I took one day off work and had 94 e-mails waiting for me when I got back. Now in the interest of truth I have to admit that about a half dozen of them were spams intended for the comments section of this page. I have spared you from reading ads for discount prescription drugs, quick and easy college degrees and some kind of online porn.

The rest of these e-mails regard various issues here at MPR, a couple of dozen press releases, some odd chains of correspondence I have unwillingly become party to (please be careful when hitting 'reply to all')and a couple from my spouse.

I should just delete them all and hope that the authors will get back to me if any of them are really important. But I guess I'll have to cut this column short today and spend some time going through them. Wasn't e-mail supposed to make life more efficient?

Not that there's much to talk about today anyway. The Legislature is due back in town after the long weekend. The highlight of the week is likely to be the House Tax Committee's hearings on the proposed new Twin's ballpark. The committee is chaired by longtime stadium opponent and not-so-long-time 6th District Congressional candidate Phil Krinkie, R-Lino Lakes.

The Star Tribune has a story about the price of the Northstar Commuter Rail line going up by $42 million:

"Absolutely it's something we should have known," said Rep. Dan Dorman, R-Albert Lea, who voted for the Northstar funding. "But I don't support it blindly." He is concerned that the project doesn't yet have a green light from the freight railroad whose tracks Northstar's trains will use.

And the Pioneer Press is highlighting the qeuestion of security at the St. Peter facility that houses sex offenders:

The weekend escape of a convicted rapist highlights the difficult balance of handling sexual offenders who have completed their prison confinements and yet are being held — indefinitely, it seems — for treatment as patients.

Add that to the list of things for the Legislature to debate before the session ends.

I was going to add something here about gas prices spiking, but I just got three more e-mails I have to take care of.