Live from KC, its Saturday night!

First stop: Kansas City. Fist thing i noticed as i drove out onto the vast plains of the midwest, was the trees. There aren't (m)any proper forests. Instead, there are trees in tidy, planted rows. Most things, in fact, seem to be tidy clumps of human footprint, within a sea of vast, wind-blown cold bright plains. The rows of fallow fields, spent sorghum usually, are enormous and stretch into the distance as far as the eye can see. However, there are trees on the horizon: this is how you know you're approaching town (that and the token grain elevator that graces every town in this region). Its winter, and there is a lot of snow. Occasionally i see hulking machines, a big plow maybe, slowly working its way down a side road and creating snow banks the height of a house as it goes. There is a herd of antelope - no - three herds of antelope, maybe about 200 animals total. They are scattered in groups, grazing on the fallow fields. There are also a good many hawks - easy to spot in the big old trees which have no leaves on. I had lunch in a real, just-like-the-movies diner, and thought of Anne (who wanted to eat in one of those while she was in America!). I had the blueberry pie, a la mode. It was good.

Favorite bumper sticker sighted:
make levees, not war

Favorite billboard posted on the side of a grain elevator:
Happiness is a crock of beans
(ha ha, this one is in bean-growing country, ya think?)

Onward to St Louis!

Once a month isn't enough

I've decided to keep up the blog, even though i'm not in Oxford anymore. I'll try to post more often than once a month, as has been the case in the past few months. I'd like to tell you that i was so busy fending off job offers that i couldn't be bothered to write, but the sad truth is...i just needed a break from productive normal life. Happily, i have been offered a job (i'm still hoping it wasn't a mistake in the paperwork) so i have high hopes that i'll be returning to my former state of once-a-week contributer worthy of the real bloggers.

Speaking of worthy bloggers, check out my classmate Danny, who is blogging from the World Social Forum as i write. Go Danny go! There are solutions, and we all can take part.

I'm moving to Saint Louis, so stay tuned for gritty details about life in the Midwest. I'm not sure what to expect, but that's nothing new, now is it?