the last three… er four saturdays
Scott O says:
http://www.veilside.com/fortune/
Zane B says:
that’s han’s car, right?
Scott O says:
yeah
Zane B says:
purty sweet!
Scott O says:
sure is
Scott O says:
I wanna be like Han
Miller, Zane B says:
surrounded by hot women and cars?
Zane B says:
i can get behind that
Scott O says:
yeah drift around em so I can get their acceptance. It’s the JDM mating ritual dance evolved to today’s attachments to man’s toys/machines.
Zane B says:
a modern day tea ceremony in other words
Scott O says:
LOL
Scott O says:
but with Flare
Zane B says:
like in karate kid 2
so the stuff i write here. these posts. i think they fall into 2, maybe 3, main categories. humorous annecdotes based on recent experiences that remind me of things (i.e. stuff worth reading) and diary style entries that record daily events (i.e. stuff prolly not worth reading). this probably falls into the latter, but it should have something for everybody. the last line is important.
4 weeks ago. i think.
rather than do something constructive like work on the house, d and i drove out to the evergreen speedway in monroe to meet up with noel, mc, bill and linda for the 5th D1 event going up there. D1 is the american drift circuit. for the uninitiated, drifting is sliding a rear wheel drive car sideways. it’s JDM yo!
beast from the west (dodge viper) meets the beast from the east (nissan skyline GT-R)
afterwards d and i met up with jay and cindy for a midnight opening day showing of snakes on a plane. i havent laughed that hard in a long time. as a boeing engineer familiar with real 747’s, i was groaning the entire time. but it was cool. i have a review that i will post shortly.
3 weeks ago
my mom came to town to visit that thursday. i love my mom. we have A LOT of things in common. our looks, our mannerisms, our temperment. case is my dad’s son, but i definitely take after my mom. we even have a inside family joke (well, case and i do anyways) that mom had to have been messing around with the mailman or something when she got pregnant with me, cause i look nothing like my dad.
yes, i love my mom, but god i hate driving with her. it doesnt matter who’s driving either. she’s one of those ppl who spends the entire drive, sitting in the passenger seat, twisting her body, pressing her hands against the dash and armrest, and trying to push her foot through the floor on an imaginary brake pedal. ironically, this is the exact same thing she does when she’s actually driving. there’s no such thing as light braking in this woman’s driving lexicon. when the tail lights on the car in front of her light up, she slams on the brakes full bore. she drives me nuts. i drive her nuts. we yell at each other everytime we drive together.
with that in mind (mined?)
so with that in mind, i decided to take her to an autocross practice and event. ’cause, you know, i’m a masochist. seriously though, i know she reads this and i figured she’s like to come see what it is i do for a hobby. when i picked her up at the airport she said to me, “i brought danielle some coffee as a present. my present to you is, we can do whatever you want with driving this weekend and i wont complain or give you a hard time.” WEWT!
so saturday, we went up to everett in the morning for practice. noel brought the S14 so we would have a car to drive. we were the 1st car up for the day, so we got in, pulled up to the line, and i took off at full throttle through the course. when we finished she said, “ok. that’s it. i’m not getting back in this car again. sorry zane.”
“jeannie bobblehead” she calls this look
but, while she was not willing to go with me, she was willing to try it herself. she actually did pretty well, all things considered and everybody was very encouraging for her.
sunday was the NWDE (pronounced “nude”) autox event (#7). results are here. i won, but not by much. note my priorities. my mom was in town and i dragged her to the race, rather than miss it. i need every race now in order to qualify for the championship
2 weeks ago
danielle took off for san diego on friday to visit family before she presented a paper at a converence down there. matt and i spent most of memorial day weekend playing WoW. however, we did pull ourselves away from the screen for a few hours to prime the windows to paint them before winter. therefore, purple palace is no longer purple.
monday i actually went and worked on the jetta for a few hours. it was basically a triage session to figure out why the engine is siezed. i pulled off the oil pan to discover small, thin crunchy bits sitting in the bottom, which reg, the mechanic there who generously let me use his tools and hang out on a holiday, told me were bearing fragments. well, at least i know why it stopped suddenly. so i guess that means the crank shaft is shot as well, although, interestingly enough, the oil pump (the usual culprit for this kind of failure) was in perfect shape. the current theory is the car was run low on oil at some point and never really recovered. he and i have worked out a deal and a plan for ressurecting the car in the next few weeks. i’ll tell you about it soon.
i also went kayaking on lake washington and went to a salsa dancing club. oh and another midnight movie.
last weekend
wednesday night i flew to san diego to meet up with d at her conference. for the next two days, i was her concubine. while she went off to work (i.e., the conference) i lounged in the hotel room, enjoying room service and the amenities. most ppl would have hit the pool. i stayed in the room and spent all day playing wow. it was, i must say, a dream vacation! her presentation went fairly well. she didnt get many questions during the actual discussion panel, but afterwards several ppl approached her about it. d has a lot of family in san diego so we had dinner with various members on thurs and fri. saturday morning, we hooked up with my friend jared who’s in law school down there for breakfast and then flew back up here.
that’s not an S14! (it’s an S13)
sunday was beac enduro. it’s a long story, but noel and i aren’t driving together anymore, so i had to find another car to drive or just say fuggit and forget the rest of the season. in much the same way that i had to forego driving the S14 for the sake of noel’s friendship, i similarly had to forego driving the impreza for the sake of my marriage. fortunately pete stepped in and let me drive his car instead. victory again! this was a weird event however. instead of taking multiple individual runs and comparing times between us each time, looking for improvement, this was in “enduro” format, where we ran all three laps in a single go. realistically, none of us running had any idea if we were going faster than the guy before us. it’s a much more interesting test IMHO. gotta get it right the 1st time. actually, i’m surprized i beat noel in pete at all. patience is not my strong suit when it comes to autoX and i usually dont get my best time until the end.
sunday was also our one-year anniversary. again with the priorities. but danielle was cool with it. after the race we went to dinner at the melting pot which was a lot of fun. there’s more involved, but u guys dont wanna read about that, do you??
happy anniversary chica! i love you! =D
