas stations, a Petro truck stop, a Shell, a BP, and the aforementioned Mapco. I felt that their nitpickiness was completely unnecesary since the people who would pass by this particular gas station would know where it is anyway, and since I posted prices for the other three stations using the exact same address and they didn't say anything about them! As a result of their behavior, I replied back to them with simply "the room", at http://www.gribblenation.com/room.jpg . They then thought it would be cute to cancel my account without telling me, as it appears that I can no longer log in.

Screw them. I guess the motoring public will just miss out on the relatively cheap gas prices here in Kingston Springs.

Well I've finally done it! Created a blog.

Now, stage two: Making it interesting.

Well that stage is pretty well shot!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my mindless ramblings concerning life, family, relationships, career, and ROADS!