After a brief stay in Macon, MO, we drove up to Kirksville to see Erica and Kyle, some friends from college. We dropped by a Campus Christian Fellowship service and saw some people we hadn't seen in 2 years. We also found a babysitter so we could go out to dinner with Kyle and Erica at Il Spazio. We all got fire-roasted pizzas. The strangest one on the menu was the Spam and Dorito pizza. We decided to split one to see if it was any good. We thought that even if it wasn't it would give us a good story to tell. Here it is:

I thought it was good, but I think I was the only one. Here's a picture of Sara and Erica:

But my favorite part of our stay in Kirksville was helping Kyle set up his new blog. He has some very interesting and thoughtful posts, and he's got some good ideas about using blogging as a tool in a high school English class.

My brother Mike is in a pop group (aka cover band) with his school that tours around North America putting on shows to promote the school. He plays lead guitar in the band, as you can see on the right. The FC Friends will be performing at the North Kansas City high school on Saturday, May 29, at 7 pm. Click here for a map.

Well, we're back in town. Coming soon:

Pictures from the trip

Discussion on Free Culture, the book I'm reading.

Yesterday we drove the longest leg of our trip. We were on the road about 7 hours. As I write this Emma is playing with Eden, the Smiths' one-year-old. They're pretty cute. The city of Kearney seems pretty nice. Brandon and Keri say it's growing quite a bit, and there are lots of things to do.

We've got Kyle's weblog set up at

kyle.brendoman.com

Brendan, thanks for creating it so quickly.

We're having a great time on our vacation so far. We're in Kirksville, MO, now. Brendan's graduation and party were fun, and we had a great time visiting our friends in Macon. Joe showed me some music he's been recording, I might post some clips, with his permission, later. His wife Amanda teaches graphic arts in Macon and she had the coolest G5 Mac I've ever seen. It had an enormous LCD monitor. I think they said it was 23 inches. I'll definitely post a picture of that soon. Kirksville has been great, too. This afternoon we went to a CCF service and saw some people we haven't seen for 2 years. In a few minutes we're going out with Kyle and Erika to a new restaurant in Kirksville. This is exciting. Kyle, a fellow Truman English major is interested in getting his own blog. (Brendan, if you're reading this, check your email and drop me a line tonight if you can.)

We're leaving on our vacation today. First stop: Brendan's graduation. Congratulations, Brendoman! I've got my dad's GPS receiver loaded with all the maps we'll need on our trip. I'm just about to wrap up all the work stuff I need to get done before leaving. We'll try and post some updates when we can.

We're in Clever, MO, visiting Sara's family. Her brother Lucas is on leave from the Navy. He just returned from Iraq. He brought home two chunks of the big bronze statue of Saddam. Yes, the one you saw on the news. I was holding them and a few things occurred to me: 1) This is a little piece of history, 2) It's really heavy, no wonder it took them so long to knock the statue over and 3) How many people starved so they could make this statue? Anyway, it's been great having Lucas home again. No matter what you think about the war, you just have to be proud of guys like this.

I'm writing this post on Sara's parents' new computer. It has a beautiful 17'' LCD. I'm taking their old computer home so I can throw it into my Linux mess. I might frankenstien it or just try for a dual-boot system. If nothing else I'll wipe the hard drive and stick it into my current Linbox. (If you're interested, here are the specs of the old one: 366 Mhz Celeron processor, 32 MB RAM, 4 G hard drive and a 14” CRT monitor.)

Great news, the Tour de Midwest has added a stop: 1.5) We'll be staying one night in Macon, MO, with some other friends from Truman, Joe and Amanda. Joe was one of the first people I got to know at Truman, he led the small group where Sara and I met. He is also a rock star. We haven't stayed in touch very well, so it will be great to catch up.