I'm back. Birgit and I went on vacation.

When I was a lad I once went to Lake Lurleen B. Wallace State Park (in Alabama) with the family and we slept in a massive old army tent. It was OK, but not great.

When I was 20 I went rafting with a friend and we ended up hanging out with the rafting guides afterwards. They lived in tents. I got drunk and woke up in the "guest tent" (my friend slept with one of the guides, as was her wont). I was disoriented at first, and my back hurt, but it wasn't bad.

That was the extent of my camping experience until this week. Due to lack of funds and lack of planning, B and I ended up going to a secluded beach called Punta Raza and camping (in a borrowed tent) with a friend who goes there often. We spent Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights there and it was not bad at all. In fact it was good. We enjoyed ourselves (Birgit had camped a few times before, and so was optimistic to begin with). Wednesday we struck out to find a colleague of mine and her boyfriend who were planning to camp on a little island. We didn't find them, so we spent that night in a hotel in Barra de Navidad (which is a very nice town, not least for allowing us to shower). Thursday we went back up to Punta Raza. We got there just as the sun was going down but our friend was gone! Even worse, someone had taken over the campsite (which was really nice, with a couple of big shade trees). It was too late for us to realistically leave in search of a hotel and far too late to drive back to Gua (4 hours away), so we threw caution to the wind and found our own camp site and set up.

All by ourselves.

It worked well, and we were happy. I'm glad to be back in a building, though.

Happy Dead Jeebus Weekend!

While I was gone, your National League Central Division Champion Chicago Cubs started the season. At Cincinatti they won 7-4, lost 1-3, and lost 3-5. At Atlanta they won 2-1. The Cubs are now 2-2. and tied for third place in the division with Houston and Pittsburgh (Cinci is in first at 3-1, Milwaukee is in second at 3-2, and St. Louis is in last place at 2-3).

Holy Cow? Not just yet.

By the way, how goes the democritisation of Iraq?