One of the perks of my work at Hammock Inc., is the chance to visit interesting, often unusual places in order to immerse myself more fully in our clients’ activities. Or maybe embed is a better word to use when describing my trip to the annual Modern Day Marine Military Expo aboard Marine Corps Base Quantico, VA.

Co-sponsored by our client, The Marine Corps League and the Marine Corps Systems Command (MARCORSYSCOM), the event brings together Marines of all levels of experience and military suppliers for three days of equipment inspections and discussions.

The show has grown steadily over the years, and took an enormous leap this year, growing by 30 percent over last year, with 400 vendors and 8,200 attendees. Besides producing the League's member magazine, Semper Fi, we also produce the Expo directory; we increased the number for this year by 16 percent, and they were all gone halfway through the three-day show.

Besides attendance, this year's show may be regarded as a turning point because it occurred as the Marine Corps reshapes itself for future challenges. Every few years, The Marine Corps steps back, looks at the world in which it has to function and makes shrewd calculations about how that world will change in the near future and what the Corps must do to adapt.

This year, the Corps' new Commandant General James Conway signed off on the Vision and Strategy 2025 report.

Traditionally, the Corps has been America's "First to Fight" force, moving first and fast to trouble spots to take and hold positions, then turning them over to more permanent forces such as Army troops. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, however, the Corps has maintained an ongoing military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's not unheard of for the Corps to play this role, but it's not their preferred modus operandi. The Corps' leaders are looking forward to relinquishing that role in the near future and resuming its "expeditionary" function - with Marines based on ships close to potential trouble spots and areas with critical American interests at stake.

The report sees the Marines of 2025 as lean, agile and flexible - able to fight or conduct community and ally building activities or both at the same time. And, as General Conway said at a formal dinner during the Expo, the vendors have to bring the Corps the tools it will need to turn that vision into reality.

Those tools will include new land, sea and air craft, new weaponry, new armor for vehicles and troops, integrated and protected digital communications that will give corporals battlefield awareness and intelligence that today's commanders lust after.

They will also include robots - which were a special focus of the show, at an "obstacle course" where 'bots ranging from lawn-tractor sized automatons to toy-like devices the size of shoeboxes. Far from your sci-fi robots such as that on Lost in Space or "The Day the Earth Stood Still," these machines can nevertheless save lives by doing reconnaissance, bomb detection and disposal, retrieval of wounded and, yes, fighting.

As for the Marines at the show, their interests seemed to correlate with rank and experience. Junior Marines - including a number of newly minted lieutenants, boggled at all the "toys." Many went for personal items - knives, boots, lights, weapons, flame-resistant apparel. Older, more senior Marines spent more time examining critical tools for battlefield success; their recommendations could soon show up in their hands.

There was a celebrity sighting - R. Lee Ermey, of drill instructor fame from "Full Metal Jacket" - is a regular guest at the show, playing in a golf tournament and signing autographs to help raise funds for the Marine Corps League's Young Marines program.

More photos of the event may be seen here.

Early voting in Tennessee started 6 days ago, on Oct. 13, and in my town, the lines have been consistently long. I tried earlier in the week, but the predicted 30 minute wait would have made me later than usual to work. So I decided to try Saturday, knowing that a lot of other folks would, too.

I arrived at the courthouse around 10:40, and only as the clock moved toward 11:30 did the line inside begin to shrink. Voting stops at 12 on Saturday, so I guess a lot of people figured it was too late to try. People exchanged small talk or chatted on cell phones - there was universal agreement that the line today was nothing compared with what it would be on Nov. 4.

Outside the campaigners and their supporters crowded up against the invisible 100-foot boundary for campaign materials. They waved and cheered and occasionally swapped thumbs-up with arriving or departing voters, or folks bound for the recently completed new home for the county historical archives, which, like the grand county building itself, had been the subject of some bitter local politics.

The sky was blue, the air finally fall-cool after a cold front swept through, and the trees had a little bit of color on them. A Halloween tableau in front of the courthouse cheerily mocked the dark forces and fear of the unknown that originally inspired the holiday. One of our high schools (6-1) had beaten an undefeated (7-0) Nashville team last night, so there was an air of celebration.

Taken altogether, it was a small-town scene that is being repeated everywhere. Even in big cities, the voting process narrows down to neighborhoods, erasing the vast megalopolis and reminding everyone that all politics is local.

Having grown up in the South during the civil rights era, I have a keen appreciation of the need to vote at every opportunity, even if all the choices are less than palatable. A vote is an affirmation of faith in a system many still regard as a grand experiment.

One can hold one's nose and hope for better choices next time; can declare that so and so may hold such and such office, but they're not "my" (insert title). But not voting is a surrender to the short-term and to despair and cynicism. It's a slap in the face to those men and women standing in harm's way so we can gripe about not having any good choices, or having choices that are desperately opposite in intentions.

That, IMHO, is not an option.

Although the timing is coincidental, two recent events in my town have brought both the relieving sense of closure and the exciting prospect of opening to our residents.

Closure came in the form of the installation of a new organ in First Presbyterian Church of Gallatin. The organ replaced a venerable instrument that was destroyed in a fire in late December of 2004. Although the church sanctuary and a number of offices were restored within a year, the process of selecting, designing and building an organ took much longer. (So will paying the difference between the insurance and the price tag!)

We had had services, with the space for the organ behind the altar discreetly covered with a scrim. But you couldn't help but look at that large rectangle and wonder whether the new organ would look, and sound, as lovely as the old one. It does.

The sense of opening is tied to the almost completed new public library. Located downtown on the main square of a town that has struggled for years to keep its downtown alive, the new public library is a testament to the success Gallatin has enjoyed in bringing its downtown core back from the crumbling brink of extinction.

The town is growing fast, with farms being subdivided and developed into everything from starter homes and condos to luxe McMansions. The collapse of the real estate market has brought misery to many overextended owners and developers, but I suspect a lot of people feel that it was time to pause and catch our breath.

The growth made locating the library downtown a debatable decision. Why not put it out where the growth is largest, some wondered. It was a good question, and the best answer is that the town core has much to offer, and locating such an important structure there will enhance its viability. We also had a tremendous boost from two adjacent property owners, who sold their sites at bargain rates, making the joint private-public venture viable.

The new downtown public library will be dedicated on Nov. 16. People are already dropping by to see the engraved bricks forming the entry way on East Main Street, and the buzz is growing.

Fittingly, both the Presbyterian Church and the library are on main street, about equidistant from the road that divides east and west. In their own ways, each has been a statement of faith in the community. Without that kind of dedication, towns just disintegrate into urban strips.

Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 2. Most Americans will turn their clocks back an hour and reap an extra hour of sleep. Some locales that don't partake of the semi-annual ritual of "Spring Ahead, Fall Back" will wake up groggy as usual.

We word wonks at Hammock are compelled to point out that it is not "Savings" time, but "Saving" time. (We're not sure where the "s" came from, though we suspect it's the same shadowy source for such misnomers as "JC Penney's" and "Kroger's." One wonders if Sears, Walgreens and Starbucks decided not to fight this peculiar trend and stuck the "s" on themselves. How Wal-Mart has avoided the problem is a mystery. But I digress.)

According to the US Naval Observatory, this year was the 90th anniversary of Congress' establishing standard time zones as well as daylight saving time. The latter didn't go over well, and was repealed in 1919, (the same year that the 18th Amendment creating Prohibition was ratified; it was a big year for social engineering).

Daylight time was drafted into wartime service in World War II, then became a local matter after the war ended. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 standardized beginning and ending dates, though localities could opt out. The energy crisis of the mid-1970s expanded the effective dates for daylight time, and our current crunch led to The Energy Policy Act of 2005 that starts daylight time on the second Sunday in March and ends it on the first Sunday in November.

So don't forget to set all your clocks - and be sure to tell your family: Once I forgot to announce I had changed the clocks and someone else did, too. The extra sleep was nice, though.