Old Man Winter can be a real wise guy..

This photo is from about 1pm today. As of yesterday evening the driveway was completely clear as were the cars. This was only the beginning though - by the time it stopped the snow was about up to my bumper.

Not only did we get around 12 inches of snow, but it was the heavy wet snow. This would have been great news if I was 10 yrs old because you can have great snowball fights as well as make snow forts and what not. 20+ years later and it's the kind that I dread. When you have to shovel a driveway 3 cars long it'll break your back. Thankfully Razor hooks me up with his snow blower so it isn't as bad.

Digging out the car was real fun - I really like rear wheel drive cars, but in the winter they're somewhat of a pain. My car has a pretty sophisiticated traction control system that was a $2000 option when the car was new (me=3rd owner) but it only really has an effect when you're moving. If you stop in snow like this, you sink, and then you're stuck - just like any other large RWD sedan. The tradeoff is how the car drives, but even so, I think my next car will be front wheel drive.

Bike show is almost here!

That's right- the Motorcycle show is just around the corner for us Chicago folks. The general consensus is that the show gets worse and worse every year.. that might be true in the sense of good deals to be had, but it's always cool to check out what the manufacturers have to offer.

With the explosion of custom bike builders, there is always a ton of that stuff to see - and honestly it all starts to look the same. It's still cool to check out the details and craftsmanship of these bikes even though many are not very road worthy.

The show gives me an opportunity to sit on many bikes that aren't within my price range- which pretty much is all of them... haha. A new bike won't be happening for a while, but it's cool to check out the bikes without having a salesman pestering you. Most of the time at the dealers the bikes are in tight rows so you can't even sit on them if you wanted to. It's fun sitting on anything from a $20,000 Goldwing to a $2000 mini dirtbike.

Maybe the good deals are few and far between - but for a motorcycle enthusiast like me in the middle of winter, this show is the perfect "fix" since I haven't ridden in over 3 months.