Bit strange hanging around with so many people from such a different social class. I usually don't hang with other lawyers outside of work, but the trip environment made it a necessity. One guy I see in court on a regular basis goes on fox hunting trips in his spare time and owns 150 horses. Other people were talking about regular trips to Europe. I talked about sleeping in my car for a week in the middle of winter.

I've never particularly enjoyed networking, but I'm getting somewhat better at it. I struck up conversations with lawyers from all over the place. I'll never be a social butterfly, but middle age has removed some barriers to my shyness.

Kansas City seemed nice enough. The big attraction seemed to be a WWI memorial in the center of town. Not certain why Kansas City was the site for such a large museum about WWI, but it was interesting to visit. WWI marked the appearance of modern warfare, with the introduction of bombs and gassings and machine guns. It made the world realize how interconnected everything had become, and how destructive the new tools of technology could be.

True to stereotype there were a few tornados in the news, and I got to see some interesting footage of houses being tossed into the air and torn apart by the winds. Kansas City is partially in Missouri and partially in Kansas, and a few people went to the state line road to be able to say, "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

There were a lot of good steak houses in the city. I ate way too much. The plan was to use my nervousness as an excuse to eat less but instead I stuffed my face. I couldn't find any live music, which I was sort of aching for.

I also didn't find any of those crazy little women. Someone said they spotted some hanging out on a corner in a seedy part of town. The judge from my county who went with us is a little woman, but is only slightly goofy, not actually crazy.

Anyway, decent trip. Glad to get home.