First off, there will be no column today, sorry. Even more drastic, after tomorrow's column, service is about to get very intermittent for the next month. There are two reasons for this. The first is that I'm about to travel to London, Dublin, and Paris to attend a wedding and deal with some other family issues and visits. The second is that almost immediately after returning, I will be flying off once again to attend Netroots Nation.

What it all means to you, Dear Reader, is lots of repeat columns. For which I apologize in advance.

Here is the CW.com schedule for the rest of the month and into June, as it stands now.

Today: no column. For those wishing to explore an issue everyone else seems to be ignoring, I leave the following homework assignment -- Which two Republicans conveniently weren't present for the Ryan budget vote in the Senate? There are 47 Republican senators. Of these, 40 voted for the Ryan budget. Five voted against it -- Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Scott Brown of Massachusetts. But that only adds up to 45. So which two very conveniently weren't there? By ducking out, these two avoided their names being in the news about the vote, but also avoided having to vote for it. Dig these names out, because everybody else in the media seems content to allow them to fly under the radar.

Tomorrow: for the first time ever, we are going to prematurely run an Obama Poll Watch column -- before the month under discussion is actually even over. We had two choices: run it four days early, or run it eight or nine days late. Running it late would have meant it was "last week's news" in a very noticeable way; so instead we're going to run it early, and then correct the numbers (if they need minor correction) next month. Also, we want to run this now because it's going to be a fun column to write, as May was the best month the president has ever had in the polls (at least measured as change from the previous month).

What this also means, sadly, is that the Obama Poll Watch column will pre-empt our usual Friday Talking Points column. Both of these recurring series take an enormous amount of behind-the-scenes work here, and it just wasn't possible to do both right before leaving. So I'll try to remember when I get back to: (1.) give Kathy Hochul a well-earned MIDOTW award for her stunning upset in NY-26; and (2.) rescind Harry Reid's MDDOTW award from a few weeks ago and award him his own MIDOTW in its stead, for forcing the Ryan budget vote in the Senate -- with exquisite timing.

Next week: I'll be gone all week. Repeat columns will run. They will be wildly out of date, but may be an interesting look back. Treat each of these as an "open thread," and feel free to discuss whatever you feel like in the comments.

The week after: I'll be returning mid-week, but cannot guarantee when columns will resume (who knows what the Icelandic volcanoes will be doing at that point?). Hopefully, the Friday Talking Points will return on June 10th.

The following week: A few new columns will post, but then I'm off again midweek to Netroots Nation. Perhaps I'll post some things live from the conference this year (I blew off doing so last year), but I haven't worked everything out that far in advance yet.

We will return to our normal schedule here on Monday, June 20th.

A word of caution to everyone: Play nice. Rather than just shutting the site down while I'm absent, I've always kept things up and running here in my absence. This has worked out, for the most part, admirably well in the past. So let's keep that record up. And be warned that Europe actually does have internet access, and I will be checking in when I can (although I can't promise when or how often that will be). So let's keep things under control in the comments section, OK guys and gals?

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant