Daddy, come home.

Tonight, all over this country and on US military bases abroad, tens-of-thousands of children will go to bed praying that their dads or moms (or, in some cases, both) will come home safely from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, there is a very cool program at the elementary schools called "Hearts Apart" for kids whose parents are deployed abroad. Students get together a couple times a month to hang out and have some fun -- just to maybe take their minds somewhere else briefly and to let them know that they are not alone.

I had the honor of jammin' with about 70 of them yesterday afternoon. Thanks for a rockin' good time!

Please remember them and their parents in your prayers tonight.

Put Down the Binky

Check out this piece of art! It was waiting for me outside the Capitol Plaza Hotel where I'm staying in Jefferson City, MO. Perfect for my binky song!

It's a giant pacifier sculpture made out of more than 30,000 cigarette butts and some wire. That's more than $6,000 worth of cigarettes (according to the placard). It's called "Adult Pacifier" and it's the creation of artist Christine A. Holtz and a dedicated team of student volunteers who scoured this town picking up discarded butts.

Holtz says she wanted to make a statement about the hazards of cigarette smoking, as well as the ecological damage caused by careless smokers. Many people think that the "cotton" filters on cigarettes are biodegradable. Not true. The filters are actually made of plastic fibers.

The pacifier sculpture will last about 15 years through weather because it takes approximately that long for a cigarette butt to decompose.

Many thanks to the great kids and teachers at St. George's Elementary in Linn, MO. I had a blast today.

Oh, and here's a photo of the Missouri state capitol.