backasswards

It’s that time of year again, the time of year I update the blog. Apparently I only update alternate months.

A LOT has been happening but I’m not going to try to recreate, I’ll just try to forge ahead. I’ve been riding with Jamie and the pilrgims are now out in force. I tried taking pictures my last bike ride but the camera seriously sucks and I pretty much got nothing. As long as you’re directly in front of the camera you’re good but everything else is unidentifiable. Maybe I can figure out a setting or something.

So on Wednesday Jesse brings home a permission slip to go to the COP 16 climate change conference in Cancun. I was SERIOUSLY impressed and also confronted again with how D.I.F.F.E.R.E.N.T. it is here. I have never had a kid in school in the US, but I doubt you’d get a permission slip on a Wednesday for a field trip on a Friday. So I signed the slip and figured that was that. They were going to have 1/2 class on Friday and head up after that. I was really quite impressed that the school got either an invitation or passed security to get the kids in, but whatever, and I put it out of my mind. Thursday at midday I get a phone call from Jesse asking if we can drive a van full of kids to the conference. We figure it out and I decide to take the day off work and email the principal if we need any ID or anything. No answer. So I show up at school around 10 and load up the van with 10 kids (and get the cell numbers for 3 of them) and off we head. Where specifically are we going? Well, we’re not sure. At least *I* am not sure. I am given VERY rough directions – after the airport and before the MacDonalds. Okay.

So I figure we’ll figure it out and off the road we go. The other vehicles taking students are still at the school. I do have the principal’s phone number and figure if I get really lost I’ll call him. About 5 km south of the Cancun airport we come across the location of the summit. It is very obvious – riot police, military, army, lots of guns, lots of security, military checkpoints, one lane of the highway closed, barriers along the side of the carretera – but we’re still south of the airport and my “directions”. So I keep going. At about the airport one of the girls asks if I know where we’re going and I admit I’m clueless but I’ll probably figure something out. And after the airport and the pretty school and just before MacDonalds I do find it.

Just like I figured I would.

One of the exhibits was Willy Souza and the film was knock-you-on-your-ass spectacular (which shouldn’t take away from the fact that the theatre was a parking lot and you were already sitting on asphalt). Check out a video I found – this was part of the movie.

Willy Souza

I started this post a few days ago and maybe I’ll have time to update it later, but for now this will have to do.

We’re the backasswards family – most people take their Christmas vacations at the beach (Emerald Coast, Pacific Coast, Caribbean here in Mexico) but we’re going NAWTH to freeze our collective asses off in the Huenited States. I’ve been PSTD with visions of TSA goons in my head and I’m hoping for the best. At worst we’ll fly to Dallas and drive to SF. See ya on the flip side.