There aren't a lot of Surlies in South Africa. Paul has one though, and writes every once in a while to say hey. Today's email from Paul was special because it reflects a regional ..erm... flavor most of us won't relate to directly: "I took my young nephew riding at some nearby trails. You often see a troop of baboons there. There's another troop on the nearby peninsula that's famously crabby and always nicking tourists' food and leaving them with nasty scratches and cardiac arrests. While they are pretty adorable – beautiful ticked coats, intelligent eyes at the start of…

Things That Have Been Happening Part 1: Weeks and weeks ago, Emily and I went to California to attend Sea Otter, which was cold and windy and which, somewhat ironically, is held on the grounds of the Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway, one of several field sites for the Skip Barber Driving School. Skip had skipped being there that weekend, a choice I admired him for. It was cold. It was windy. I got sunburned. I got the HaHa bed at the Days Inn Monterey. This bed had a broken box spring frame and sagged deeply but only on one side,…