So I was checking out a thread on the racquetball forums a while back and someone created a thread to thank an Ektelon sponsored player for demoing the new racquets at the tournament and also "Most of all [name] talked to us about life and our Lord". Reading this I rolled my eyes in my thoughts knowing that nothing good will be coming from this thread; we'll name this guy 'Guy 1'. Sure enough someone replied quoting the lord quote...

Guy 2: "So he lied to you?".

Guy 1: "Excuse me? Is this your way of being funny? I don't understand why you would ask this question? Please explain"

Guy 2: "Thought it was pretty self-explanatory. No need to bring fairy tales to [forum]."

Guy 1: "I'll pray for you"

... many posts later ...

Guy 1: "This post went way different then I intended." (I'm thinking... Yeah, no shit?)

... many posts later ...

Guy 3: What a great posting. Speaking positively about a guy that did good for racquetball and also shared his faith in The Lord with others freely.

For any non-believer. If you are a logical person. Please explain the theory of evolution.

As I heard it before. It all started from a "big bang". Then some how a one celled organism "amoeba" came to Earth, or was some how created.

I forget how the Earth just happened to come together, exactly far enough away for a star to not have deathly hot or cold temperatures, with an atmosphere just correct to support life. That is in the big bang theory...right?

Then that mighty amoeba, decides to change into a fish. Right? I have this right so far?

But wait, then that mighty amoeba felt really strong, so it decided to become more than 24,000 different species of fish.

The the amoeba then decided he wanted to conquer the land so decided to become a mammal.

Then decided to become more than 4,000 species of mammals.

Oh wait, I forgot the amoeba becoming an amphibian.

While you are clearing my my errors, please go into how the amoeba become a bird, then trees and flower, then insects, etc, etc, etc

Or is there a much simpler and much more correct ANSWER???

How logical are you? Logically enough to see what the answer MUST BE???"

Myself: IBTL. (means: In Before the Lock. Lock as in locking the thread down so no one else can post)

Talk about a quick thread-derailing. Just FYI for forum-posters out there. It's best to leave religious & political comments out of your post. Not everyone believes in the same things you believe in. Both sides have their arguments and counter-arguments to their non-believers which throws everything into a vicious circle ending up somewhere that no one wants to be at.

Guy 3: Quoting me... Outstanding advice Chris.

I am going to write it down. So that I can give it to the next person that I meet who is going to an "I dont stand up for anything I believe in." convention.

Totally missed the thread's original post and also my point. This is where the thread got locked and I sent Guy 3 a private message...

Myself: It's not about 'not' standing up for what you believe in. It's about not putting in unnecessary plugs which bring up cause for a heated discussion that's not related to the topic. The comment the original poster put in about discussing the faith in the lord could have been left out without taking away from what the post was about. If you're defending your faith, that's a different story but putting in something religious/political/sponsorship and getting all huffy from other people's responses about it is just asking for it. I was just explaining that leaving those kinds of comments out of a post will generate responses toward the post's topic rather than the comments mentioned. If Guy 1 is able to put up with it then no biggie but he seemed shocked that the post went the way it did.

Unfortunately this is the reasonable solution since there are people like Guy 2 who come in making snide remarks to Guy 1's faith comment. If Guy 2 had just minded his own business everything would have probably been alright but I'm sure you know how some people can be towards other people's beliefs. =P

See ya around,
Chris

Guy 3: He replies... Hello Chris,

Thank you for explaining your reasoning.

My faith, of being a christian, requires me to stand up for my believes, not only because they are right. But also to educate people that have not heard about God and Jesus, and to help them learn more, to one day have them as believers and have them go to heaven.

Just because Guy 2 has not heard the word yet. Does not mean he is lost forever.

The mention made by Guy 1 was very low key, and very to the point. Not requiring or asking for any feedback.

I dont think this forum or any place in life is off limits to sharing Jesus. Nor do I feel that this is a place to speed long discussions on God.

I dont dwell on Jesus here. But I think what I said was logical and can make Guy 2 think, and I pray some others.

Have a great day and enjoy some racquetball.

Thank you,
Guy 3

Totally missed my point again since he's just focused on spreading his faith. It's not about defending your faith or saving others, it's about not bringing heated off-topic discussions into places where they don't belong. If people didn't get huffy about others objecting or if people didn't stir the pot when such topics were brought then... cool, whatever works. But you know how internet trolls can be. I can also sum it up in a well known quote... "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen."

I leave this LJ post with this...

Looks like I didn't post up pictures to the first Cars & Coffee event that I went to. Here is a compilation of the two events...

Cars & Coffee Event #1 on August 29, 2009

( Event #1 Photos )

Cars & Coffee Event #2 on September 28, 2009

( Event #2 Photos )

So on my previous AP1 S2000 I had the full header, test-pipe, catback setup from First Racing. I had that for a couple of months before I got ran off the road which totaled the AP1. I took all my aftermarket parts off and I finally found the time to clean them up and install them on my AP2. I didn't think the color on the tips would change but man I was impressed. The canisters look semi-new. I used Mother's Mag & Aluminum Polish.

Root Directory: http://ravynx.net/s2k/laguna/pics/mods/200..._exhaustPolish/

( Main Photos )

Enjoy. :)

So I finally did it. I've been wanting to try out a Mac sooner or later. I've been trying to build a Hackintosh setup with my desktop and that has failed twice. The first time was because the motherboard I had was incompatible due to the nVidia chipset on it. When the power went out a couple times it ended up frying that motherboard so I went and found a comparable board which was compatible with the Hackintosh setups. Well, I was able to load Mac OSX on it and boot into it fine but when I went to do an update it crashed and I was never able to get it back up and running again even after reinstalling the operating system.

That was sometime last year I believe. Since then I got myself an iPhone and have been liking that a lot; especially the interface and features it provides. There were a couple of times when I was browsing the Apple App Store and came across a couple apps where I was thinking, man I could have made something like that... I started reading on how iPhone/iTouch apps are made and found a couple of success stories of people making a game, putting it on the app store for $0.99-$4.99 and ended up making quite a profit. One of them put up a game and within 2 months time I think he made $250,000 (found the article, a game called Trism). He ended up quitting his day job and starting his own company. I don't expect to make that much but it would be pretty impressive to design, build, and upload an app to the app store whether it be free or at cost.

This lead me to, what do I need in order to make my own apps. In order to program your own apps you need to do it on Mac OSX. Obviously I needed my own Mac since the Hackintosh idea is out of the picture. So I had to start looking at the real deal. Eduardo had recently purchased an 24" iMac and he's been liking that. I've been wanting a laptop for a while but haven't had a real reason to get one since I haven't been too mobile. If I'm going to be getting a Mac, and I have a desktop already capable of handling the high-graphics games; why not splurge on a laptop? I'm sure I'll be making future vacation trips so I might as well get a laptop. Enough convincing myself, I ventured off to the Apple store to check them out in person as I wasn't sure if I wanted a 13" or a 15". I loved both sizes. The 13" wasn't too small and the slim profile made it very appealing if I was to be on the road a lot. The 15" wasn't too big but provided an adequate amount of desktop space to work with. The 15" was definitely wider than the 13" as noticeable by the speakers on the side of the keyboard rather than underneath the keyboard. I ended up going with the 15" since I needed the desktop space to program on in case I didn't have an external monitor to work with.

I went ahead and purchased the 15" Macbook Pro with the 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, the nVidia GeForce 9600M GT dedicated graphics card, and I upgraded the harddrive from a 300GB 5200rpm to 300GB 7200rpm for quicker hard drive access. Thankfully it was during the back-to-school season and I got a discount on it through the school program and I also got a free 8GB iPod Touch which I then sold before news of the new ones came out. Thanks for the assist Eduardo! haha. I also picked up a Timbuk2 Messenger Laptop bag since my LLBean one was barely able to fit it and it definitely isn't padded enough to handle a laptop.

( ... Photos ... )

It shipped out quickly on Monday and I got it by Friday, even all the way from Shanghai, China. Unboxed it, booted it up, did the updates and I was rolling within 30 minutes. I love the glossy screen, it makes the colors pop and the text is crisp. The trackpad is excellent but took a little bit getting used to since the whole trackpad is the button itself. It's hinged at the top and pretty much clickable from halfway down to the bottom. The neat thing is that it has to clickable registers; bottom left and bottom right. I went into the trackpad settings and set up the bottom right one to be the right-click (can still right-click by clicking the trackpad with 2 fingers instead of 1 finger). You can use from 1 to 4 fingers for gestures. 1 finger to move the pointer. 2 fingers to scroll up/down/left/right. 3 fingers to go back and forth between visited webpages or windows in a program. 4 fingers swiped left/right to access the windows-equivalent of Alt-Tab. 4 fingers swiped down to access Mac's "Expose" feature which takes all of the running programs and displays them on the screen to switch between or 4 fingers swiped up to show the desktop. Very cool and convenient. The keyboard is backlit with adjustable brightness, has a screen dimming and volume control along the top row of buttons and pretty much everything else standard on other laptops. I also really like the MagSafe power adapter which is connected via magnets so if someone trips over your power chord it flies off without pulling the laptop with it. *thumbs up to Apple on that one*

It didn't take me too long to get accustomed to Mac's keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard has Control, Option, and Command. Control-C/V/Z/Y in windows is Command-C/V/Z/Y in OSX. If you're scrolling through text, Command and the arrow keys throws your cursor to the beginning/end/top/bottom of the text line/area. Option and arrow keys skips around every 1 word like Control in Windows does. I do miss the Delete key on a windows machine that deletes the character in front of the cursor; Mac's only have a Backspace key. Another feature of OSX is that the bar at the very top is dependent on the program you currently have in focus. There is no menu system on the actual window of the program you're running, it's all on that bar at the top of your desktop. There is no Start Menu like in Windows. Everything is run off of the Dock on the bottom of your screen. Anyway, those are just a few of the differences and features between the two. Oh, I also partitioned part of the hard drive and loaded Bootcamp on it, which allowed me to install Windows 7 on it in case I wanted to play games on it while I'm on the road. Sweeeeet. haha. That was a very painless install as well.

An addition or a replacement? Currently just an addition. Windows will always feel like home to me since that is what I grew up on since I was a wee little lad of 5 years? I'm sure Dad can chime in on that one. ^_^ I never had any big issues with Vista so I wasn't completely thrown off from Windows; I guess it's my tech-ways allowing me to skip a lot of issues that people experienced but I'm glad Windows 7 came along and made the OS a bit faster than Vista and XP. I like the simplicity of Apple's OSX Snow Leopard operating system and I'm definitely having some fun with it since it's the new thing on the block. I can't wait to start coding on it. =)

Amazing what a little rain can do to the driving experience. Driving in to work this morning was perfect. The gauge cluster read 75 degrees, there were clouds above shielding the sun but you can see the break out in the distance. An easy breeze passed by as I was cruising down the I10 access road. I got to my desk and was disappointed that I would be indoors all day long rather than driving around the hill country or city.

Leaving work though... wowww. It was sunny but no where near as brutal as it has been before. 80 degrees on the gauge cluster and a slight breeze. The air felt and smelled crisp like the rain had washed all of the nastiness of oil and grease away. The road looked brand new I think the feeling might have translated to a good bit of the drivers out there because traffic was calm going home. It couldn't have been a better driving experience today. =)

Found this browsing the Aion forums, hehe. Real post coming soon... maybe...

( Common Sense is not so common )

Ah the checkout lines. You always have the worst luck when walking up to them ready to check out your groceries and head on home. If you're lucky you'll get behind someone whose checkout is fluid and you follow right up. If you're not so lucky you get the person that has 10 billion things, or someone digging to find their credit card, or someone paying with coupons, or someone whipping out the checkbook and taking the rest of the afternoon to write the check wondering who to make it out to. Yeah, those people.

It's now the new millenium. Your most frequented grocery store has installed a self-checkout system replacing 2 or 3 normal checkout lines with 4 mini self-serviced ones. Interesting you think to yourself, looking back to all of the previous years waiting in line thinking you can check out faster if you could just do it yourself because you didn't use a checkbook or you never picked up many items on your runs. You make a run to the grocery store, grab the things you need and as you walk up you see all 4 self-checkout registers in use but you're next in line. Where do you wait? Do you go stand behind someone, do you form a line behind the left or right row? Do you start the line for ALL registers?

You end up standing in the center to wait on the next person to finish checking out. To your left you see two people with carts halfway full and think there's no way they have less than 20 items. To your right there's some guy on the far register swiping items across the scanner slower than molasses in January. The register closest to you has an old lady scanning just as slowly and pulls out her booklet of coupons. Your previous years thinking this would be bliss has turned out to be a nightmare. Your happiness has turned to headache. To your surprise, one of the people on the left hand side finishes before the random guy and old lady and just as the guy on the left is paying, someone with a carry basket swoops in on the left hand side goes and stands behind them, taking the register as the other person leaves. FUCK!

This is why I trying not to shop during prime hours of the day. People with no common sense find their way to these self-checkout lanes thinking they can do this themselves when in fact if they went to one of the employee-operated lanes they would have checked out much faster than their current standing. I was at the store today and this is what sparked this post.

I had a total of 6 items ready to check out in under a minute and get out of the zoo. No, I stood behind an elderly lady that was first in line; she was standing somewhat in the middle but tending towards the right. This couple came walking by and just stood behind the far left hand self-checkout register. The old lady of course turns around to me and says, "They don't know where the line starts, do they?" Uncaringly I respond, "No, I guess not." Not 10 seconds later, she turns back to me, "You know what, I'm going to go tell them." This prompted an internal-facepalm in me knowing that trouble would be ensuing shortly. She tells the couple, and they walk back saying, "Oh, we didn't think there was a line" in a tone that was close to being coy. Of course, a guy who had just walked up standing on the left hand side waiting on the left registers prompts the sarcastic remark, "What, are you the line lady?" I roll my eyes in the lack of respect and I really just wanted to lash back at the couple and the guy but I didn't want to start a ruckus to be shortly followed by management kicking everyone out or a fight starting. I just kept my mouth shut, didn't say a word, and sadly took the register that the elderly lady took (yeah, the other 3 registers STILL had the same people on them when the elderly lady finished. Oy... the couple took the far right register and shortly after had 3 friends behind them with a basket which followed past me crowding me at mine. I just wanted to turn over to them and say, "Yeah, this is exactly why you form one line and not crowd the registers. No, I grabbed my things, walked back and around all of the commotion and out the doors. No common sense... at all... I could probably win the lottery guessing if they were bad drivers too. doh! Yeah, I went there. ;)

Damn my craving for sodas during mid-day rush hour. haha

Very true! I've dived into Linux and it definitely has its own issues. I have a feeling OSX won't be a smooth transition either but at least I know what I'm facing. ^_^

So I've been watching a good bit of Chris Pirillo's videos today. I'll watch his videos in spurts; I knew him back when I used to watch TechTV which became G4 TV later on. Really cool guy and had an awesome show when he was paired up with Leo Laporte. ANYWAY, needless to say, Chris usually has some good opinions and this 50

Article: Chris Pirillo's 50 Weight Loss Tips

I'll point out the points that struck the core of my tips...


1. Dietary control and exercise. It’s true what they say - all you need to do is watch what you eat, and expend more energy than you consume. It’s really that simple. You can quit reading this list now, you now know everything you need to know and didn’t need to fork over $500 for the privilege of me telling you the secret of losing weight. You don’t need to read a 4,000 page book, you don’t have to buy a tape series, you don’t need to stay up late at night to watch infomercials to understand this basic premise. It’s 100% true.

2. Change your lifestyle. If you’re calling this a “diet,” then you’re going to gain all the weight back (and more) within a few months of losing it. Diets do not work. Diets are temporary. When you change your dietary lifestyle, however, you’re changing your habits - and you’re putting yourself on track for long-term / continued success and weight maintenance. Don’t ever tell anybody you’re on a diet - ever. I’m speaking from experience, here - a reformed low-carber. Worked out well for a while, but ultimately failed because my entire lifestyle didn’t change (permanently).

6. Start reading labels. I know it sucks, but you have to do it - and there’s no way to avoid this tip. If you don’t know what you’re putting in your mouth, you’re flying blind. Don’t assume, either - triple-check the ingredients list and serving sizes. You must rely on yourself for this; nobody else is going to be able to lose the weight or do the math for you. It’s not that complicated a task, but it will require effort. If nothing else, just pay attention to the calorie count.

8. Tell your family. You’re not going to lose the weight alone, even if you ARE alone in losing the weight. If you’ve got a family at home, talk to them about it - initially, not incessantly. Let them know what you’re going to do, and that you want (and need) their support. If you don’t let them know, you’re running the risk of them inadvertently sabotaging your efforts. You want them to help you get to your goal(s). You want them to share in your happiness when you’ve made it past a certain mark. Who knows? Maybe some of your new habits will rub off on them and they’ll become healthier people, too?

9. Go public. I didn’t want to admit that I had screwed up, but admitting the problem in public was the first step on the path to eventual success. I was now accountable for my actions, and all my friends knew what I was doing. There was no turning back, otherwise I’d be risk damaging my integrity. I didn’t want to disappoint the people who read me on a regular (or semi-regular) basis. Plus, it’s an easy way to find out which of your friends have gone through the process before - and glean tips from their own experiences. Then, other friends might become inspired to do the same thing you’re doing once they see that you’ve taken the first step.

15. Set realistic goals. You can lose 50 pounds in a week if you work out 12 hours a day and eat nothing but celery - but not if you’re human. Slow and steady wins the race. Don’t bite off more than you can chew - literally. Make small goals on your way to the bigger goal(s). In the end, you’ll have achieved more (and more frequently, might I add).

Don’t always listen to your mate. I’ve already suggested that you tell your family - but sometimes members of your family will try to dissuade you from trying to lose weight. It’s simple: they might not want you to succeed where they may have already failed, whether consciously or inadvertently. Your loss is not always their gain. Watch out for statements like: “You’ve lost enough weight.” or “I like you just the way you are.” Fact of the matter is, if YOU don’t like the way that YOU are - then YOU are going to have to do something about it, no matter what anybody says. They still love you, though (in theory).

33. Patterns are good. Once you’ve found your workout groove, do your best to stick with it. Exercise no less than three times a week for 40 - 60 minutes each time, but don’t feel the “need” to do it more than five times over a seven day period. Your body will likely appreciate a burn-off in the morning more, but if you need to relieve stress in the evening - don’t be afraid to adjust your workout schedule accordingly. Schedule making and keeping are important for other areas of your life as well.

40. Know your daily calorie limit. When I was in the process of losing weight, it was suggested that I stay under 1700 calories a day. Knowing that number was half the battle. I could eat anything I wanted throughout the day, so long as I would stay at or beneath that number. While I couldn’t track 100% of the items I ate, I was able to make intake estimates - and adjust my schedule and ration my remaining calories accordingly. In this sense, you’re given extreme freedom - so long as you stay at or beneath that suggested calorie level for your plan. If you don’t know how much you’re supposed to take in, how are you supposed to know how much you’re supposed to take in?! Sounds redundant, but it’s a situation that many “dieters” are in (which is why they fail)!

43. Train wrecks will happen. One of these nights, you’re going to go out with friends and eat your weight in steak (likely blowing any kind of progress you had made for that day). Instead of repeating the overindulgence, just put yourself back on track the next day. You’re allowed to “mess up” every now and again, so long as you don’t make a habit out of consuming an excessive amount of food. Right the dining injustice immediately. You’ll be okay. You’ll be fine. Just don’t do it again. And again. And again. And again.

So I've contemplated the subject before. I've tried to build a Hackintosh from my PC here. I was able to load into it once after the new motherboard was installed but right after I did an update the OS crashed on me and I was never able to boot it up again. I even tried reinstalling OSX and it never installed correctly after that. I pretty much gave up on the Hackintosh setup since it was pretty flaky running OSX on non-apple hardware. This was probably back in last fall/winter that I tried this.

I was talking to a friend at work who recently did a presentation on automated testing and I asked him if he had any ideas for lunch & learns that I could probably do and he said his other choice was iPhone development. This sparked the interest again in Mac. You have to develop iPhone apps on the OSX operating system. I could try the Hackintosh thing again or maybe finally just saying 'the hell with it' and purchasing a Macbook Pro. A laptop would be great to have for trips and I could just hook it up to my monitor/keyboard/mouse here at home and program on my desktop LCD. The only thing holding me back is the price and whether this is worth it or not. Apple is known for their high prices but their quality rocks.

I'm really liking the idea of developing my own games and apps for the iPhone and possibly making some money off of it buy selling them on the Apple Store. You get 70% of the earnings and Apple takes the other 30%. Put an app up for $0.99, it gets 1,000 downloads... that's $690 in your pocket. haha, if only it were that simple. ^_^ Lots of success stories out there. Some have even quit their jobs after making several hundred thousand dollars on just one app. Nuts! I'm still deciding. If I do decide, then the question is... 13" or 15". haha I can also dual boot OSX and Windows 7 on a Macbook in case I need Windows stuff or if OSX just doesn't work out. The battery life is awesome as well at 6-7 hours.

Watch Video first, comments below... no peeking!



That is sooooo going to be me if for some reason I ever landed with a woman like that. haha. She knew EXACTLY what she was getting into getting into the passenger seat next to an ex-Formula 1 driver who happens to be her husband. ;) He wasn't even going that fast since they didn't need helmets! Oye. Please don't let me marry someone like this. XD

Someone posted this on the racquetball forum...



Time to head out and play racquetball. ;)

XD

So my friend Adolfo set up a drive for yesterday to head out to Medina, TX to a place called Love Creek Orchard where they are known for their apple pies and apple ice cream. Here is the Route we took. It was very straight forward, we only had to make a right once we hit Bandera.

So I set up the meet up time at 1604 & Bandera to be at 9:30am and would leave at 10:00am. A couple people from Austin were supposed to meet us there around 11:00am but didn't show. So I got to the morning meet spot at 9:30 and saw an ap2 Suzuka blue. I pulled up and it was someone I had never met before. A guy in his 40-50's probably walked up and introduced himself as Richard and his girlfriend, Martha. Very nice couple. He posts over on the other S2000 boards that the San Antonians usually don't post on; it's usually the Austin crew. Hisham in his Rio yellow ap2 came along about 10 minutes later and then Adolfo in his Berlina black showed up last. No one else came and we left at 10:15am.

( Morning Meetup Photos )

We all cruised with the top down all the way there. The temp gauge on my dash read 85º. The sun was still strong of course but I was still comfortable driving with the top down. Adolfo was leading the pack there, followed by Richard, then myself, and then Hisham always holding the rear. Hisham likes to slow down and play catch up through the fun areas. I always wondered why he liked being the last one. ;) So we arrived at Love Creek Orchard at 11:00am, the only S2000's in sight and we weren't expecting any of the Austinites to show since their fearless leader had to bail for work. *shakes fist at Chris S's work* We all walked around the small shop for a few. The smell of apple and cinnamon was prominent, as expected, but very pleasant. I saw the apple pies that mom would always bring home when she judged the quilt shows in that area. $22 for one of their signature pies. They're really really big (tall) apple pies. Really tasty too. ;) I went over to the self-serve soft-serve ice cream, grabbed a cone and swirled in as much ice cream as I could before it toppled over on itself. I took a big chomp out of the top and I was met with apples and cinnamon. Delicious! It was the right consistency and the flavor wasn't overpowering. We all went out to the patio area out back where there was a small shack to order burgers at and we all chatted for a while. I ordered a burger eventually since it was near lunch. It was... alright... I guess. Really thick buns which you would find at Fuddruckers and I couldn't really taste anything. The fries were pretty good though. After chatting for 2-3 hours and having felt like we might be overstaying our welcome if we loitered any longer, we all took off for Hwy 337; one of my favorites.

( Love Creek Orchard Photos )

I took the lead and led the group out west to Vanderpool, TX went slightly north and then west again onto 337. I love this stretch of road because the view is awesome. The beginning and endings have trees hanging over on both sides of you, everything else between climbs up in elevation to where you have a rock wall on one side of you and a guardrail on the other side protecting you from the steep dropoff. Cresting over some parts of the road you have an awesome view over the guardrail. But the road is what I really like. Many twists and turns, great elevation changes, places to have fun at with the S. A third of the way through a motorcycle in the oncoming lane signals pushing his hand down. I thought meant like there was a cop ahead but a couple turns later I see piles of grass clippings all over the road and then signs saying "Mowers Ahead." Wonderful... Continuing on we come to a halt right behind the mowers. Of all the days that we come out... we get the one day that the mowers decide to come out. I didn't even know they actually mowed the area considering the little grass that is up there under the guardrail. Would have been nice if they did that during the weekdays when the tourists aren't around an about traveling the roads. Anyway, the mowers let us by and we stop in Leakey, TX. Instead of going back the way we came like I originally planned (double fun!) we went south on 83 and then booked it east on 1050 to Utopia, TX and then up north to 470 and finally east back towards Bandera, TX.

( Read more... )

Aside from the mowers, the ice cream and the drive was awesome! I really wish I had a cooler because I definitely would have brought a couple of containers of that ice cream home. We'll definitely be going again VERY soon!

I finished polishing the rest of the S last weekend. Man that took A LOT of time, but definitely worth it. Every panel got 2 rounds of Menzerna SIP (medium cut), a final round of Menzerna PO85RD (fine cut), and then a wax with Meguiar's Tech Wax.

I just received my 1 gallon bottle of Optimum ONR wash and I'll be giving her a bath tonight in the garage. No more carwash-bay brushes for her. :D
















Taping off the clear-bra...





Wax...




I'll have photos of the S all cleaned up this afternoon after the wash... hopefully. hehe :D

Pulled from my s2ki post. ^_^

Hey all, I got my second s2000 a little over a month ago and it's my first dark-colored car. My previous was a Suzuka and the two cars before that were white. I've always thought that you just wax your car once or twice a year and wash it regularly. After really seeing the swirl marks in my Laguna and then reading the detail logs on here showing how beautiful the Berlinas show up after a detail I wanted to do the same to mine. The S2000 truly deserves to shine.

Root Folder for pictures: http://s389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/r...6laguna/polish/

I ordered a Porter Cable, polish, pads, and detailing clay last week and got them in before the weekend. Yesterday morning I decided to work on the S and see what I could do. I swept the garage clean and then gave her a bath at the wash place across the street since I don't have my own house. (Has anyone had issues with the brushes scratching the paint at those places?) Dried her off with microfiber waffle weave towels as I always have and took her home. I decided to polish the trunk first to make sure I was doing everything right. (could always repaint it with a new spoiler :D , haha).

( Cut for large images )

After checking with the guys on the forum, so far they're pretty impressed. I have yet to get an answer on that last photo with those 2 "artifacts" as described above the image.

Here's another S2000 owner who detailed his Berlina Black. It has a beautiful shine after he polished the swirls out! http://www.s2ki.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=712921

Hover Kitty to Base... Requesting Permission to Land...

Man, a badass day indeed. It was Sasca's 7th Autocross for 2009 at the AT&T Center here in San Antonio, TX. Weather forecast predicted sunny & cloudy conditions until 12pm where a 30% chance of rain would creep in. We got none of that, woot! We had an overcast morning which ended up in clearing in the afternoon. Definitely back to a smaller turnout now since Austin's Chapter, Spokes, wasn't with us like the last 2 times. 63 entries total. We got 4 runs in the morning and 3 runs in the afternoon. My morning session went pretty well but I started breaking out the rear end on my 3rd and 4th runs. I later found out that my tire pressures were at 40psi from the heat building up in the day. I set them back down to 35psi all around for the afternoon sessions and it turned out MUCH better. I DNF'd (Did not Finish) my first afternoon run b/c I went wide on a slalom cone but my second afternoon run I had Wei ride with me (autoX veteran) and I don't remember him saying too much while I was driving other than waving his hands and clapping (haha) but just his presence being there got me down to my fastest time of the day. I thought I pushed myself even harder on the 3rd afternoon run but I came up a full second slower. D'oh! Very fun day though! Oh and my new hat worked out perfectly for course-work with cone duty. Insta-shade!

The course (Start is below the Grid)...


My Photos (not too many, doh!): http://s389.photobucket.com/albums/oo337/ravynxmiko/S2000/autox/sasca/07-19-2009/

Final Stats (2nd place in Novice): https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/files/SASCA/07-19-2009_fin.htm
PAX Rankings (29th place): https://axwaresystems.com/axorm/files/SASCA/07-19-2009_pax.htm



;)

So I'm sure everyone remembers my incident heading home after Harris Hill Road. Well, my friend Adolfo who drives the 2003 Berlina Black S2000 and was one of the 3 with me that day went with the UTSA SAE team to Harris Hill Road a couple weeks ago to test and tune their Formula 1 SAE car. Well, Adolfo talked with one of the people who worked there and the guys asked, "Hey, didn't your friend wreck his S2000 a little while ago?" and Adolfo said "Yes". The guy replies, "Ok, so honestly, what happened?" Adolfo tells him the story and the guy's eyes light up and he says, "That punk who drives that Silver mustang with blue stripes is my neighbor's son..." Adolfo said they chatted for a little while and he said the guy looked pretty pissed. Adolfo found out that this kid has been caused enough trouble for other people to call the police on him. The guy said that he's pissed that the punk caused one of his customers to wreck his car going away from Harris Hill and that he was heading over to the parent's house after his conversation with Adolfo ended to have a talk with the kid's dad and the kid.

Wow, I can't believe that happened. JUSTICE! =D