The plan is to snatch these big bands up as they come through I-75, or “route through,” because other than Louisville or Cincinnati, there isn’t really a place to stop between Knoxville, Tenn., and Chicago, Ill., or even from Nashville, Tenn., to Indianapolis, Ind.

Online dating has been a little slow. Three days away and not even a wink to show for my (lack of) efforts. Do the men online somehow know that my life is in a state of upheaval? Can they smell the unraveling of my home, the destruction of my sense of place? Do they want a girl that is the ultimate vagabond? I said I’d never live on a couch ever again. But seriously, the situation was that terrible.

So our focus today is the best place in the Bay Area to have an outdoor beverage on a nice spring day. In fact, I’ll do you four better and provide the top five. Keep in mind that this is my top five and isn’t backed by any sort of analysis other than I like to go to these places. If you have a better top five, feel free to share it in the comments.

I think I might have lost steam on this online dating thing, and here’s why. It’s too much bluidy (said with either a Scottish brogue or English accent) work. I realize that while men appear lazy when they sent just a wink, my form of laziness is by not logging on in three days. I knew my ulitmate desire was not driven by a website, that is supposed to be for meeting people who want a real relationship, my experience has been about propositions abou hooking up at 3 AM in the East Village. No thanks.

The blinds had just been raised to $1,500 and with an Ace, King in my hand, I was in a good position to stay in the game. It was just another unbelievable moment in my Sundance 2007 adventures.

Suppose your plans will take you out “on the town” and you’re wondering what to wear for drinks at the Kaffee Klatch, the inevitable bar hopping of down town and maybe even some time on the dance floor.

Obviously there’s nothing wrong with any of these things by themselves, but you need to take the whole picture in and say to yourself, is this a girl who I can see being just as happy staying in one night and just watching a movie, or perhaps an off night at a t-shirt country!? If you can’t imagine that, you might very well have yourself a gold digger.

Before that I had occasion to play pool with my brother, Bill. Not only did he hang out at some of the worst dive bars in St. Louis, he lived upstairs over one. How he put up with the noise and all of the fighting, I’ll never know. It was probably because he was involved in it most of the time.