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...
1200 photos from the event this past weekend.
http://www.solo2.org/gallery/albums/69.aspx
Mostly heats 2 and 4, though a few Heat 3 photos in there as well.
The new camera, Rebel XT,...
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...
I got my boss to drive by the Praxair explosion site after we had a meeting downtown on Monday.
Here are the photos I snapped. Nothing really too interesting, they pretty much have everything blocked off well, though this shot shows a vehicle completely gutted and random metal lying around on the ground..
You'd think they would come up with some different storage methods after the problems they had last week, yet this photo shows all the canisters still sitting outside together!
This guy was napping while manning the truck that is still spraying water on the site, I assume to cool things down.
Maybe later this week I'll get down and get some better...
Check out the great photos that Chad got of my last run at the Midiv Solo II event this weekend.
Here is a link to all of the shots he took.
http://www.solo2.org/gallery/albums/57.aspx
And a...
Here's a pretty in depth blog post about how google maps works. A good geek...
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,...
So this wacky Pet Store owner thinks he see's Satan's image on the back of a turtle shell, the only animal to survive a petstore fire last october.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/21/evil.turtle.ap/index.html
I think the guy is nuts, clearly the turtle shell has an image of Donkey from shrek on...
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...
My 2004 World Series Photos DVD is for sale again on Ebay!
2004 World Series Photos...
We ordered Chinese yesterday for lunch. It took 2 hours to get here, so it ended up being free.
In my fortune cookie it said “Your everlasting patience will be rewarded sooner or later” I don't think this cookie meant lunch yesterday, cause it had happened prior to opening the cookie. This cookie is for all of the Red Sox fans out there!
“Your everlasting patience will be rewarded sooner or later”
It's late enough, game...
If you are looking for your Critical Mass passports for 2004 you can download them from ChrisHammond.com!
campassport2004.pdf (2.1mb)
campassport2004lr.pdf...
Was yesterday not the best day in Baseball?
The Red Sox beat the Angel in Cali.
The Yankees lost to the Twins in NY!!!
Oh, and I went to the Cardinals game in which they beat the Dodgers! Here are 250 photos I took, I got 3 of the 5 homerun swings I think, possibly 4 of 5, need to check....