Things to get excited about:

Porter Wagoner's new album, Wagonmaster.

Alison Krauss's new album, A Hundred Miles or More.

Joan Osborne's not-so-new album, but new to my ears, Pretty Little Stranger.

Reign Over Me - I swear, it's much better than the previews lead you to believe. The writing is phenomenal, really.

I'm going to Boston tomorrow!

Woohoo, get excited!

Spring is in the air! (It's 45 degrees and raining here - that's spring, right?) Tomorrow's forecasted temperature is in the 60's, and a barbeque is in order. I'm looking forward to some warmer temperatures, but I'll be sad to see the pretty snow go. Eh, perhaps not so sad.

A recommendation: Infamous, the "other" movie about Truman Capote. It tells the same story as the highly acclaimed "Capote" and was released just a year afterwards, but it is no less extraordinary or powerful. The story itself is riveting, the real-life characters are so, uh, full of character that they seem other-worldly, and the acting is outrageously good. Sandra Bullock's Nelle Harper Lee will blow you away. A.O. Scott of the NYTimes says that Sandra's "mellifluous Alabama accent, like the performance in which it is embedded, is a marvel of observant precision." Indeed, the movie may be worth watching just to listen to her accent. Her character has a much larger role in this movie than in Capote, and a good deal of the subplot is dedicated to Nelle's struggle to return to writing after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird. There is a poignant scene at the end of the movie in which Nelle laments "the very American question, What's next?" She says, with intense solemnity, "But the next thing can be so hard because now you know what it demands..." The movie as hit me in the gut and I can't get it out of my head. That's some good cinema.

Anyone up for a vacation?

The Keys are a glorious, glorious place. Even though it was too windy to snorkel and fish, the fun ensued. We hit up a whole slew of Keys hots spots (and by "hot spots" I mean hole-in-the-wall traditions that have been around since the invention of air conditioning, yet have refused to take advantage of said invention). We had a good time showing Michelle around on her first trip to the islands, and she seemed to enjoy our (borderline) obsession with conch fritters.

First stop, Dade Corners: the meeting place. Need some gas? Stop there. Feeling like you want to sport a black leather vest with fringe? No problem. Broken CB? They'll fix it at Dade Corners. Just be sure to walk quickly so you don't get stuck to the floor.

Next up, crossing the 7 mile bridge in the Middle Keys.

A view of the old bridge:

We picked up Michelle from the Key West airport and headed out to do some sightseeing. When we pulled up to the Southernmost Point in the continental U.S., it looked like there were a lot of people who had the same idea. But no, the gaggle of tourists were really made out of plaster. Believe it or not, Michelle and I are the only two warm-blooded people in this photo. Why the fake folks? Don't question the island logic.

After posing with the fake tourists, we embarked on a conch fritter mission. First on the tour was B.O. - a shack near the half shell raw bar. It had some great local color and tasty fritters.

Lots of chickens in Key West...

We managed to spend some time on the water, despite the wind. We started out in Niles Channel and tooled around the Torch Keys. Is there anything on this planet more beautiful than the Keys flats?

We spotted a few dolphins playing in the bay.

After getting bounced around in the boat, we decided to hit up some Keys hotspots. We had fritters and beer at the 7 Mile Grill in Marathon, and then more fritters and beer at No Name Pub. No Name is famous (or perhaps infamous) for the thousands of dollars hanging from the walls and ceilings - all in one dollar bills. Michelle and I added our own dollar to the mix - complete with our favorite stats equations and a bid for Plasticity Forever!

Sadly, the vacation had to end. We traveled back home through Dade Corners yet again - the crossroads of the Everglades.

I thought that dissertation titles were often unnecessarily long-winded, but these book titles take the cake. You can vote for your favorite one here. In the running this year:

''How Green Were the Nazis?'' by Thomas Zeller, Franz-Josef Bruggemeier and Mark Cioc.

''The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: a guide to field identification,'' by Julian Montague. (This one is my personal favorite.)

''Tattooed Mountain Women and Spoon Boxes of Daghestan,'' by Robert Chenciner, Gabib Ismailov, Magomedkhan Magomedkhanov and Alex Binnie. (Spoon boxes!)

''Di Mascio's Delicious Ice Cream, Di Mascio of Coventry, an Ice Cream Company of Repute, With an Interesting and Varied Fleet of Ice Cream Vans,'' by Roger De Boer, Harvey Francis Pitcher, and Alan Wilkinson. (Let's not kid ourselves, it's all about how cool your ice-cream van is.)

''Proceedings of the Eighteenth International Seaweed Symposium.'' (Really? They've needed to meet 18 times to discuss seaweed? I guess it's true that it can really gunk up your motor...)

''Better Never To Have Been: the Harm of Coming Into Existence,'' by David Benatar. (You think he's related to Pat Benatar? Maybe he's jealous of her success, and wishes he never was.)

As Sting said, it's a brand new day

Just testing the waters. It's oh so exciting!