I spent part of a cold and foggy morning yesterday walking around downtown taking photos for possible use on the new Ackermann PR web site.
Naturally, I also took a few photos for my own amusement such as this shot of reflected Gay Street storefronts captured inside a Christmas ornament.
You can see a sampling of my recent exploration of downtown photo opportunities on my Flickr pages.
The song of the week is a day late this week, but there’s a perfectly good explanation. I had to visit the North Pole yesterday to get some last minute instructions from my seasonal boss– Santa Claus.
You see, for the past ten years, I’ve been moonlighting as one of Santa’s helpers in Knoxville. I happily volunteer as the City of Knoxville’s Santa Claus at selected events during Knoxville’s “Christmas in the City” celebration.
Typically, this means I don the big red suit of joy in October for the city’s press conference announcing the upcoming events for November and December. Then I, along with my ever-patient beautiful bride, take on the role of Mr. and Mrs. Claus for the annual Regal Celebration of Lights in downtown Knoxville on the Friday after Thanksgiving and later in December at the Comcast Christmas at Chilhowee. (Although, this year, we will not be helping out the Claus’ at Chilhowee because of a scheduling conflict. One of Santa’s other helpers will be filling in this year.) I used to play Santa at the Sea Ray Christmas Boat parade until that part of the holiday celebration was discontinued.
I always say that helping Santa is the closest many of us can ever come to knowing what it feels like to be a rock star. When you step out into public there is a sudden halt to activity around you as everyone turns to look your way. People shout, wave, and try to touch you. Some rush forward to you 
and cry out your name. There is cheering and a few may lose bladder control. The psychic wave of cheer that rushes over you is completely worth the hours of picking up and putting down toddlers from my lap and the morning-after stiffness and aching muscles that accompany an evening such as last night’s celebration.
And, so in the spirit of the arrival of the Christmas season, this week’s song of the week is a reminder that Santa is on his way.
I’m a few days late in posting about this, but Coury Turcyzn posts a photo on his Metropulse blog, the Daily Pulse, of what looks to be a new design for the Cradle of Country Music Walking Tour markers in downtown.
I will say that the markers I originally wrote for the tour 10 years ago probably had their fair share of typos in them, but they also had more words. When one trims a marker text down from a couple of paragraphs to only nine words it’s harder to disguise the mistakes.
The new design looks interesting, however. I plan to send an e-mail out to some folks in the city to see if there’s a planned roll-out of more of these. In the wake of various construction and renovation projects downtown, several of the markers on the tour have been removed. It would be nice to have the tour relaunched with new markers.
Ackermann Digital Ackermann Wire No Silence Here 