This weekend is big doings for Nashville. We are hosting the annual Music City Marathon, with an expected participation of 30,000 runners.

The Nashville Convention Center and all of downtown is filled with runners and their families, friends and supporters as they settle in for registration and the early events.

The weather is not promising to cooperate for this huge event. Temperatures have in the 80’s this week and rain is expected Saturday morning.

The race starts at 7:00 am and many streets throughout downtown Nashville will be closed all of Saturday morning and into the afternoon to accomodate the runners and spectators.

The elite runners, those who have the best chance of winning based on other races and finish records, are expected to complete the 26.2-mile full race course at a pace of under five minutes per mile.

What is it about the Thomas the Train movies that grabs the attention of kids everywhere? They are nothing more than a man reading a story book out loud, like any parent reads a bedtime story. And they are in British words and phrases, easy enough for an American to understand, but obviously different from what the kids here are used to hearing.

My grandson absolutely loves anything that has to do with Thomas the Train. I can send him any present – a book, a new train, a sticker book – that has Thomas on it and he loves it. I even found a website for him to play Thomas games and watch short Thomas the Train videos on the internet when he comes for a visit.

My youngest son has invited me to his house in Alabama for Memorial Day weekend. That will be tough to schedule around, as the last half of May is always spent in Las Vegas at the ICSC convention.I can change my return flight to depart Las Vegas and arrive in Birmingham, but I would rather come back to Nashville and drive down. We’ll see how I can work it out. The main objective is to be in Huntsville no later than 10:00 am Saturday morning, as my grandson is going to be in a parade at noon.

The parade is big doings in a military town. It will be jam packed with people both in the parade and also cheering along the parade route. Finding a parking spot is going to be a huge challenge. But it will be worth it to watch my grandson riding a float and waving to everyone!

My daughter-in-law asked me for help making his costume. They want something patriotic or military looking. I told her that instead of making a costume it will be much easier and faster to order a costume from a website called In Costume. This site is great for finding a Halloween Costume, but they have costumes for all kinds of events, holidays and parties.

There is a section just for kids costumes and many different types, like Historical Costumes, Super Hero Costumes, and Television & Movies Costumes. I found a darling Uncle Sam costume that comes in a child’s size Medium, and it’s very reasonably priced.

There is also an Army uniform and a Navy uniform, and an Air Force uniform. Any of these should be great for what she wants. I’m sure there is something at In Costume that my grandson can wear in the parade.

My son in Alabama is beginning to understand that starting up and running your own business is full of pesky little chores that take up a lot of your time and need to be handled in a timely manner, such as balancing the different business bank accounts so your employee’s checks don’t bounce and keeping a paper trail of disciplinary actions with a problem employee so the Department of Labor doesn’t get on your back.

I told him about a nice software package called “Manager Assistant” that can help him get better organized and stay on top of those HR and manager details. I like the feature that let’s you schedule and manage employee reviews because I am a firm believer of constant feedback and working with employees as a team, with common goals and measureable progress. But this program has many different modules to help you with many different kinds of management tasks.

My goodness, my son has a lot to learn! But glad I’m here to help and glad to do it. I have no doubt he’ll end up being a great boss and make his business a great success.

I saw over the weekend that they’ve announced the NFL schedule for the new season. I might try to go to a few of the games this year.

When I got divorced the ex insisted on taking the season tickets and seat licenses for the Titans, and at the time I was so glad to be rid of him that I didn’t care. But now I kick myself for letting him have them, because he moved away and gave my tickets to his worthless street thug sons.

This year the Titans might have a decent season and since they FINALLY wised up about the thug Pacman and got rid of him, I might be more interested in being a Titans fan again. But I still love the Redskins, too.

Some of us in the office are taking about going in together for some tickets and maybe even doing a fantasy league restricted to just people within our office. I think that would be great fun, but I have to get some help with the newer players and stats if I’m going to compete on a fantasy league.

Bill told me about a sports site that he like called Addict Sports. They have a forum where people can discuss all kinds of things about all the different sports. Bill says he used it last year for his NFL fantasy team on Yahoo and that he came in second place, thanks to all the help he got with his NFL picks from the Addict Sports NFL forum.