Mar/100
Judicial Humor
Read this document and see what happens when the judge thinks of the sides bickering. Some of the choice quotes in the document are:
The Court is sympathetic with the Defendant’s argument. Surely Defendant’s corporate representative, a resident of Arkansas, would feel great humiliation by being forced to enter the home state of the University of Texas, where legendary Texas Longhorns have wrought havoc on the Arkansas Razorbacks with an impressive 55-21 all-time series record.
On the other hand, the Court is sympathetic with Plaintiff’s position. Plantiffs might enter Arkansas with a bit of trepidation as many residents of Arkansas are still seeking retribution for the “Game of the Century” in which James Street and Darrell Royal stunned the Razorbacks by winning the 1969 National Championship.
Of course, the judge has the best way to solve this little issue of people not wanting to enter each other’s state:
Accordingly, it is ordered that unless the parties agree otherwise, the deposition of Defendant’s corporate representative shall occur … on the steps of the Texarkana Federal Building ….
It is further ordered that each party is to remain on his or her respective side of the state line.
And of course, if you’re thinking about it, the “Game of the Century” the judge references isn’t really right, since the true game of the century according to the judge in his footnotes: ‘…occurred on January 4, 2006 when Vince Young and Mack Brown led the Longhorns in a 41-38 win over the USC Trojans…’
I just wonder how many judges and lawyers write funny orders or motions either because they find the case absolutely ludicrous or just plain don’t like the other people?
Mar/102
Boxers and Boxsters Driver’s Education
This last Saturday was a track day at Harris Hill Road (H2R) organized by the S2k club called Boxers and Boxsters: DE to benefit Austin Boxer Rescue. I signed up because H2R is a very fun and challenging track to run on and I wanted to get the 911 out there after not getting to take it to the track recently. The 911, of course, has become safer and has had maintenance done to it to have it ready to go. It got its brake fluid flushed from ATE Super Blue to Motul RBF 600, aligned and corner balanced (and teched) all at SoulSpeed before the event. The car was officially ready for the event.
As with all track events, it starts the night before since you’ve got to round everything up you’re going to bring with you and pack the car so you can rocket out the door in the early AM to make it to the registration on time. So, the day started for me at 5:30am and managing to get out the door and on the road to Harris Hill at 6:15am. The nice thing is driving in the morning is very peaceful since there aren’t many people on the road and the time passes pretty quickly (helps more if you have a passenger and a quiet car that you can talk in); in my case, I had a passenger but not the quiet car, so there really wasn’t as much talking as there was yelling over the noise of the vehicle.
Arriving at Harris Hill, registering, preparing the car, listening to the instructors speak and getting the schedule for the day was very standard stuff and all that was left was to wait for my turn to drive and chat with people around me, take a look at other vehicles and take in the sights and sounds of the day. The other thing you learn to do is to dress for the weather and check the weather before leaving because you don’t want to be stuck out there freezing and wet when you were expecting sunny and pleasant. However, for the track day the weather turned out to be the perfect track day weather: mid 60s and slightly cloudy. I dressed for weather in the 60s and at the same time was testing out how it would feel wearing the flame-resistant clothing, full-face helmet and HANS device while driving my car. In the early morning, it was wonderful to have all of the flame-resistant clothing on because it was very warm and helped cut the chill of the wind. By the time it started warming up around 10:30 or 11:oo am I decided the purchase of a driver cooling system like the COOL shirt or 986 Cool shirt would be a wonderful investment once it starts getting closer to summer-time and racing in full gear is going to become quite interesting.
The first session I spent driving slower than normal trying to break in the new tires and come to grip (haha) with their grip. As the track warmed up and the tires warmed up and became broken in, their grip became greater and the car was handling much better. One thing I did notice was that Harris Hill is much, much bumpier than I remember it. The best lines through the course had to be altered to avoid the bumpy sections and even then, you’d still feel a lot of the bumps as you drove through it. Midway through the third session I took a four-wheel off on one of the kinks that I should have never screwed up. After finishing the session I decided that it was time to call it a day. When you have an off on a section of the track that you never have and you can’t track it down to anything else but yourself, it is time to call it a day. I would have loved to have stayed for the last session, but I knew better than to push my luck and have something else happen that might not be so easily recoverable from.
The track day was very awesome, the breakfast and lunch were both great (can’t be Krispy Kreme donuts and Einstein Bros. bagels and freshly grilled hamburgers), you couldn’t have asked for better weather and pictures of the event can be seen here (I’m in the Yellow run group with the beige 911). Best of all they’re putting on another track day on May 8th and hopefully I will have been to the track a few more times before the next event.
Feb/100
Another step in the racing direction
As mentioned in earlier posts, I’ve gone through the process of prepping my car for the track with the necessary safety equipment and started getting myself ready for the track with the purchase of a HANS device, full face helmet, flame-retardant underwear, socks, gloves, etc. I finally ordered a race suit.
I called Simpson Racing and ordered a custom-tailored since all the pre-made race suits didn’t fit me very well. I went with the Titanium Nomex suit with the Racer Deluxe Package; which adds 360* arm gussets, lower back gussets, straight leg cuffs and full box quilt, I then also added the built-in arm restraint connections (since you never know when you might get the chance to drive an open-cockpit racecar); finally I got the speedfit collar on the suit.
A terrible mock-up of my suit
Of course, the most important part is the coloring of the suit — black, silver and white (no I’m not a Raider’s fan – the colors just matched everything else I have bought so far). And, as you can tell from the terrible mock-up above, it should look really slick. Now, I’ve just got to wait the five weeks for the suit to be made and shipped to me.
Feb/100
Listening to the Web through Code Organ
I shared this item through Twitter but thought it was worth a longer post since it is a very interesting concept — it “plays” websites. Code Organ uses information on the web page to generate the key, the synth, the drums and the music for the website. Although this isn’t ground-breakingly awesome it is a very neat way to auralize the web — much like how they have programs that create sounds for blind people to see the world around them.
Feb/100
ShadyURL
Want to keep people away from your website? Have I got the site to use for you. Forget those weak and stupid tinyURL programs, go with ShadyURL. Make people think they’re going to a phishing or penis enlargement website to only be redirected to Yahoo! or Google. Then, to keep them on their toes, actually send them to a porn site or penis enlargement site on purpose.
Feb/100
First autocross of the 2010 season
This last Sunday was the first autocross of the Spokes 2010 season and I was looking forward to getting out there and giving the 911 a good shake down after getting the work done on it over the Christmas break. Overall I thought it was a great event, even if I finished in 4th place in my class. The 911 was driving well, it stayed together the entire time (the travel there, the time on the course, and the trip back home), and I felt it was being driven pretty close to its limits — although I’m sure there was probably some more time I left on the course that where I could have gone faster.
The day itself was a different story, it never warmed up like the weather channels and websites said it was supposed to have done. Instead, everyone dressed for 60 degree weather and got stuck with 45 degree weather with a lot of wind, drizzling, rain and a generally overcast day. So, yeah, it was not much fun standing out at the corner shagging cones. Driving in it wasn’t so bad, it made some corners a bit more interesting with the rain on the ground but overall, still a heck of a lot of fun.
Now, finishing 4th in my class F-Prepared is kinda sad, but I’m competing against full-blown race cars that have gotten rid of any chance of being street-legal while I’m still driving the car to the event. So, I don’t feel too bad, but I’d like to get my car to the point where I’m competitive with the other folks and I believe some more changes to the car could be in the future.
The items that need to be addressed on the car are: making it lighter, getting new autocross appropriate tires, and getting more power from the engine. Lightening the car can be done with fiberglass body panels, replacing the glass with polycarbonate and removing what is left of the radio in the car (I really want to keep the air conditioning system until it becomes a track only car). For the tires, Hoosier A6s and another set of 17″ rims to mount them on. The tires can be done near the end since the body panels for the car can be bought with larger fender flares to fit 9″ rims up front and 11″ rims in the rear. Finally, getting more power to the vehicle becomes the most expensive proposition. A set of headers would give a nice bump in horsepower and torque; however, after that, more power couldn’t be achieved easily without rebuilding the engine and transmission. Decisions, decisions, decisions..
I look forward to having a great time autocrossing (and doing track days) this year, even if I’m still at the back of the pack.
