So to hold you all over while I jet off to Florida, I've taken the liberty of selecting past entries for you to peruse. I've assigned a day for each one so that you can get a little dose of Dano each day I'm gone. That should hold you over. (And, coincidentally, just might help me maintain my streak of double-digit hits per day. C'mon, it's the little things in life � if you love me, you'll do it.)

These aren't chosen for any particular reason, just ones I went back and found and picked out. Some have themes (tomorrow's is from my first trip to Florida for spring training two years ago), others are just ones I like or I felt like tossing out here.

FOR SATURDAY, FEB. 15
An account of my flight to Tampa on March 10, 2001. That was back before "hightened security" and such phrases we never used to hear on a daily basis ... In Tampa, a plane with half its occupants young spring breakers exits into a terminal filled with gray-haired retirees in shorts and black socks pulled up to the knees or pastel colored outfits, all awaiting offspring, grandchildren and other snowbird friends. They stand in a warm, humid, musty terminal smelling of old carpet and ointments. It�s like walking into my grandfather�s house in South River 15 years ago.

FOR SUNDAY, FEB. 16
Sketches from Memphis. Reading these, five years later, I can still feel Beale St. I remember the feeling I had sitting there, the atmosphere of the Memphis night. I'm anxious to go back ... From above and across the restaurant the melodic murmur of people talking and eating mixes with the music, encompassing the restaurant. The only light comes from outside, coupled with dim spotlights and neon tubes scattered throught the place. Cigar smoke hovers in the light. Three middle-aged women at the next table, on a ladies' night out, have just lit one up, revelling in their wild ways. One takes the cigar from the one who lit it, and hesitating for a moment, puts the wrong end in her mouth. The table erupts in laughter, hoping they weren't spotted, but we saw.

FOR MONDAY, FEB. 17
My first live entry. In honor of Presidents Day, the entry that began this whole adventure for me, written after I returned from the firehouse on Election Day. Of course, I didn't vote for the guy running this freak show we call a government, but I can honor those from the past who have done some good ... I walked downtown today, a pleasantly cool November morning under a gray sky in a small New Jersey suburb. The leaves crunched beneath my feet as on any other autumn day; there are still too many in the trees to make raking those already on the ground a futile effort.

FOR TUESDAY, FEB. 18
The fourth installment of a series recapping a trip to Chicago for a wedding. This covers my drive from the Windy City to Upstate New York, so it's little but my thoughts and talk of the passing scenery ... I can no longer leave Chicago without a heavy heart trying to slow my exodus as I attempt to flee on the congested interstates. I feel the city pulling me back, trying to keep me there another night or day or hour. It�s not so much the Sears Tower, the Hancock Center, Navy Pier or Wrigley Field. It�s not Adler Planetarium or Meigs Field or Lake Shore Drive. It�s more Northbrook and Arlington Heights, Plainfield and Rolling Meadows. The Chicagoland suburbs have a hold on me despite the seemingly misnamed municipalities (Arlington Heights is decidedly flat; Rolling Meadows had cars cruising along what may have once been rolling fields now paved over). It�s the people there, my friends who�ve made the northern Illinois lakeside metropolis their home after college.

FOR WEDNESDAY, FEB. 19
A different side of New York. Spending a few hours in the Financial District opened my eyes. I'd never spent much time in that part of New York City. None, in fact. I'd only walked from the World Trade Center subway stop to South Street Seaport and back a few times, never noticing what was around us. This entry provided me with too many "sexy Kathie Lee Gifford photos" hits from Google. This was also the last time I walked across the plaza between Towers 1 and 2 at the WTC ... Back out on the street, heading to the PATH trains, I see a banner advertisement in the Borders window in which Kathie Lee Gifford tries to look all Faith Hill sexy. Um, no. Unh-uh. Not going to happen, Kathie Lee. She posed with her hair fussed but done up, in a white dress shirt with a sly smile. I could see the intent, but not the effect. Or something like that.

FOR THURSDAY, FEB. 20
Redondo Beach, Calif. This is part of my big "American Road Trip" series (one of the links on the left, at the bottom). So many of my trips since have been held up against this six-week cross-country trek for comparison. In the places I return to, I go back to what I liked and make sure to hit what I missed. In new places, I try to do the things I'd otherwise regret if I didn't get to them. I also try to construct coherent sentences ... California � I�ve reached the end. Here, America reaches behind me. All that�s before me I can cover in minutes; what I�ve done, what�s in the other direction would take days. To the north and south there�s more, but it�s all equal, all the same. America began back east, in Philadelphia, Boston and New York. It went west to the Appalachians, south to DC, Virginia, Georgia. Then to the Mississippi, Chicago, St. Louis. We got New Orleans and Louisiana, reaching the Pacific. Then we took California, and someone became the first westerner, the first European, to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific on American territory. I�ve followed in millions of footsteps that have traced a path across the country for thousands of years. I�ve completed one journey in a way now, and what follows is in part a new one, a new beginning, but at the same time is a continuation.

FOR FRIDAY, FEB. 21
John Madden's Sex-A-Strator�. My God, I still laugh at this one. And I still think of new ones from time to time. When September rolls around again, I'm going to remember this and realize I'm more excited for Monday Night Football than I've ever been ... DAN: "This is the key to a good return: You take the ball and shoot it straight up the wedge." HEATHER: The word "wedge" is always funny.

FOR SATURDAY, FEB. 22
I'm a big fan of the "What happened to our pizza?" debate at Gino's East, but I'm not sure how it will play to the masses � you know, the "maybe you had to be there" angle. But just as they keep forcing the same jokes on us with the National Lampoon's movies, I shall do the same ... And, much like Lewis and Clark never found a water route from the Mississippi to the Pacific, we do not find the doughnuts. There is no awning. There is no Krispy Kreme.

FOR SUNDAY, FEB. 23
From a Nantucket rooftop. I was going to end with a "home"-themed entry, but I came across this one first and just decided to go with it. This was a good trip and I like how it began. It's another example of how I can read what I wrote then and immediately feel the place. I remember it as it was. I feel the breezes off the harbor, the hot sun of June, the cool nights on the island ... Birds chirp in the trees below as the sun begins to set behind me. What was earlier a dry hot day is growing cooler, and the breeze enhances the effect. On the hill behind me, the wide deck of what is either a hotel or rather large and expensive home is actually higher than my perch. But no matter � I have a wonderful view. I look out over treetops and rooftops and cars and American flags and power lines and see, to the southeast, the small planes as they descend into the horizon on approach to ACK � Nantucket Airport.

And that, my friends, should hold you over, if you pace yourselves. I can't be held responsible if you get too carried away and read it all by Tuesday or in one extended fit of procrastination. Of course, if you do, you can just navigate your way around my archives yourself.