Hey folks! Just to let you know, we're alive and well in Des Moines, Iowa. We had quite a busy day that got off to a very rough start. I should probably let Gretchen fill you in on all the juicy details, but here's the super short attention span version of the last twenty-four hours of my life: boarded plane in SF; tried to sleep on flight; transfered to second plane in Minneapolis; airborne for thirty minutes before discovering weather radar was shot; returned to Minneapolis; couldn't find Starbucks; waited two hours for new flight; new flight was delayed even further; finally arrived in Des Moines; Lori and Jim picked us up and took us to Wendy's; they drove us to my parents' house; my parents were gone on a weekend motorcycle ride with their club; we turn around and go directly to the Iowa State Fair; I eat three Mark & Gary chops; Gretchen skips fried pickles and goes straight to the world's biggest boar; viewed the butter cow; came home; slept for five minutes; set up plans for dinner with old friends; drove to visit my grandparents; talked with them for a while; went to the Chat Noir for supper; ate a mediocre tenderloin medallion; Jake handed me my new digital video camera, the Canon GL2; talked with Jake about Lockergnome stuff; drank some coffee; drove to Jake's place to pick up some items; was reminded that we forgot to let Lori know about our evening plans; met Jim, Lori, Brian, and Brian's wife at Java Joe's; had more coffee; came back to my place; Jake and I shuffled through a few videos for Gnomedex; Jake went home; I downloaded the day's pictures from my G2 to the still-failing laptop; logged into the blog. And that's about it.