All work, no play, and scarcely time for an idea this week � that's my story, anyway, to explain my absence from these pages and those in the log.

There is much to report. Classes wind down from one of my busiest cycles ever, Josh loves the summer job that he started this week at the bike store/outfitter, and Owen and Taylor look forward to the endless summer horizon that floats just beyond next Friday noon when school is out. And I could go on and on, recounting this cheery tidbit, and that wistful trifle. That's what I do, after all.

But those avoidance strategies that form the patina of my glamorous daily life mask an ugly truth, a truth about my inner geekdom that became apparent in a very public way a week ago.

I know that it might come as a surprise that I'm a geek, and it's probably also a surprise that I bring it up here because I tend to keep things light and superficial here; however, a very powerful pang has worked on my conscience ever since I omitted a bit of news in last Saturday's update, an omission I'm not proud of, so I feel compelled to correct that omission here today.

On Thursday, May 10, I visited Wal-Mart on the monthly run for deodorant, toothpaste, shaving cream, bar soap � the usual toiletry items that somehow always ring up at fifty bucks, no matter what I buy. (No, finding myself in Wal-Mart isn't the shameful part, but take a breath and cover the kids' eyes because it's coming right up.) And there before me at eye level was a shelf filled with barbering tools � electric clippers, guides, scissors, everything needed to relandscape a scalp.

And the clippers are calling out to me, singing the siren's song of self-sufficiency: "Oh, Boo-ob! Oh, geekboy! Twenty bucks, bucko! You've got twenty bucks, dontcha, big boy?"

And I'm thinking, heck, how many folks have ever flunked out of barber college? Didn't I see that a football team from some barber college had played in the Anderson Consulting Forgettable New Name Loquat Bowl last December? I'm sporting a crew cut. How tough could giving myself a crew cut be? Can it really be any tougher than mowing a lawn?

With that kind of hubristic logic and a swipe of a credit card, I became the owner of my own set of barbering tools. This tool purchase is not up there with buying a new Makita circular saw. This is more like that condom purchase you made as a teenager when you found your mother's best friend in line behind you at the checkout stand, or so I imagine, having heard such a tale from a friend of a friend.

But buy this gizmo I did. I was not entirely ignorant of the potential dangers of my undertaking, so on Thursday evening I tucked it away under the bed, postponing my first foray into styling self-sufficiency for Friday night. With no public appearances scheduled for Friday night or Saturday morning, by waiting until Friday night to cut my hair, I could have any of my egregious errors corrected early Saturday morning at the hands of a barber school graduate, and no one would be the wiser if I screwed this up.

I'm going to skip the more unattractive details of the Friday evening adventure, and I'll assert instead that my effort wasn't half bad. Or it was randomly half bad � a tuft here, a gouge there, a little slip of the left hand there.

The parts of the new 'do that I can see without a second mirror are very well done, if a little shorter than I originally intended. And I'm hopeful that the other parts will grow back and fill in quickly. In the meantime, I'll try to silence any snickers with a mumbled mention of chemotherapy or radiation treatment and a distant gaze in the general direction of eternity.

The fellowship voted on Sunday to use up to 90% of the endowment for the building expansion. We also voted to authorize the architect to seek bids for the project.

Gasoline prices rose to 179⁹ last week, but had 'fallen' to 173⁹ by this morning when I filled the Metro.

On Friday night, I finally removed the ad square from these pages.