One of the many nice things about my day job is that they allow me to play with some nice toys. New on my desk, an 17" iMac running OS X Tiger. Now I can see how the other side lives.

Late last night Gene and I stumbled back to our respective homes. His was exactly as he had left it. Mine was in a completely different location, our family having moved back into our (remodelled) home while I was away. It's beautiful but a little box-heavy and I am slightly concerned about my ability to get my office environment set up in time to draw next week's strips.

Our Illinois '05 Tour was a huge success. We started off speaking in Urbana at the University of Illinois. It was big fun. Gene has sat in on a couple of my talks but this was the first time we really integrated him in, and he was great. The Public Library Simulator was a big hit. We signed books afterwards and then explored Urbana, a great little college town that we both fell for in a big way. Thanks to Esther Gillie for making it all happen, and to Sue Spearling for suggesting the idea.

The next day we drove up to Chicago, retrieved our books from faithful fan Janet Rogers, and painstakingly carried them a long hot way from the McCormick Place parking lot to the exhibit hall.

On Saturday the show opened. We had brought a lot of stuff to sell and as always I was a little nervous that we wouldn't sell anything and we'd have to bring it all back to Seattle with our tails between our legs. And, as always, I shouldn't have worried. We sold almost everything we brought. It seems like I was signing books nonstop. We had tremendous help from Gail "Pit Bull" Orsino, who handed out a zillion flyers and signed up a thousand new email subscribers. Our Unshelved badge ribbons were such a huge hit that we were out of them after only two days.

Of course this all started with some fear of flying. I can happily report that Gene did great. We had fun travelling and working together, and we're both looking forward to doing it all over again in San Diego in a few weeks. See you there!