Lookin' For Four Dry Runs
This is the weekend of Speed in and around Speedway Indiana. O'Reilly Raceway Park (ORP) in little Cleremont host three events this extended weekend; there's the Silver Crown Race Thursday, the Craftsman Truck Series on Friday and the Nationwide Series on Saturday. This year Rich and I have all access credentials for all three ORP events. Of course we also still have our Brickyard tickets again one row from the top just before the apex of turn three as usual.
We got the cred's from our buddy David Gansert who used to work with us at Roberts Distributors in the in-house photo lab. David is now an official photographer at ORP and shoots with Canon DSLR's and lenses.
I don't even have a DSLR yet, but I am really impressed with the newest offerings from Nikon. I played with the new D700 and SB 900 Speedlight on Tuesday when Jeff our Nikon Sales rep brought them in. I couldn't get the flash to make a bad exposure even when I took it off TTL. I don't have three grand for a D700 body but I might be able to get a D300, which has the standard APS-chip. I might have to haunt Scott Proctor in our Used Department waiting for a clean D300 to come in. The D300 is current and predecessor to the full size D700 coming in later this week or next. No, I will most likely be borrowing a Nikon outfit for the weekends events from Roberts photo rental department, I have to call and reserve something right after I finish my post here. I hope I don't have to use photo rain gear this weekend, but there are chances of rain for Friday and Saturday, if I do need it I can get it at Roberts too, we sell AquaTech (the best around) but I don't know if we rent it, if I have to buy, my budget for DSLR rain gear would probably fall more in the Kata range. I might just bag it in a Lowe-Pro AW camera bag if the rain is not too intense since I don't think there would be too many photo opps if the rain turns into a full on storm. AW stands for all weather, it has a deployable rain shield.
Last year at the truck race, Rich, John Qualkenbush and his son John Ivan and I waited out an almost three hour delay and track drying before the race actually got under way. It was John Ivan's first in-person race experience and he slept a great deal of the soggy part. Oh to be young. Oh to be able to sleep. But that's a whole different story isn't it?
I left work early with Rich and we headed out to ORP to get our creds. Then it was back downtown to pick up the car and the missus. From there we hopped over to The Chatterbox to see David and Rachel for a fair weather evenings libation. Not long after we got there Jody Grober Roberts mail-order manager arrived on his bike. Jody introduced me to the "Wednesday Night Mens club" at the Chatterbox 15 or 18 years ago, but has not been a regular for a long time. Even when Jody was a regular he was irregular, but that's a whole lot of different stories. Jody was there to meet with jazz musician Matt Roberts (who often plays at the Chatterbox) and used to be Roberts on-call IT guy. Bruce Pallman, the owner of Roberts rode up on his bike too. Regular Roberts customers (and Chatterbox staples) Jack and Joan Green were there and Jody and Bruce talked with them for a bit, then the meeting with Matt got underway. With Rich (Roberts e-bay guru) and I there too Roberts Distributors outnumbered all the rest of the patrons on the patio for a couple of hours.
LeAnne Bailey and Kris Bowman are joining David at the Brickyard this year, and Rich and I have invited them to meet us at our usual parking area for breakfast before the green flag flies. This breakfast has become a Nascar pre-race ritual with the Roberts guys. Last year Mike Wilson or inventory control guy (that is what it says on paper, he is actually a Ninja and we never see or hear him until he goes to lunch or leaves for the day) and Jody joined us for these and other rituals. This year Jody is taking MJ to her first close encounter of the stock car kind, so he wont be joining us in our perfect seats, Wilson is in again and we are still waiting to hear from Richard from West Virginia who has been our Brisol connection, and went with Travis Rich and I two years ago. Well I have been at this for over an hour, and I have so many other day off things to do.
////Chuck Pace ©2008
We got the cred's from our buddy David Gansert who used to work with us at Roberts Distributors in the in-house photo lab. David is now an official photographer at ORP and shoots with Canon DSLR's and lenses.
I don't even have a DSLR yet, but I am really impressed with the newest offerings from Nikon. I played with the new D700 and SB 900 Speedlight on Tuesday when Jeff our Nikon Sales rep brought them in. I couldn't get the flash to make a bad exposure even when I took it off TTL. I don't have three grand for a D700 body but I might be able to get a D300, which has the standard APS-chip. I might have to haunt Scott Proctor in our Used Department waiting for a clean D300 to come in. The D300 is current and predecessor to the full size D700 coming in later this week or next. No, I will most likely be borrowing a Nikon outfit for the weekends events from Roberts photo rental department, I have to call and reserve something right after I finish my post here. I hope I don't have to use photo rain gear this weekend, but there are chances of rain for Friday and Saturday, if I do need it I can get it at Roberts too, we sell AquaTech (the best around) but I don't know if we rent it, if I have to buy, my budget for DSLR rain gear would probably fall more in the Kata range. I might just bag it in a Lowe-Pro AW camera bag if the rain is not too intense since I don't think there would be too many photo opps if the rain turns into a full on storm. AW stands for all weather, it has a deployable rain shield.
Last year at the truck race, Rich, John Qualkenbush and his son John Ivan and I waited out an almost three hour delay and track drying before the race actually got under way. It was John Ivan's first in-person race experience and he slept a great deal of the soggy part. Oh to be young. Oh to be able to sleep. But that's a whole different story isn't it?
I left work early with Rich and we headed out to ORP to get our creds. Then it was back downtown to pick up the car and the missus. From there we hopped over to The Chatterbox to see David and Rachel for a fair weather evenings libation. Not long after we got there Jody Grober Roberts mail-order manager arrived on his bike. Jody introduced me to the "Wednesday Night Mens club" at the Chatterbox 15 or 18 years ago, but has not been a regular for a long time. Even when Jody was a regular he was irregular, but that's a whole lot of different stories. Jody was there to meet with jazz musician Matt Roberts (who often plays at the Chatterbox) and used to be Roberts on-call IT guy. Bruce Pallman, the owner of Roberts rode up on his bike too. Regular Roberts customers (and Chatterbox staples) Jack and Joan Green were there and Jody and Bruce talked with them for a bit, then the meeting with Matt got underway. With Rich (Roberts e-bay guru) and I there too Roberts Distributors outnumbered all the rest of the patrons on the patio for a couple of hours.
LeAnne Bailey and Kris Bowman are joining David at the Brickyard this year, and Rich and I have invited them to meet us at our usual parking area for breakfast before the green flag flies. This breakfast has become a Nascar pre-race ritual with the Roberts guys. Last year Mike Wilson or inventory control guy (that is what it says on paper, he is actually a Ninja and we never see or hear him until he goes to lunch or leaves for the day) and Jody joined us for these and other rituals. This year Jody is taking MJ to her first close encounter of the stock car kind, so he wont be joining us in our perfect seats, Wilson is in again and we are still waiting to hear from Richard from West Virginia who has been our Brisol connection, and went with Travis Rich and I two years ago. Well I have been at this for over an hour, and I have so many other day off things to do.
////Chuck Pace ©2008
Peaks and Vales
So last week we took only one game, even though I had my best game and series since week one when I set the unattainable since bench mark performance. That first week I bowled a 525 series with a high game 1 of 179. Incredibly, the next week I had my worst series and lowest game. Game one 99, series 388. Since then I have been up and down, so when I stepped up in week ten and bowled a 500 even I was happy, the team didn't do as well and like I said we only took one game. It didn't help that we were bowling the #1 team in the league that week. Jump ahead one week and what happens? We are bowling the #2 team in the league, and we have slid back to last place (18th). Game one, only anchor man Tom Pruitt achieves. Rich and I are under our averages. Team Blust takes game one by 50 pins. Game two I better my numbers by 6 pins and am still 6 pins below my average, Tom drops below his average by two pins and Rich is possessed! Rich bowls a 9/ to start then 5 strikes and another 9/, but the time the dust settles we have won the second game by 68 pins, are up in series by 19 and Rich has knocked a big 222 hole in his stats. Along comes game three, Tom and I both pick it back up and do well, 
Chuck Pace ©2008
|
Snake eyes, 7-11
07/11/08 01:26 AM | Permalink
Insomnia, and computer snafu makes for a long night. At best I'm a tosser, and I tossed and turned last night until I surrender to cognizance and began this post. That was at 12:06, a computer lock-up later and I am restarting at 1:26.
Pastoral Scene on SR49 North of Springfield TN. 7/4/2008
I know some of you think I died or was in a horrible accident or something because I have not been to the Chatterbox in two weeks, but rest assured I am fine. My last post was just before we headed South to Tennessee to visit with Jenni's family. We drove through a few rain storms and a couple of thunder storms to get to Tennessee's norther border, but once inside the Volunteer state we had wonderful weather. Since it was the 4th of July we stopped as Sad Sam's Fireworks outlet and BP station just 9 miles into TN. I walked Blind Charlie while Jenni was in buying about a C notes worth of boom sticks and flashy fire-flowers. I stopped on a hill to take the Sad Sam picture and Charlie took the opportunity to tumble down into a culvert as I was snapping the shot. He was not hurt, but I felt bad about his poor sightless tumble in a strange land.
On the way to Springfield via SR 25 I snapped the pastoral scene of the farm. The dark clouds overhead were heading away from us and the drive was just swell, nifty and keen.
Springfield is where Jenni and I tied our knot together 24 years and 5 months ago. Some 35 miles South and West later we were at Jenni's sister Laura and her husband David's home, where we stayed for two and a half days. That is where I shot the fireworks montagephoto.
It was a great trip and a restful end of a week that started with the tiring floor project.
I'll have more next time I am up at 2:00 AM Soma-posting. Time to rub my tired snake slit eyes and try to doze for about 4 hours.
Chuck Pace ©2008
Pastoral Scene on SR49 North of Springfield TN. 7/4/2008
On the way to Springfield via SR 25 I snapped the pastoral scene of the farm. The dark clouds overhead were heading away from us and the drive was just swell, nifty and keen.
Springfield is where Jenni and I tied our knot together 24 years and 5 months ago. Some 35 miles South and West later we were at Jenni's sister Laura and her husband David's home, where we stayed for two and a half days. That is where I shot the fireworks montagephoto.
It was a great trip and a restful end of a week that started with the tiring floor project.
I'll have more next time I am up at 2:00 AM Soma-posting. Time to rub my tired snake slit eyes and try to doze for about 4 hours.
Chuck Pace ©2008
Project Command
Well we did it to the best of our limited ability and finances. The big on vacation project is all but finished. I removed the carpet in the hall way on Monday. On wednesday I acid cleaned and etched the concrete floor. then I came up with a simple design for the pattern of the new stained floor, then I came up with another pattern and finally I had a pattern I could stan standing on. Yesterday it was an all day affair masking, and prepping and painting and waiting between each step. Don't get me wrong I did other things this week we were able to get in 8 episodes of Angel, and watch a rental movie during all this waiting to dry and such. So it has been a vacation. I have to be back at work on Tuesday so we still have three plus days ahead. We are using that time to visit Jenni's folks and sibs in Tennessee. Here is the images of the floor project., We will be adding a urethane sealer soon as we can figure how not to stick two cats and one blind dog in it permanently.
Before and after.
Now off to the In-Laws.
Happy Fourth of July!
Chuck Pace ©2008
Before and after.
Now off to the In-Laws.
Happy Fourth of July!
Chuck Pace ©2008
Bowl Well? Oh Well.
Once again the burden of maintaining last place in a summer league fell squarely on our shoulders. Once again we were equal to the task. I actually came out and defended my low average each game with a worst effort in game one 9 pins over my said pedestrian median of bowling aplomb. We didn't name our team "Total Breakdown" for nothing, at least one player each night has a disappointing effort or is smote by the kegling gods in public. Mercifully it was not I this week in any of the three contests, as I said I bettered each game and started 9 pins over the average I have so carefully destroyed since an on fire week one. The second game was 2 pins better than the firs, the third two pins better than the second and my average for the evening was 156, I have given you all the factors in this story problem, so if you wish you can now calculate my score, and evenings starting average. For the third straight week Rich struggled, not as much as in the previous two attempts, in fact only his middle game was below his average, albeit 38 pins below. Anchor bowler Tom was the real struggler this outing. Only his middle game was over his lofty self made benchmark average, and even had Rich pulled up his score to his average we would have still lost the second game by 58 pins. We are usually hero makers, gifting the gift of best career game to someone on the opposite team at least 70% of the time. Last night would have seemed another such night, except the guy who had a banner evening and single handedly won game two for the opponents was a guy with a 1 pin handicap, so he is obviously a strong bowler. He bowled 7 in a row before having a 9 -, and a 9/ then turkeyed out in the 10th. So my 11 pins over average, and Tom's 3 pin over average when added to Rich's 38 under was a lost cause in any event.
The real fun came after the bowling was done, the balls put away until they are needed again and the rest of the equipment was tucked away for another day. That is when we, Jenni and I, not the intrepid bowling machine known as "Total Breakdown" went out for the night.
Movie night. We got to the theatre with the full intention of watching Wall°E, the latest offering from Pixar/Disney, that is when we noticed that Will Smith's Hancock was also airing with a start time only 10 minutes later than Wall°E. we were the first in our theatre and grabbed the second row after the divider, middle. We watched the previews and before long there were others joining us. A sparse but enthusiastic (even talkative at times) crowd enjoyed a week-days movie outing. As we expected Wall°E was terrific, and we will be going to see Hancock soon, I'm sure. Maybe even in Tennessee.
So much for breaks and taking them on a vacation, back to the charished, chorish challange.
A cowboy's work is never done.
Chuck Pace ©2008
The real fun came after the bowling was done, the balls put away until they are needed again and the rest of the equipment was tucked away for another day. That is when we, Jenni and I, not the intrepid bowling machine known as "Total Breakdown" went out for the night.
So much for breaks and taking them on a vacation, back to the charished, chorish challange.
A cowboy's work is never done.
Chuck Pace ©2008
Chortle While You Chore
Asian Beauty in an Indiana side-yard ©CP'08
Since yesterdays post, the big inside project is underway. Another inside/outside project was finished and some chores are done as well. The inside/outside project was a threshold between my sanctuary and the house, literally. I have a screen door in the garage so that I can leave the garage door open and the house door open too and the animals and the insects can not go from one habitat to another without invitation. Well over the years the cats and dogs got curious about what the food guy was doing in the noisy room. Eventually the screen was damaged beyond repair and the sliding glass had to be moved down to seal the air passage.
The mini-project was to re-screen the door. Something I have never done before. How hard could it be? I bought screen material, spline (the bead that goes into the door grove and traps the screen in place) and a splining tool. Well I screwed up the first attempt, and didn't score a big hit in the second but I have the door re-hung and the screen is in place. Luckily the screen itself was big enough to do a full screen door so I had enough material to do the re-do without having to make another trip to Home Depot.
I also started the other project as I said, it is a three or four day effort I'm sure. Day one is done. Day two (today) has seen it's full effort because the concrete patch has to dry before any more can be done. Tomorrow comes the acid and the etching!
Right now you are probably asking yourself what I'm doing. To paraphrase Tom Waits, "What's He Building In There, We Have a Right to know! " Well, I'm not telling yet. Nyah, nyah neeyah, na!
A Thistle and its Guardian Weed-Warrior ©CP'08
So day two of the week off is in the books, I have to hit the All Star Bowling Alley here in a few and then Jenni and I are planning on taking in Wall°E.
I'll let you know how the bowling went.
Chuck Pace ©2008