Going out of town this weekend, so you’ll get a double burst of PQV-freshness today, though I think the “man biffle” post was as creative as I’m going to get this week.

Spring is in the air, and with it comes the intimation that I’m yet a year older. You know you’re middle-aged when you get your music recommendations from any NPR show. The Wife and I bought Basement Bhangra by DJ Rekha. No, I didn’t download the MP3’s, I bought an actual CD that I can play in my actual car. This way I can enjoy people’s reactions in the parking garage when this white boy in a Volvo careers past them listening to Indian pop music. You’re welcome, mid-level managers.

The excitement around the house the past couple of days has been the escape of the gerbil. The Daughters each have a gerbil, one named Michael the other David, and they share a duplex in the den. One of the children, whom I will not identify by name, left the door open after throwing in a Hamburger Helper box [Aagh! Our secret's out! We don't feed our children organic bison and tofu every night!] For those of you who have never had the great olfactory experience that is gerbil ownership, you give them thin carboard to chew on, so that their teeth don’t grow to garganutan sizes.

Anyway, Michael got out and we thought that he was lost forever, until we saw him peeking out from under the refrigerator. Since we didn’t want to find a dead gerbil underneath our primary repository of food, we started feeding him there. I think the experience for him has been like moving out to the suburbs. He has his own room now with a lot of space, but he’d really like to live in a gated community.

Just finished up Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game. Really good book, in the vein of Moneyball, but much more of a soap opera than the latter. Speaking of sports, I have been put in charge of the company’s NCAA brackets this year. Lucky me. Speaking of that, what is this article about the unbelieveable Kenyon College swim teams doing under the heading of College Basketball? The women’s championship is this weekend at the College of Wooster, and the men’s is next. Go Lords and Ladies!