The sun is slowly crawling down from the Mississippi sky, and the best part of it is - I'm not under it!

I get to be the guy who stays in Atlanta this week.

So, with my new homeboy status, I used the day to buy myself a belated birthday present: a pair of new front teeth.

Today was the re-scheduled date of my postponed dentist appointment - cancelled once before due to my commitments in Pascagoula. The dentist had plans to fill a cavity in a back molar, but I convinced him to instead replace my two front upper teeth with a pair of crowns.

He agreed, and it surprised me how quick and painless the procedure was. I have two temporary crowns in right now, basically plastic teeth, but I get the final ones on the 16th.

It looks much better.

Cost $1796 (I guess it wasn't all that painless after all).

I used the balance of the morning to get a 2006 sticker for my car tag. I had applied by mail, but the sticker never showed up, and when my cancelled check finally arrived in the mail with my bank statement, I realized that the sticker had been stolen out of my mailbox while I was in Pascagoula.

Howard Cutler once said "The art of happiness begins with developing an understanding of what are the truest sources of happiness, and setting our priorities in life based on the cultivation of those sources."

I always maintained that the secret of happiness is just recognizing the few brief moments of happiness when they occur, and trying not to hang on or prolong them. It's like holding water in your hand - the tighter you grip it, the more it squeezes out.