Hi.

I’m rocking the antibiotics again. They’re banging. Let me tell you, get yerself
some antibiotics…

Yeah…so I went to the doctor for real and he told me that I have acute sinusitis
and rhynitis (wtf?). He gave me a prescription for 10 days worth of anti’s and
some nostril squirter. The trip to the doc only cost 115 dollars! What a deal!
He told me that the antis would be 10 dollars…yeah, times 3.5.

Anyways, so I’m a few days into the cycle…I feel like ass. Apparently that’s
normal. It would be cool if this stuff works though. It’s not going to be all
that cool at 100K on Monday or Carolina Cup next weekend. I was hoping to be
healthy for CC this year, but apparently that’s asking a little bit too much.

Apparently, I can expect to get lots of sinusitis love in the future, because
I have f’d up nasal passages, so if I’m not careful, I can pick it up willy
nilly all over the place. Cool. I don’t know how to not do that in the future,
but I tell ya, I’ll do my damndest.

Before I got sick again I was getting in some quality bike practice, and the
DAY before I went down with the sickness I uttered the fateful words: Wow, I
think I’m the fittest I’ve ever been in my life. And seriously, it was true.
Craziness. The next day, I could barely ride my bike uphill. Whatever.

I’m going to take a dremel to my nose and carve out some wider passageways.

Alright, I’m done whining, moaning, and complaining. I’m going to go back to
doing important work…bikegame.

Hey…I’m still
alive.

Yeah, I think it’s
that time of the season where I needed a little bit of a vacation from talking
about myself, but I think I’m done with that now. At least now I know that I
need about 19 days before I crack and have to talk about me again.

Jamila and I are
chillin on some grass in front of the UGA Library ‘reading.’ I’m not reading,
unless I cound reading my typed words reading.

I just ordered
a copy of my birth certificate. Since I lost my passport after Cuba…um…a
long time ago, I figure it would be good if I ever plan on leaving America again
to have a passport. I realized that I don’t have a birth certificate, because
Mom tried to help me find it, and couldn’t find it. The one she gave me as a
substitute apparently doesn’t fly, so I hopped on the interweb-train and found
what I needed to get a new birth certificate…it’s only 32 dollars! Wow. How
cheap.

My new passport
will cost 130! Almost as much as my new UCI License, which will cost even more!

I’m not complaining.
Stop the whining.

Ok.

So yeah…today
is Crit Nats up yonder in Downer’s Grove, but I’m not there. My Toona sickness
lasted a lot longer than previously expected. I ended up with some antibiotics
and have felt noticeably better of late. I thought I was better after last weekend,
then I started to feel worse again, and then I cracked and got the meds I apparently
needed. Whatever.

Point is, I think
I’m pretty much better, and now I’m doing bike practice again, getting ready
for some bike games coming up. Next race will be 100K and then the week after
that, Univest. That’s if I can get a UCI license…I think I needed my passport
last time I got a UCI license, and I don’t have a passport anymore, because
I lost it. Hmmm…

It’s hot right
now. My pants are soaked. Sitting outside is fun though, except for the sweating.
My laptop isn’t very cold, and it sitting on my legs is particularly conducive
to me tossing out loads of sweat.

I can’t wait to
race again. I’m all itchy for it and stuff.

I can’t wait to
do some more bike practice this evening. I’m all itchy for that. I’m going to
wait till evening since I couldn’t go this morning, because I didn’t wake up
till 10. My first idea for today was to ride early around 8, but that didn’t
happen, so I figured I wouldn’t be a big ol ass and ditch Jamila (since she
did come up here to visit for the weekend), and instead wait till she leaves.
I hope she leaves soon.

JK, JK, JK.

Seriously, me writing
JK, was a just kidding moment.

I’m done. I’ve
got nothing.

K Bye.

JERED

Holy crap it’s
hot.

I’m sitting outside
on the sidewalk in Oakmont, Pennsylvania stealing internet from someone.

Long story…so
the coffee shop was supposed to have WiFi, so I paid my ‘fee’ of a vanilla latte
and sat down to get some ‘work’ done. No dice on the internet, so I start walking
around outside to find some and find this office building where I can get some.

So you think, aw,
well, just sit in your car and tap, tap, tap away. Yeah, nugatory on the a/c.
So I sucked it up, got out my lawn chair, and I’m dripping sweat doing some
hard ‘work.’

Maybe I can sweat
my sickness out sauna-style.

Oh yeah…last
time I wrote, I thought I was sick. I found out for sure the next day. I’m still
sick. It’s good fun being sick.

I retreated from
Altoona, PA a couple of days ago after sitting in the Toona Sauna for awhile.
After getting time cut after the third stage I went into a sort of hiding in
my room. I stayed there and sweat it out everyday and did a lot of work and
sleeping. Every night I went out with Tim Swain and we watched a movie. Yes,
we held hands if you were wondering.

I stayed in Toona
a lot longer than I needed to, but I wasn’t really sure where I could go, because
I needed internet, and I didn’t want to go far, cuz I didn’t feel like it. Then
I remembered my ‘penpal’ from Germany, Patrick Lyons. Mr. Lyons started writing
to me when I was in Germany, and we’ve kept in touch more or less ever since.
He lives right near Pittsburgh, and that was just over an hour away, so I gave
him a holler, he said he had internet and dinner, and wham bam boom, I was at
his doorstep a little while later.

Oh yeah, the 3rd
stage of Toona…I got dropped in the first 20 minutes doing some depressingly
low effort. I ended up riding the rest of the stage all by my lonesome. THAT
is another story by itself…, which I shall tell later.

Anyways, life at
the Lyons’ has been nice, air-conditioned, good food, lots and lots of movies
and tv, and even more sleeping. The internet crapped out the day I got here,
so internet has been a catching point, but wtf-ever, I’m feeling more than a
little tired of the internet at the moment.

I rode yesterday
for the first time in four days. I thought for a second I was feeling better,
then I went more than REALLY easy and understood that, no, no I am not feeling
better. So I rode a little bit more and went back to bed.

I was going to
go see a doctor in the Land of Cleve this week, but turns out the doc is on
vacation, and that’s about as close as I’m going to be getting to a doc then.
I’ll just wait it out like I’ve done with all of my other illnesses, which all,
interestingly enough, are exactly the same. I get weak as hell for about two
weeks, I whine and complain, sleep a lot, think about what I’ll do differently
next time not to get sick, and then magically at some point down the road I
feel better and go along my merry way until I do just a little bit too much
and get sick again. I don’t like call it sick, cuz I don’t feel sick. ‘The Legs’
just don’t feel quite up to the task of…walking up a set of stairs.

Whatever.

I’m going back
to the land of air-conditioning now. My shirt and shorts are soaked through.
Sweetness.

I watched Goodfellas
for the first time in my life last night. I’m probably the last person in the
entire world not to have seen that movie, but now I have, so now I’m one-step
closer to a full, enriching life.