10 a.m. - Woken up after only seven hours of beauty sleep (if that were really a factor, I would require 12 hours a day), because some troglodyte outside my window had the "Tool Time" Binford 9000 Ground Excavator whirligig thingamajig to plant a stinkin' palm tree for the people next door.

Did you ever notice (pull off the sunburned skin, I'm Andy Rooney underneath) . . . while watching the NCAA Tournament we saw countless ads for prescription drugs that are supposed to cure an ailment. However, doesn't it seem that it's almost better to have the one problem as opposed to the dozen side effects rattled off in a whisper at the end? For example, why would you take an anti-anxiety drug if it makes you nauseous, gives you diarrhea and causes you to watch CBS on Friday nights? Wouldn't you just have all new worries?

By the way, today was another lazy day. Dad and I drove up to Sawgrass Mills mall in Ft. Lauderdale to eat at Hard Rock Café and get my shot glass, then Dad got a hair cut and we made a pit stop for ice cream and shakes next door at the Dairy Queen. Danielle got her toe- and fingernails done, then ran some brief shopping errands.

Random Florida trivia: Sawgrass, endless stretches of which fill the Florida Everglades, is not a grass at all but a member of the sedge family.

More examples of nutty Miami driving: In the parking lot of the Sawgrass Mills mall, which is a very large and busy mall with few parking spots for aisles and aisles, people will still try for the closest spot to the mall. When they see you walking down a row drivers will follow you, then nearly come to tears when they see you duck behind another row on your way far out to your car, in the land where lazy people need not venture.

One lady even rolled down her window to ask where we parked, and if she could follow us to get the spot. When we did get to Dad's Jeep, a Mustang nearly threw off its transmission stopping so quickly in front of us to back up and grab our spot. I guess I understand, because to me it's a symbol of manliness, to see how close to the building you can park, making fun of those who have to walk a half-hour from their spot in Appalachicola. Sometimes we all need a reminder that no matter how low we are, there is someone who is worse off, and that person is Darva Conger.

Continuing to be lazy, because I'm on vacation! I don't need to do wonderful fantastic new things to please you guys all the time! Okay, so it would at least make this write-up more interesting.

Today, Dad and I see The Count of Monte Cristo, which I had already seen. But you can see that I enjoyed it the first go 'round by the fact that I wanted Dad to see it, and it all worked out since Dad had a good time and Danielle had some time to herself to finish some reading for school.

Otherwise, we watch the final round of The Players Championship, the Regional finals of the NCAA Tournament (Hell's Bells, Oregon Ducks, I wanted you to win!).

That night we continue to sit on our tushies and do something I haven't in some five years: Watch the Oscars at home, without having to work. Yeah, I can hear the small violins playing in my support.

Jeff watches the Academy Awards: Whoopi wasn't that bad, though I miss Billy Crystal, and thought Steve Martin did very well last year. It was nice to see the good guys winning, from Randy Newman, the Susan Lucci of the Best Song award, to Denzel Washington.

Classy speech by Sydney Poitier, thanking everyone in Hollywood who helped him get over very real barriers forty years ago. So why was everyone in the tribute video black? Halle Berry calls him an "American treasure," which is true, but why didn't we see all kinds of Americans expressing the thought? Then Halle gets up and talks about how she represents all black women. Pan to audience where we see her white, blond haired, blue-eyed mother who was beaten by Halle's black father, who left when Halle was little.

Hey, Woody Allen, are you still married to your daughter? Good speech, though. This thing needs to be trimmed by a half-hour, although I can't think of what to trim. Maybe if the show just started an hour earlier and actually planned on a four-hour running. Even the interpretive dance bit, which was by Cirque du Soleil this year, was quite fun.

As for picking the winners, my Oscar Pool was lame; I finished 10-14, completely missing most every minor category such as Best Film Featuring Dogs With Salt and Pepper Fur (can't believe I forgot about Snow Dogs).

It's not a positive start when I wake up at 10:15 a.m. to what sounds like a NATO meeting outside my window, only without a translator. At least they weren't digging to China again.

Otherwise it was a typical travel day, except that I didn't drive seven hours from Memphis or Louisville, instead flying home this time. Still, it's a feeling of dread, looking at the clock and realizing that I'll be up all day and all night, working until 6 a.m. the next day.

Danielle went to Publix to pick up some sandwiches, and we drove to Dad's office for lunch so we could say our goodbyes. By 2 p.m. Danielle dropped me off at the Ft. Lauderdale airport for my 4:30 flight.

As I enter the airport I notice a large line to my right. Unfortunately the Line From Hell is for Air Tran, and thus I reluctantly join the end of it. All other airlines had only four or five people in queue, and I began to wonder if I would even make my flight, between this and going through security. And I couldn't go straight to the gate and forego the line with only an email stating my reservation number (at least Delta has an online kiosk that would have prevented this).

So I chatted up the guy behind me, a family man (his wife, young son and daughter were exploring the airport) from the Philadelphia area. We did our civic duty by preventing a line hijacking, when this South Florida pretty boy tried to sneak in ahead of me.

Trying to be diplomatic and not accuse him straight out, I motioned to the pretty blond in front of me, asking if he was with her. She shook her head no, so I asked pretty boy with his rippling muscle shirt if he was lost, because his bags happened to be in my way. At first the scalawag said that he had been there the entire time, then when that didn't fly he pretended that he didn't realize that the end of the line was thirty people to my rear, as if he just happened to get lost while talking on his cell phone (he did so the entire time he was in the terminal - must've been getting the number for the local steroid distributor).

To wrap the episode up (stop clapping), I'm proud to say that I wasn't taking any guff and thwarted a line skipping, making the pretty boy look like an idiot to the dozen people around us. Watching him sulk to the end of the line, the Germans have a word for my tone: schadenfreude, a certain suppressed joy in others' troubles.

I told the lady in front of me that if he resembled someone from Revenge of the Nerds I might have treated it more delicately, but for this pretty boy, no way. He has enough advantages in life as it is. I'm sorry, did I just turn into a liberal? Florida must rub you differently.

After an hour wait I checked my bag and got my ticket, but unlike past Ft. Lauderdale airport visits the line to get through security was nonexistent. It only took me ten minutes, of which 9 minutes and 55 seconds was spent getting violated. I was patted down, scanned by the magic wand, had my shoes checked and had to unbuckle my belt, then they looked closely at my $20 Wal-Mart digital watch, which probably makes the wand beep due to its cheap plutonium casing, but I won't guarantee that.

Do you ever get the feeling that people aren't pay attention to you? I SAID, DO YOU EVER get the feeling that people are ignoring you? I tell the lady at the Nathan's counter that I don't need the penny in change from my undercooked fries, and she promptly hands it to me. I tell the security guard waving the magic wand over my crotch that he should check for a suspiciously attractive package underneath, and he just pats my leg and asks me to cough.

The terminal was scorching hot, so now I'm tired, hot and sweaty and my Nathan's french fries were undercooked. Oh, yeah, did I mention that the flight was late leaving?

Do I sound cranky? I'm really not, it's just easier to bitch and moan than say I was relatively bored in the airport reading the USA Today and Miami Herald while trying to be patient.

Here's a primer on airline idiocy: If they flight is scheduled to take off at 4:30, and the plane isn't at the gate by 4:27, then it's probably a good idea to change the status board from On Time to Delayed, which they did at 4:35. Those of us in the hot chairs happened to notice that we weren't flying the wild blue yonder yet. My Air Tran arrival time rate for two legs: still 0%.

The plane pulled in at 4:50, we start boarding at 5:10 and take off at 5:45, only an hour and fifteen minutes late. I believe that if the plane was crashing, twenty feet above the ground the pilot would get on the speaker and announce that due to unintended circumstances, the flight is making an unscheduled landing in the Atlantic Ocean. But he'd thank us for flying Air Tran, I'm sure.

I swear, another ten minutes of waiting I was expecting to hear: "There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane?" - Airplane! I think the captain was asking a boy if he'd ever been to a Turkish prison.

Here's a telling stat: There's no Row 13 on the plane. If my airline feels the need to be superstitious then I don't think they trust themselves, let alone should I trust them. Although, it may be worth it all just for the Exit Row seats. Flying both north and south I was able to grab them, and the leg room is fabulous, bigger than some flats in New York City.

Did you ever notice that the flight attendants don't tell you the really important stuff at the start of a flight? What I want to know is, how many lavatories are there and where located, who's slow and easy to run over in case of emergency, and who's likely to be drunk and belligerent ("18C has a 20% chance of getting plastered by hour two, 25B usually falls asleep when drunk so don't worry, but you might need a change of clothing if next to him, but 10A had to be restrained after watching the in-flight movie starring Freddie Prinze, Jr.").

Touch down at 7:24, deplane at 7:30, and in the span of 57 minutes I take the tram to the baggage claim, pick up my bag, take the MARTA train from the airport station to the CNN Center station - with a changeover at Five Points downtown - drop my bags off at my car in the parking lot and get to B-Control to start working. ("I'm doin' fine, thanks for askin'. Just got in from the airport; mighty big airport we got here...") Then I work for three hours before crashing at my computer...zzzzzzzzzzz. Ah, the joys of travel!

P.S. - I had 320 emails waiting for me at work. This could take a few years, though half of them are merely offering me free Viagra trials. Isn't that precious? The other half are telling me what I can do after using the Viagra.

Until next time, I'll let you know that videos of "Jeff Gone Wild" are now available in the gift shop, and I assure you there is only tasteful nudity.