The Labor Day weekend has been a lazy one, but that doesn't distinguish it from any other recent weekend.

I've accomplished almost nothing. I've fiddled with the HTML for the journal pages again, and I've decided that I'll probably return to uploading the journal pages in Notepad; I will, however, continue to compose in Word. The eligible editors that I've tried -- that is, editors available to me both at home and at work -- added too many superfluous tags and arranged formatting tags in locations that confused Netscape. Font tags showed up everywhere, and formatting tags often overlapped other tags. If I had been conscientious, I might have spent almost as much time cleaning up HTML as I did composing, but I wasn't, so instead I spent part of Sunday cleaning up the HTML to stand as a template for future entries. [I haven't yet tested this HTML in Netscape, so I apologize in advance for any mistakes, and I have undoubtedly made a few.] I still prefer composing in a word processor though. I foresee a future filled with much cutting from Word and pasting into the HTML template.

I'm prepared to lay the blame for my lethargy at the nearly empty base of the thermometer. Although I dearly love hot weather, the heat has become oppressive after a few weeks of temperatures over 100�. I've accomplished next to nothing in the yard. The coneflowers in the front bed need cutting, and the border in the west yard needs cleaning and mulching, but the heat has discouraged me from taking on either of those prickly tasks. I hope to reseed the lawn in the backyard this month, but unless the temperature falls significantly, I do not foresee myself spending much time sweating behind a carbon monoxide spewing rototiller any time soon.

Owen and his friends avoid the heat by coming inside to the computer where they play Half-life and other games. His friends arrive at the house with a change of clothes, knowing that when their time at the computer is finished, and we shoo them from the house, the next best activity available to them is a bounce on the trampoline out back with a Rainbird drenching them.

Only the youngest in this household seems able to bear the dry heat outside for long. He and a neighbor kid have discovered scooters this summer, so they spend hours on their new scooters, skimming around the neighborhood with the grace of water bugs. However, even Taylor comes into the house flushed from time to time. He'll drink a cup or two of juice or water, collapse on the couch with his Harry Potter, read a chapter, and when he has recovered, he will return to the scooter and the heat.

About the only decisive thing I did this weekend was to choose the picture for the September index page, and I'm pretty certain I made the wrong choice. The picture of Taylor on the August 20th entry is probably the best picture I've taken with the digital camera, and it may be the best picture I've taken with any camera. I have grown accustomed to seeing it in the larger format used to display it on the journal entry, and I didn't like the picture as well when I reduced it to a size more suitable to the current design of the index page. The runner-up (the '58 Chevy on the August 29th entry) did not fare much better when I reduced it to fit the index page, but I was too lazy to make another choice. I foresee a mid-course correction in a few days. But that prediction is about as reliable as reports of cooler temperatures.

And that, Dear Diary, ends my thirty minutes here. There are Froot Loops to pour, and rumors of dreams to marvel at.

Reading:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and a collection of James Wright's poems.

Watched:
Saturday night, KSU and Louisiana Tech (54-10).

Weather:
109� again Saturday, but down to a high of 100� Sunday.