My buddy Guido is the king of the grand scheme. You could give him a pile of six week old dog turds, and he could dream up a way to get rich -- or at least to make a decent profit -- from said dog turds. Guido was a year ahead of me in the Electrical Engineering program at LSU, but he finally found his true calling a year or two ago as a slumlord in New Orleans. It's a perfect fit. Where you or I would see a property that should be bulldozed he sees a decent home for poor people.

When I started riding in organized cycling events, I was always amazed at the guys with big, fat guts that could ride up and down hills like mother---ers with motors. How did they get so fit, but manage to stay fat? I don't really know how mother nature lets that happen, but I'm a walking/peddling laboratory for study of the phenomenon. I'm at least 15-20 pounds over my ideal weight, and I'm five pounds of pure gut over the heaviest that I've ever been. (If you've seen me and don't think this could be, then you should see me clad in some tight synthetic cycling gear. It ain't pretty.)

From time to time, I get asked why I don't have any kids clinging to my britches as I push the stroller through Wal Mart. People don't actually word their question like that, but that's what I hear. I understand that the joy of raising your children outweighs my ability to go to Vegas on a lark, eat dinner at nice restaurants without advance planning, or sitting outside in the silence while catching up on my reading. However, there are some signs that I might not be the world's best primary caregiver.

The other day, I came in to work, and was told that I look "snazzy." From my perspective, I looked like I always look, but there must have been something different that day. I like the thought of "unintentionally snazzy" being a phrase to describe me, though.

I happened on this gem of a gift at a friend of mine's yesterday. This is a wallet that someone (who I don't know) gave her as a gift. I don't really have much to add to this. The horrid nature of the gift speaks for itself.

After I posted my article on the bad things that I had done, I got an email asking me to relate the details of a misadventure that I had glossed over. I mentioned in that entry that I didn't have the time or space to detail all of the mean things that I had done to our housemother. So by request, here is one such story. First, some background information is necessary. Our house mother is the first -- and to this day the only -- woman mayor of Baton Rouge. Her husband had been mayor, and when he died, the city apparently decided to name a park after him (Webb park, right down the road from my house), and panic about the succession plan. Somehow, they just talked his wife into finishing his term.

I woke up at 2:30 this morning, and within ten minutes, it was clear to me that I wasn't getting back to sleep. This happens to me from time to time. Usually, it's nice to have a quiet dark house. I have enough reading to catch up on and enough hobbies to occupy my time that it usually isn't a problem. But today, I just wanted to watch TV. Here's what I did between the time I woke up and the time I went to work.

This is one of my old stories, but one I haven't told in a while. It came up just the other day. In November of 1995, Mrs. theskinnyonbenny and I were newly married and on our honeymoon in Ireland. November is a cool drizzly month in Ireland (as I suspect most months are), but we were having a good trip.

I have some stories to tell, but too much clutter in my brain to get to them. Hopefully, this random list will help clear out some of that clutter.

On Friday afternoon, I got a call from Mrs. theskinnyonbenny. She wanted to marinate a good steak, and then sit outside at the Regal Beagle cook on the grill, drink a few martinis, and eat. She had seen a recipe for a certain marinade meat combination that she wanted to try. It called for center cut tenderloin.

One of the funniest stories I've seen in the last few days is the story of the salt runoff in Chicago. You see, some people can see an image of the Virgin Mary in this salt runoff, and they are clogging up traffic to go there and worship. It seems to be in an underpass or something like that. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for whatever makes people feel closer to their creator. I just have to wonder who first saw the blessed mother in this concrete. To me, it just looks like an inverted parabola. Perhaps the shape that salty slush melt water might take as it drains down from the street above, due to no miracle other than that of gravity.

If you know me, you know that I am in the process of building a canoe in my garage. You probably also know that this project has been going on since the Carter administration. It hasn't really been that long, but I did start cutting out forms the day that LSU played in the Cotton Bowl. So that would put me two years and four months into the build.