Well it's official: all my travel dates are locked in and my tickets are purchased. I've got a nice little trip to the Daytona 500 with my old, old friend Chris G who is stationed at Naval Air Station, Jacksonville. I hardly ever get to see Chris and his wife & kids, so I'm definitely looking forward to catching up over many beers, followed by the Redneck Roundup. I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, but how can you knock an event attended by 200,000 people, watched by 29 million people on television, and features the most high performance cars on the planet going by at 180 miles per hour? Plus I'll be there camping out with a bunch of Navy people, so that always makes me nostalgic.

Then a few weeks later is the big trip. I'm headed to Galle, Sri Lanka to meet up with my college roommate Chris D. to get my hands dirty building homes for displaced tsunami victims. There are still so many of them! I fly from Baltimore to London, then on to Bombay, India, and finally to Columbo, Sri Lanka, where I have to become slightly more resourceful to get to the right place. I doubt it will be difficult at all. Chris has the whole thing worked out. I can hardly wait to ride in a tuk-tuk, see monkeys outside of a zoo, swim in the Indian Ocean, visit an old Buddhist temple, and build some freakin' homes for some lovely people who really need them.

Just 23 days to go until the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino!