Memorial Day Weekend

Its that time again… school is out and the CFO of our household is off travelling and enjoying some time away from work, leaving me alone at home to fend for myself. As I always say, “it must be nice.”


Luckily for me, I had plans of my own for the long Memorial Day weekend. My good friend from GA, Shawn, flew up on Friday and we drove east to Indianapolis for the weekend. I had already purchased tickets for the Indy 500 months ago, but the trip was sweetened with the opportunity to be “guests” of a major motorsports supplier. We ended up with a hotel room for the weekend and access to that company’s suite at the race track (AC, food and drinks!).
We arrived in Indy late Friday night and settled into our hotel room. Saturday morning we had a leisurely breakfast and then headed to the speedway to visit the hall of fame museum. The museum is packed full of past Indy 500 winning cars, from the early years to last years winning car (driven by the now departed Dan Weldon). This was the 96th running of the race and the collection of cars definitely runs the gambit. It was very cool to see how the racing technology has changed and evolved over the years. While in the museum, we ran into Tim Suddard, the owner/publisher of two of my favorite magazines, Grassroots Motorsports and Classic Motorsports. We met Tim in 2009 when we did the Grassroots Motorsports $2009 challenge, so it was cool to run into him again.

 Vintage Indy Cars

The Museum

After the museum, we rolled through the manufacturers and vendor areas, in the search of free swag (t-shirts, stickers, or whatever else they are willing to give away) and souvenirs from the race. In my own typical fashion, I decided what I wanted to buy before we even started shopping, I wanted a hat with "Honda Racing" on it. This is all well in good, except for the fact that such a product might not even exist. We ran into this problem while visiting Denver earlier this year. I wanted a colorado rockies shirt that just said "rockies" on it, but I wanted it in long sleeve. We found the shirt in short sleeve everywhere we went, but no one had it in long sleeves. Ugh. Because of my picky-ness, souvenir shopping with me can become a trip in search of the “holy grail” of souvenirs. We went through many shops, tents, displays and I kept holding on hope that we might find it… I’m sure Shawn was getting tired of the quest, but we did eventually find what I was looking for at the very last set of trailers halfway across the infield area. The track is 2.5 miles around, so we walked a long way. Did I mention that it was 94+ degrees and sunny outside? It was cooler in Georgia than Indy!

This was a cool military tribute Camaro that was on display:

After shopping, we headed back to the hotel to rest before dinner. Our host took us to dinner at Fogo de chao, a Brazilian restaurant that is not vegetarian friendly. Luckily, I don’t mind a plate loaded up with red meat and pork, so I was right at home. You have a disc with a red and green side, green = show me the meat and red = no thanks. The servers walk around with different cuts/meats on large skewers and they slice off what you want. Ribeye, bacon wrapped fillet, parmesan crusted pork, sirloin, the list goes on and on. The meal was really good, but I’m not sure it was worth the high price per person that our host paid.

After dinner, we rolled out of the restaurant and walked a couple blocks to monument circle, where the cars from the Gumball 3000 road rally were stopping after an all day, high speed run. The participants in this event are travelling from new York to LA and are required to check in at check points along the way. This was an amazing collection of cars, from Ferraris, Porshces, Lamborginis and many other supercars. There was even a Bugatti Veyron, a $1 million plus car with 1000 horsepower. I was excited to see this car in person, as it isn't a car that you are going to see very often. Shawn is a huge follower of the event and he was able to meet some of the participants that he has been following for years. Picture a kid on xmas morning and that would about describe it.

 Bugatti Veyron

 Mercedes SLS

Lamborghini with a roof rack! (and cool building lighting behind)



Sunday morning we rolled out of the hotel at 6:45 am for the 5 mile trip to the speedway. That drive took almost 1.5 hours because of all the traffic. We arrived at the suite and were greeted by our hosts and a table full of pastries. By the time the race started at noon, the suite was full of people and we headed outside for the start of the race. From the seats outside of the suite, we had nice view of the pits and the front straight. It was another 94+ degree day, so having an air conditioned place to retreat to to eat lunch was nice. After the race, we were stuck in the infield for about an hour before they started letting cars exit the infield. Once outside the track, we continued on a painfully slow procession towards the interstate. You'd think after having this race 96 times, they would have the traffic thing figured out!

 Pushing the cars to the grid

 Pre-race activities on the front straight

 Military fly-over

 Race winner Dario Franchitti (Mr. Ashley Judd) [He was my pre-race pick for winning, I was right!]

Days go by

Another week in the books here in Illinois – the farmer’s fields are slowly transitioning from brown to green as the corn and soybean plants have started pushing their out of the ground. It has been nice and warm during the day, but still cool enough in the evening where we haven’t had to turn on the a/c or the heat. That makes our natural gas and electrical bills very low for the past month.

Speaking of bills, our last natural gas bill was so low that without all the stupid accounting fees, delivery fees, postage fees, flux capacitor fees, employee pension fees, printer toner cartridge fee, and all the other crap they tack on, we would have only owed $1.87 for the natural gas that we used. Instead, the bill was 10x that with all the other crap tacked on to it. Crazy, right?

We run into this every month for our house in Georgia that we still haven’t been able to sell. A house without power can’t be shown to possible buyers, so we have to have that active. The water has to be on in case someone needs to use the restroom while they are there… so we end up paying a bunch of stupid fees just to keep the utilities active for very, very little usage. It is so annoying. I wish someone would buy that house!!!!!!!!!!!! 

I finished planting our veggie garden last weekend, now we just need some rain to help the plants get established. I might have to build another rain barrel like I had in GA, so that I don’t have to use keep using water from the faucet for the garden. Why should I pay for water for the garden if I don’t have to? Yes, I am being a bit of a cheap-a$$, but does that really surprise any of you?

The Spring semester is over, so the CFO is on “vacation” until her summer class starts in late June. Even though she isn’t teaching, she still has a ton of writing/research to do, but that won’t keep her from heading out of town a few times… leaving me home alone. It must be nice to have so much time off!  She’s going to Virginia, the beach in North Carolina and Vegas, all without me. Not fair!
The good news for me is that the Indy 500 is next weekend and I will be there to see it in person… Finally, something to look forward to!

I played the 9 hole course that is near out house last night... I'm still hitting wildly inconsistently, but having a lot of fun doing it.  After one particularly crappy tee shot on a par 4, my second shot from the fairway was very nice for a beginner and it ended up on the green. Since it was my best shot of the evening, it (and the setting sun) got to recorded it with the iPhone... Tiger Woods I am not (yet).

I'm a winner!!!

In case any of you were wondering, I’m a winner.  Seriously, I am.  A couple weeks ago, I received a call just after getting to work.  “Congratulations, you won the B104 Extreme Golf Makeover” a woman said.  “I did?!” I replied, followed by “that’s pretty cool.”  She then told me that I should go by the radio station to pick up the information on how to claim my prize. 
 

How did I win this?  By listening to the radio 8 hours a day while sitting on my duff at work.  The station has daily code words that you can enter on their website to acquire points.  You then use the points to purchase raffle tickets for various drawings.  Tedious?  Possibly.  Worth the effort?  I think so.  A couple months ago, I won a set of 4 tickets to see the local arena football team.  Those were used when my parents were in town.  Now I’ve won this… pretty cool I’d say.

You might then ask, what is included in the Extreme Golf Makeover?  Turns out, it is a $2000 package including: 

Lots of golf:  30 Tokens for Driving Range balls, a SEASON PASS for Highland Park Golf Course, plus 4 Rounds of golf with cart at The Den at Fox Creek G.C. and 4 Rounds of golf with cart at Prairie Vista G.C. (all three courses are run by the city's park's department)

4 Lessons with a PGA Professional and one Personal Club Fitting Session

And some gear:  A Cobra Titanium Driver, Sun Mountain Stand Bag, FootJoy Golf Shoes, Two Footjoy Golf Gloves and a Den at Fox Creek Logo ¼ Zip Sweatshirt

Pretty sweet, right?  This is a lot for someone like me who is just starting to play the sport, but I’m hoping the lessons and the golf course passes will allow me to get a lot of practice in.  I went out Tuesday night with some friends and played my first round at a local par 3 - 9 hole course.  The good news:  I made par on the 3^rd hole and just one over on another hole.  The bad news:  I totally tanked the other 7 holes and left several balls behind, some lost  in the rough and some in the pond.  It was fun though and I’m ready to get out there again.

In other news:  Last Saturday night, Karen and I made the trip 45 minutes west to Peoria, IL to see Bill Cosby do some stand up comedy.  He talked for two hours and it was really, really entertaining.  Over the course of the show, he drifted off on a bunch of  humorous tangents, but always circled back around to what he started with.  If he ever does a near you, I would definitely suggest going to see him.

Fore!

My apologies, ya’ll

A friend recently pointed out that I had fallen off the blog wagon lately… I had been doing so well for a while and then I fell into a boring weekly routine that didn’t seem interesting enough to write about. It seems like I’ve been spending a majority of available daylight (outside of work hours) battling the weeds that are trying to take over the area in our yard where I seeded native grasses last spring.  The coneflowers are putting up the best fight, followed by the native grasses. The black eyed susans don’t seem to be coming up at all… I was hoping they would germinate this spring, but it isn't looking good for them so far.  Hopefully the natives will gain some size this year so I don't have to fight so hard for them next season.

A few weeks ago, Karen presented at a conference in Denver, CO and I tagged along as a vacation. We were there Wednesday through Sunday and had a nice time. She has a couple friends who live there and they were kind enough to show us the sights and good restaurants. We ate so much food, I was stuffed every night (including some Chick-fil-a!). Denver is a cool town that I would seriously consider moving to if we ever had the opportunity. Lots of bike trails, good food and mountains a short drive away… what could be better than that?

A friend of mine has gotten me hooked on the instagram app for my iphone and I took these shots using that app while we were there. I took a lot more with my DSLR, but I haven’t felt motivated to go through them and pull out the best ones to post online. Perhaps I’ll do that this weekend as the weather people are predicting rain… not that we can really trust their judgment, though...

The famous Red Rocks Ampitheater

View of the mountains across a lake where we went "hiking" (quite possibly the only flat hiking trail in the Rockies!)

REI Denver store, how freakin' beautiful is that location?

An evening at Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies.

The Primary

-begin political vent-

Voting in the Illinois primary yesterday made me really think about the two major political parties that are currently running our country (into the ground). Why is it that you basically have to be one or the other? What about those of us who (in my mind) think pretty logically and agree with parts, but not all, of each party’s “ideals?” In that regard, I’m definitely a bit of a mutt.


I shouldn’t probably dive into political talk here, but what the hell, why not. Here are a few items in which I agree with each party:

Republican (in theory, but the current repubs seem to be straying from their supposedly conservative way of thinking): Fiscally conservative, lower taxes, smaller government, pro-gun, less “handouts”

Democrat: Gay rights, woman’s right to choose and…. surely there is more that I agree with, but I can’t think of them right now.

So, where the heck does that put me? I would like to propose a “Logical Party” where common sense rules. I know some of you will argue that I'm not thinking logically, but hear me out.  Here is my very, very simplified summary of it:

You can’t spend more than you take in, so why should the government be able to? Joe shouldn’t be punished/hated for being successful and there should be a maximum amount of his income that the government can confiscate each year. At the same time, Bob shouldn’t live off of everyone else if he is at all fit to get job. Sure, we’ll help you get back on your feet if you fall down, but our help is temporary and you need to ultimately be responsible for yourself. If you want to have a gun (or two or twenty), or live an alternative lifestyle or whatever, you can as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of other people and you can support it financially. However, as soon as you do something that clearly breaks the law or infringe on the rights of others, be prepared to pay the consequences. Those consequences could be quite severe, especially if you knowingly take someone’s life. Internationally, we’ll support our allies when they are in need, but we aren’t going to police the world. We need to clean up our house before we start helping to clean up someone else’s mess.

Right now, my voting theory is to prioritize the topics that are most important to me at the time, kind of the lesser of two evils way of thinking. I have to say, I’m pretty disheartened with all of it right now and I can only hope that we don’t become a nanny state full of lazy, needy, whinny citizens. Right now, it sure isn’t looking good.

-end-

Back to normal stuff: 

My tickets for the Indy 500 came in, I can't wait for Memorial Day weekend.


In other news, the PHD's ended the curling season in the first loser spot (second place).  We were in first until last week, when we lost the game when two of our teammates were on spring break vacations.  Since we lost while they were out of town, I'm going to blame them for breaking up the team at a critical moment.  After 20 weeks of curling this winter (seems like a long time!), it is time to to put away the hat and gloves and pull out the new golf clubs.  Time to get outside, get some sun and hopefully have some fun on the links.

Since the weather has been so nice, our yard is starting to come alive again.  The forsythia is blooming, Tulips are popping up and the trees are starting to bud.  I'll post some pictures as the growth progress.  I've already started to battle the weeds that took over the area that I tried to seed with native grasses last year.  I've been working to mark the small native plants so I can avoid them as I try to remove the weeds.  The weeds are 10x bigger than the natives, but hopefully they will gain some size this season.  I hope all of this effort pays off in the long run and the natives are able take control of the area.  I don't really want to fight this battle every year.

My parents are coming in for the weekend, we haven't seen them since early November.  I won tickets (radio giveaway) to the arena football game on Saturday, so we'll be going to that.  The United States Navy Band is performing at ISU on Monday night and I just picked up tickets for the four of us to go to that.  I know, I know, that is an odd mix, arena football and the Navy Band.  It should be a fun weekend.

I can see (better)

After 5 years of wearing the same glasses, I’ve finally upgraded to a new set of frames and lenses.  As you might guess, Karen wanted some input on which frames I picked, so we went out shopping a couple Saturdays ago.  We found some nice looking frames at the eye doctor’s
"boutique" (the first place we went to) and I made the executive decision to stop the shopping right then.  I had a feeling that we would go to 5 other places (she loves to shop) and end up coming back for this pair (it has happened enough that I know I’m right). We were told that they would be ready on Monday.

Monday comes around and I get a call from the optics guy… we can’t cut your lenses here in store, so we will have to send them out to be cut.  Evidently my astigmatism correction is getting worse and now it isn’t a standard cut.  Two weeks later and my lenses and frames finally arrived; I picked them up last night.  Here is a shot of them; I thought they had an interesting “architectural” style to them, especially the hollow space on the sides.  Want to know the most shocking thing? In a boutique full of pricey design brand name frames, Karen ended up liking a reasonably priced, no-name brand.  The odds of that happening are not very good, she typically drawn to the most expensive things. 

The real bad news is that the same astigmatism correction that makes regular glasses difficult to cut makes getting prescription sunglasses an even bigger pain in the ass.  Evidently the wrap around curvature of most sunglasses does not play well with my correction, which needs to be more flat (that is how it was explained to me).  GREAT.  The sales person suggested getting regular frames and put tinted lenses in them, but, in my mind, the whole reason to get sunglasses is so they wrap around and protect your eye from the sun.  If there are big gaps where the sun can get in, what is the point of wearing them?

We started looking around at frames and the pair that Karen liked the most ended up being the exact same Ray Ban sunglasses frame that I’ve been wearing for the last 5 years.  I guess the style has aged well?  We also found a set of Oakleys that I liked, but I was a little skeptical about the ends that go over your ears.  On most glasses they are hooked down to hold them in place behind your ear, but the Oakleys are straight.  I am not sure if those will be as secure as what I’ve been wearing?

I decided to wait on sunglasses to make sure the prescription is OK before ordering them.  I found a nice website that takes your prescription and narrows down the frame choices to the ones that will actually work with your prescription.  Happily, the Oakley frames that I like should work for me, so maybe everything will work out OK after all.  

Tool time

As my tool collection has steadily grown, my need to be organized has grown too.  I just received a nice set of ½” drive metric deep sockets for my birthday and there wasn’t any room for them in the tool box.  Since that outcome is totally unacceptable, I started researching socket storage.   It is officially time to reorganize the tool box. 

 I visited garage journal dot com (a great website for home based gear heads) and saw that most people there were buying prefabricated socket racks.  After comparing the racks to my collection of sockets, it was obvious that none of those holders matched up real well with my collection of sockets.  That would leave me with room wasting empty spaces OR I would have to modify the racks to fit my sockets.  In addition to them not being an ideal match for my collection, the racks cost 15-20 bucks each and I would need at least 6 of them.  I’ll give you a second to do that mental math…

I also saw that a few guys on garage journal had built their own custom racks, so I went out to the garage and compared my set up with theirs.   It looked like I could definitely do it myself for way less money, and we all know that  I’m typically in favor of spending less money... unless it is for something cool like that carbon fiber road bike with electronic shifting that I’ve been eyeing in the cycling magazines.  Yes, they are now making bikes with electronic shifting – possibly the coolest advancement in cycling since they started putting disc brakes on mountain bikes.

Karen was busy this weekend grading midterm projects, so I decided to get started on this project.  I calculated the materials I would need and made a trip to Lowes.  $10 later I had everything that I needed (except for the paint to finish it).  I came home and fired up the power tools.  What can I say; I am a sucker for an opportunity to use power tools!

I’m only about halfway through, but here are some progress pictures,  this should definitely make it easier to find the socket I need, when I need it:

In other news, Illinois State University’s men’s basketball team almost won the conference championship game today.  They lost by 4 points in overtime.  It would have been nice to see them win.  I’ve also been working on updating my personal “career” website, www.davidscottdouglas.com.  Feel free to take a look at it and send me any comments that you have.