There's me at Frank's Power Plant on Sunday night in Milwaukee.

I'm writing from an absolutely frozen Panera in Iowa City. Haven't had a reliable internet connection for a few days to do any updates. Sorry about that. I appreciate you following up on me. Here's a couple of quick hits.

#1. Do not ever stay at the Super 8 by the Milwaukee airport. NEVER EVER DO IT.

#2. It's been awesome driving weather all trip. Mild, sunny skies.

#3. Chicago traffic was a 4 out of 10 this time around. Not a 9. Turning over a new leaf!

#4. Played for some nice fellows in Chicago there on a whim.

#5. Every single venue has hung up the posters I mailed to them. This is a HUGE deal. Makes me very happy.

#6. Had the most powerful anxiety/panic attack I've ever had once we got done with Daytrotter and into Dyersville for a day and a half off. Ya wouldn't think panic would set in entering a break. The simple answer is it is just tough when you're not making money to keep spending it. Dinner time trip to the Dyersville ER to make sure I wasn't having some kind of heart problem later, and I'm still here. The bill will be waiting for me in Nashville.

#7. Had a great day at The Field of Dreams yesterday.

#8 Shoulder's not much for long-toss but I'm probably still good for a 70mph two-seamer.

#9 Ross and I talked at length about how we would survive a post-apocalyptic zombie attack. Seems you'd have to set up base around a major food source like a super market. You'd have to be willing to be led by military/police-styled people who have an idea how to patrol and set up perimeters. Your world would be chaos - so you'd all have to buy in to order in that chaos for it to work. We'd ALL have to get real good at farming real fast. And hunting. But what zombie variables would you allow in your world? Say you get zombie blood on your skin. Are you ok or will you turn? What about if it's in your eyes or mouth? These things you think about.

#10 I can still rope a baseball. Always was a contact hitter. Line drives. Feels so good to smoke a ball into the outfield. The number of people wandering the field while batting practice is going on not paying any attention is astounding. Lucky the 8 year old girl standing at 3rd base without a glove got dropped by my line drive to her thigh. Could have been supremely much worse...

#11 Oh I love this one. I'm taking my last batting practice in Baseball Heaven on Earth of my entire trip that I've been waiting to make since I left in 2006. So the seconds are being savored. The sounds, the view, the smells. A tour bus full of people was getting ready to leave and I'm in the batter's box and a lady walks right up to me and starts telling me about her granddaughter and how awesome a singer she is and she sang "Hallelujah" at the county fair and she wonders how her granddaughter is gonna make it in the music industry. One of the actors walking around in White Sox uniforms guiding some tours and taking pictures had mentioned to her that I was a Nashville musician on tour. She was standing on HOME PLATE asking me how to make her granddaughter famous. In my mind she was a zombie who'd turned and I gripped the bat tightly and knocked her f-ing head off. I came to to know that I shouldn't really do that. Gave her my card and told her to email me and we'll talk about it later. Now what's funny is I'd put the odds of her actually emailing me at 0%.

DD3 (pictures ohh!!)