Change the World Tour: Day 6

I thought I would do today's report in two sections, just in case I'm too incoherent tonight to write about the whole day. The book signing starts in about two hours, so I'll add on to this post afterward and tell you how it went.

I'm utterly ashamed to announce that my mom had to wake me up AGAIN this morning. I'm not complaining though, because the fact that I'm now sleeping so well is a big relief.

It was pouring rain at first, but it quit by the time I arrived at the first school, Head Elementary in Lilburn. We did two assemblies there, for the 4th and 5th graders, and it was great. I really enjoyed the kids.

A big thanks to the media specialist, Linda Herzer, and the parent volunteer, Mandy. Wow, they both treated me like royalty, and I truly appreciate it. In fact, I had quite the treat that is something I hope to do more of in the future:

Linda asked me to stay for lunch after the second assembly, and I mentioned that maybe it would be cool to eat with some of the kids who have expressed interest in writing. She quickly gathered about 15 students and we all ate together in the library.

It was so awesome! I loved every minute of it - these bright kids asking me questions, telling me about stories they had written, making jokes. It was definitely a highlight of the tour so far, and the chicken sandwich wasn't half bad either. In fact, I wish I'd taken two, but I imagined my wife standing on my shoulder telling me to not act like a pig.

The last school of our stay in Atlanta was Hull Middle School. My sister Sarah went with me this time to take some more pictures (I'll add them into this post later tonight). I spoke to the eighth graders, and they were really great. My poor sister almost got trampled handing out the bookmarks and invitations to the signing afterward - she may think twice before ever helping me out again.

So here I am, waiting for the signing tonight. I promised myself I wouldn't worry about them anymore, but of course I lied to all of you. Nah, I'm actually just fine. People will come. If they don't, that's just more time for us to go see a movie afterward. I wanna see 10,000 BC!

One more thing before I go (until tonight's report). I was totally blown away by the article on me that appeared in today's Atlanta Journal and Constitution. It was on the FRONT page of the "Living" section of the paper - with color pictures of me and the book cover. It was also very long and very nice. I had expected a tiny little blurb about the book signing or something, but this was like a real article! I was very excited about it (thanks, Phil Newspaper Reporter Dude!). I'm assuming it's online, too, but I haven't looked yet. Google. It's your friend.

Okay, I'll go ahead and post this, but be sure to check back late tonight because I'll add on a report of how the booksigning goes. Wish me luck!

UPDATE AT 11:20 PM:

I'll try to tell you guys more tomorrow, but for now I'll just say this and let it speak for itself: After two hours, with people still in line, Barnes and Noble sold out of books. Needless to say, I'm on cloud nine and my face hurts from smiling so much. A big thanks to all the people who came out tonight, and for those of you who didn't get books, I'm really, really, REALLY sorry. I promise I'll come back.

Good night, and tune in tomorrow for more details.