caffeineslug.com

Made in the Shade beer festival

Slightly late post...we went with some friends to the beer festival in Flagstaff a couple weekends ago. Lots of great beer and good weather. Also, I remembered to bring the camera! Entire gallery is here.

Waiting to get in. We arrived about 45 minutes early, and bought the VIP tickets. We were about 20th in line maybe, and by the time the gates opened, there were probably 150 people behind us. The non-VIP line was just as long, but they had to wait an extra hour to get in. :-D

Another VIP benefit, shaded seating, and an extra group of New Belgium people. There was no available seating at the rest of the event, so this was much appreciated.

This is what it looked like during the first hour, when lines were relatively short or non-existant. In retrospect, the key was to drink as much beer as you could in this first hour, because after that you were waiting 20+ minutes for a refill.

Same scene, a couple hours later. Obviously many more people.

Fantastic idea - just mount all of your beer taps to the side of the van!

Free fajitas in the VIP area. :-)

All in all, it was a great time. New Belgium, Pyramid, Rogue, Dogfish Head, and lots of others I can't remember right now (but enjoyed thorougly). Will definitely go again next year!

San Diego National Tour

An interesting co-drive opportunity had me going to the San Diego National Tour last weekend - a 1985 Camaro running in CP. (Click for full size on all of these.)

Weighed in at just over 3100 lbs, supposedly 525hp, and fresh 12" wide slicks. Despite all that, it wasn't all that fast on the courses we ran. :-P It was fun to drive though, once I realized that you had to be sliding around a bit to be fast. I was not fast.

I hadn't been to a tour in a couple years now, so it was nice to see so many well-prepared cars in person again. My album with lots of pics is here.

High-altitude cone-dodging

Sunday was the first autocross in the Saab, with the RGRSCCA running in Santa Fe this month (a bit less than an hour's drive from Albuquerque). Thanks to some tire pressure advice from Jay Balducci, former "plain-'ol-WRX-on-street-tires" driver, the car felt pretty good. Well...not at first. You see, it was a bit of a slow course. Slow enough that you put it in second, then you wonder why you ever did such a thing.

First run I shift into second at the first turn, and boooooog. I don't shift the rest of the run, and it's like the car has a 2000rpm redline that it just will not exceed under any circumstances. Finish with a 63.3, Teresa has a 64.4.

Second run I decide that I better at least downshift for the clump - yep, it's not just Arizona, apparently New Mexico has them too. Ok, so it was one cone, but it was reeeealy tight, and not a bit of fun. I think Teresa took the clump cone better than me all day. I take off some time though, 61.4 for me, another 64.4 for Teresa, but +1.

Third run, the lag is pretty frustrating, and there are just so many slow turns on this course, plus the tires aren't offering much. First gear it is! I don't shift into second until the very end of the course, which is essentially a straight. I finally break into the 60s with a 59.8, but Teresa takes off loads of time with a 60.3. Hmm...only a half second back.

Fourth run, more of the same. First gear, trying to be smooth with the throttle, blah blah blah. Go a bit faster, 59.4. Teresa improves more though, to a 59.5. Only a tenth behind me. Was I worried? Does Ron Burgundy play jazz flute? You bet.

Fifth and final run. I know I need to take off a LOT of time, lest I bear the brunt of much scorn come Monday morning. I don't know what was happening this time, I think I just pushed a little more everywhere, turned a bit earlier, and the car just kind of floated around the cones and through the gates. It was actually kind of nice. ;-) I crossed the finish line, not knowing where I would stand, hoping I would widen the gap just enough. As I rolled up to the timing lights, I saw the glow of the five-eight-oh, which I knew was plenty. Teresa's next run was a couple tenths faster. She congratulated me on the good run, then I think she hit me. Something like that. :-D

How does that stack up to everyone else? It was a totally stock car on big tall RE92s, how do you think? S-L-O-W. Results sorted by pax are here. I was 19th with a 916. Paul Brown takes top pax in a small car on a course with a bunch of slow turns? Unpossible! :-P

That said, there were some things left to be desired about how things were run. I think this was a bigger event than they usually put on, and it was a new location, so there are always problems associated with that. 40-second (est.) overlap + 5 runs + 2 run groups = long day. The course doubled-back on itself a couple times, so it took a while before you could send the next car. 36 cars in a run group meant that it was a long time before you could run again, too. Of course, it was much worse if you were a course worker, as I was standing out there in the sun for about 3.5 hours for the afternoon work assignment. I'm a bit red now, as we didn't have a chance to pick up some sunscreen before the event. Bad idea.

A few of the cool cars I thought I'd mention. There was a Conquest (see below) in all it's 80's-retro glory, 2 red FD's, including one in SM2 that looked absolutely perfect, and an SM2 NSX that looked almost as gorgeous. Oh, and there was a new C6 that put a wheel up on a curb while trying to pull into a parking space. Nice.

Onward with pics!
This is ALL of the stuff we brought to the event, including two jackets in case it rained. Weird!

Grid lineup.

The curb-hopping C6.

The fender-ful Conquest.

Ah, an actual picture of the car!

And in motion.

Teresa attacking the clump cone, while Ben wishes he had a better zoom (you'll have to click to see anything):

Hey, who took all my camber!

More on course.

Me pretending I got something out of my Evolution school.

And finally, a shot for the sponsors. You listening OMP? I need a new helmet bag! :-D

Green chiles, tivo, Integra repairs

Traded cars with Teresa this weekend in Albuquerque - the Saab made it there fine, no problems at all. Had about 1200 miles on it when I got there. The way back in the Integra wasn't quite as comfortable, but it wasn't bad, either. I think it was almost an hour shorter going the Payson->Heber->Holbrook->ABQ route vs. Flagstaff->ABQ.

In the state known its chiles, they were available on pretty much everything. I think I had green chiles in some form with every meal, except for the stop at Dunkin' Donuts. Good stuff.

Now that my car is back though, I need to do some repairs (some sooner rather than later). The most immediate concern is the clutch slave cylinder, which will probably fail the next time I look at it wrong. The radiator hoses need to be replaced after that blowout a couple weeks ago, and replacing one with a poorly-fitting hose from Autozone. And of course, I really need to replace the gasket between my header and the cat, as the noise from the exhaust leak has transformed from annoying to embarrassing. :-( But those parts should all be purchased today, with their installation dependent on who's available to help me when (well, the slave cylinder at least).

I mentioned tivo in the subject, as I'm interested in trying Galleon when I get home. It seems to offer some of the things I always liked about an HTPC, like RSS feeds, weather, and email on the tv. Hopefully it'll work ok. :-)

Related to tivo, I finally got the whole dvd burning thing working, I think. I was able to convert my .tivo files to mpegs, cut out the commercials, and burn two episodes of Victory by Design to a dvd. Nice. :-D

Site update, a rolling ball, and some pics

Not an update to this site, mind you, but I finally started the azsolo2 update project last night (you can see it here). I found a free drop-down menu program, and I started to integrate that. The colors and such will be changed, of course, but the idea is there. None of the options in the menu work yet, but that's easy to fix. I also added a random picture to the page (which might end up getting made smaller), and added Google's free site search. I think the calendar and recent forums posts sections will be the toughest to add, so we'll see how that goes.

I ended up buying Katamari Damacy last week, spent way too many hours playing it, and beat it a couple days ago. Really fun game, I wish I could take some screenshots of the stuff I rolled up. There's little more satisfying than rolling through a town and picking up every single building. :-D I should still try to do better on the constellations, but whatever. As far as I'm concerned, I already got my money's worth and then some. Of course, I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel, whenever it happens to come out.

Picture time!

Rest stop along I-40, just inside of New Mexico. Fire hydrants for the dogs!

The stupid radiator hose that broke on the way there. >:-O

Several images from the SLAC tour I went on at my sister's graduation. The building in the first picture is over 2 miles long!

Finally, big wheels of cheese.

Update-o-rama

Laziness has once again gotten the better of me, obviously. My updating skills are lacking.

Break-in of the new car is going well. Over 600 miles as of now, probably closer to 700 by the end of the day thanks to an expedition out to a new kart track on the west side this afternoon.

This past weekend I was in Palo Alto, CA for my sister's graduation. It was interesting to really see the Stanford campus (I had been once before, but didn't see much of it). Lots of large old buildings and huge trees. :-P They offered a tour of SLAC, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. They claim it's the longest building in the world, at around 2 miles long. It really wasn't much to see, as the outside of the buildings aren't kept in particularly great shape. Overall, perhaps a bit disappointing. I took a couple camera phone pics, but of course, they're still on my phone.

The commencement ceremony was a bit odd at times. It seems that the tradition is for students to go out on the field, not in an orderly manner, but rather in whatever unusual way they can think of, and just do crazy stuff for about half an hour (something like this). Some of my favorite things to see were people dressed like Lego men, some dressed as Domokun's, and a large group playing tetris. Again, pics on the camera phone. Steve Jobs was the invited speaker, and that was kind of odd. Wired offers a pretty decent summary of his speech.

I'd say the most interesting part of the whole weekend was noting the differences between a state-run university, and a university that can throw as much money as they want at pretty much whatever they want. I'm sure they spend way more than ASU just in day-to-day activities and operations, yet probably have a third to half as many students.

Played Halo 2 several nights last week, and playing regularly was definitely helping. I still didn't like the fact that we kept being matched up against people at least 5 levels higher than us in other game types, but whatever. Hopefully the skills learned won't wear off too fast.

Plans have been made to update the azsolo2 site, and I think that will really turn out well. I'll probably start keeping whatever I'm working on at azsolo2.caffeineslug.com or something, but nothing of interest has been created yet. I'll post updates as the new look progresses.

This is where I lament the fact that I don't update more often, as I can't really remember what else I was going to put here. Maybe the fact that Evo's are awesome, I don't know. Probably something along those lines.

Big update

So, since the last update....played a lot of Forza the other day - I think from about 4:30pm to 2am, with maybe an hour break for dinner. That put me up to about level 22 in single player, and now I'm up to 25 (haven't had the opportunity to play quite as much lately). Some notes:
- The fact that I can drop a 20B in my FD RX7 is awesome. Zero hp increase, but the torque curve got a LOT fatter.
- A big rear defuser and a proper front splitter look good on just about any reasonably fast car. I'm glad these can be added.
- My Peugeot 206 is still holding its own in Class D. I finished the Class D series last night, and won by quite a bit. The leaderboards seem to indicate that a CRX Si-R is the car to have, but I haven't checked that out yet.
- I don't like the unmodified pre-1975 races. The Stingray should be the car to have, as it is classed the highest, but I hate driving it. On courses like New York, it's hard to beat the Corvette's level of power.

One of these days I'll start playing online with the game, but as I'm all about completion %, I'm still doing that. Right now I'm almost 21% done, so I still have a ways to go in career mode.

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Went on vacation earlier this week - Teresa and I went to Six Flags Magic Mountain, leaving Sunday and returning Tuesday. Going to the park on a Monday meant it was pretty empty. We had to wait maybe an hour to ride X, but everything else, we rarely had to wait more than a couple turns to ride. The Ninja was closed, and that was disappointing, as it looks like a lot of fun going through the trees and all. It was closed the last time I went as well, and now I'm wondering if it's permanently closed, as the whole area seems somewhat vacated.

It's hard to say what my favorite ride is, as many are quite enjoyable. I've always liked the Batman ride for some reason, can't quite identify why. Goliath is good as well, with the huge drop at the beginning, and the circle that almost makes me black out. ;-) A surprise favorite, however, was Revolution. It's one of the oldest coasters in the park, and it just has one loop, but the surroundings make it seem so much cooler. While much of the coaster would have been exposed when it first opened, now trees have gone up around the coaster, and I think that really adds to the experience. You fly around all these sections, completely surrounded by trees, then you climb a hill, and all of the sudden you're above the trees - you can see the rest of the park, and further off in the distance - then you dive back down into the trees for more. Lots of fun.

Following the roller coasters, we ended the day with the water rides, so we wouldn't be walking around the park soaking wet. By the time we were done, we were both pretty thoroughly wet. Fortunately I was able to keep my phone and wallet somewhat dry. :-P

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Picked up the head for the Neon yesterday, and had a couple surprises. One, the rebuildable core they found for me was a complete head, and I expected just a bare head, where he would transfer over all of my stuff to this one. Two, it was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be, about $415 for everything. I think work on the car will start again tomorrow.

Honeymoon pics are up

You can find them here.

Some details:
004 - view from outside the hotel room.
006 - me in front of big ben.
007-011 - big ben, parlaiment.
013-020 - westminster abbey.
012 - the institution of mechanical engineers. :-P
023-027 - views from a park (st. james maybe?).
028 - lawn outside of buckingham palace.
029 - fountain outside same.
030-035 - views of the palace.
037-067 - the british museum.
038 - no idea why there are so many mercedes there!
043 - the rosetta stone.
046 - big door!
047 - hinge for said door.
066 - me following afternoon tea at the museum restaurant.
068-074 - front of the natural history museum.
075-098 - more from the history museum.
095 - the "minerals and elements" room.
096 - giant redwood.
099-116 - science museum.
099 - they had lots of old engines...you could actually operate most of them.
100 - the first diesel engine.
102 - a giant lathe.
105 - vacuum tubes!
106 - lots of little wires inside the Cray-1.
116 - a Rolls Royce aircraft engine.
119-126 - the Victoria & Albert museum.
128 - Harrod's.
130 - old michelin building...now a flower shop i think?
131-132 - our hotel.
133-137 - the tube stop near our hotel.

Ah, it's good to be back

And jet lag isn't my friend. Woke up at about 4am this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. Pics from the trip will get up as soon as I can get to a computer with photoshop. :-P

Zoo

As I mentioned in the last post, I went on vacation with a bunch of friends to San Diego last week. Stay in the same place we did last year. As such, I didn't take any new pics of the condo, the trip over and back, or pretty much anything else. I did manage to take a bunch of pics at the Zoo, which was a fun trip - they can be found here.

Lots of stuff

Over a month since the last update. A couple weeks ago I went on vacation in Ocean City, NJ, as my family has for years. Had a good time. Last week, I went to San Diego to see one of my friends from high school get married. All in all, a good 10 days or so. Another month until I get to go to San Diego again! I wish I had paid vacation days, but what can you do.

In the Chicago airport on the way back from NJ, Teresa bought me a book called The Da Vinci Code. It deals a lot with religious history, but you don't really have to know anything about religion to enjoy it. In fact, it's probably much more enjoyable if you don't know anything about history, much in the same way that computer geeks cringe when they read something "technical" that was written by a pseudo-geek. I read a little more than half of it on the plane, and finished it tonight. On the way out to NJ (actually Philadelphia), I read this book my mom gave me a while back. Started it as we left Phoenix, finished it about 15 minutes before landing in Philadelphia. It was pretty good as well. I still have several books that have been given to me over the last few years that I have yet to read. Two of the more prominant are Euclid's Window and The Wizard of Quarks. Hopefully I can get to them some day.

Hmm....what else. I played golf at Club West a few weeks ago, and didn't do that bad. I shot an 85 or something, but had about 10 penalty strokes. Almost had a hole-in-one! I ended up figuring out what I was doing wrong on about the 15th hole, and I was 2-under for those last two holes. I also somehow managed to get into a car accident a couple weeks ago, with no fault for either party. The car is in the process of getting repaired at the moment. At the very least, the whole thing should end up with new paint. Sorely needed, as most of the people that actually read this page will tell you. Right now I'm driving a 2003 Buick Regal LS as my rental car. It's pretty lame, but it does have some nice points here and there. Like headroom, for one. I have about 3" of headroom when seated fairly upright, while I have nearly zero in my car. I still really hate GM's 2-key system. This car doesn't have the ability to lock all doors when I lock the driver's side door from the outside, so that seems kinda weird. Lots of storage space inside. Hopefully I won't have it too much longer, and it takes a bit more gas than any of the other cars we have here.