I've become settled in my new digs in Salt Lake City. It's really a lovely place, and there's a standing invitation for anyone who wants to visit to ski, hike, or go to the Sundance Film Festival.

A couple of initial thoughts:

1) There are tons of bees here. It's the state symbol, and so I guess there are a lot of beekeepers. If that much-dreaded bee extinction is still a problem somewhere else, they know where to get extras.

2) There's no Trader Joe's here, which is deeply unfortunate. Rumor has it they won't come here because of our wacky restrictions on liquor sales. This confirms my suspicion that Trader Joe's is really a liquor store with good snacks.

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, but I've been busy, among other things, catching up on The Wire. I just finished the third season (out of five), and it's great. But the trouble with watching a television series that follows a single epic storyline over the course of sixty episodes is that you can't read anything about it in the press, for fear of learning crucial plot points. For the better part of a year now, I've been extremely careful about avoiding spoilers for The Wire—shunning Wikipedia's coverage of the show and not even reading the recent New Yorker profile of its creator—and I've done pretty well.

Until now. A few minutes ago, I learned that a popular character, to quote my source, "is murdered in the antepenultimate episode of the series." And where did I learn who this character is?

It's the answer to 58-Down in today's New York Sun crossword puzzle.

Aaaargh! Why, Peter Gordon, why?

Tomorrow I begin my new job as part of the article III branch of the U.S. Government. As such, I'm going to stop commenting on politics (even though this might be the most interesting political moment in my lifetime to date).

Instead, I'm sharing my observation of the day - when moving large pieces of furniture alone, try rolling them instead of carrying them. I found it to be very efficient.