When you have a very runny nose (this is such a bad way to start a conversation), your personal efficiency is greatly reduced because you have to stop and attend to it every few seconds. One thing you can do to try and stem the viscous tide is stuff plugs of kleenex into your nose. While gross, it has the effect of freeing up your hands to type, operate appliances, and most other tasks which require hands to accomplish. The main drawbacks are that it is distracting to people who are interacting with you, it's not comfortable, and it can cause a mess and projectile hazard if you sneeze. Such are the risks of ad hoc nose-plugs.

Ed has come up from Bay Area California to visit, and to celebrate his 24th birthday among his best friends. Sea-Tac airport had been closed, so he took the train. This was great up until they reached Eugene, at which point they were made to disembark and board buses headed into Seattle. Apparently the train tracks have suffered damage from that earthquake on Wednesday, and Amtrak doesn't feel safe running trains over them. As anyone who has taken an interurban bus can confirm, busing between states is just No Fun. It either smells funny, is cripplingly anti-ergonomic, or puts you in proximity to loud annoying people. Actually, it's all three for the most part. Ed's loud annoying people were a newly married couple on their honeymoon or something. The woman was complaining loudly about being forced to ride the bus during the whole ride. "First class, huh? I have to ride the fucking bus?!?!"

I found my thermal underwear. I forgot that I had it. It had never been worn before today, because I bought it last year right after winter. It makes even my thinnest dress slacks viable cold weather clothing! I went out tonight wearing these floppy, thin, Donna Karan (or whatever DKNY is) pants, and all I felt during wind gusts was the tightness of cotton around my ankles and calves. Yes, the experience of wearing thermal underpants is truly worth documenting. In great detail. For posterity. I should write a screenplay about it.

I must shake this cold. It causes face and head pain when I sit up. All I want is for my sinuses to clear up and to be in perfect health. Is that so much to ask? Wait, maybe it is. Should I just carry on doing what I want to do and pretend the sickness will go away? Actually, that's what I would do if it wasn't going to ever go away. But as it is, I'll try to hasten its inevitable departure.

By sleeping! With a pillow over my head! And a book on the pillow! And my arm on the book! The book is "the mixing engineer's handbook".