stripethree

I ended up with over 750 pictures from the trip, and whittled it down to about 300 that I actually posted. So, pick a link depending on what you want to see.

Everything – Adelaide, Canberra, & Sydney

Everything Sydney

Places of interest:

Cleland Wildlife Park in Adelaide

Bondi Beach

Manly Beach

Jonelan Caves outside Sydney

Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney

Sydney Aquarum

From the top of Sydney Tower

Sydney Wildlife World

Landmarks:

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Sydney Opera House

And more…
Cars of Sydney
Streets of Sydney, random street shots including some places we ate
Aussie Signs (they’ve got a good sense of humor)

I can’t believe it’s the end of the month already. It went something like this…

Happy New Year // Watched the Red Wings beat the Coyotes // Ahhh crap, someone stole my credit card… // Tucson SCCA Meeting // Dodgeball // Got a present for the R // New Autocross Tires! // Autocross in Phoenix // Tucson SCCA Meeting // Dodgeball Tournament // TUS -> IAH -> DCA // Sherlock Holmes // Fantastic Lunch with the all the family in VA // Watched the Terps beat up Longwood // Downtown Silver Spring // RJ Bentley’s College Park, hooray Yuegling! // DCA -> IAH -> TUS // Tried to see how much tire I could stuff under the R32 // Autocross in Tucson // Old Chicago //More R32 parts… // New Season of Dodgeball! // Work Deadlines… // Work Annual Reviews // Hooray refunds from CC disputes! // House Hunting!

Whew.

The pictures pretty much say it all. Phil and Katie flew out and the four of us drove down to Las Palomas for a long weekend. It was glooooorious.

There’s some more pictures here. One of these days we’ll go visit there and just not come back. Soooooo relaxing.

Last weekend was another trip to the midwest for a wedding in Manhattan, Kansas, and a visit to the Severin farm in Nebraska. Thanks to Frontier airlines, there was also some extreme shopping for formal wear, since our luggage with missing in action when we arrived in Kansas City with no indicators of where it was and when it would arrive. This is also after probably the worst flight I’ve been on, Summer and I both nearly got sick on the Tucson to Denver leg. I did not take any pictures of the wedding, and only a few at the reception; the camera was mostly put to use on the few days spend in The Good Life State.

As I said, we flew into Kansas City and stayed the night there. Summer’s mom and younger sister drove down to join us and ended up running us around to a department store to find something to wear. The next morning we drove to Manhattan for the wedding, and stayed the night there. The next morning we drove to Lincoln where we stayed up flying out of Omaha Wednesday.

Bridesmaids making nice with the Kansas State mascot

The farm looked quite a bit different than last November. Corn!

This is Rocky, who adopted the farm and family, and Monkey’s evil twin.

We visited the zoo where Summer used to work.

The botanical gardens adjacent to the zoo.

We went fishing in a lake near the farm, and didn’t catch much of anything. Summer’s dad caught two small catfish not worth keeping and also snagged some weird kind of turtle.

We also visited the capital building, which is the second tallest in the United States.

All the pics are here.

I’ve been busy, the blog’s been neglected.

- March 12: Summer and I fly to Austin for a long weekend. It went something like this: steak, beer, bbq, beer, live music, beer, bbq, Mario Kart Audi R8, beer, more food, rodeo, beer. It was fantastic.
- March 17: Liver still probably recovering from Austin, 15lb. exhaust for R32 arrives and is installed. Along with new rear sway bushings, car is ready for San Diego.
- March 19: After work, drive 400 miles to San Diego with said light, and quite loud, exhaust.
- March 20: Pick up Anand at airport so he can also drive the car at the Tour. Change wheels at Qualcomm and take 4 practice runs. Realize rear tires are way too low and car is way too tail happy. Take 4 more practice runs after adding air.
- March 21: Day 1 of Solo National Tour, I am too nervous ad drive poorly – hit a cone, miss a shift, and sit 6th of 8 at the end of the day. Anand’s in 3rd, after not having autocross-ed in years and never having driven my car. We drive a bit north after autox and hit the go kart track. and In-n-Out.
- March 22: Day 2 of Solo National Tour. Our heat gets the worst of the rain storm and we attempt to keep the car pointing in the right direction in the wet. At the end of the day Anand’s in 4th, one spot out of trophies, and I finish 5th, .4 seconds behind him. I drop him off at the airport and head back to Tucson and during the drive back, realize my motor mounts are toast. Car makes it home but hasn’t been driven since.
- Week of March 23: work is nuts, big project winding down with lots of things to accomplish and, unfortunately, many things rapidly changing.
- March 27: Batting cages with co-workers to prepare for upcoming softball season.
- March 31: Game 1 of softball season. Crushing defeat, 11-1, game called for the mercy rule. It wasn’t pretty. I got two hits and scored the only run. Wanted to pass out after sprinting from first all the way to home.
- April 2: Game 2 of softball season. Crushing defeat again, 13-3, mercy rule called again, but later in the game. Opponents hit three home runs. I manage to turn a double play in one inning to help stop the bleeding.
- Sometime last week: work books trip for me back to the DC area over Easter weekend. They wanted to send me out on Sunday and back on Tuesday. No, thanks. Barter ensues. Out on Friday back on Tuesday. Done. No one else wants to do it, I was warned, we’ll see how it goes.
- Also sometime last week – after much discussion, it’s decided we will likely not be moving out of Tucson all that soon. Decide to at least look at buying a house here since the market is what it is. Start researching, talk to mortgage people at Bank of America, etc… we’ll see how and where this goes.
- Friday: R32 is drive-able but I shouldn’t move it, much less autox it. Offered 4 co-drives for Phoenix on the 5th – Mini Cooper S, Honda S2000, Mazda Miata, BMW 3-Series. How can I not sign up.
- Saturday: spend hours clearing out all the dead grass and weeds in the yard.
- Sunday: catch a ride to Phoenix and co-drive a Mini Cooper S. Forget that front drive will spin tires and understeer, but still do okay. Finish mid-pack in Street Tire 1. Fun car, and cool to drive something different and help impart (hopefully helpful) knowledge on another driver.
- Monday: second to last full day of development on the project I will be flying out on Friday to deliver. Two of three motor mounts arrive, R32 still sits. Get home in time to see the end of the national championship game.

So yeah, I’m kind of tired.

The last event of the year in Arizona and the 20th, yes, 20th, I ran at in 2008. I wouldn’t say the autocross year went out with a bang persay, it was more of a screeching sound as I ventured into many, many cones going sideways. Yes, sideways. The pavement was cold, tires were cold, and my right foot was… not. On my first run I came in to the sweeping left (the split near W1) way too hot with the car way too loose. The result was going sideways into a sea of cones. It wasn’t pretty. My second run didn’t go all that much better. Tires still cold, shoe still hot, and another DNF, just not quite as spectacular and sideways this time. My third run I got things in order and ran a clean 62.686, which was a second and a half faster than any other STX Open competitor. Time only heats were shortened because the day was running long but I managed to match (clean) and beat (by a second but with a cone) my competition run.

So, not exactly how I would have chosen to end the year. None the less, it’s done, I won the STX Open series for the Fall (in Phoenix, Tucson, and Sierra Vista for that matter), and it’s time to look towards ‘09. Suspension upgrades, driver upgrades (Evo School), and hopefully more competitive times will come.

Summer and I also spent Saturday night in Phoenix to go to the Red Wings – Coyotes hockey game. It was an awesome back and forth game and the first I’ve been to which went to overtime and a shootout. Detroit won the shootout after forcing overtime with less than 20 seconds to play in the third period. It was awesome, and I can’t wait to go again next month when the Wings come back to town.

This time last week was probably about the time that Summer and I were trying to figure out how to get to Omaha. See, we got to Dallas after waking up at 3:30am to catch a flight out of Tucson only to be greeted by the cancellation of our connecting flight to Omaha. The first person we talked to wasn’t all that helpful and we walked away on standby for a 3:30pm-ish flight and booked on a 9:40pm flight. Speaking with another American Airlines person, we found that there was literally zero chance we’d get on the earlier flight. There was enough room for our bags, but not us. We ended up getting on a plane to Chicago (where it was snowing as we landed) and then running through O’Hare to make the connecting flight to Omaha. We got there and our bags did to, just an hour and half later and mine missing a wheel. Then off to Summer’s parent’s house south of Lincoln.

I always through Summer was exaggerating when she said their nearest neighbor was a mile away. She wasn’t, as her parents live on farm land that has been in her family for over 100 years. Her Dad still works the land and because of weather the last few months, he was still out there on a daily basis the first few days after we arrived. Summer, being the Maid of Honor in the wedding we were going to, had to tend to all sorts of things before the wedding, so much of the first two days I hung out with her Mom, her older sister Betsy (both of whom I met when they visited Tucson), and her younger sister Melanie who is currently at UNL. We had lunch, they showed me around Lincoln, we did some stuff around the house to prepare for the Thanksgiving and Christmas we were going to hold, and we traded stories about our families and the very different parts of the country we were from.

Friday night was the rehearsal dinner and I got to meet some of Summer’s old friends including the bride and groom. Saturday was the wedding and reception, the third we have been to in three months, and we stayed in downtown Lincoln overnight. Sunday I met some more of Summer’s family as we did an early Thanksgiving followed by an early Christmas. It was very nice, and actually very new to me, since I’m usually on the other side of things in this respect. I’ve brought guests to my family’s Thanksgiving and Christmas before, but never the other way around until this trip. Her family was very generous and it was a lot of fun, and a LOT of food. We spent a good deal of the night playing bowling on the Nintendo Wii Summer’s parents got us for Christmas.

On Monday, our last full day on the trip, I got a good tour of the Severin farm. Her Dad showed us the last Volkswagen Rabbit he has right now as well as his ‘78 Cadillac Eldorado, which is absolutely huge, sitting in a barn. He talked about how old some of the equipment and what he still uses – two tractors pushing 50 years old and still running! I also got to see somethings from Summer’s childhood like the horse tank they used to use as a swimming pool and the ‘Cabin Cruiser’, which was basically a pickup truck bed turned into a homemade RV that can sleep 5. They used to take road trips as a family and tow it behind the Cadillac, I wish I had a picture of that!

After the farm tour we went into Lincoln and Summer showed me around to the places she’d talked about that she worked at or spent a lot of time at. We strolled through the UNL campus and over to the football stadium where the flag line and band would march into games. We went by her old job at Paint Yourself Silly and got ice cream at Avana Cone.

I forgot to mention the food on this trip and it was a pretty important part, Summer was insistent on getting me to Runza, Valentino’s Pizza, and Amigo’s Tacos as well as the Indian Oven on this trip, and we manged to take care of all of them. We went to lunch on campus with her sisters on Monday and had dinner with friends Monday night and Tuesday afternoon in Omaha before we headed back to the desert.

It was a fun trip and we’ll probably be back next year after a wedding in Manhattan, Kansas which is only a few hours drive away. I’d never seen anything close to that part of the country so it was a bit of a surprise for me.

The Maryland trip went by in a blur of party, wedding, bbq, eat, drink, be merry, etc. The wedding was great, as was the after party. What did you learn? Eastern Europe means business when it comes to vodka. It was great to see family again, even if it was only briefly, and I’m glad they all got to meet Summer. The first month of the new job has gone well also; I’m in the loop for the most part, am keeping busy, and am enjoying pretty much every aspect of the work thus far.

The last quarter of oh eight will probably be pretty busy. There is another wedding next month here in Tucson, and one more in Nebraska in November, when I also will meet Summer’s family and friends. I’m definitely looking forward to it. If all goes according to plan, meaning I’m not lazy, I plan to hit seven more autocross events between now and the end of the year. If I do, that will be twenty this year – no wonder I needed tires. I also want to get cracking on a number of the small car projects that have been sitting around for ages.

For the long weekend and in celebration of me getting that much closer to ‘old’, which according to my 11 year old cousin hits at precisely 30 (thanks Alyssa), Summer and I spent the weekend in Pinetop, about 4 hours northeast of Tucson. It rained a bit over the weekend, but we got in some hiking and generally had a relaxing time. The place was nice, built on the outside to look like a log cabin but well furnished inside. The balcony even had a gas grill, which we certainly made good use of. Summer described it as, ‘This is camping for people like you, the people that don’t actually want to go camping’. I think she got it about right; I do like pools, hot tubs, grills, and real beds and roofs where I choose to ‘camp’.

It took all week for me to get around to writing an entry about this, mainly because work has been hectic (more on that later) and it took me a while to get through all the pictures I took. It was a of fun, we went to the zoo, the wild animal park, Sea World, the beaches, old town, downtown and we ate some awesome food. Monday dinner was at Croce’s in the Gaslamp Quater and Tuesday dinner was George’s at the Cove in La Jolla, both of which were fantastic. I also had lunch at Cafe Chloe with Chantal who I went to high school with and had not seen in years. I took over 600 pictures over the week and whittled it down to around 250 that I posted.