I've been posting stuff on my other blogs, and here is a listing of this week's posts:

• Troppo, the second time around

• Arriving at Isla Mujeres
• Traverse City snowshoeing

• Firerackers = funds
• Passing health care without a vote
• Flint to lay off police

John was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets,' and ten roosters to fertilize the eggs.

He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.

This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters.

Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing.

Now, he could sit on the porch And fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favourite rooster, old Butch, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all!

When he went to investigate, he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming, could run for cover.

To John's amazement, old Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring.

He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of old Butch, he entered him in the Renfrew County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges.

The result was the judges not only awarded old Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly old Butch was a politician in the making.

Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Vote carefully this year, the bells are not always audible.

It's on, the tournament has started - truly one of the best times of the year... and I'm in my cube.

But I did go to a bar at lunch to watch the first half of the first round of games. I went to Brannigan Bros in downtown Lansing, and their roast beef and fried egg sandwich was pretty good, though the smell of stale beer spilled on St. Patrick’s Day was not.

An old guy sat next to me and started chatting up the bartender. He seemed nice enough, and I figured he would talk to me, despite my reading a book and watching the games. He did. So I decided to be cordial when he addressed me as "slim" and started talking.

Here is a sampling of the things he said:

• "I like my cornbread with grits."
• "You're driving a car in the dark. I'm riding a horse in the light."
• "I don't like sports. I like climbing mountains."

He couldn't have been drunk, since he was working on his first PBR, acquired after asking what the cheapest beer was, and expounding on the greatness of Detroit beers. Alas, Brannigan Bros. did not have Stroh's on tap.

You just never know who'll you'll meet in a bar.

Saturday was Elena's first trip to the Circus. The Hanneford Circus came to the Breslin Center, and we saw the 1:30 show, along with a few thousand other people, including one that kept hitting me in the head with his plastic Lightsaber. Apparently, the parents saying "stop that" wasn't enough to make "Carter" (I know because I heard it constantly) "stop that."

Elena enjoyed the show, and was very well-behaved, sitting in either Andrea's or my lap for the entire show. She really liked the white tigers, the dogs, and the monkeys. I was most impressed by the jugglers and the high-wire family - the seven-person pyramid on a wire dozens of feet about the ground (without a net) was pretty cool.

And we ate like we were at the circus. Cotton candy, popcorn, and an ice-cream cookie were on the menu. It's almost like I was making dinner.

I was reading a Detroit News story on Kwame's continuing troubles with the law, specifically his unwillingness to pay restitution money. The last paragraph reads thusly:

Kilpatrick's lawyers have argued he has no money to pay. More than $40,000 in money orders were delivered to the court last month to be applied to Kilpatrick's restitution, apparently from anonymous supporters of the former mayor.

Now those are some awfully nice supporters, to provide $40,000 to a convicted felon. Once again, it makes me wonder what Kwame has on people around Detroit. And how do I get friends like Kwame?

The weather is sort-of nice - above freezing - so for lunch today, I ran outside for the first time since November. It was cloudy and cool, but I'll take it over snow and rain.

What else has happened? Oh, yeah, Andrea and I got back from Mexico yesterday. We stayed at Villa La Bella, a six-room B&B on Isla Mujeres, an island about 15 minutes off the coast of Cancun.

We kept busy our first full day, renting bikes and riding down to the southern end of the island where we walked to the top of a lighthouse and visited a temple to the goddess Ixchel.

Day two was mostly for relaxation. We stayed at the B&B, leaving only for meals. It was in the low 80s and sunny all day long. Wind, water, and babbling tourists were the sounds we heard most of the afternoon.

And we had some great food and great prices. Tacos, guacamole & chips, and chile relleno - good stuff. We had some of the best Mojitos ever at Veradero, a Cuban restaurant, and tried some tasty pina coladas at the B&Bs bar.

Best of all, no one got sick on the way home from the airport! That was a big improvement over last trip. Though we did pay $26 for two mini-burritos and a bottle of water. Love that Cancun airport price gouging.

I'll have lots more to say about it later, but here is a picture of the B&B:

Our DVR is not doing well. It intermittently turns itself off, and takes almost ten minutes to power back on. So it will be dying shortly, and we'll probably lose all of our saved shows, around twenty. Ah, technology. But, it's around five years old, and the system is basically one big hard drives. And hard drives die sometimes.

Work is working. No word yet on the status of my contract renewal. If it doesn't go through, I'll be driving to Grand Rapids or Livonia, most likely. So, an hour and twenty minutes as opposed to 20 minutes. So so good.

Elsewhere, I've posted two links to my other blogs, The Traveling Michigander and Michigan Foodies.

Elena has learned all her letters and is writing a few on her white board. She also reads off speed limit signs as we are in the car. These are almost as fun as throwing everything out of her crib. After that, I'm required to say "Only Elena is left", which she finds very funny.

I went snowshoeing last weekend, which was fun and exhausting. I headed out on Saturday morning and drove to Ludington, first for lunch at McDonald's - one I hadn't eaten at before, so it was new and excited - and followed that up by heading to Ludington State Park.

I took the 1.5 mile trail to the Big Sable Lighthouse, sometimes sticking to the path and sometimes going up and down the dunes. Then I spent another hour or so on the paths through the woods that meandered around the state park. It was an exhausting walk.

Then I headed to Traverse City, staying at the Fairfield Inn on US 31. The room was nice and they actually gave me the requested room type (upper floor, away from the elevator) which is almost unheard of. The room had a stunning view of a Cracker Barrel.

I made the short trip to Traverse City Commons for a very short hike on the trails through the hills above Traverse City before going to the House of Doggs for dinner. It was a cheap dinner consisting of two hot dogs. The first was called a Jazz dog, had banana peppers, jalapenos, hot sauce, chili, and other wonderful stuff. It had a bite. The second, the Honky Tonk, had cheese and bacon, beautiful in its simplicity.

I called home to say goodnight to Elena and she told me all about The Jungle Book and the popcorn and milkshakes she and Andrea had eaten for dinner. And that there was a bear named Baloo in the movie, also the name of one of our cats. This was an incredibly exciting revelation to Elena.

I stopped by Left Foot Charley, a winery in the Commons, to buy some wines. They only has Rieslings left, but I bought a few bottles anyway. Finally, I stopped by Right Brain Brewery and had two beers. The first, Altar of Heaven, was a ginger-flavored IPA while the second was a chocolate orange stout. Very unique brews.

The next morning I had the complimentary Fairfield Inn breakfast, which was pretty good. They had self-serve waffles, which I love, microwave Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwiches, and hard-boiled eggs. I ate a little more than I normally would since I had to fuel up for more snowshoeing.

My last trail in TC was Peninsula Township Park at the tip of Old Mission. What's better than walking across a frozen bay with the wind whipping in your face?

met a friend from my Babbage's days for lunch at The Blue Tractor. I had a very good bleu cheese and bacon burger before heading south for the final trail of my trip, Mitchell State Park in Cadillac. It was a little boring as trail go, a simple circle around a nature area, but it was a new trail for me.

Ever wanted to jump off a building? Now you don't have to leave Lansing to do it:

LANSING - Local daredevils can put their fearlessness to the test this summer by rappelling down the side of downtown Lansing's tallest building.

The Team Lansing Foundation is organizing a June 5 fundraising event called, "Over the Edge," giving people the chance to make an "extreme rappel" down the approximately 25-story Boji Tower.

Elena is doing better. She had one more incident last night, but today has been better.

While watching the Olympics last night, we discovered that CNBC also covers the games, and that channel actually shows competition. This is completely unlike NBC, which shows Bob Costas going on and on about feel-good stories about the athletes. I wish I would have realized this a week ago.

I had some very good nachos last night at The Watershed in Haslett. And the restaurant is very close to home, which worked out, since I didn't want to go far because of the amount of snow we received.

And finally, I added a post about the Port Orleans Resort in Disneyworld on my travel site.

Elena has been throwing up this morning, so no day care for her. She did it first in her crib, then in the bathtub when we were trying to clean her up, and on my shirt right before I left for work. (Don't worry, I have more than one shirt.) Hopefully she'll get better soon.

In other weekend news, Andrea and I went to the MSU Chocolate Party on Sunday. There were lots of people, but far fewer vendors than in years past, which was disappointing. Also, there were only three competing teams in the artist chocolate competition. There used to be at least ten when we have gone previously.

Another bad part was that MSU was playing basketball at the same time as the Chocolate Party was happening, so the Kellogg Center parking ramp was full, and it was awful trying to get out. But, obviously, we did escape.

Saturday was Elena's last swimming class, so she is ready for competition. We had friends over for dinner and Andrea made very strong margaritas and very good enchiladas. I think they were enchiladas - lots of Mexican food looks the same when covered with cheese and other good stuff.