Shawn and Gypsy, the first couple I married. My fourth wedding will be this weekend, in Savannah. Shawn’s the fellow wavin’ into the camera, and Gypsy is to his left. They’re sitting around a table at Martha’s Black Dog, in Socorro, New Mexico, visiting friends. I know everyone around the table there, and miss them all. Especially Shawn and Gypsy.

I attended a bachelor party Saturday night. It was pretty tame compared to the cliche, but we did stop by the obligatory strip club. Everyone is surprised when I say this, but that was the first time I’d ever been in such a place. We went with the now infamous Gold Club, subject of a big federal racketeering trial in Atlanta that’s been making national headlines. The most interesting part was one of our party was mistaken for John “Junior” Gotti, leader of the Gambino crime family. Which was odd, since John’s in an Atlanta federal prison, being questioned about that same club and its owner.

Dr. Carl Winter, director of the FoodSafe program at UC Davis, is the Elvis of E. coli!

You gotta know when to heat ’em Know when to eat ’em Know when to wash your hands And decontaminate There’s no need to gamble When you’re eatin’ at the table Or you’ll be sick in the bathroom When the evening’s late

If you’d have bet me last week that the St. Louis Blues would sweep the Dallas Stars, I’d have taken that bet and called you a sucker. I think the Blues surprised everyone when they completed the sweep last night.

Three links for later: Herb Gardening Charts (We’ve got a large herb bed to put in this week.) Ten Essential Windows 200 Commands (The OS on the laptop I use.) [Search And Replace Regular Expression Wizard (A freeware tool that I’ll probably use later today.)

The St. Louis Blues have a chance to sweep the Dallas Stars out of the playoffs tonight. Thanks to the magic of TiVo, I’ll watch the three hour game in fourty-five minutes or so. Unless, like the last game, they go into multiple overtimes.

Long ago, I talked about the Virgin Connect Webplayer I received in a promotion. It’s a tiny “internet appliance” with a thin screen and a wireless keyboard. I used it for a while, and then decided to return it. Except I never did, because right when I tried to, the company shut down and discontinued the program. It’s been sitting in its box in my office, waiting for a UPS man who never came. I’d forgotten about it, really. I discovered today that I get to keep it (for free), and furthermore, with a little bit of hacking it can be turned into a pretty neat little computer. Maybe I’ll use it as an MP3 player in my car so I can listen to my Audible.com audio books.

The last couple days have been mighty busy at work, and thus sparse here. I’ve been learning php, a flexible, automatable way to create web pages (Warning: that’s a greatly simplified description), and that’s sucked up most of my time.

The Saint Louis Blues were able to handle San Jose without too much trouble. With four wins behind them, they only need to win twelve more to claim the cup. Seven other teams want those twelve games, too. To move on, St. Louis needs to win four against the Dallas Stars beginning tonight.

American Hollow: The Bowling family has lived in the same rural hollow in Kentucky for seven generations. The Washington Post tells their story using the Bowlings’ own words (including audio clips) and photographs with a Web site you might expect from PBS. Urban Americans (and others, too) might be surprised to learn that there are many, many families in the U.S. who still live like the Bowlings.

“It’s 1998 and we just last year put running water in the house, into my kitchen sink. We did it ourselves. We bought line, hooked into Iree’s well, dug up a ditch and ran it to the house. But I still need a bathroom and a septic tank. I got a rinse tub that we take a bath in. I’d rather have a bathtub, but meanwhile I can make do. "