Winter is one of my favorite times of year, because of Christmas, New Years, the opportunity to snowboard, skate, and take freezing walks with someone special (so you both don’t freeze), but there’s a reason I hate winter as well; it’s the snow.

Snow is white, but really it has no color. It’s just tiny water droplets that froze around some molecule of something less pure. It falls in inches. It sticks to everything and weighs a ton. It covers our cars making us start our commutes 20 minutes early to defrost the windshield!

Most importantly, and annoyingly, it blankets our roads, causing our tires to lose traction sooner, and thusly a loss of control. It makes our braking less effective, makes our cars more prone to spinning, and slows them down more than any other force in the world save friction by forcing us to drive slower to maintain control.

But like everything else in life, you can look with a pessimistic eye or an optimistic eye; it can be a hindrance to your driving, or an opportunity to improve it!

Car control, real car contol, fine car control is a skill not many people bother to master anymore. It’s something everyone can at the very least improve. With control comes better efficiency. Both in terms of gas mileage and time taken to travel. Every winter I learn more about car control. Everything has to be perfect in winter, braking; so you don’t plow into anyone, acceleration; so you don’t bog, turning; so you don’t careen off the road. Yet every winter I see more and more accidents from people who were too confident or under attentive.

This winter, I urge each and every driver to try and improve their driving. Even if you only once go to a parking lot after a heavy snowfall and practice sliding, you’ll still have practiced and know more in depth how to counter the slide. I think if everyone in the US took their driving even half as seriously as the Finnish do, that we would have fewer accidents and more people that enjoyed their cars.

I don’t understand why when cars are such a huge part of our lifestyle as Americans, we know so little about them.

Again, I urge everyone reading; improve your driving this winter. It may save your life, it will most likely save you money, and it will probably help you enjoy your car instead of it being a chore. Like anything else though, you have to want to improve yourself for it to be effective. But, please, if not for you then for the safety of others, become a better driver. I promise you will not regret it.

Let’s pretend that isn’t the case. Let’s pretend this last relationship meant as much to me as it did to her (which was apparently not much), wouldn’t I still be depressed, that I’m again (still) single and feel like I wasted my time every night that I tried to stand by her and stay with her?

Maybe this is just an angry rant today with no basis in anything, but I miss her. Not my big ex. God no. She’s been further and further from that little boy, in fact she’s on an island with a bunch of other bitches out past the horizons of his vision.

The one I miss now is the girl who’s been occupying that little boy for some time now. While walking around the various natural paths in the briarpatch, the young boy, came upon a young girl. She seemed to be wandering as he was! He stopped and said hello. She returned the favor and they began to get to know each other. They walked around showing each other the trails. The boy even had to help the girl fend off the shadows in her own mind on occasion.

The Boy and girl became good friends. The boy worked hard to make sure they girl was enjoying herself, that she was happy. The girl smiled and hugged the boy. Sometimes even kissed him.

The boy and the girl navigated the briarpatch and the boy never once complained. Until he met some of his friends, and the girl found one of them to be more interesting and left the boy in the briarpatch… Without a word.

I miss this girl, but I can’t say anything to her… She doesn’t seem to care about me, my feelings or any of the things I did for her… Which to me hurts more than anything. Apathy sucks.

Girl: “I’ll be around for a while”
Boy: “until someone better comes along or you get bored?”
Girl: … No…

…Guess someone better came along.

I thought about my ex today… I tried to think about Leesh. It didn’t really work. We’ve been fighting recently. It just seems like she has no time for me, and I know we’re not dating, but we have barely spoken in a week… I kind of want to see her. She’s got work, and homework, which leaves little time for me…

I just want to quit this monotony. It’s self inflicted and I can’t really help it, it’s sort of like my punishment for being irresponsible. That doesn’t mean I want it to stay this way. Sometimes I just want to run. From my problems, from my Ex, from everyone who wants me in any way, from my family, from my car, from the debt from that… I wonder when my debts will be settled. Money, Karma and otherwise… I’m just tired of it all.

I want my whip. I want to quit all the futzing around and the bullshit. I want to be working a better-paying job, better suited to my skill sets… Not that I know what those even are anymore.

I’m sick of unfulfilled relationships. I want a girlfriend again. One I like, one who doesn’t bother me… I don’t even think my standards are unreasonable… I just don’t think the right one is presenting themselves (like they ever do), but also I don’t know if there’s a forest with all these damn trees obscuring it!

I can’t wait for summer. Paintball. Testing out the SL-68. Driving Silvia. Swimming, Roller Blading…

“Here I stand a better man, Thank you Lord. THANK YOU ALL!
Let the rain, wash away all the pain of yesterday.
I know my kingdom awaits, and they’ve forgiven my mistakes.
I’m coming home. I’m coming home.
Tell the world: I’m coming home!” – Diddy

I am a better man. I’m a better person. I’ve paid 10 times over for every mistake I’ve made. I will be paying in one way or another for it for the rest of my life… I know I’m not finished growing, and I learn new stuff every day. I’ve almost died on 2 separate occasions. I try to be nice, I help people when they ask. I care about Leesh. — These are things I know to be true.

I own nothing, and am alive through someone else’s good graces. Leesh cares about me. I will eventually pay my dues. — Things I believe are true.

Grenade by Bruno Mars. It’s a song about myself and Silvia; my car to anyone who knows me or reads my Motoring Blog.

Thank you New York state for your wonderful annual auto inspections. Congratulations also go out to the federal government of the United States of America for finding a way to prevent unsafe driving by making an engine diagnostic system that makes it nigh impossible to run modified cars on the streets for more than a year.

OBD-II is amazing in it’s implementation. It’s required equipment on any car sold in the U.S. of A. No car produced after 1995 is exempt. That means Model year 1996-Present is running an Onboard Diagnostic (Gen-II) system. These systems are amazing in their control as well. They can retard cam timing to lean out A/F ratios, they can sometimes stop knock before it’s begun and can even tell you when something is potentially wrong with your engine! All it has to do to achieve this is run a network or sensors, i.e. it’s eyes and ears, to all corners of your engine, chassis and drivetrain.

On my 1996 Nissan 240SX, I have a knock sensor, a throttle position sensor, an intake air temperature sensor, a mass air flow sensor, an exhaust gas recirculation temperature sensor, a rear (exhaust) O2 sensor, a fuel pump sending sensor, a manifold absolute pressure sensor, an evaporative emissions system solenoid sensor, a camshaft position sensor and a crankshaft position sensor… And those are just the one’s I know about!?

While their programming and method of use may allow some of us to forgo stand-alone EMS and wideband controllers, due to the far reaching nature of the factory sensors and ability to rewrite almost every aspect of the management system, we still must deal with the Priority Channel these are allowed during your inspection. Any discrepancies between acceptable values and current values are reported to DMV, as well as any sensors not reading what they are supposed to.

Modern ECUs are incredible. You cannot ditch them if you want to drive on the street. And any method for fooling the computers or your ECU is against the law. Not to say ECU tuning is illegal, but if you’re rewriting firmware or allowing the motor to operate outside it’s intended efficiency, good luck to you.

I was never around for the days when you could check your timing with your watch…

Happy New Years Everyone. Here’s to understanding the opposite sex better through observation and deduction, because God knows they’ll never tell us themselves!

Shout outs go out to Walker and Sons and Jack Daniel for making the year easier for those of us who like whisky/whiskey

I wanted to leave her a little something, like a card even, but friends and family advised me against it. They said she doesn’t deserve shit from me. They are right too. She broke up with me. Why should I bother. I don’t even consider us friends right now. We have nothing in common anymore and we don’t really talk or anything.

Yes, I still miss her. Do I still want her back? Fuck no. I hate her for what she did to me. As a person, I hate her. So… Happy Birthday. Hope you don’t think of me today, because that would just be too freaky.

I still wanted to be with her. She told me when I hugged her, that it was more than friendly. She was right. I care about her as more than a friend. I always will. She cannot be just a friend. I refuse to think of her like that, because it’s such a colossal downgrade! I can’t go from a two yer relationship, where I told her I loved everyday to, we don’t talk and we don’t hang out because you’re scared something will happen.

She had a few reasons to call me, of which this time, she looked for an excuse, hence my hoodie.
1) She missed me and was considering getting back together (to have me help raise her maybe-kid).
2) She was using me as her backup plan, and had no intention of even being friends till all else failed
3) She’s super confused and has no idea why she contacted me, doubtful
4) She’s a massive bitch and she wanted to string me along some more.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, time does not heal all wounds! She could’ve given me a year and I wouldn’t necessarily be over her!

I dreamt she was laughing at me for believing she wanted me back, and falling for it again…

After all the time I’ve spent spinning my wheels this summer. I just don’t want to deal with her. She’ll get a new BF soon enough, plaster him all over her FB, sleep with him within a week or 2 and end up exactly where she was. I’m sick of this cycle too. It took her 6 months to go farther with a new guy and have him leave her than it did with me! I don’t wanna be around for her to cry on.

She says she’s moved on and that it should be easy for me. But it isn’t. I tell her to let me go, and she says she has. But every time she talks to me, I feel myself get slowly pulled back in and hopeful.

I’ve severed all ties with her 3 times and she keeps coming back. Fuck it! I’m sick of this cycle where I’m like her ground zero! Fuck! I don’t want this anymore.

After arriving at 8 PM, and wandering till 10:19 PM, I finally found her, on her way out, and after 2 brisk hugs and very few words, she was off. All the while with that damn smile on her face.

That Damn Smile as it should be known now, is that impenetrable smile women wear when they talk. It’s similar to a poker face.

I know that women seldom say what they mean. It’s much easier to read a person’s body language, even if one isn’t experienced in such ventures, than to try and read them vocally such as on the phone. Women tend to convey thoughts through subtle actions. A fireworks display to most men, some women tend to bite their lower lip when they are “in the mood”… Or stare at the ground when faced with an unpleasant memory…

My ex, from when she saw me, to when she walked away, had That Damn Smile on. I didn’t accomplish what I wanted to!? I wanted to know what she was thinking. Even a rough idea. She contacted me after 8 months out of the blue, an I wanted to know why… Because of That Damn Smile however, I learned nothing in 3-4 minutes. I’m exactly where I started except now I’m angry I wasted my night looking for her! She hung up on me and my friend because her parents were watching her… She found me by accident and waved me over and everything, and 3 minutes later, she was gone, and I had wasted any money I spent there because I hadn’t accomplished anything, and I had no fun trying to hunt her down.

Damn. Yeah. After all that build up, this was mainly a pissed off rant. Whatever, goodnight. Hope you got something from this.

Love isn’t easy, but it sure as hell ain’t a losing battle until someone admits defeat. One of my personal mantras has always been “don’t quit until it’s hopeless”.

A good relationship is like a good house. Without a strong foundation, it will fall, without a comfortable midsection, it won’t stay comfortable to be in, and without a good insulation, you won’t be protected from the outside. I’m speaking metaphorically of course, but really. A relationship takes time and effort to build and maintain. I believe everyone who dates should be at a point in the relationship where outside forces have no effect on the relationship!

I’m someone who made a mistake earlier. I was a cheater, and I stopped. Because I loved the girl I was with. Anything is possible if your will is strong enough. That is true, at least relationship wise.

One thing I found out, is you cannot change anyone but yourself. You have the power to change anything, by changing yourself. I’m not saying act a certain way to get something or someone, but if there is a bad habit preventing you from being happy, change it! Smoker? Quit! Alcoholic? Pour the booze out! Chronically late? Get yourself a planner and leave earlier! It is all how badly you want to change.

Mind over matter. If your mind is strong enough, matter won’t matter.

You’ve seen people survive years past what doctors say is possible, why? They will tell you, will power. If you truly want something with all your heart, your willpower will help you make it happen. Only when you believe something is impossible is it.

If you resign yourself to defeat, you will never win. Just IMHO.