(Our author blinks, blearily, and sits down before his keyboard. He lightly grazes the keys with the tips of his fingers, takes four slow breaths, and types. He begins, "ah, look... I know it's been awhile.")

Ah, look... I know it's been awhile.

I'm not going to bother with excuses, I fully realize it's been weeks. Hhh... weeks... I've many reasons, all legitimate, I assure you, for my absence from Cyberia. But, is anyone really interested? I mean, come now. Really?

It's not like I've been completely absent from blogging, by the way. My church keeps an online weblog and I found the sagely, Christian Dr. Jekyll half of my persona typing an entry about a week ago. I'm still a bit unclear about the form and purpose of the online church blog, but it's there nonetheless. For eternal pearls of wisdom from me, you can visit by clicking here.

I know it's been a long, script-less while. I know. Sorry! Jeez! Sorry!
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Believe it or not, I think I'm only just now over my sickness. Unreal, let me tell you. By the way, what's with snot? Couldn't there have been a better way? Rather than coughing and sneezing and blowing and sniffing this thick, semi-translucent, greenish-yellow slop... annoying and grossing out those around you... couldn't we simply have a little pus-pocket or something growing on our calf that could be manually drained every day or two when we've got an infection? Doesn't that make a bit more sense? How 'bout it, science?
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Yesterday, I found out that the thing about not putting aluminum foil in the microwave IS NO URBAN LEGEND. The stories are true... don't do it. Disaster will befall you and there will indeed be a small fire in your kitchen. Trust me on this.
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My dear friend, Jeff "Not Really a Sex Maniac" Rockwood visited over the weekend, which was great. Jeff is in Vegas this week on business, so he stopped off in LA to hang with the wife and me, not to mention his sister Jane, who lives and works in and near LA.

Thursday, we decided to have an "LA Day" after picking up Rockwood at LAX. Jeff has been here several times before, so, in the end, he acted as our tour guide. We hit some fun spots like the Chinese Theater, the Kodak Theater, tooled around the Beverly Hills shopping district, hiked near Mulholland Drive (and caught a terrific view of the San Fernando Valley), and pretty much got a small taste of the whole Los Angeles thing, which we've only barely sampled since moving here.

Jane, as it turns out, is some sort of executive assistant at an investment place, representing a few celebs. Hoy, the life this woman leads. In the end, we met her for dinner at a nearly-vegan place (much to my wife's delight), and she pulled out a list of LA attractions she'd worked up.

JANE: I thought you might be interested in this. It's a list of several celebrities and their addresses. Just in case you want to see where these folks live or something.

JER: Oh, okay, yeah, thanks. You've got a pretty good list going. There's Jack Nicholson and... whup, you've even got OJ there, huh?

JANE: Yeah, he's pretty famous.

JER: Let's see. Hey, the last few names just say "Confidential".

JANE: Mm, yeah, those are some very famous clients that don't want their addresses made public.

JER: Ah. But, you've got their addresses listed there.

JANE: But, not their names.

JER: Uh. So... if I were to drive to these addresses, I would be driving to someone famous' house.

JANE: Right. Very famous.

JER: I just wouldn't know who.

JANE: Right.

JER: Well, that... sounds like fun.

JANE: Yeah, that way you can brag that you've been to... so-and-so's house.

JER: And "so-and-so" is...?

JANE: It's confidential.