Just a few tidbits...

• I come home in less than a week thereby proving Josh wrong. (He made some offhand comment to mom about the fact that I'd bought a one-way ticket and following it with , "You remember what happened to Uncle Bruce?"... I guess "Uncle Bruce?" took a trip to Europe to "look around" and came home 25 years later. Sounds like a cool guy.)
  
• I will have spent 329 days in Germany (or at least out of the U.S.)
  
• I've decided to keep my blog. I don't know how many of my close friends and family members actually read this, but what I do know is that without the blog Aunt Julie could not live through me vicariously. I don't want to take that away from her.
  
• Another reason I'd decided to keep updating this thing is because I'm seriously considering graduate school. The downside is that there really aren't any programs that interest me in the U.S. central time zone. Which is my ultra-nice way of saying TOO MUCH CORN! Kidding! You can never have enough corn... or cows... or tractors, silos, grain bins, barbed wire, men in overhauls, trucks with gun racks, or politically incorrect mascot names (Go Indians! I mean, Miners! Seriously people?). Anyway, I love the Midwest and it will always be "home"... but it probably won't always coincide with my address.