The other day, there was a life-threatening tragedy. Not MY life, or Diana's, but some baby birds.

We have a beam that runs under our roofline outside, and some birds have made nests on the protected ledge. We've kept our eyes on 'em, watching them build the nest, watching for babies and so forth.

The other day, I noticed one of the nests was missing, but the adult bird was standing where the nest used to be. I looked down, and on the ground was the nest, and a couple little newborn baby finches squirming on the ground, covered with ants. It was terrible. Two were dead, but two were being eaten alive.

I was able to collect the nest and the babies, scare off all the ants, and replace the babys in the nest, and finally replace the nest on the ledge. However, checking back in an hour or so, the ants were now attacking the nest on the ledge, and the parents were nowhere to be seen. Desperate times called for a new course.

We transferred the babies into a homemade nest in a shoebox, constructed a dry island in the middle of a baking dish filled with water, and set them under a hot reading lamp for warmth.

We were able to feed them a little by dipping a paper town into Gatorade and chicken drippings and blueberry goo. Watching them rear back and open theirs mouths to be fed was one of the cutest things ever, but also made it readily apparent how ill-prepared to actually take care of these guys we were.

That night (Saturday) we went to a play with Diana's parents. We saw A Midsummer Nights Dream in San Marcos, and I found it surprisingly good. By the time we got back, one of the birds had died, and the other seemed ravenously hungry. We fed him as best we could, but by the next morning, he was in really bad shape.

Our last option was to try to replace him in the nest and hope his parents came back. It was pretty much a death sentence, but it was kind of our last hope. It didn't work out. Poor little guy. It was a fun little adventure while it lasted, though. Diana was especially fun to watch taking care of them. She's going to be a really great mom when the time rolls around.

Not a whole lot of other news. I golfed with Iwan on Sunday, and afterwards we watched some of the World Juggling Federation that he caught on ESPN. Really neat stuff. Far and away the best jugglers were the Galchenkos, a brother-sister team from Russia. They were absolutely incredible, scoring a 9.95 while second and third place took like 8.6 and 8.2. Check our their videos at the site. Incredible, incredible stuff.

We also watched "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back", which I'm not sure if I liked or not. It started off kinda slow and silly, but really picked up towards the end.

I leave on Thursday for Lake Powell for a long weekend of house-boating and water-skiing. I think it will be a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll remember my camera and there will be plenty of pictures.

That's about it for now.

Oh yeah.... how about another chess game?