1. We take Katelin to college one week from today. This has a lot to do with why I’m not on here much lately: as much as I like spending time with you, my invisible internet-pipe friends, I like spending time with her many times more, and I want to milk that while I can.

2. I get back to work on my Ph.D. the following Monday,taking three evening classes in the Fall semester. That will distract me from the vacuum created by the time that Katelin currently fills. Maybe.

3. I am listening to an awe-inspiring album called Legends of Benin. I have no idea what Gnonnas Pedro et Ses Dadjes’ “Dadje Von O Von Non” is about, but I totally want it as my theme music, playing whenever I make an entry into a room, suave, cool, and stylish. Make it so, Number Two.

4. I think Plaxico Burress got railroaded: two years in prison for shooting himself in the leg? Yes, he could have shot someone else, but he didn’t. I am completely, totally, almost irrationally anti-gun, but I still think that losing his livelihood and (nearly) his leg is pretty much all the punishment he needs. I doubt he’d be looking at hard time if he was a corn-fed, church-going, white quarterback from the Midwest, who accidentally shot himself with his hunting rifle. Just saying.

5. Still working on archiving my consolidated blog archive. I’ve gotten back to June 2004 with putting post titles and tags on things. 2004 has been slow and hard to work with, as that’s the year I wrote a poem a day, then wiped them clean, so the posts that remain are a bit choppy and hard to edit.

6. I’m eyeballing some analog synthesizers for my studio/office, hence the sale on some old gear. I’ve raised about half the cost of the one I want already. Yes, I could afford to just buy what I want outright, but it is such a piffling indulgence that I would feel guilty putting it into the family’s general operating account.Selling toys to buy toys is psychologically more comforting.

7. I’ve been nibbling my nails as efforts to Free Spirit continue apace. But. holy moly, while Spirit is trapped in her sand dune, darned if Opportunity didn’t roll right up on the largest meteorite yet seen on the surface of Mars. These little machines inspire me.

8. Marcia and I went to the track at Saratoga today and wagered on seven races, winning three Exacta bets. Unfortunately, in the other four races, we lost what we won. Easy come, easy go, with a zero sum game day at the races. Marcia overheard a young girl tell her mother “That’s why I always bet on the longshots . . . because they always win!!” Oh, youth.

9. The new Indian Quad dining hall at University at Albany opens next week. It was designed specifically with the tastes, likes and needs of the so-called “Millennial Generation” in mind. I hope they like it. I am participating in the ribbon cutting (metaphorical, not literal) next week, though I will be trying to dodge cameras to make sure that students are front and center in the coverage of the event. My staff and the many University and contractor staff members involved have really done wonders on this project over the past couple of years. Hats off to them, hurrah!

10. It’s not a blog post without a picture of a cat. Or at least a cat’s mutant, shoe-lace-tying, prehensile-thumbed feet: