Today, some really wild visuals featuring a kind of wedding I didn’t know about before this past June. We touched on this in the first installment of Quirky Theme Weddings, but I had to dig a bit deeper to see if the Star Trek wedding in that piece was more of a one-off type of thing, or part of a larger trend... Turns out it's part of a trend, all right, and the links below are a portal to a world where few southeast Missourians have ever gone before…but there are other people around the globe who apparently spend a lot of time there. And I mean, a lot.

“I’m about 9 or 10. I’ve been studying for the past year.” Neeraj, a girl from from India PBS Wide Angle program, Back to School “My [late] father told me to go to school, and not to rest.” Nanavi, a girl from Benin Back to School As youngsters throughout the U.S. return to the classroom, I’m reminded of the mixed feelings with which my friends and I approached that prospect when I was little.

“It's a whole ’nother world, a whole ’nother culture,” says Scott Brickell, who, with father Jay, took the plunge and converted the family homestead into Brick's 4x4 Farm 2 ½ years ago. (A born multi-tasker, Scott is, additionally, a music industry professional based in the Nashville area. As owner of BrickHouse Entertainment, he manages such acclaimed Contemporary Christian acts as MercyMe and Phil Wickham.) Now officially known as Brick’s Off-Road Park, the Brickell spread in Poplar Bluff is home to a variety of adrenaline-boosting diversions for the hard-driving SEMO set.

One of my own nifty neighbors has gone from "Roving Random Shopper" to "Carpooling Shopper with a Plan". “If I ever had any free time, I used to just hop in the minivan and cruise,” says this 40-something healthcare worker. “If I saw something I liked in a window, or if somebody put up a “Sale!” sign I could see from the highway or whatever, I’d just pull over and pop in if I wanted,” she remembers with a smile. "But that party's over!"

Kids.gov is “the official kid’s portal for the U.S. government”, and is chock full of fun facts and activities geared to youngsters, all categorized by age group. There's a  section for educators as well. Featuring games, projects, brief articles, and great links to other kid-centered learning pages, this is a site you might want to recommend as a "first-stop" resource for young people during the coming year!

Once upon a time---one year ago, in fact---a Poplar Bluff man bought a bicycle in the hope of getting a bit of exercise. Little did he know that his purchase, along with a recent move to a new job, would position him in the best way possible for the economic nosedive the nation entered several months back. “I did buy a bike for fitness, and so I could ride it to work sometimes,” he recalls. “At the time, it was five miles, one way---doable.”