Mark at Bfloblog reviews Game 5 of the Sabres-Hurricanes series, and looks ahead to tomorrow night’s must-win Game 6 in Buffalo: “I hope that my lasting impression of this year’s team won’t be that they went down without a fight on their home ice.”

Game time is 7:30 PM EDT (4:30 PM MST).

I hope y’all had a good holiday weekend. Mine was mostly uneventful, yet relaxing. Tomorrow it’s back to the daily grind… though I suppose I can’t complain too much, when I have a view like this from my office window:

That’s Arizona’s iconic Four Peaks off in the distance. Oddly, I didn’t notice until Friday that I have a view of Four Peaks from my office. Pretty cool!

On the flip side, one slightly disconcerting aspect of being on the 22nd floor of a downtown skyscraper is the fact that you’re almost directly in the flight path of planes taking off from Sky Harbor Airport:

But I suppose, post-9/11 jitters aside, that’s not entirely a bad thing. As Mike, Becky and others who met me all those years ago at USC’s east-coast orientation in Newark can attest, I do enjoy looking at planes taking off and landing. After all, they’re shiny. :)

Anyway, I should get to bed. G’nite all!

Republican lobbyist Ed Kutler, on House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi: “A lot of Republicans were saying, ‘We need her on TV more.’ Maybe we should buy ad time for her.” Heh.

We're back at Robbie's old stomping grounds, the Quail Run dog park in Mesa.

I’ve had to temporarily switch back to my old layout because, as discussed below, the new one is malfunctioning. Stay tuned…

Briandot takes a look at what our friends the Saudis are putting in their gradeschool textbooks. The best quote comes from the fourth-grade edition: “True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly.” Well, hey, at least they preach justice along with hatred!

It’s almost as if the baseball gods don’t like Barry Bonds or something.

CBS News reports a cameraman and soundman for the network were killed today in Iraq; correspondent Kimberly Dozier critically injured. Visit CNN for the latest.

Please bear with me on the slightly funky layout and the grossly incomplete right sidebar. It’s a work-in-progress. But I decided to bite the bullet and start, because I gotta get this place all spruced up for hurricane season. :) Stay tuned…

P.S. Pop-up comments aren’t working for the moment. Sorry. If you click on the “comment” link, it will take you to the comment form on the permalink page. I’ll try to remedy that, and re-create the pop-up option, presently.

UPDATE: WTF? My blog has a mind of its own! It changed its own layout for no apparent reason!

UPDATE 2: Sometime this morning, while I was sleeping, the blog switched its layout from the newly installed “Journalized” theme (or rather, a modified version thereof) to the default WordPress “Kubrick” theme. I have no idea how or why this switch occurred. In an attempt to prevent it from happening again, I’ve deleted all themes except “Journalized,” so that should make it impossible for WP to switch to a different theme.

UPDATE 3: Well, that didn’t work! It just tried again to switch to the “default” theme, and since the default theme didn’t exist, my blog simply appeared blank for a few minutes. I have no idea what’s wrong with the “Journalized” theme that my WordPress is having an allergic reaction to it, but I’m very annoyed right now!! I will have to try again with this a bit later.

And God bless the brave men and women who defend it.

I was interrupted during the Sabres game Sunday evening by an automated phone call from Dr. Tony Phillips of SpaceWeather.com. The message told me I should look west after sunset to see a “razor-thin crescent [Moon]–nothing special, just really beautiful.” So a few hours later, when we took Robbie to the dog park, I took a gander at the western sky and, sure enough, Dr. Phillips was right:

As the second picture makes clear, the “Earthshine” — a.k.a. The Da Vinci Glow — was very bright. Springtime in the Northern hemisphere is actually the best time of year to spot Earthshine.