SockPants

Is there a ceremonial reason for not having live ammo, or is it just because it shouldn't be necessary or because it would be dangerous?

To give you an idea, from wikipedia:

A guard takes an average of six hours to prepare his uniform – heavy wool, regardless of the time of year – for the next day's work.

In addition to preparing the uniform, guards also conduct physical training, Tomb Guard training, participate in field exercises, cut their hair before the next work day, and at times are involved in regimental functions as well.

... the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Guard Identification Badge is authorized for wear after passing a detailed test ... , a uniform test with two gigs (errors) or fewer (measured to the 1/64") ...

wow.

IANAE, but in my experience this gets easier after about a week of trying. For example if you want to get into a routine of sleeping 23:00 to 7:30 then just keep going to bed around 23:00 and waking up at 7:30 and eventually it will stick, even though at first you might not actually sleep until 01:00 thus losing sleep.

Well you mentioned your wife wasn't so happy about it at first :P

Wait that's smart as fuck, collect donations for the 'inauguration' and then use that money to get re-elected years down the road. People think they're giving money to make the party more spectacular celebrating what they probably already donated to before, but instead what they give has no influence on what would be spent at all, it's just going to be used for something else years later.