pass the pork

I'm not afraid of swine flu or terrorists or socialism, I'm afraid of cars. Chances are pretty solid that mostly everyone reading this will succumb to a death linked either to cars or cheeseburgers, not pig diseases. Why are we freaking out that a couple hundred people died of the flu? Get a grip. With socialized medicine you could just go to the doctor for treatment. The people that died waited to long, or more likely couldn't afford it. It's wierd what people do and don't fear. Social medicine is not Stalin, and swine flu is not the chevy bearing down on your ass right now (don't look!). If people start turning into zombies, go ahead and be afraid. i've seen enough movies to know that shit goes downhill from there.

I haven't felt like writing at all recently as you may have noticed. I bought becky a bike so we've been taking a few modest adventures, nothing outlandish. We're talking about a possible august bike tour in scotland. I'm feeling a need to do some longer rides soon. I've recently learned about randonneuring, and although I'd heard of it I just thought it was some kind of bike race so dismissed it. I don't care about racing, i'm not fast and I'm old. But randonneuring is different...theres no winners just finishers. The goal is to ride, self supported (carrying tools, food, clothes, water, etc.), a certain distance in a limited time, depending on the event. If you complete an entry level one, you can enter the next highest level. the entry level is 200 km in 13 hours, and they range, i think, up to 1400 km in I don't know how many hours. So it's touring, but balls-out, no time to sleep or stop riding touring. So anyways, I'm inspired, And I want to try somehting like this but I'm in fairly poor shape right now heading into the summer when all riding must cease.

We've also gone over a couple times to escorial, just an hour west of Madrid to check out the town and/or hike. It's a cool small town with a palace/monastery, but most importnantly it's in the mountains in one of the few human-managed landscapes where the management actually increases biodiversity.

We almost went to Galicia for the upcoming holiday, but got smacked by the high last minute cost and the heinous 8-hour train trip. So we're hanging around Madrid while a friend visits from granada. Galicia will have to wait until june as I've got two work trips in May to the south (read: hot as balls), conveniently scheduled over weekends. So to make up for my lack of posts heres some random pics that becky took with her sexy camera.