RexSpeed

Mmm, smell the glue...

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 00:54:17 GMT

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.

Lousy Sektober weather...

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 16:40:41 GMT

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.

Changing gears...

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:28:31 GMT

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!

Need a break...

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:08:20 GMT

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.

Feeling old...

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:45:07 GMT

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.

Speaking of lists...

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:28:22 GMT

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

You'd think it's hard work or something...

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:12:49 GMT

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.

I must be Audi my mind!

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 02:22:46 GMT

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

Humble pie.

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 18:14:46 GMT

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.

Vive La France!

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:43:02 GMT

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.

Caulk-a-doodle-do!

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:56:05 GMT

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...

Race update...

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:40:10 GMT

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...

Undycat's letter meme

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 12:59:12 GMT

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!

Hooray for sitting in the car!

Sat, 24 May 2008 17:29:19 GMT

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.

Worst...episode...ever...

Thu, 22 May 2008 01:16:14 GMT

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/

And, so it begins...

Mon, 05 May 2008 19:26:29 GMT

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.

Let's have a meeting!

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:39:27 GMT

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.

Goodbye to Merkur

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:55:23 GMT

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.

Nostalgia. Blech.

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 23:48:28 GMT

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.

The 123 Game

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:18:37 GMT

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.

Go team! Win! Win! Win!

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 03:13:13 GMT

You know those lame, cliche scenes in movies where the home team is hopelessly behind and the coach calls them in to the bench and gives a great speach and sends them back out and they're so inspired by the coach's words that they magically overcome problems that they otherwise have no control over to win the big game? Yeah, it works in a football games in the movies, it doesn't work for a customer service "team" in a real-life company.

My department had a "meeting" today with the VP of Customer Relations of our company and a couple other executives. To start with, they scheduled the meeting right on top of our lunch period and brought pizza in for us. This allowed them to weasel company time out of us without actually paying for a 1/2 hour of it. They call it a Working Lunch but it's just a clever way to screw people out of a real lunch break. Next they made some light conversation and joked around with us. This is meant to lull us into a trusting and unguarded state; if we just spent 10 minutes relating, we couldn't possibly have any misunderstandings later. Yeah right. Then they ask us, "So what's on your minds? What kinds of issues are you working with right now? Any problems? Any successes?" Don't fall for it though, they don't actually understand. They may care, but they don't understand. They like it that way. If you care about something you can spout off all kinds of inspiring quotes and be looked up to and admired. But if you understand something, well hell, now you're obligated to actually do something about it. No, much easy to be ignorant and caring than knowledgeable and accountable.

Now for the fun part. Those poor saps silly enough to get suckered into this banter are now called to the mat where they'll have their words turned around on them. Scenerios only minutes ago that appeared to be real issues needing resolution have become "opportunities for empowered employees to rise to the challenge" Yeah, what that actually means is "we don't know how to fix it so you better figure it out yourself because it's your ass on the line".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I always believed that the role of a leader is to provide guidance and support for those being led. If by my own bloody "empowerment" I had the ability to actually make improvements in the bassackwards procedures in my company, I sure as hell wouldn't be spending 80% of my time apologizing to customers.

People suck

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 16:24:52 GMT

The other day Angie's car was hit in the parking lot at my office. Because of how dirty the car was she didn't notice the extent of the damage until later in the day, well after her and the other driver had agreed not to do anything and just about their days. Basically Angie was waiting in the apron of the lot to exit into traffic when the other came into the lot from the other direction. They didn't turn sharp enough and scraped their nose across the driver's door of our car. After spending Friday morning tracking this person down and talking about didn't ways to resolve the issue, and getting the impression that she was mature and capable being a decent human being, we agreed to meet yesterday to discuss it. When I got to the meeting however she stayed in her car waiting while her hulk of a boyfriend "reasoned" with me about how the fault of the accident was equally shared and I'd end up getting a ticket for leaving the scene. We agreed to disagree and parted ways. Before I had even gotten home I got a phone call from him apologixing for his attitude but also wanting me to apologize for having embarassed his girlfriend. Not 10 minutes later did I receive a call from the girl's mother (!) advising that if I expected to file any kind of claim with their insurance company, they would counter to mine for damage against their vehicle. I guess it was too much to expect that this girl would be able to handle the situation like a responsible adult and admit the mistake, rather than going crying to Mommy and Boyfriend to take care of the bad man harassing her. She does work in my office building but thankfully she's in a completely different dept. and has no contact with me.

The short of it is that Angie and I have decided not to pursue it any further. Angie made the judgement call at the time of the accident that the damage wasn't bad, and since there were no witnesses to back up whose side of the story is correct, it's likely Angie would be ticketed folowing a police report as well. As much as I love the car and HATE to see the damage every time I walk up to it, it is a 13-year-old car and at best only worth about $2500. Not important enough to increase our insurance premiums or to mark our otherwise perfect driving records.

If you're curious though, the damage is bad enough that a local shop quoted me 7 hours of labor to repair it and suggested that simply replacing the door would be a better option. Door replacement, not including paint and labor, would still be about $400.

Blech!

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 02:51:11 GMT

I think I'm going to be sick. Angie and the kids are watching Ella Enchanted in the other room and I can't seem to escape the pervasive suckiness of it. To date, it has be one of the worst movies the kids have dragged home from the library. At least with Spongebob reruns you can ignore it and tune it out pretty easily. Ella Enchanted is of the caliber of suckiness that you simply can't ignore it. I'm probably going to have nightmares tonight. I'll definitely have indigestion.

Brrr, I hate winter

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 02:29:13 GMT

Well, we're into the second week of our annual 2-week deep freeze. Nothing like a fortnight of below-zero temperatures to really bring out the winter depression. I hate winter.

Not only do I hate winter for it's cold, but I hate winter for the lack of sunshine, the lack of birds singing, the lack of fresh air in the house, and the abundance of boredom. I also hate the fact that it highlights my propensity to get bored. I know there's lots of things to do. Lots of things that need doing as well as things that may even be fun. However, when it's cold and nasty outside, it's hard to fully embrace any activity without it nagging at the back of your mind that, were it summer, you could be much more comfortable. It's knowing that things aren't nearly as pleasant as they could be that makes winter activities so unappealing for me. It carries over into other things too. It's so much easy to get up at 6:00 in the morning and spend 9 hours at the office when there's sunshine and a sportscar on either end of the workday. In the winter though you've got nothing but darkness and cold and scraping ice off windows before and after work. Well, it's 20:30 and I've accomplished virtually nothing since dinner, status quo for a mid-week evening in mid-winter. Tomorrow won't be any better but supposedly the temps will climb all the way up into the 20s by the weekend. Yay.

Birds!

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 03:56:08 GMT

I decided some time ago that I like finches. Adriene has a couple of obnoxious parakeets, but I like finches. After a few years of not doing anything about it, I finally bought a pair of black-cheeked zebra finches. I currently have them housed in the old parakeet cage that Adriene's birds out-grew, but I have a new home for them under construction. For any of you that have been to our house, you'll recall the massive built-in shelving unit in our living room. Well, I'm taking two of the compartments of it and creating a big aviary. By the time I'm done I'll have enough space to house 8-10 finches with plenty of room to spare (breeding?). Right now it's still in the evolving-design phase but some work has already begun on the the basics of it. I'll get photos posted up on my Flickr page as I'm able. By the way, the two that I have already are named Crabbe and Goyle.

In other news we had to get a new keyboard. For quite some time we'd been using a freebie hand-me-down from my bro-in-law. It worked great and was very comfortable, but the space bar on it died last week. So I went and shelled out the big bucks for a genuine Apple keyboard. It's a very nice keyboard, no doubt about that. I am however a bit disappointed in myself for having my money so easily wooed away from me by Steve Jobs' design department.