Exhibit 17.1

I'm leaving on another trip this afternoon, this time to Las Vegas to do these things:

1) See my friend Brant who lives in Los Angeles. That, I suppose, is the impetus for the trip, but what's odd about that is I see Brant fairly regularly and--AND--every time I do see him, Brant and I end up going to a casino anyway. So basically we're just taking the experience on the road. It'll be like spring training for Thanksgiving.

2) Have fun with my friend Dave. Dave's graduating from medical school soon. Dave's getting married. Dave once fell asleep and locked me out of a hostel in Switzerland yet I'm still going to trust him to fix my cancer, cancer Dave will probably give me if I bum cigarettes off of him.

3) Entertain my friend Justin. He seems very excited for this trip which, possibly, is the only reason I'm still going. We got to have a conversation on the phone today where I explained how to check into a flight and why he should consider only taking a carry-on bag. I felt like that guy who writes those books on traveling. You know, the one. With the cargo shorts. And his glasses on one of those neon floating things. Yeah, that one.

4) Sleep. But this one's really just for me. The rest of the guys are free to make their own decisions. I'm going to be like that guy who doesn't exist who has a really good time and facilitates everyone else's good time while never leaving the hotel room. Wait...

Actually, you know what, scratch that. It sounds sort of dirty. And by sort of, I mean John Irving.

5) Edit. This one's also just for me. Here, look what I made today when I should have been doing other things:



That's about 8 hours worth of other things I missed out on today. Weird as I wasn't even home for 8 hours today. Huh. Well, best not to spend a lot of time thinking about it.

Yeah, so I'm making a sire line chart and then writing entries for it. It actually only took me about an hour or two this evening. My friends Dave and Neal have one in their bathroom. It's the coolest thing in the world. Theirs is for thoroughbreds. Mine is for Americans. It's going to be a chapbook as I'm not going to do anything else with the pieces and AWP got me all excited about having a chapbook again.

If nothing else, it got me through this week+ stretch of being home and not wanting to work on a bigger project just to get interrupted again.

While I'm gone, my sister will be staying at my place and watching the dog. So if you stop by to see me (or, more likely, the dog) and there is someone who looks like me but slightly tougher, that's my sister. Maybe take her on a date, why not?

I'm back Monday. Things I'm going to do Monday:

1) Stop writing blog posts with the word 'I'
2) Stop trying to fix up my sister

Great, so we're agreed. You're going to marry my sister.

This way I'll see you at Thanksgiving. I'll be the one in game shape.

I'm just kidding. No one marry my sister while I'm gone. That's my one rule.