The following is written in response to
Pat's post on Mon, April 26th.
Page 23, 5th sentence:
"When you use the Flute, you can move instantaneously to a set point that you want to visit."
Yeah, it's less of a book and more of an instruction manual. But it was the closest to where I was sitting.
Pat left today. He was here over the weekend for a frenzy of war gaming.
Saturday I went to the Mazda Rev It Up event. It was fun, and I did reasonably well considering I have next to no familiarity with front wheel drive cars.
Tae Kwon Do from a little before 7 pm till 10 (with a half hour break to change locations)... oh many are my muscles sore. Especially my arms because in the 7-8 pm class it was 45 minutes of nunchucks and those take fast hands to practice and use.
Being sore like this, the mistake would be to try to minimize arm movement. What I should do is keep moving them and the soreness will die down.
Back in Evanston.
Today I went to restaurants in the area to look for work. I applied to work at Lulu's (where my work would be "extremely part time" and most likely answering phones) and Kafein. The problem at Kafein is that the pay is crap, but they seem to be in more need.
Tomorrow I'll be cleaning up the apartment for when Pat arrives tomorrow night.
Well, this day didn't go so well. The meeting was canceled, I heard that the lukemia patient has become sick, and I have to pack for tomorrow. But I got paid today.
After three weeks filled with many phone calls, I finally have a tenative appointment to go visit Sammy Studios on Monday afternoon.
I forgot to add one other thing. When we stopped by a Bar to sit and talk, they had this beer called Carlsberg (from Denmark). I just had to try it...
I had fun in LA with Esther. We went to a Mediterranean restaurant that had belly dancers, and it was amusing watching how the different people responded. At one point, she was doing her dance right in front of an old guy, and he got out his glasses and put them on so he could see better. There was also the tipping, and most people put the money around her waist area but one guy kept trying in her bra (she'd moved some money there but he was a little too hands on). All in all, she avoided our table. Esther and I are just friends and Esther even has a boyfriend. The dancer probably thought we were on a date and wanted to not get me in trouble. I suggested to Esther that Tim would probably like to see a picture of her giving the dancer a tip, but she responded with a very firm "NO". Oh well, he'll have to settle for the other picture taken.
Later we were walking around and passed by a bar that was called the Moose Head Bar or something along those lines. A click of the camera and some e-mailing and off it was sent to the man with the obsession with the Moose.
For the second night in a row, I'd hear noises in my dreams that would wake me up and put me on alert. It's starting to get annoying...
Also, I haven't managed to sleep past 9 AM. In some ways, that's a good thing. I've been sleeping so much these last three months that there needs to be a limit to how much I can sleep.
Ok, so hearing the song lyric "Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die" doesn't exactly lighten one's spirits when they are going through a quarter-life crisis (what? the car didn't give it away?).
Well ok it's not that bad, but I'm not exactly looking forward to people scattering this summer.
Fun with taxes:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/31/pf/taxes/strangetaxes/index.htm?cnn=yes
In other news, work was uneventful and I still haven't heard my alarm since arriving here. Last night I heard two footsteps in a dream I was having and immediately woke up to silence. Footsteps wouldn't have been a big issue, except I'm the only one in the house. Obnoxious dreams, waking me up...
Ok, so I told you all that I'd have a review on my weekend and so here it is.
First off, here are the
photos and videos (I think they are all from the second day).
I arrived at Phil's place on Friday evening. He told me that there was a friend of his who was coming (Ben, a Audi TT driver). I'd heard of Ben, but I hadn't met him and didn't know he was coming. We went to Steak 'n Shake for dinner, watched the first two episodes of Firefly, then went to bed.
The next morning, we all woke up at 5:30 (despite having our alarms set for 6:00). We got out and started driving to the track. Fil lead the way with me behind him and Ben behind me. There was some variation to this, but overall we were sticking in a tight group. There were other people in the class who saw us and knew where we were going (STi, WRX, TT).
We got to the track, looped back and topped off our tanks. The gas station had $2.11 per gallon (high for 92 octane for us). They didn't have an air pump, so we went searching and found a place with $1.95 per gallon for 93 octane (and an air pump that costs 0.50 a car).
We get to the track and find all of these people with various nice cars. Registration, a short wait, and then an overview on how Autocross works and what's involved and such (as well as some amusing stories). Next we headed outside to hear who our teachers would be. This is where we discovered there were 2 students for every 1 teachers. My teacher drives a fairly new corvette with 350 hp. The student I was paired with drives a late 80s corvette with a fair amount of power as well. We go through the tech inspection (taking out floor mats and putting numbers on) and walk the course. Walking the course is very important as this is when you make strategy for the runs. You don't get any free runs on the course.
There were two small courses that day. Course 1 started with a right turn, then a weave left, a 5 cone slalom, the u-turn, some gates (two cones to pass through) that made a pseudo-slalom, a 3 cone slalom, then the finish line. Course 2 started with a 5 cones slalom, a hard u-turn, some weaving turns, then a sprint to the finish. We were to drive on Course 2 first. My first run had no big surprises. I simply drove it. I didn't drive slow but I didn't get all worked up or start spinning out like mad. I didn't put much strain on the tires nor the engine but didn't do horribly either. As I practiced this course I eventually got to the point where I was used to making my tires squeal (not squall, that's when you're spun out).
Next I was working the corner stations. Corner stations are where the people run out to replace cones that were knocked over. While working these stations, you aren't allowed to sit down as it would be dangerous (twice there were cars that spun out into a corner station). We did ok, but I got to see Phil kill many helpless cones with his excessive horsepower.
After that, it was our turn to drive Course 1. The major turn in the middle was going to be the key to the course. There are two possible ways to take it. One is to try to go wide and maintain speed (but adding distance). The other is to brake hard just before the turn, turn hard, then charge forward. We concluded that you should do the first strategy if your car is very under powered, but the second if the car would be considered high powered (like mine). The way I handled it was to brake hard, crank the wheel over while giving it some gas causing the car to power slide, then gun it as I straighten the wheel. This course had a timer and a then-best time was set because I nailed this middle turn that set the tone for the second half of the course (I messed up badly at the first half and lost time).
After having our fun, we cleared out, went home, stopped off at Outback for dinner, watched various videos of driving or angry computer people destroying a cheater's comp at a LAN party Counter-Strike competition ($25 entry fee).
In the morning, we had to drag ourselves from our beds. We were tired from the first day, but we kept at it and went for the second day.
This day there was just one big course. It was a joining of the two courses from the day before (see video at link above to see what the course was like). The first part of the day I got to ride with a WRX driver (some mods but nothing too extreme) and my instructor (the corvette I spoke of). I learned a lot watching those and seeing how hard they drove the car. The WRX guy gave me some good tips on how to drive with the loose suspension and stock tires of my car as well as how to handle the turbo more effectively.
Part two of the day was me working the corner station (the one at the finish line). I got to work the radio early on, which was fun:
"Corner 6 to control"
"Go ahead corner 6"
"Car # # # has smoke coming from the engine bay"
"Thank you. Control to Grid, did you hear that?"
"Yes. The driver seems to have noticed too. Thanks."
I also got to report when Phil hit cones or when people DNF'ed (did not finish, i.e. hit cone they aren't allowed to hit). This part of the day took a long while because there were technical problems at control as well as this one girl who kept stalling the car (only completed 2 of 5 runs, and that's not for missing a turn).
Next it was my turn to drive. We were told we'd get 5 runs in. My first run I got a respectable time (59 seconds). It wasn't great, but I beat someone with a new corvette and for that I was pleased. My second run I shaved 2.5 seconds off, largely because of being more familiar with the course but also getting some better shift strategy, harder breaking, and sliding through the middle turn better. My third run I messed up a bit in the middle turn and had some spots that slowed me down .5 seconds. But then my 4th run was great. I executed a very nice sweeping drift through the middle turn (unfortunately not in video) as well as strong braking and good power to get a time of 56 seconds.
Run 5 was going to be good. I was going to do the same thing with the middle turn, but take the slaloms faster and more precise. I was going to try and come out of the big turn faster by giving it more power sooner and giving the turbo time to spool up. But then it started raining. Raining hard. Cars left the grid and people outside scattered. The car in front of me left its spot and I moved forward. Waiting, talking with my instructor about driving this in the rain, we listened to the radio to hear what the announcer would say. They said something about the decision to stop or not was being discussed. Then he came on saying that there were about 50 Subarus in the grid waiting to take the course on (there weren't that many, but I wanted to go). In the end, it was cancelled and everyone proceeded to get their stuff in their cars to leave.
I recommend this class to anyone with a car that won't roll over, even if it's automatic (the corvette the other student had was automatic) or under powered (just don't bring a truck / suv).
