Recently in miscellaneous Category

• 8 hours at Dollywood is, arguably, not necessarily enough.
• Speaking of Miss Parton, more than 3000 songs recorded, and 75 albums released.
• People go to Tennessee on vacation. License plates seen from 39 states (what's up with you: Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, North Dakota, Nebraska, Montana, Alaska, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada?) and three Canadian provinces.
• Speaking of license plates, Tennessee has more plate designs than you can shake a Toyota FlapJack at.
• Speaking of flapjacks, if you open a restaurant in Sevier County, it better serve pancakes. The Smoky Mountain Pancake House in Pigeon Forge is the spot to beat.
• Not news, but that the Jack Daniel's distillery is located in a dry county, is pretty damn funny.
• It's whiskey, not bourbon.
• Gatlinburg is the unknown sister city to Seattle. It has its own Space Needle.
• Even for only 20 minutes, walking on the Appalachian Trail is pretty damn cool.
• Thankfully, it seemed the majority of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Hatch Show Print survived the floods with limited damage. The same can't seemingly be said for the Grand Old Opry.
• Nashville is open for business.
• It's probably impossible to hear "Rocky Top" too many times.
  

I can't seem to avoid 5...

Haagen-Dazs

OK, I know 2009 is over, but I'm not quite ready to put it to bed, blogolistically speaking. And still to type are my thoughts on the last decade, musically speaking.

But if there was some theme to the last year, spending my hard-earned Benjamins seems to have been it. Off the top of my head, sort of chronologically:

• New dining chairs
• New car
• New sofa, though I can't recommend shopping at Dania
• New laptop (here's a hint, back up your hard drive every so often)
• And the kicker, new house

Also in the "low three figures" were a new MP3 player and a new suit, but those are going linkless.

So, 2010, the year of frugality? You'd think I'd slow down with the turning of a calendar page and a 6-figure mortgage, but the new started like the old with a new (well, new to me but really vintage) coffee table and dining table. Eh, it's only money. It grows on trees, right?