Then something amazing happened. A gang of blue herons, maybe 10 or 12 in all, invaded the cove in a cacophonous squawking, flapping stormfront of their own. I’ve never seen more than two of them at once, and usually there is just one heron who reins supreme over the cove. But this morning, there was an army, fighting, feeding and presumably mating all around us. It was sublime, causing even Xena to sit up and take notice.

After we settled back in to a becalmed morning punctuated by the herons all around us, Xena and I were startled to hear a splash and rattle on the shore not 20 feet from where we sat on the dock. A heron had approached stealthily, spotted swirling prey, struck and was now gobbling a crappie pelican-like. The Newfy and I exchanged a startled look. The heron paid us no mind, even as Xena rose to her feet to warn him against approaching her dock, and after he was done devouring the fish, he took flight with a hop and a croak.

The sound of leaf blowers and chainsaws ring through the cove as frantic suburban barons tried to cleanse their fiefdoms of last night’s blow. And I find myself growing progressively more annoyed at the noise pollution destroying an otherwise supreme spring evening. Moving into suburbia has taken some adjustment on my part. While it’s hard to tell for all the isolating trees and water, we’re nestled in a series of subdivisions, each with that burning desire to impose order on nature that subdivision life seems to breed.

In Hardin Valley, our previous home, the noise nemesis came almost entirely from the road, which was slowly being overrun by the area’s rapacious growth. But subdivisions had yet to strangle our rural stretch of Hardin Valley Road so lawn mowers, weed eaters and leaf blowers were a fairly uncommon annoyance.

Not so now. It seems as if someone somewhere is always running a whining, sputtering, two-stroke gas engine, and as much as I abhor the government-run-amok edicts that seem to emerge from places like California on a regular basis, I’m starting to wonder if bans on leaf blowers and restrictions on noise are such a bad thing …

Tonight, the leaf blowers are out in full flail.

But something more melodious rises up and grabs my ear, pulling me away from thoughts of legislative tyranny against landscaping.

Sitting in a dead poplar, a cardinal sings with the passion of Amy Winehouse right after she’s inhaled crackpipe inspiration.

Cardinals are one of those birds that, despite their brilliant red feathers and regal crests, often go unnoticed. They’re fairly common. But this guy wouldn’t be ignored. Framed in the dead poplar branches with a riotous green background from the canopy of trees covering the hill, he pops up like an instant message from a long lost friend. He’s looking for love, and he’s arrogant enough to believe he can out-wail the moronic drone of the leaf blowers across the cove. What he lacks in decibels he overcomes with finesse.

The leaf blowers disappear. And all I hear is his song.

The prodigal hounds returned, but not without a little help. Someone a subdivision or two away found them and managed to coax Gilligan close enough with an offering of dog food to get a look at his 2006 rabies tag, which prompted a call to Hardin Valley Animal Hospital, which triggered a call to my cell phone. The final domino fell when I called the guy who found the hounds.

Yes. I’ll be right over to get them. Relieved. And angry.

There they were. Standing in the middle of the street, disheveled, hoping for more food. They approached my truck cautiously, wondering if they were going to get kind words or a slap upside the head. I opted for a stern order to get in the back of the F-150. They obliged and spent the rest of the day sleeping off their all-night party and steering clear of me whenever I entered the room. The storm clearly had taken a toll. They were soaked and weary. But they were unscathed.

Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for poor Hurricane, the basset hound Leanne rescued from Katrina’s aftermath in New Orleans. Apparently, the weekend wind brought down tree limbs that compromised her fence. Hurricane stormed out of the safe harbor of the yard and into the path of a car, where he was killed instantly.

In trying to offer condolences to Leanne, and perhaps feeling a bit guilty that my hounds had returned home safely after their illicit sojourn, I feebly offered that while it was sad poor Hurricane was spared from Katrina only to be killed by a car, he had lived his bonus time on the planet to its fullest. What basset wouldn’t want to be part of Leanne’s pack? He was already in doggy heaven …

But what I really wanted to say, and couldn’t quite conjure the words at the time, is that somewhere a cardinal is sitting in a dead poplar tree, singing with all his might, searching for a mate.

This one is targeted at The W hotels in general and the Atlanta-Perimeter W in particular.

The W annoys the crap out of me, from the Eurotrash music that throbs in the elevators to the dark hallways to the copies of Wired magazine in the rooms. They’re just trying too damned hard to be hip. And generally, if you have to try that hard, you ain’t. Though I realize the real issue here could be that I’m a decidedly middle-aged guy who’s in bed by 10 every night and more interested in the quality of the fitness center than the hipster cocktails at the bar. But I’d sooner think it’s The W’s problem, not mine. It’s easier that way …

As for the W Atlanta-Perimeter, we decided it’s merely a V after staying there for several nights this week. The offenses were small and great, ranging from a hyperhip coffee bar that shutters at 11 a.m. to a fitness center that totally sucks despite its hipster name, “Sweat.”

The V appears to be a failed attempt to transform a stereotypical suburban Atlanta hotel into something special. They got halfway there.

The ultimate strange event was when one of my cohorts returned to his room late one night to find all his stuff was gone. Well, it wasn’t gone. His cloths were wadded up in a bag and his computers were over in a back corner. Apparently, a computer problem led the staff to believe he’d abandoned all this and they were gathering it up. Not sure what they would have done with it from there, and it was only after being insistent that he convinced the hotel it needed to iron the clothes they’d wadded up in the bag so he could wear them the next day.

On the bright side, the V delivered pretty well for the meeting we were holding. The food service was good and they did a solid job of planning it. Few things are more nightmarish than having the hotel facilities crumble before your eyes while 50+ meeting attendees are sitting there waiting to get started.

I highly recommend the bone-crunchingly psychedelic Double Live, recorded sometime around 1988. And while you're at it, download a copy of the bootleg Tejass for a taste of their mid-'90s incarnation.

Boy howdy. They don't make music like that no more ...

As we were driving around Atlanta in her dogmobile (complete with a dashboard that has been chewed by one of her grateful pooches), she detailed how she can't resist the temptation to sneak into some half-wit's yard to liberate a dog who is being abused or neglected.

I asked her if she was afraid of getting shot by some pissed off weasel, and she didn't even flinch. The dog's welfare is just too important to pause at such peril. She's not even worried the dog might turn on her. Enough hot dogs will appease even the most savage of beasts.

I left Atlanta with a newfound faith in humanity and wishing I had the balls and bravery to do the same, especially after reading the plight of the forlorn St. Bernard that some piece of shit redneck had on a chain in Tennessee. The poor thing got tangled in its chain and chewed its own leg off to escape. Thank god the Ninja Dognapper is out there, moving stealthily through the night, saving Man's best friend from Man.

I've often heard the Blackberry referred to as a "Crackberry," to the point where it got a little old. Then my Blackberry died a horrible, unfortunate death. And I came to realize what an utter, hopeless junky I've become.

I was on the porch last night trying to kill a wasp that had wandered in. I took a mighty swing ... and missed, leaving a pissed off wasp streaming toward me. My survival instinct kicked in and I started hopping around, trying to get out of the way.

That's when my Blackberry popped out of my breast pocket, flopped through the air and crashed onto the wood decking.

I picked it up, praying it would still work. And it did. Or so I though. But it wasn't able to find the network. I was cut off. No e-mail. No calls. Just a constant, nagging "Searching for CDMA" note on the phone.

I knew I had to go to Atlanta the next day, and the thought of being out in the world without the cool comfort of my Blackberry really rattled me. I started to twitch. I called Verizon and begged them to show mercy on me. Their advice was to take it to the nearest Verizon store and see if it could be resurrected.

So this morning that's what I did. But by that point, I was sweating profusely and I kept looking at the Blackberry's screen in the hope of seeing some sign of life ... a new message, a Facebook alert, a Gmail notice. Nothing.

The Verizon folks were great. I think it was refreshing that I actually admitted the Blackberry's demise was my own doing. Or maybe they saw what a mess I was and realized it would be better to feed my jones than deal with the consequences. They offered to replace it for 50 bucks, which I eagerly agreed to. Phone service restored, I sped home to re-establish my Blackberry's intimate relation with the Maroon Ventures Exchange Server. Mission accomplished. And in crisis, as is often the case, I came to self-awareness. I'm an addict. And maybe the stupid Crackberry joke isn't so stupid after all. Just make sure I have my fix and there won't be any trouble ...

On the small side of the equation, I flashed back to some of the tiny Dutch paintings I saw in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Xavier Esqueda's "La Fertilidad Incipiente" was excellent and I really liked an ipod piece by Jose Antonio Hernandez Vargas. It was called "A Negra," and featured a swirl of flies buzzing around the screen of a video ipod forming the letter A. It was the music playing in the background that first drew me to it. Never figured out what it was, though. Haunting. Or maybe hypnotic is a better description.

And then I drifted into an exhibit called "Retablos: Miracles on the Border." Great stuff. The retablos are done on wood or metal by people who want to thank a saint for a miracle. The retablos range from the poignant to the rough-hewn. My favorite told the story of a man who petitioned St. Michael the Archangel so the documents for his pickup truck would come through. The retablo, on metal with spots of rust showing through, thanks the saint for interceding and ensuring the paperwork was delivered. Behind the steering wheel of a pickup truck sits the petitioner, a pleased smile on his face.

There were numerous retablos of this sort. It was amazing to drift through them and read these people's tales of personal miracles, many of which were tied to immigration to the U.S. from Mexico.

The museum itself is strange in a good way. It's small, almost claustrophobic, with low ceilings that often forced me to duck lights when I was standing in front of the retablos. It has a very cool gift shop that managed to liberate a few dollars from me. Definitely worth checking out if you happen to drift through Austin ...

Anyway, stop over and check it out. There's a link where you can submit your URL for our blogroll. And we're still tweaking, so if you see anything that's not quite right, let me know.

That's where I found myself several nights ago, under a brilliant waxing moon in weather so warm the fish were popping all around me like bubbles in a deep fryer. The hounds had already charged off into the night, not to be seen again until the next morning. Another jailbreak that leaves me wondering where they go, what they do, with their much-coveted freedom. I need to invent a dog GPS or Gilligan Cam at some point so I can snoop on their midnight rambles.

That left me, Xena the noble Newf and the fish soaking in the moonlight when three sharp croaks echoed through the cove, followed immediately by swishing feathers and the sandpaper scraping of claws on shingles. A massive blue heron had alighted on the dock's pitched roof, right in front of me and Xena. He didn't see us. At least not until Xena became very agitated and made it known herons aren't welcome on her dock.

The heron sprang off the roof, flapping and croaking through the moonlight into the shadows on the other side of the cove.

During the day, it's amusing to watch gulls work their way in from the main channel, dive bombing along the way in search of fish, pirouetting on the breeze and trying again. Their ballet is rudely interrupted by a kingfisher as he cackles along inches above the water. My mind instantly slips to an old Pink Floyd lyric ...

"Hear the lark harken to the barking of the dark fox
"Gone to ground.
"See the splashing of the kingfisher flashing to the water.
"And a river of green is sliding unseen beneath the trees."

I've been listening to the album nonstop almost since I downloaded it, bringing back memories of Pittsburgh teen angst, Iron City beer and the parking lot of a dilapidated skating rink where we spent way too many nights blasting UFO from a boom box, taking particular pride in the fact that we were sitting in a former stone quarry that used to be called Rock Bottom.

Toward the end, the reporter asks if the downturn will stifle innovation in Silicon Valley:

"Entrepreneurs who are inside large companies but their personality is more entrepreneurial and they see their company slowing down, that can spur them to say, 'It's time for me to go out and start something on my own, cause I'm bored,'" responded venture capitalist David Epstein.

Hmm.

(BTW: Just noticed NPR is using "preroll ads pimping their sponsors in the audio player on their site ... not sure if this is new or just new to me, but I found it interesting.)

I guess I should expect nothing less from a novel that lists the bizarre guitar virtuoso Buckethead atop the acknowledgments section.

In short, the book is about Kenny, a Las Vegas kid who disappears. It chronicles the impact of the incident on his parents' marriage. It staggers through the Las Vegas Strip following mangy runaways. It slinks through the slime and silicone of the porn industry.

I guess my main complaint is Bock's tendency to layer detail in a way reminiscent of Updike. While it can breath life and truth into a scene, it also can short circuit the narrative. It's a balancing act. At times, I just wanted to navigate around all the detail, staying with the narrative thread, that swift cool stream of words cutting through the descriptive silt Bock was accreting.

But I'd rate that a minor flaw, one born of an 11-year birthing process for the novel. That amazes me. What tenacity, to stay with it that long and finally get published with considerable fanfare.

The New York Times Magazine did a decent profile of Bock a few weeks back. Worth a look ...