Every day, the headline on my local paper gives me an update on how the geologists and engineers are going to stem the flow of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. I know the engineers and the geologists brainstorming in a Houston conference room are smarter about these things than me, but when they're down to stuffing the hole full of tennis balls and used baby diapers, I think that maybe I could have come up with that suggestion in a shorter time span than three weeks.

ALately, Vanya has been afraid to be on his own after dark, expressing fear of "The Green Monster." Of course, I can't help but think of Fenway, and the part of my brain that thinks I'm raising a Yankees fan bothers me a great deal.

Here are the ideas that I had for blog posts this week. I couldn't really make a go of any of them, so I'll just fire the topics out in a flurry of bullets.

On Thursday, Lily and Blossom bolted out the front door, as they are apt to do. Several hours later, Blossom had returned, but Lily had not. It was odd for Lily to not make it home, and a little distressing, as she was without her tags since her last bath.

Suppose you have a four year old in the house. And suppose that from time to time, your four year old's behavior leads to a punishment where the whole family forgoes television for the entire night. You might normally end up cooking together and listening to music and having a good night, but sometimes, you might find yourself in need of an activity.

Perhaps you've seen the news about the dumb bitch in Tennessee who put her son on a plane to Russia with a note saying that she's punting on being a parent from now on. I'm naturally a biased observer of this bit of news, but I the only reaction I can fathom is a strong desire to put a fist in her face.

Every week, Baton Rouge has free shows on Friday evenings and Sundays at noon. Many of the acts are very good -- our best local acts are up there with any town's. On top of that, we have a Blues Week, Fest for All, Earth Day, and Corporate Cup race downtown, all featuring free live music. New Orleans hosts French Quarter Festival (which perhaps has become my favorite), and Jazz Fest is right around the corner (which has fallen sharply in my list of favorites, because it costs $75/day, and I can see the same local bands for free at all of these others). I've never made it to Lafayette's Festival International, but that's supposed to be right up there too. I should hyperlink to all of those sites, but that would be a lot of work.

I spent a good bit of time the last two weekends doing work on the boat. Theskinnyonbenny family has been looking forward to our annual Easter voyage, but the list of boat chores was long, and I hoped to complete as many of those as possible before we left. One chore -- repair of a ripped sail -- was a firm requirement do be done prior to departure.

Hopefully, you all had a wonderful St. Patrick's Day. After last year's cold rainy Saturday, God back around to loving the St. Patrick's Day parade in Baton Rouge. We got our usual beautiful Saturday, where you can be cold in the morning and sunburned by evening.

The weekend before last, we went up to Chicago to celebrate our friend Brent's 40th birthday. I should insert some sort of "holy shit, we're getting old" type of observation here, but the fact is, 40 doesn't really seem all that old any more. Besides, I'm only 38.

Suppose you're a song, and you live on my ipod. And suppose you're the type of song that would like to be as highly rated as you can be. In other words, you're an over achiever of the mp3 community. How do you get that coveted 5-star rating? If you ever give me chill bumps, that will get you there. If you've been in the rotation for 25 years and I'm still not tired of you, you have a pretty good chance too.

A description of my post.