I finally got the 293 opening day photos posted! Here are a few of the "good" ones, though I didn't go through them all.   Me walking into Cheers Me and Auntie Carol after the...

I've been here in Lexington, Kentucky for the past 4 days. I was fortunate enough to meet two of the brightest minds in the industry! Also, I can't forget Chad Hobson (checkout that killer site, what mad skillz). Anyways, back to the brightest minds. I got to meet Shaun Walker, founder of DotNetNuke, and Scott Willhite, one of the Board members for DotNetNuke. I of course got them to sign my DotNetNuke book while they were...

So now that most folks know Natalie and I got engaged last weekend, it's time to tell the story of how it happened. A little bit of info on this past weekend, Natalie's mother's birthday was on the 7th of October, so we were all headed out to So Cal for the occasion. Her parents live about 17 miles from mine, but by California's roads that's about a 45 minute drive. We, Me, Natalie, her sister, brother-in-law and neice all went out to California for the weekend, to visit with her family and mine. We planned on everyone going to my parent's house on Saturday at 6:30pm, kind of a family gathering, have both sets of parents meet, and just have dinner and hang out all evening. I however had other plans and had Mom scope out locations on the beach for me a few weeks back. The requirements were a good view of the Ocean at Sunset, easy accessibility, and somewhere that 18 people could watch, without Natalie seeing those 18 people until after I asked her to marry me. Dog Beach down in Huntington beach was the perfect location, with two seperate parking areas so that Natalie and I could park, and walk ~1/4 mile to the sand below the cliffs at the second parking area. So the plan actually was for everyone to show up at my parents house at 5pm, and head down to the beach. Natalie and I got to the house around 4:30 and picked up the Triumph so we could drive down PCH with top down, sight seeing a little was the cover I used with Natalie. I had to double check on the location mom picked out, as dad early Saturday morning said the two parking locations where too far apart, after seeing they were nice and close to each other I let mom know via a cryptic phonecall we would be in the same location as planned. Natalie and I drove around Huntington Beach a bit, stopping to watchi a few kite surfers (probably the wrong term) and then headed back up to the first Dog beach parking lot. I took her down for a stroll along the beach, all along looking ahead to see if I could see anyone at the rendevous point yet. We ended up at the point I had planned probably 5-10 minutes before everyone else showed up. Not exactly on time as I had planned, but I think that worked out best as no one was around when we were walking towards where they would all be standing, I was hoping she wouldn't see anyone before I asked her. This whole time Natalie was freezing, the weather the day before had been 83 and sunny, but the weather saturday was getting overcast and windy, probably somewhere near 55-60 with a 15-20mph wind from the ocean. Though, even with the clouds and wind, we had a pretty good view of the sunset, which I had planned everything around, a 6:19pm sunset. We stood there for what seemed like an eternity, finally the family showed up, I had to wave at them behind my back to get them down to the area near the life guard stand (stand 22) that would give them the best view. Natalie actually asked me if I was waving at someone, I said no, I was just cold and shaking out my hands. :) Once everyone was in position I suggested she put her shoes down, she'd been carrying them since we got to the sand. After a few moments, and her wiping her runny nose from the cold wind on my shirt, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. She teared up, not saying a word, in shock. I had to ask her, "well, will you?" to get her to knod yes! I rose and gave her a hug and a kiss and then the crowd cheered, she turned and saw 18 people standing up on the bluff cheering for us. It took her a bit to realize it was all of our families up there watching :). Everything turned out great, Greg (my brother) and Dad had my still camera and video camera snapping and shooting away the whole time. We walked up to the bluff and took lots of photos together, with all the family in various arrangements. Afterwards we all headed to Mom and Dad's house in Long Beach for a few hours of socializing. It was a great evening, and special thanks to Mom for getting everything together...

Photos from Topeka are posted. Thanks to James Elterman for taking most of the 5th heat photos while I was...

I had an adventure to make it to and from the game on 8/25 in KC, but managed to take a few hundred photos at the game. Please feel free to give me any comments. I'm by no means a photographer, just a guy with a camera, so any tips/suggestions appreciated.You can see the photos here http://chrishammond.com/photos/old/category1068.aspxHere's my story about the darn ride back to St. Louishttp://www.chrishammond.com/archive...08/27/1502.aspxAnd then, of course my 2004 Game 4 World Series...

Andy and I made it to Denver and back. I went 1800.8 miles since I filled up with gas on Thursday night, we left Friday at 4am. The car did well, Andy was in the lead after the first day, but slipped to 2nd on the second day. I finished in 7th both days. Not a great showing for myself, though Andy picked up $200 from Kumho's contingency $$. I took ~800 photos, I'll link those later as there are some server problems right now. I also broke the Digital Rebel, so I'm headed to Best Buy this evening to see how they are going to handle the warranty on that...

Well, I made the trip back from Salina Kansas yesterday afternoon. 410 Miles in 5 hours and 10 minutes. You do the math. Stopped at the toll booth to get my ticket, then at the next booth to pay my toll, didn't have to stop for gas or any other breaks to the whole trip home. The weekend was good, hot 95-100 all 3 days, but at least Salina gets that good Kansas wind, it kept the heat bearable. I ended up winning my first Divisional of the year, and only the second win I've had over Andy this year, the first being the Walnut Ridge National Tour. We do it again this coming weekend. We'll be headed to Peru Indiana for the National Tour out at Grissom. Looking forward to making that trip again, it's quite a bit shorter than...

Check out Rory's story about his...

So far this weekend has been a good one. Last night we setup the SoloPerformance.com store at the Midnight Madness drag races out at Gateway. I shot some video of the StreetFighterz out there having a blast on their bikes. You can download it here, but be warned, it's 25megs and in Windows Media format. Today Rabid and I headed to Kansas City to watch the Cards game. It was amazing seeing so many Cardinals fans there, I  think it was easily split 50/50 between red and blue in the stadium. The ride back was wet. Somehow a big storm front totally missed KC but covered 70 the whole way back. ...

A quick (longer than planned) writeup, from a BS perspective The surface was concrete, VERY rough on tires, kinda slick but still not a bad surface over all, a little breakup after day 1, patches before day 2. The weather was pretty windy on Friday, not as much wind on Saturday, by Sunday the wind has switched and was blowing form the east. Not near as strong as Friday though. Both mornings were chilly, saturday was 36 degrees when Heat 1 started at 7:55am. By 1:30 it was ~60 degrees out, Sunny, with a light wind.The event ran very smoothly, great job by the Arkansas Region and SCCA staff. Only two event recommendation I would have, the front gate didn't appear to be staffed very well during the non-heat times (not sure during heats). The other being the choice of Saturday night dinner locations. It was a little too small for the number of folks we had at the event, just a thought for next year There were 185 drivers, I worked first heat in the trailer doing radio, which was nice because I got to stay inside where it was nice and toasty BS ran Second heat both days, there were 10 drivers (2 M3s (4 drivers) 1 RX-8, a Red 350Z, a Brickyard 350Z and my Daytona Blue 350Z with myself and Andy driving). Andy and I were trying out some Kumho 710s, some very large Kumho 710s! We managed to squeeze 275s on all four corners, including the 7.5" front wheels, I ended up installing a spacer up front just to be sure we didn't rub, I don't think it would have been an issue though even without the spacer. After first runs on Saturday I had a mid 46, with Ashir (sp?) running a 46.8 though I thought I had about a 1.5 second lead on the class. Andy, my codriver, I believe had a cone on his first run. Second runs Andy ended up with some car troubles. Just before the big sweeper (turn around) the car died. We're not sure how, or why, but it wouldn't start back up right away. The first though people had (course workers) was that it ran out of gas, which wasn't really an option as it had 1/2 tank of gas. I generally run with little to no gas in the car, but didn't plan so well for this trip and filled up before making the 240 mile drive to Walnut Ridge, which left me with over half a tank. I tried to burn off some gas driving through town, and then hoped to use up some at the practice event on Friday. Andy got the car started back up and came off after his 2nd run with a DNF due to the mechanical difficulties. We looked the car over, revved id, smelled it, looked underneath, nothing appeared out of place or missing/broken. I went out on my second run and the car ran fine, though I was a bit slower, I think due to worrying about how the car would react. Andy went out for his third run and jumped in front of my first run by about .15 seconds. I went out on my third run hoping to best his time, which I was unable to do. I knew this would happen, as I seem to have problems improving runs at big events, I almost always have my best run up front and then I guess over think everything else. Ashir ended up dropping some more time on his third run and finished behind me for the first day by .066 seconds. Sunday brought a new day. I went out on my first run and put about a second on the field, but got a late cone call in the final slolom to put me back into 2nd or 3rd I believe. Andy's first run was one of the fastest in the class, and unfortunately for him was his fastest clean time of the day due to other difficulties. 2nd run he went out and blew the course away, he knocked off 2 seconds from his time and about 1 second from mine, but yet again, a late cone call came into play. Ashir didn't quite seem to be able to get a good handle on the car on Sunday, I believe due to some changes they tried making to the sway bar the night before. My second run I went out, sped up a bit, and cleaned up my run, enough to actually take the class for the day. Andy went out for his third run intent on whiping the floor with me, and he may very well have,...

You have to love Southwest Airlines! I now don't have to get to the airport near as early as originally planned. I'm taking only carry on items, and was able to check in over the internet, so I have my Group A boarding pass. SW boards by groups, A being first, B and C being latter, and since seating on Southwest is first come first serve, you need to have an A pass to get a decent seat. That generally means getting to the airport two hours early, but not if you check in online! Rock on with your bad self...

I've gotten a lot of text messages from folks today wishing me a Merry Christmas, to all of you who have sent me one, and those who haven't, Merry Christmas!!! Check out some photos I took at the beach last night, unedited, only resized for...

In less than a week I will be back in sunny California! I fly out of STL on the evening of the 22nd, headed to Long Beach until January 2nd. It'll be nice to get out of MO for a while, be able to have some fresh smoggy air, and breathe again! If I am out there and my sinus problems completely go away I will have to think long and hard about leaving the midwest and going back west for good! Lots of stuff left to do before next Wednesday. Tonight I'm off to the Ho Ho Show (www.1057thepoint.com). Tomorrow Bill is having a Poker party at his place. Saturday is Nelson's wedding party. I really need to do some shopping before I go! Shopping in California on the 23rd and 24th is a huge...