The non-winter survival blog

I always suspected that one of the biggest things I could do to improve my long-term survival odds is to make it through the Thanksgiving holidays without permanently gaining five pounds. So today I began what I call the Post-Turkey Training Series, where I’ll attempt to do a long bike ride every day through the weekend in order to counteract the gravy and stuffing.

The ride was delightful. Sunny and warm, with only a light wind. I spun off 17 road miles to the hamlet of Loa, where I turned around just past the billboard saying “Enough is Enough! Show us the birth certificate!” and rode back to civilization. All during the ride I was trying to think of tips for surviving winter cold. You know, the usual what-to-do-if-you-get-stuck-overnight stuff. But then it hit me: Why bother, since there’s NO WINTER ANYWHERE, at least in the Lower 48? I might as well preach about heat stroke or sunscreen.

Besides, if you already survived O’Hare Airport on Wednesday, avoided any Thursday fisticuffs with your inebriated Becktard uncle or crack-smoking Maoist nephew, and didn’t get trampled in a Black Friday stampede for robotic hamsters at the Best Buy, then you don’t need any survival advice from me right now. You wouldn’t be able to read anything I wrote anyway, because the internet will crash on Monday as worker bees return to their cubicles for Google Mail and online shopping. And even if a message did get through, why get your hopes up? By Tuesday we’ll all be dead from swine flu.

However, just in case you do manage to get this dispatch, I wanted to refer y’all to this awesomest survival blog ever. It’s even tailored for carbon-rich, drought-ridden conditions by our friends in Australia. America! It’s the new Down Under!

Two other timely tips: Drive sober, and don’t get caught without cab fare. Seeya next week. –Steve Howe