Got another one done!

Quite some time ago I built a Porsche 911 kit from Fujimi. It was such a fiasco of poor molding and design that I swore off 911s. Well, I fell off that wagon. After reading a very positive review of Tamiya's '88 911 Turbo, I thought I'd give it a try.

While the kit is a very simplistic "curbside" (no engine to build and very limited suspension detail), it was also quite satisfying to build. Every single piece fit exactly as it should which allowed me to concentrate more on the painting. The color is one I've used before, on my Mazda RX3 from about 18 months ago, and the interior is just basic "natural wood" tan. The color combo is nicely un-cliche for being a Porsche from the 80's though, and the finish on the exterior turned out better than I had expected. So good in fact that when I went to polish it out, the polishing compound actually made it less glossy and I had to work all the harder just to restore the initial finish. So here's the pics:

http://flickr.com/photos/schultrichs/3011727082/in/set-72157594414523788/

Next up for completion is the Lotus 7. I'm anxious to get it done but not so much that I'm diving into it right away. I'm going to spend a few evenings on the couch in front of a book or the TV and give my brushes and tweezers a rest.

I hate this time of year. The next person who tells me how wonderful fall is because of the "crisp" weather and beautiful colors, is getting a faceful of phlegmy cough. I hate fall.

Yesterday I took the summer tires off the Miata, packed them away in plastic bags and stacked them in the basement. In there place the car now sits on the ugliest, steel wheels in existence, wrapped in the crappiest tires ever sold by Fleet Farm. The changing of the tires is a seasonal tradition; one of great joy and excitement in the spring and off sadness and dread in the fall.

To make matters worse I'm am now sick. Again. I usually never get sick but I managed to catch a nice pre-winter throat cold a few weeks ago. Just as things were pretty much all better, I went and got ambitious. Work in the garage yesterday along with a brief drive around town with the top down, and now I'm coughing and hacking like a guy who's unhealthy and coughing and hacking all the time.

So what, besides the illness and the putting-away of the Miata, do I hate about fall? It's the anticipation of things to come. In April or May when the weather takes a turn for the worse, it's comforting to know that it's only a brief set-back and things will get better soon. When things turn crappy in September or October though, there is no such comfort. Things will get much, much worse and stay that way for a long time before the weather gets nice again.

You might wonder why it is that, if I hate winter so much, I remain a resident of this climate. There are many details to that, but I think mainly it's fear. While I truly hate winter, there are simply too many scary things involved in packing up and moving the family to a completely different part of the country, or world for that matter. If money, employment, kids' schools, family-ties, etc. weren't of such importance, I think the Tuscan countryside would be a nice place to relocate to. Or maybe somewhere along the French or Spanish Medeteranian coast. Since I don't speak French, Spanish or Italian, I'd also settle for somewhere along the Oregon coast.

So now that my racing season is over I can start spending my free time doing other things. One of those other things that I'd set aside nearly completely during the summer was my model-building. Well, I'm back at it now. Back in a pretty strong way too. I sat down to my work bench only about 2-3 weeks ago after many months of just not having the time or energy. In the past couple weeks I've managed to make some good progress. My Lotus 7 is ready to be masked off and the body finished, my Mini Cooper is wearing fresh primer and will be shot BRG by this weekend if the weather is nice, My Porsche 930 is about 70% complete and now only requires detail-painting and final assembly. And, ta-da! My Lancia Stratos is done!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schultrichs/2966034470/in/set-72157594414523788/

This one had me a little frustrated for a while. Not because it was hard but because I bought it out of nostalgia and then ended up losing interest in it. When I was 6 my dad and I picked this kit out together at the local hobby shop and built it together. Well, as together as was possible. Mainly he built it and I sat patiently at his side watching. Watching and learning. I had that model for 14 years until the glue got so brittle that it just wasn't going to take any more abuse. It fell off my dresser. Now, I'm not sure if it was the victim of a cat or the victim of Angie cleaning, but it broke enough that it was pretty much a goner. I put the pieces in a box and moved on. This was the summer of 1995.

Last winter I found the pieces and got to thinking about it. It was the kit that started me in the hobby, the first kit my dad and I built together. I needed to have it on display again. After about a month of eBay surfing I managed to get not just a Lancia Stratos, but a Stratos in the 1977 Rallye Kenya livery. Just like the one I used to have. After getting it in the mail and realizing what a poorly designed and molded kit it really was, I set it aside to work on something else. Until just a few weeks ago. I was determined to finish something I'd started since I'd been away from the workbench for so long, and the Lancia seemed the best bet. And now it's done! Yay!

The autocross season is over now. Oct. 19th was the last event for the club. My last event however was back on 10/4. It was a very frustrating event; I lost sight of having fun and let myself take the competition too seriously. Also, the car decided it was time to take a rest as well. It developed a 'clunk' in the steering which I've diagnosed as being one or more tie-rod joints. Given my foul mood about my performance and the time and money required to get the steering fixed, I decided then and there that my season was done. John was OK with that too as he was really quite busy at the university and his work was suffering for all the time we were spending playing cars. So how did the season's results play out for us? Well in the MCAS championship John and I placed 2nd and 3rd, respectively. In the MAC championship we didn't fare nearly so well; John with a 4th and me with a sad 6th. So, now I have a nice long winter ahead of me to take my mind off the '08 season for a while and maybe re-learn how to have fun autocrossing while not caring how well/poorly I might place.

Maybe next year I'll run in a class where I'm woefully under-prepared, just so I can concentrate more on the driving and enjoyment and less on the competition. I'm also thinking I'm going to shave the season down a bit. I ran 14 events this year and it wiped me out. Next year I think I might plan to do only about half that many.

My daughter just had a birthday, she's twelve now. Holy crap, that means it's been 12 frickin' years since I haven't been a parent. Man, I feel old. So anyway her birthday party was just last night. It went quite well considering how many kids were there. All told I think there were about 13 kids at one point. Oh yeah, did I mention too that there were a few BOYS in attendance? Yeah, I feel old. At 9:00 all the boys went home and all the kids hunkered down in Adriene's room in full slumber party mode. Angie got up early and made a pancake breakfast and now the girls are just doing secret girl things until all the parents come to get them. Angie has already left for work so I hope it's soon. I could do with P&Q.

Watched a movie last night too that made me feel old. High Fidelity. It's a clever and somewhat entertaining movie. However it's not nearly as deep and inteligent now as it was 8 years ago. Now it just seems terribly shallow and whiny. It's got a great soundtrack though (even though I'm not cool enough to know who any of the artists are), and really do like the narration-for-the-audience style that most of it is written in. The good news though is that I also have Hot Shots and Hot Shots Part Deux still to watch this weekend before they're due back at the store. Nothing like a bit abject silliness to help repair my mood.

My sister's post about her house-cleaning accomplishments inspired me to post my own bragging. I got some stuff done this weekend too:

-Replaced broken headlight on the Audi
-Repaired broken door handle on the Audi
-Replaced both transmission mounts on the Audi
-Repaired the last of the exhaust leaks on the Audi
-Repainted the badges/embelems on the Audi
-Cleaned and lubed sunroof track and cables on the Audi
-Rerouted rear window switch wiring on the Audi
-Changed engine oil on the Audi
-Changed gearbox oil on the Audi
-Cleaned and lubed windshield wiper linkage on the Audi
-Lubed the shifter linkage on the Audi
-Vacuumed the interior of the Audi
-Mounted aux. driving lights on the Audi (not wired yet)
-Replaced misc. burned out bulbs on the Subie
-Replaced/repaired/re-installed trim pieces on the kids' new bedroom windows
-Re-organized the shed and moved doll house for storage (joint project w/Angie)
-Replaced and 'threadlocked' dining room chairs' hardware
-Watched the Italian Grand Prix

And there's more to come. I happen to have today off of work as well and plan to build new shelves for Adriene's closet, finish cleaning the interior of the Audi, vacuum the Miata, clean the Miata's wheels, and maybe fix a "clunk" in the Miata's front sway bar.

As you can see I spent quite a lot of time in the garage. And after having spent 2+ days working on it, as rusty as it is, I'm still quite happy with having acquired the Audi. It's amazing what one can get done with a 4-day weekend when there's no other plans to bog one down and there's a long, cold winter looming just ahead. Well, it's now almost 10:30A and I've gotta get moving if I want to finish my to-do list for today

Jeez, with the frequency of my posting to my journal, you'd think it was hard labor. So easy to forget to do when no one is reminding you. So easy to tell yourself you'll do it tomorrow. Oh well, it's been over a month since my last post and since my wife and sister are able to remember to post every week, I thought I oughta write something.

8/3/08 was the Mowog-5 event at DCTC. It pretty much rocked the free world. John managed to win and I placed a very hard-fought 3rd. I was pumped. I'd beaten a number of drivers who'd always previously been just out of reach, and John proved that the car is capable of winning against better financed competitors. All in all a very positive and encouraging autocross. So much so that for most of August I'd changed my outlook from "I'm going to try my damndest to beat so-and-so" to "I can win this thing" I don't remember the last time my confidence was as high as it was the week following Mowog-5.

It was not to last.

8/23 & 8/24/08 was a two-race weekend. Mowog-6 in St. Paul on the Saturday and then COM/NCCC on Sunday. Saturday's course was a grueling 1st-gear affair designed by the club's only kart driver. It didn't help that the car was belching oil smoke all day either. So we've got a course that demands 1st gear at about 6500-7500 RPM and a car whose valve lifters are ticking madly and blowing oil smoke profusely. How much concentration do you really think I was able to dedicate to driving and chassis set-up? I finished a dismal 5th while John managed an heroic 3rd. That night we changed the oil to a much thicker and higher-quality option and replaced the car's PCV valve. Problem solved. Then we had a relatively relaxing dinner with my dad, sister, and bro-in-law, followed by watching some hillarious TV then crashing in my sister's guest-room.

Sunday started out very nice and rapidly turned very frustrating. I may have mentioned before my feelings towards COM events. Corvettes Of MN are very nice people and do their best to run nice events. Problem is, their timing equipmemnt is about 3 generations older than what we normally use and is quite prone to glitches. Glitches that cause many hold-ups and delays during an event. Also, being that autocross is NOT the sole purpose of their club, they have very few organizers capable of designing a course that is challenging/fun/smooth. Mostly they just end up with the "challenging" part. I never did quite figure out the fast way around the course and car set-up was a crap shoot at best for me. I finished the day in 4th while John managed to secure 2nd.

So at this point John and I occupy 3rd and 4th places in the Mowog Championship, and 2nd and 3rd in the Met-Council Championship. The next event on the calendar is a non-competitive "test-n-tune" day where John and I will get a chance to get huge amounts of seat-time in and plenty of time to make some calculated adjustments to the car. We also, if money permits, will be attending one-on-one intructional sessions with some of the club's in-house pros.

If I can remember to not get lazy and complcent about it, I'll try to post again soon. I like writing in here but it always seems so frivolous that I end up spending my free time doing other, slightly less frivolous activities.

BTW, my model building endeavors this summer have been extremely slow-going. I'm barely even a fourth of the way done with the Lotus 7 I started two months ago. Very depressing, but I find that if I force myself to work on a kit when I'm not really in the mood, it's not as fun. I just have to wait for a new wave of creativity and obsessiveness to hit me.

There's now an '86 Audi 4000 quattro (AWD) sitting in my driveway with my name on the bill-of-sale. It's weird, I bought it for no other reason than to "take one for the team" while the Miata is in storage for the winter, but the more I tinker with it and take it on little drives around town, the more I'm really enjoying it. It's bog slow, gets terrible gas mileage, needs brake work and a whole new exhaust system, but something about it just feels right.

I've owned an Audi 4000 before, maybe that's it. It just feels familiar. Although my previous 4K was a bit older than this one ('84) and wasn't a quattro, I did love it very much and have found memories. Angie must've loved it too. After taking a brief drive in the new one she said it rides just the way she remembers our '84 did and, after confirming that the AWD and the heater worked, she gave it her stamp of approval as winter transportation. Assuming I fix the brakes and exhaust before the snow flies.

Before you view the photos. Keep in mind too that it's had about 15 different owners in it's life, has about 300k miles on it, and only cost me $600.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3282/2704332909_6287e82aae_o.jpg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3033/2704332861_a0c348d729_o.jpg

June 29th marked another autocross done and in the books for me. Once again another disappointing finish. Early in the week I was gathering up a bunch results data from previous races to submit to the Mazdaspeed Motorsports program and noticed something. Just about every event I've run so far this year I have placed either 6th or 7th place in my class. Considering that my class usually has about a dozen drivers in it one might argue that being right in the middle isn't that bad. One might also argue however that because John is consistently faster than me, in the same frickin' car, by as much as a full second in some cases, I really need to up my game. At the June 29th race I finished in 6th and John finished in 4th. With the exception of his win at the very under-attended Eau Claire event, that was his best finish so far this year. It was also a whopping 0.9 sec faster than my best time, NOT including the penalty cone I took on it. Had I not "coned" away the run I'd have finished in 5th. With the penalty though I ended up in 6th, and to add salt to the wound, there was only 8 drivers this time. Boo.

The car feels wonderful. It needs new brakes (which it will have before the next race), but otherwise it's as dialed in as my budget can allow. It's more responsive, stable and able now than it ever has been before. Before we put the new springs in it and tuned up the motor a bit, John and I were very very close to even. Now that car is more capable though it seems that John's abilities to get more out of it are drasticaly outpacing my own.

So what to do? I won't have any chance to really 'practice' again until the race on August 3rd. I'm thinking that I need to slow down and bring myself back to some basics. In analyzing myself recently I've been noticing that my ability to maintain concentration during a run has diminished and I have been relapsing into old, bad habits in regards to which lines and braking points I choose. In short, I've been getting sloppy. I can be at least as fast as John, possibly faster. I just need to re-teach myself how to tap into it.

At least I'm not Larry. Feel bad for the guy. He got himself a new job and with it came a hefty hiring bonus. He took almost the entirety of his hiring bonus and dumped it into new race-spec shocks, massive springs, race-spec bushings, and hired-labor to install it all and set up the chassis. The result at the last race for him was no different than it had been since the middle of last year: half a second (or more) slower than even me.

The Renault Alpine is now completed, photographed and on the shelf. I bought this kit in early Feb. of '07 and after getting sidetracked with a number of other kits since, I'm finally finished with it. Pics are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schultrichs/2598331835/in/set-72157594414523788/

In 1971, Ove Anderson and his navigator David Stone won the Monte Carlo Rally in this car. On June 11, 2008 Anderson was killed in a wreck during a vintage rally event in South Africa, he was 70 years old. I can't really consider myself a "fan" of his being that his professional driving career was over before I was even in pre-school. However, I'd like to make a humble dedication of this model to his memory and the huge respect I have for all rally drivers.

While it might be viewed by some as a sad reminder of how dangerous racing can be, I'm keeping the model in a prominant place of display because of the enjoyment I got out of building it and the enjoyment I get out of racing.

I'm on vacation this week and one of my primary goals of household crap to get taken care of was to install new windows in the kids' rooms. Because they are of a stupid size (the windows, not the kids or their rooms) I had to special order them in late-May in order to have them in time for my scheduled week off. On Monday I began work. It took me two hours to remove the first old window, then another hour to put the new one in and whatnot. It took me two hours to remove the 2nd window AND put the new one in. Then came time for the caulk. After a bit of a frightening trip up the ladder and a faulty tube of caulk, I got the hang of caulking and kind of even got to like doing it. So, it's now Wed. night and I have caulked up the two new windows, as well as every other exterior door frame and window in the house, and half the mortar cracks in my basement walls. I've expended about 10 tubes of caulk, created a blister in the palm of my hand, and have caused my right forearm muscle to bulge in serious contradiction to it's strength.

I've been having fun saying "caulk" too. Sometimes I over-annunciate the L and sometimes I leave it out completely. Although the jokes created by the latter are limited, they are still funny.

Tomorrow I have a couple of car projects to do, but that's nothing new. Gotta take apart and re-grease the sway bar bushings in my car and I've gotta take apart one of the door panels in Angie's car to fix a wonky power-window-motor.

Then, maybe, by tomorrow night I might actually get to just sit in the yard with a book and a beer and do nothing. Or maybe I'll get to finish my Renault Alpine. You know, the one that's been only a week away from being finished for the past 3 weeks...

Well, it's a little late after the fact but I thought I'd fill in my fans on the outcome of my most recent race. It was 6/8/08 and it was right here in Eau Claire. One of two "home" races I enjoy every year.

The day started rainy, very rainy. I arrived at 07:00 to help set things up and was waiting for 1/2 an hour before the equipment and anyone else showed up. It poured throughout the early part of the morning but stopped by about 09:00. By the time the first run went off, the track was still wet but the weather was clearing and the temps rising. By lunch time the course was completely dry and getting very fast and grippy.

For the most part this season my class usually has about 10-12 drivers in it. For some reason many of them couldn't make it to this event though so it was just John, myself, and one other driver. I knew I could beat the other guy, Larry, as he has not been able to catch up with me after having been pretty equal for a long time, since the middle of last season. I was confident that all I needed to do was beat John in order to take my maiden win. I was very excited that this was going to be my day.

Alas, it was not. I beat Larry quite handily but by the end of the day I just couldn't catch John. I was 0.25 seconds slower than him and had to settle yet again for a runner-up placing. It took me a couple days to get past it. I wasn't bitter at all towards John, but I was a bit disappointed in myself for not being able to push harder. No excuses, I just simply wasn't fast enough.

Next race is on the 29th and the registration log shows 11 people signed up in my class. Being back to normal in that regard, I really am only good enough to hope for a 4th or 5th place. Still lots of tough competition to overcome to even achieve that though. We shall see...

1) 4 LETTER WORD: Race (duh)
2) BOY NAME: Rolf
3) GIRL NAME: Rowena
4) OCCUPATION: Racecar driver
5) A COLOR: Red (duh)
6) SOMETHING YOU WEAR: ring
7) BEVERAGE: rootbeer
8) FOOD: roast ox crisps
9) SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Roto-Rooter employee
10) A PLACE: Riems
11) REASON FOR BEING LATE: ripped pants
12) SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: Rawr!

I was feeling particularly generous with money yesterday, the weather was beautiful and it was payday. I was going to take the family out for dinner but when I got home, Angie was already cooking a meal. So I decided we were going to go do something we hadn't done in ages. Usually we only go out to a movie 2-3 times a year and almost never to the expensive first-run theatres. We have a little theatre right in down town Eau Claire that we affectionately refer to as The Dirt Theatre. All their showings are $2.50 a person and most movies they show tend to be only a week away from hitting the video store anyway.

But last night was special; we went to the drive-in and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. Because we brought popcorn and crackers and soda from home, the whole evening cost us only $20. Not a bad deal for four people to go a watch a new-release on a big screen.

Things that I don' like about the drive-in:
Smokers are ramapant. The stink of people puffing away like chimps in a lab experiment is pretty crappy.
Tons of teenagers driving their friends around in Mom's big SUV. Not a good combo in a crowded p-lot.
Not as many good viewing spots or angles as in an indoor theatre.

Things I love about the drive-in:
My car seats are much more roomy and comfortable than in most theatres.
Relatively inexpensive for a family activity
The stereo in my car is neither too loud or too quiet, it's exactly however I want it to be.

So how was the movie? Well, it's an Indiana Jones movie. It's not meant to be high-art-film-making, it's meant to be a fun and entertaining distraction. In that regard, it was awesome. Not the best of the four Indiana movies, but certainly not a disappointment.

The last time we went to the drive-in we watched Star Wars, Episode II. Yeah it was that long ago. With as much fun as we had last night, assuming this summers' upcoming movies don't all suck, we'll likely be going back a bit more frequently.

Well I finally, finally finished the Datsun 510 build. Can't say that I'm terribly proud of it though. The kit itself was so full of flaws that it'd be easy for me to just slam it, but the build was also full of flaws. The paint never went down quite the way I wanted, despite two strip/respray routines. The detail painting is marginal at best (although because the detail molding was so crappy that I can partially blame the kit for this issue). In the end I have a somewhat mediocre example of a really cool car on my shelf, another "completed" instruction book in the file, and new vow to steer clear of any kits made by Revell-North America.

Next on the docket is to finally, finally finish the Renault Alpine rally car. The paint is as done as I'm going to get it (never did get the color matched right), the chassis is complete. All that's left is the detail/trim painting and the Rally Monte Carlo (1971) race decals to be applied. Looking forward to this one being done, but not because it's been haunting me, just that's been a fun fun kit to build.

For those who are curious, here's the pics of the completed Datsun:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/schultrichs/2512825138/in/set-72157594414523788/

Racing season that is!

Just got back last night from the 2-day event that opens our club's season every May. On Saturday the weather was decent, but not great. It was sunny for sure, but the temp never got above 50 and the wind was in the 30mph range. Sunday however was beautiful. Temps got into the upper 60s, wind was breezy but never bothersome, and the sun was out pretty much the entire day. I even opted to leave the top down on my car for the 100+mile drive home.

As for the actual racing, well, as can be expected, I certainly could've done better. Of course I could've done worse too. Saturday's event was really quite frustrating for me and I think I ended up placing only 7th in a class of 10. Sunday was much better though with a placing for me up to 5th out of 11. The competition in my class this year looks to be the toughest ever with a relatively deep field and very close times between everyone. How close? Well, on Saturday the top two finishers were gapped by only 0.002 seconds! And on Sunday, there was only about 0.6 sec. gap between 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th place. Yes, only 6/10 to cover the gaps between five drivers. My co-driver in fact was in 6th place and only 0.07 behind me.

Oh yeah, my co-driver. Some time ago I wrote about my apprehensions about having a co-driver and seemed somewhat against it. My opinion has completely changed though. Not only are there the obvious benefits of having two people share the costs of the season, but the camaraderie, mutual coaching, and technical support make it a great decision for my racing effort this season. His name is John and I'm sure that if the rest of the season is at least as fun as this past weekend, you'll be reading quite a bit more about him.

So I got to run a meeting today, my first staff meeting that was all mine from start to finish. It was kind of big deal. The challenge was to conduct the meeting without a structured agenda, relying solely on open dialog and discussion to come to a group-supported decision. After an hour and a half, and numerous interventions as the conversations veered and digressed wildly, we finished the night with a near-unanimous decision. At the end, while everyone was filtering out of the conference room, one of my teammates, somewhat of a veteran in our dept. remarked that it was one of the best staff meetings he'd ever attended. Wow. His wasn't the only compliment I got, but it was certainly very meaningful.

I can see how people can get ambitious for this kind of thing. I don't crave being anybody's boss or power or authority, etc. However there is certainly an immense feeling of satisfaction in having gotten a staff of 21 people to openly discuss and opine on a number of issues, then have them come to a productive conclusion that benefits everyone.

Of course a lot of it was probably luck and I'd be hard-pressed to replicate today.

Last Saturday it was a beautiful day so I took the opportunity to get the Merkur cleaned up and photographed. The intention was to put it up for sale and then spend a few weeks showing it and haggling with people. The car is 21 years old and not really in ideal condition. What really happened was that within 20 minutes after putting it up on Craigslist I was getting phone calls on it and 24 hours later it'd been sold and was on it's way home to Apple Valley. I wanted to sell the car that's why I advertised it, but I can't help feel a bit creeped out about how fast it sold. And now I'm feeling just a tad guilty for not appreciating it quite as much as it's previous (before me) owner or it's new owner. It wasn't a bad car by any means, it just needed some love and TLC (as the ads always say about old cars). Problem was, it needed more love than my wallet or enthusiasm could provide.

I obviously don't own the car anymore but if you're curious about it's condition, or even just what a Merkur is, here's the pics I took just before selling it:

http://flickr.com/photos/schultrichs/sets/72157604299300324/

Edit:
If you still don't know what a Merkur is or looks like, you'll need to look it up on Wikipedia or something. I'm taking the photos of this one out of my Flickr album.

I was getting nostalgic last week for the days of being a skater in the 80's. I found on eBay a copy of the Santa Cruz video Streets On Fire. This movie was made in 1988 and for years it was my favorite skate video in my collection. It arrived just yesterday and I sat and watched it with Fynn (a burgeoning skater-in-training). Man, aside from the music in it, of which I already own tanks to iTunes, it really kinda sucks. Yeah the tricks and fashions are pretty tame/lame by today's X-Games-standards, but even looking past that stuff, it's just a poorly produced video. Camera angles are wasted on throw-away tricks, multiple angles of the same trick are used over and over and the slow-motion feature is used WAY too much. I still love the video for what it represents, but I doubt I'll be watching it again anytime soon. What a downer.

I don't know what a meme is but apparently I got 'tagged" with this one:

123 Meme Rules: (1) Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating! (2) Turn to page 123. (3) Find the first 5 sentences. (4) Post the next 3 sentences. (5) Tag 5 people

So here goes...

The book is The Mechanic's Tale by Steve Matchett

"Within three weeks of buying my macine, 'voice recognition' software was on the market, and shotly after that I noticed 266MHz model was available. The other day a 333MHz machine was advertised in The Times for less than half what I paid nearly a year before. If that trend continues, sometime in the next century you'll be able to 1,000,000MHz (should that be 1000GHz?) machine for less than the price of a cup of tea; that can't be right, can it?"

Not quite as poingant as I was hoping. Oh well, most books would suck if they were written in nothing but cool, quotable sentances. A good story should always be far more than the sum of it's sentances.

The last rule of this meme has me a bit bugged though. You see, I don't know 5 other people on LiveJournal that haven't already been tagged with this game. I know Buniduk, I'll tag her. That's about it.

Good night.