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The first (short) chunk of our Fall orientation tour is done, and I’m back in Minneapolis for a day. Tomorrow, we fly to Indianapolis to continue the adventure.

The new guy Chris moderated his first two shows with Michael supervising (which meant five of us were crammed into the car for these long trips, which proves how glamorous our profession is). On Saturday, we did a diversity show at Iowa Western Community College, and Sunday was an abridged version of our sex show at the University of Missouri – Kansas City.

After Saturday’s show in Council Bluffs, Iowa, we crossed the border into Omaha for dinner at Upstream Brewing, which is where we ate last year. I spent almost two days’ per diem on dinner, but holy crap, was it amazing. What, am I supposed to go to Omaha and not order steak? I had a 10 oz. filet, medium rare, with goat cheese, gnocchi, and broccolini. I’d drive back there for another.

The next day, it finally hit me that we’d be in Kansas City, MO, which is home to an old college friend Misty, who now works for Kansas City Rep. I got in touch with her to see if she wanted to meet up, but she was on her way back from Colorado and wasn’t getting back until 11 that night. Sadly, we had to get up early the next morning for an all-day drive, so Misty and I missed each other. Bummer.

One cool thing: The alarm clocks in our Kansas City hotel rooms were iPod docks! I will unashamedly admit that I plugged in my iPod and set the alarm to wake me with Huey Lewis & The News’ “Back in Time,” recreating the end of Back to the Future.

Tomorrow, we set out for the long haul without Michael. I’ll be tour-managing, Chris’ll be moderating, and we hopefully won’t burn anything down.