Food and sights...

Here's where the going got tough. What to do to satisfy three things: make frugal choices, eat in a healthy fashion, and do so in such a way that your co workers won't kill you (or worse, whisper about you back home)?

Can't say I did a fantastic job at it, but I did have a couple of principles:

1. Default drink was water or iced tea, and very rarely an adult beverage. I learned in college that it was way cheaper and far more entertaining to watch the drunk people than to be drunk yourself. I gave away one of my free drink tickets at the junket host party; that made up for the teasing I got for ordering water at the bar.

2. Since both meetings took care of lunch, that saved me a bit. Dinners I aimed for salads and food that Nashville specialized in, if nothing else for the experience. Loved the meat and three places. If nothing else I learned that fried pickles are weird but very, very good.

3. The Sights. That was really, really hard because you're either going or you're not; no frugal rates. I had to turn the frugal button off a couple of times.

My only tactic for the Country Music Hall of Fame and RCA Studio B tour was to buy the package, and get as much out of it as possible. It was fun and I learned a lot...probably not 35$ worth, but you only live once. How many times can you claim to stand on the same square of linoleum that Elvis did?

It was equally tough when we were going from bar to bar, listening to the bands. The tip jar would come out - How much do you put in? I went for generous, especially if the band was good. I figured they were working hard for the cash.