The All-Day Affair of Changing a Spark Plug

For those interested, this is the headache-inducing scenario brought about by the need to change a sparkplug on a Cannondale machine:

1. Remove seat
2. Remove front plastic
3. Remove rear plastic
4. Disconnect gas tank and put aside
5. Remove aluminum piece above the engine
6. Pull plug with a socket wrench using two extensions
7. Replace plug
8. Put everything back the way you found it

My machine has been fouling plugs quite a bit recently. During the last snowstorm, we were out for about four hours zipping around on the snow-covered trails and having a ball. I got the quad back to the house and tried to start it up the next day, but it wouldn't turn over.

This weekend, I replaced the plug and then addressed the larger problem - no machine should be fouling plugs every couple hours. Craig suggested it was probably dirty injectors, brought about by trying to run it on old gas that had been sitting in the tank for a while. I dumped in some fresh hi-test and added some STP fuel treatment to the tank. The machine sputtered a bit, but started right up after a few tries. I left it running for about 20 minutes yesterday so that plenty of the fuel additive would get to the injectors and clean things up in there. Everything's running nicely now, just in time for the fresh snowfall we got overnight. I might hit the trails for a couple hours this morning.

New pic of Colin

By popular request, here's a more recent photo of young Colin. Cami and Dennis invited the gang over for breakfast on Sunday morning, and I got to see the new tyke before they put him down for his midmorning nap. Jen and Craig were there, and they'll have their second daughter in just a few short months. Quote of the day from Jen - "Your son better not try anything with my daughter..."

You learn something new every day. Dennis and Cami were telling me that Colin goes through about 10 diapers a day. I had thought a diaper was something you changed maybe twice a day. We've been working on the online campaigns for A+D Ointment for a few months, and we're trying to get across the message that moms can use A+D with every diaper change to prevent diaper rash. 10 times a day? That's a lot of ointment...

Media Buying Asshattery

Any of you other media buyers noticing that some of the asshattery of the mid- to late 90s is starting to creep back into the industry? I'm noticing a bunch of reps starting to pitch inventory with 1998-esque terms and conditions, among them:

• Noncancelable impressions
• Ridiculous payment terms (lots of $$$ up front)
• "Must take" inventory - totally undesirable ROS crap like chat and mail

It's really frustrating that we built relationships back up after getting burned by many of the dot coms in the 90s and now we're back to the same behavior that caused those relationships to go south in the first place.

I'm completely uninterested in revisiting the Myer Berlow days of "What? You want to negotiate this? Your CPM just doubled..."

Anyone else seeing crapola like this?

The Driller Killer

When I used to go to the videostore when I was a kid to rent videocassettes, there was this stupid horror movie that no one ever checked out called The Driller Killer. I was reminded of this ugly little film as I was coming back from the range on Sunday and it started to feel as if someone was taking a 3/8" Speedbor to my right temple. Evidently, this was my first migraine ever. And it came at a really bad time, when I was just getting over this nasty cold I've been harboring for a week.

As we left the range, I felt sharp pains in my temple that were so excruciating that I held my head in my hand and had to rub my temple repeatedly. That was the only thing that made the pain manageable. If I stopped rubbing it, even for a second, the pain became unbearable. When I got back to the house, I immediately downed three aspirin and helped Craig put new mud flaps on his truck in the driveway. Craig finished up in about 15 minutes and I went inside to rest. About two hours later, the pain was still completely over the top, so I took two Aleve.

I laid down for another few hours and Kim gave me two Excedrin Migraine pills at about 7. This brought the pain down to a manageable level for a bit, but it still felt like the Driller Killer was going to town on my temple. Mom and Kim think I need to get over my distrust of doctors and head over to the Walk-In Medical place. I fell asleep until about 11, when I woke up in significant pain again. Somehow I managed to get back to sleep.

This morning, the headache is still with me, but the pain isn't nearly as bad as yesterday. I'm hoping this thing goes away soon, otherwise I'll probably end up going to the doctor.

My experience with doctors over the past few years is that there's not much they can do for you unless the problem is completely obvious, like you have a railroad spike driven through your forearm or something like that. And if there's one thing I can't stand, it's being in pain while doctors who are supposed to know what they're doing are scratching their heads and trying to speculate on what's wrong while they send you for expensive test after expensive test. Soon, though, I might not have a choice but to go in and let them poke me with needles and whatnot.