Hey everyone I wanted to report on my backyard's progress since I last
posted my message. Almost two months later, my backyard has
DRAMATICALLY improved. Now, get this, I spent 0 dollars and check out
the before and after pictures:

Before (March 31):
http://www.ogmda.com/temp/lawn/backyard1.jpg

Today (May 28):
http://www.ogmda.com/temp/lawn/by2.jpg

I must admit that Mother Nature is proabbly responsible for the
dramatic turn around. We've ben getting about 2 inches of rain per
week for the last few weeks and it has been cooler than usual. Also, I
did the following to my yard: 1.) Got a soil test done and saw that I
only needed to add nitrate. Luckily, my neighbor had some and I was
able to save money. 2.) I hand pulled all the weeds myself--and after
two weeks of doing this, I no longer needed to do this as the grass
was starting to take over and crowd them out. 3.) I never watered. The
rain did it for me. 4.) I laid mulch on the lawn's bare spots 5.) I
built a bird house for a bird that specializes in eating the kind of
bugs I had in my grass. 6.) I cut the grass with a minimum height of 2
1/2" inches for my grass type.

That's about it. As you can see, I did not need to resod. However, my
frontyard is going a little slower and I am probably gonna have to
resod some parts of it.

Thanks for all the tips.