--281 days.

--I was actually pretty busy at work again this week. I don't mind that, but I definitely need some time off. Actually, I just need a day to sleep in and bum around. Hopefully I'll be able to do that a little bit one of these weekends. What I need is a rainy weekend day that will force me to just be lazy and bum around the house. When it's nice out (even hot), I feel too guilty for not getting out of the house. My upcoming trip to Springfield should help out a bit...though I was hoping to sleep in tomorrow, and now I can't because I need to (again) take Kazak to the vet to make sure he doesn't have ear mites. Hopefully he doesn't...I don't need to spend a ton of money again.

--Other than that, we have a typical, busy weekend in store. Right now, I'm burning a few of my CDs...little by little, the music will get onto my iPod. I just finished Seven Mary Three. So it's getting there. Big amounts of Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots are on the horizon though.

--Ah well, hope your weekend's going well. For those of you in Ghetto Bowl, check your email and sign up for the new site. If your email has changed since last season, let me know. Thanks!

--285 days

--Donuts. Many, many donuts. Going to a donut maker tomorrow morning, bright and early. Should be kick-ass cool...and here in the metro area, meaning no travel. That's good right now, because I'm just tired, and the only travel I'd want to do at the moment is for personal pleasure.

--Which brings me to the next thing...we've decided to take an extendo weekend and head down to my old stomping grounds, Springfield, Mo., in mid-August. I haven't been there in about 2-3 years, and Gina's never been there. So we'll go, soak up the one year's worth of nostalgia, see the beautiful Ozarks, maybe catch a Springfield Cardinals game (the Mountain Ducks are no more! That was a shocker to me when I found that out a week ago!), see Branson and the dam down there, and just freakin' relax. All for a reasonable price too...thanks to airfare/hotel/rental car sales! Buffalo and Lincoln can wait. :)

--Ghetto Bowl is creaking to a start again...even though my fantasy baseball teams are in the thick of things, I have to shift gears and get into the football mindset. Shouldn't be too tough though... :)

--In aquarium news, I bought a breeder/nursery contraption for the danio babies that hangs in the tank, keeping them safe from big fish and allowing water to circulate through. It's neat. OK, it's neato. So the danios are in there...meanwhile, the 2-gal. tank is now our quarantine tank. It has now killed four Cardinal Tetras, which looked doomed from the start. I took them back to swap, and our pet shop buddy said not to give up on them and try four more at a lower medicine dose. So far, so good. The first good sign: No color fade and these four actually ate when I fed them. We got a "bonus" 3 baby guppies with our first four Cardinals that our buddy accidentally caught and just let us keep. I say "bonus" because I don't know how much room we really have, and whether or not I really want guppies. So we'll see. They're still tiny, and the Cardinals might end up eating them, but we'll see. They survived the first Cardinal die-off, so they're resilient, anyway. The other fish, knock on wood, are doing magnificently...though the plants aren't growing as fast as before. Maybe they haven't taken full hold yet, or, more likely, the light's efficiency is diminishing. We'll see what happens.

--More interesting wonders abound, but I'm sleepy and have an early day tomorrow...so I'm outta here for now.