Mayberry Anyone???

At the writing of this post, I find myself in the middle of nowhere, which roughly translates into a place called Seward, Nebraska, which has an odd, cow-like smell in the air that gives a lot of credence to its name. We are at what I assume has to be the only hotel around, the local Seward Super 8, and let me tell you, should this hotel burn down, yours truly is gonna be mighty cold tonight, because there's absolutely no place else to go! (There's a Wal-Mart off in the distance, but I've heard of people who've gotten kicked out for trying to temporarily live there, so that won't be attempted should anything go wrong). The town claims to have a population of six thousand, but I'm having trouble finding the other 5, 880...(maybe they've gone off to get an early start for the Fourth of July Parade, which apparently is a pretty big deal in this town, judging by the local signs).

The only (and I do mean ONLY) reason we are here is for a speech and debate tournament this weekend at Concordia University, which is supposed to be a few miles up the road. Judging from the looks of things, that may be misleading information. There is absolutely nothing around here except cornfields and country roads. There's a restaurant in the vicinity called Vallentino's which claims to serve Italian food, but out here in the Midwest, and especially here in the Midwest, I'm not taking any chances! I'm sort of afraid to wander too far off for fear of getting lost...there's a very good chance you may never be heard from again (I'm not entirely joking).

Well, I guess I'd better sign off for now...Once again I have procrastinated as far as memorizing my speeches (a habit that has oddly gotten stronger as the years go by), and I must now attempt to get them ready for the tournament. I don't know what it is...I always do better when I don't have the speech memorized until the final round...oh well, no sense tempting fate!

By the way, I would just like to go on the record by saying that I love global warming right now...it is absolutely freezing out here!!!