Cool! I’m on Warren Ellis’s blog (You’ll have to scroll down a bit, he’s added more stuff this morning).
I’m a geek with a new phone. He wants to see the world. What an interesting project.
[Our phones, by the way, are Motorola T722i. They came with a tiny little camera attachment. My first published photo is on Mr. Ellis’s blog. Not a bad little picture considering the source.]
OK, so the wife would like to set the record straight. She says that she is not a geek but rather “modern, up-to-date, and technologically sophisticated.”
There you have it.
I have a cold. It sucks.
Oddly enough, three of my teammates at work also have colds. We all got them yesterday in the middle of the day. All describe the same thing - a bit like allergies to start, them whamoo! full on stuffy head and junk.
I feel crappy. But, Sarah and I like our new phones. : )
[OK, so we are a bit geeky…]
I haven’t had much to say or much time to say it this week, but I have stumbled onto something we all need: Octodog. Be sure to check out how it works. Fascinating. Truely fascinating.
And, for those of you who may have missed it when I started this blog, I remind you to check out 8-bit D&D. You won’t regret it. Definitely a natural 20.
Have you ever heard the Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”? Saturday was interesting times. The first qualifying group was suppose to go out at 8:00 am. They didn’t get going until 9:30. You see, we can’t race until an ALS-certified ambulance is on site (the Basic ambulance was there, but we have to have both). They were late. Session 1 hit the track (Formula Vee: an open wheeled car powered by Volkswagen motors). One Vee spins, another hits him head on and barrel-rolls across the track. The driver was taken to the hospital for a check up, and is fortunately ok - just a bit bruised. Session 3: In the high-speed kink on the back straight a Saturn blew his motor to tiny bits, dumping 6 quarts of oil on the racing line at the fastest part of the track. He spun in his own oil, off track and caught on fire. The car following him also spun and did a great job of recovering and getting out of everyone else’s way. The rest of the morning sessions were like that - from simply cars off track, to more motor’s expiring. For me, it was going to be interesting because I knew that this was the last weekend for the tires on my car. They were old and losing grip but that was that. I was surprise in qualifying to turn 1:24s. The car had so much understeer I didn’t think it was that fast. Plus the track was, not surprisingly, very slippry all over the place. My interesting moment came when the Miata in front of me locked up his rear brakes at the end of the back straight. No problem, he was going straight off track, I just braked and turned in a little early to avoid him. Of course, it couldn’t be that simple. The Miata rotated and came back left to the track, aiming to go across right were I was. Since I was already turning, when I tapped the brakes my car went into a lurid slid. The Miata somehow recovered and went back off to the right, I somehow stopped my car from spinning all the way around and continued racing. It was … interesting. On to the race. Our race go interesting from the green flag. I had a really good run going up the inside of two of my competitors (I was 5th in class, 13 overall) when I caught the glimpse of a car sideways at the front of the field. Next came lots of cars going fast trying to stop very fast. I took to the grass on the inside (right) of the corner since it was the only option and everything else seemed to be going left. Then I saw a car surfing a tire-wall wave about 10 feet in the air. All I could see was the car’s roof way up there. “Oy, that’s not good,” thought I. I knew that we’d be going to a full course yellow, or that they would stop the race and try again. They stopped it. Most everyone else made it through incident just fine - except the Miata. The car in the air, a Civic, came off of its wall surfing and landed on top of one of the Miatas. Thank the gods for roll cages. Outside of a couple of borken windows and bent and scarred sheetmetal, the Miata actually returned and finished the race! And he raced it on Sunday. Amazing. Once we got the race underway, things went pretty smoothly. I had a good fight going with a couple of other cars - we all ran close but clean with a bit of passing and repassing going on. Then we got interesting stuff again. On the back straight, yes at the kink again, was the debris flag. Great, now what? Just after the kink, right in the spot we all want to be was someone’s muffler. So, for the remaining seven laps we had to come out of the kink, remember to stay left, then try to get over, brake and turn. Fun stuff. I finished 5th in class and had a great time. Sunday. After the session I found out why. I had completely worn off the tread on the right front tire. There is a two inch wide strip all the way around that is bare cord. That was it. Game over, time to go home. No racing for me on Sunday. All four tires have been completly used up 100%. If they would have lasted 10 more minutes I would have been fine. Oh well. There’s always next time.
Went out for qualifying. Turned some 1:24s again. Then the tires got really hot and started to slide even more. I had the brakes fully to the rear and was still locking up the fronts. Then I started getting wheelspin coming off the corners (not typical, not good). I slowed down for a couple of laps to let the tires cool down then got back onto it. I started lapping in the 1:26s and couldn’t go any faster.