This is sort of all the rage on the interwebs these days. I just thought I’d share it since I don’t have much else to say today…

Here’s something I have a hard time wrapping my little head around. Ok. There’s a website called YouDriveWhat.com. It’s pictures of strange/odd/silly looking modes of transportation – from garden tractors to big rigs. Some are broken down and some are all pimped out.

I guess donk cars are cars with huge rims and tricked out doors, etc. Fine, it’s a bit more macho than something I’d go for, but I get it.

What I don’t get is the super manly “ghetto” cars with Skittles or Lucky Charms art all over them. It’s almost like they’re saying, “I’ma kick your ass and then go play some pinball.” And hey, maybe that is what they’re saying.

Still, I don’t really get it.

Keep in mind, these rolling advertisements aren’t company cars. The candy companies aren’t paying people to do this. [Edit - it appears that some might be doing just that!] The owners shell out thousands of dollars to tell everyone how much they like Nerds or Cheetos or even John Deere. It’s really weird.

I’ve never once seen a car like this on the streets of Seattle, but I have seen Skittles and Lucky Charms jackets.

And again, the folks wearing this stuff (and, I assume, driving this stuff) are often really tough looking individuals. Maybe it’s an “I’m so bad, I can wear a stupid looking jacket, drive a stupid looking car and you still can’t make fun of me” kind of thing.

Or maybe it’s just genuine. Maybe the guy who drives the Fruity Pebbles car loves Fruity Pebbles. A lot. More than anyone else in the world. Maybe the guy who owns the Cheetos car eats nothing but Cheetos. Ever. I guess I’m ok with that.

And I guess I’m ok with whatever people want to drive and for whatever reason they want to drive it.

Well, almost. Sometimes.

Ok, basically, if you could kick my ass, you can drive or ride whatever you want. Taste the rainbow!

I’ve really had nothing of value to say here for a long, long time. And now isn’t really any different. But maybe a little update is ok.

Spring has come to Seattle. It’s the middle of February and it’s spring. The cherry blossoms are out, the sky is (pretty much) clear and it gets to 60 degrees on most days. Sure, the nights sometimes dip into the low 30s, but it’s spring, that happens.

Springtime has never been my favorite season. The flowers are nice, but the trees are still barren and the night still comes too quickly. Summer is perfect.

Last summer was spent in a cast and in pain due to the surgery on my finger. This summer will hopefully be much more fun than that.

Though I’ve been able to ride all winter, spring means that I am a bit warmer on the rides to and from work. It also means that longer day-trips and a possibility (though being city-locked makes them a tremendous bother.

Spring also means change. I could go for some about now. We’re thinking about some new furniture and maybe moving a room or two around. Maybe that will satisfy me. Probably not. I would like some real change. I’m feeling restless and caged in.

Sometime this week I’ll be putting the P200 engine back together. I’m fairly confident I can do it. When I do, you’ll hear about it here.

And if I come up with anything, you’ll hear about that too.

You’ll take almost any advice when you’re sick. It all comes down to “well, you never know… might work.”

After trying the almost-meth Sudafed and having it completely do zero to help me out, I turned to other things.

When I was a kid, Vicks Vaporub was pretty much the beginning and end of the cold treatment. Colds sucked, Vicks helped them suck a little less, you got a few days off from school and then you were better.

That’s not how it works now. Colds still suck, but the empty promises of countless drugs to make it suck not at all actually makes them suck even more. And instead of getting a few days off from school, you could call off work, but you know that wouldn’t end well and there would more than likely be retaliation somewhere – either on next week’s schedule or generally being crapped upon by your managers.

My big problem a couple of days ago was a nose so clogged it could not be unclogged. I’d blow my nose and literally two seconds later, it would be filled again. How? How is my body suddenly making that much snot? It was amazing. Sort of. A few hours later, I wasn’t even able to blow my nose. Nothing. Was I that clogged up?

Something had to be done. I could not breath through my nose. Yes, I was a mouth-breather, just like the little brat on Little House on the Prairie.

So after a bit more searching around, I found this somewhere on the internet…

I braced myself against the bathroom sink, this time with a bottle of Sinex aimed at my inner nostril and squeezed my left nostril till I was blue in the face and out of breath. After several tries, my sinus immediately opened up and a mass of infected mucous rose up and down my throat and out of my mouth into the sink. The mass was as big as the palm of my hand.

That is nasty. So incredibly nasty. Is that what was going on up there? I had no idea. But maybe Sinex would help.

After looking into it a bit I found that Sinex can be fairly addictive. Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not totally for or totally against western, modern medicine. If it works without doing harm, I’m all for it. So Sinex was out. Afrin, another nasal spray, was even more addicting, as it almost immediately makes your body think that it needs Afrin to function properly.

No thanks.

So thinking back to my youth, even though I couldn’t take a sick day (without school-age repercussions), I might want to try Vicks Vaporub. I put a spoonful of it into boiling water, inhaled the steam for a few minutes and suddenly my left nostril was clear! Amazing!

The right one, however, was not so easily convinced. I then did what pretty well came naturally: I shoved a bit of it up my nose and waiting exactly five seconds. Clear!

I had to repeat both steps later that night, but since then, I’ve been fine.

My problem today, however, is coughing. I’m now coughing so much that my head has exploded several times over. And does a cough suppressant work? No, certainly it does not. So because a cough is fairly necessary and natural, though annoying, I’ll let it pass.

Though last night, I read that if you rub Vicks Vaporub on your feet prior to going to bed, you will no longer have a night cough. I tried it last night, as my cough was starting, and I didn’t cough at all through the night. Strange. Not sure how or why or even if it worked. I’ll try it again tonight and see what happens.

It looks like the illness is going away, though slowly. My voice seems to be slowly going away as well. I guess we’ll have to see which leaves first.

I pretty much never get sick. Maybe once a year. Last year I got it really bad. The year before that too. But nothing in between. These past few days, however, I’ve been pretty sick.

It’s your common cold or flu or something. I know they’re different, but I can’t really tell them apart. Sunday night it started with some really amazing post-nasal dripping. Sore throat big time. Then I got all achy and felt like an old man. I could barely move.

Thankfully, by the end of the night, the aches were gone and I seemed to be on the mend. I woke up Monday morning feeling alright, but not perfect. As the day wore on, I felt worse and worse. Around 4pm, I was completely stuffed up and my head felt like it was going to explode.

Monday night, I slept as well as I could, but mostly because I was wiped out from being sick.

Then on Tuesday (yesterday), I woke up with a super-stuffy nose that required blowing every few seconds. I have no idea how I’m producing this much snot. It’s kind of amazing, but mostly just puzzlingly gross. Works was dumb and the more I was there, the more useless I became. I was really out of it. Then I started to feel bad about all of the people that I was more than likely infecting.

Halfway through the day, I checked out of work with my head full of nastiness and my brain completely frazzled and cloudy.

Let me talk a little bit about medicine. I’m not someone who is die hard for or against natural medicine. If it works, I’m cool with it. I realize that western medicine only treats the symptoms, but sometimes I’m pretty ok with that. Today was one of those times.

I’ve attempted to treat the symptoms with (the generic of) Tylenol Severe Cold. It did nothing. Nothing at all. I was impressed. It’s got some pretty famous stuff in it like Phenylephrine. That’s a wussy version of Pseudoephedrine. I then tried a bit more “natural” idea and boiled water containing tea tree oil and sniffed in the steam. Not bad, really. It cleared me up, but only for 10 minutes. I then tried the same this with Tiger Balm (Camphor and Menthol). That worked pretty well too. Again, only for 10 minutes.

I then decided that I needed the big guns. Like any good son, I called my mom to ask her what to use. She suggested Sudafed with pseudoephedrine. That’s what they use to make meth. Thanks mom!

So Smartz took me to the store and while we were in the aisle picking out the little card to take up to the pharmacist (because they don’t have it out on the shelves anymore), she decided it would be a good idea to loudly ask some very important questions. “Is this what they use to make meth? How much would you need?” I gave her a “use your inside voice” glare, but she then asked how to use Sudafed to make meth. Maybe this wasn’t the best time or place to be asking meth questions, hm?

I wasn’t super thrilled (granted, I was a little grumpy), so I took the card to the counter where the pharmacist asked for my ID and then asked how much I wanted, “You can get it in a pack of 18 or 90. We’ve got thousands! Let’s make meth!”

Well… alright then. As we were walking out of the store, I apologized to Smartz. If the pharmacist can joke about meth at the pharmacy, I guess we can too.

So that’s where I am.

Oh, did the Sudafed work? Nah. Of course not. I took the recommended dose (60mg) and it didn’t even touch it. I’ll try it again today, but I’m not expecting miracles here. It should be moving into my chest next. That’ll be fun.

This past week brought some sweet & sour news to my little part of Seattle. Ryan, Jaime and the kids are all moving to Ithaca so that Ryan can get his masters degree and become a real life teacher of children. It’s sweet because it’s what he wants to do and he’d be quite good at it. But it’s a bit sour because I’m going to miss like like crazy.

We kicked around the idea of moving away ourselves, especially since RyJa are moving. But the likelihood of that happening, especially since Smartz just got an awesome job at a printshop, is nil.

They are doing it the right way with a big trip across the country. I’m helping in the planning of the trip, but mostly I would like them to stay.

Since I can’t really put it into words, I thought I’d let Mary Jo, Bobo and Brain Guy do it for me.

Hurry.

But none here. None at all this winter! This is awesome!

Everybody in West Virginia, Maryland and parts of Pennsylvania is still digging themselves out of 12 – 24″ of snow that fell Friday and Saturday. The National Guard was called in for Ohio and folks at the farm in WV have lost power. And with temps in the low 20s, that’s not exactly the most comfortable situation.

As the white, snowy hell was unleashed in the east, it was 60 and sunny in Seattle!

This is why I moved here. Last year, Seattle was completely shut down by a mere 6″s of snow. But this year, there was barely a flurry. A bit of the parking lot of a little icy a morning or two in January, but that’s it. I rode pretty much every day.

I couldn’t deal with Pennsylvania’s fairly relentless winters. While we’re looking ahead to spring with buds starting on the trees and flowers popping up here and there, Pennsylvania is suffering sub and near-freezing temps without a definite reprieve until late March. It could even snow in April. It probably started snowing in October. That’s six months of winter.

Some folks like winter and, well, good for them. But most folks complain about it and with the threat of even an inch or two all the bread and milk disappear from supermarket shelves. Even factoring in how much people like to complain about the weather, I can’t understand why so many folks choose to live there. Even more puzzling is why our ancestors settled there.

Hopefully everybody digs themselves out, schools reopen and WNEP goes back to reporting on sink holes opening up in Coal Township. Meanwhile, I’ll enjoy a mild day of mostly sunny blue skies and temps in the 50s.