Marc's Public Blog - All Items

π 2014-06-26 01:01 in Cars, Ncars

Since my track car won't be available for another couple of months, when I heard that GGLC was going to get one of the first 5 mile track days at Thunderhill, I figured I'd look into renting and was told about Dietsch Werks.

As a result, I ended up renting a track prepared lotus from them (lightened, a few extra HPs over stock, and upgraded brakes). I did however select street tires over slicks since I figured I didn't need to learn slicks when I was already learning a new car and a new track.

I ended up flying early that morning just around IFR weather and got to Willows airport where Rob picked me up.

By 09:00, we started our first session, one of 7 30mn sessions :)

there were other bug cars :)

It took me a little bit to get used to the lotus and learn that it was tail happy under braking. As a result, I had to brake and be back on gas before turning for stability in some places.
Learning thunderhill west also took a bit of time, but I worked my way down from 4:10 to 3:44 by the end of the day, so I'm happy enough with that :)

Here is my last session of the day (just to 20:22):

Thanks to GGLC for setting up the event and Rob and Jenni for getting me the car all prepped.

π 2014-06-24 01:01 in Google

I was lucky to work in a group that planned an offsite at Great America (we rented it out for the day). The park without the lines was definitely fun.

Unfortunately, a couple of coasters were very jarring (mostly the corkscrews) and gave whiplash to Jennifer, but that only set it after we got home, so at least we had a good day during the day :)

The water park section is also basic, but still enjoyable.

Here is the auto build google story with videos.

π 2014-06-23 01:01 in Flying, Nflying

I had spent over 3 hours in 2012 and didn't get to finish the top last time, so I went back with Arturo and we spent another 3-4H to do the top. Clearly doing the whole thing carefully takes a whole day from open to close.

This time though we started with the top deck which usually is a 1H line and we saw right away, and then we worked through the flight deck:

Captain's view

From there we saw the captain's quarters and surroundings, ops and comm rooms:

From there, we went to the flight deck and dispatch rooms:

landing signals

There was a lot more to see in the aircraft carrier, but we had done a good amount for the day (and this mostly completed my prior visit where I had seen all the bottom floors in details).

π 2014-06-21 01:01 in Diving

Arturo, Regis, and Bill invited me to their diving trip in San Diego, and having forgotten how cold it was last time, I foolishly accepted :)

I brought a semi dry 7mm wetsuit, a full hood, and as a backup a 2nd shortie with hood that was 5.5mm (or a total of 12.5mm of neoprene). That was a wise decision, the semi-dry 7mm wasn't much warmer than a 7mm, and after my first dive, I was very cold, so I put the 2nd wetsuit on top.
This turned out to be barely enough, and I was still cold on most of the dives, but it turns out the temperature got as low as 13C (55F). It was sad when I saw my computer say 16C (60F) and that felt warm, but the 2 wet suits, tight hood, and 28lbs of lead just weren't comfortable or fun.

All that said, we had above average vis (which means somewhat poor instead of very poor ;) ), and no current, so we got lucky with the conditions actually being as good as they could have been for there (except the temps).

On the first day, we did a couple of kelp dives first, and the Yukon and Ruby in the afternoon. On the second morning, double dive of the Yukon on nitrox, and finished up with the Ruby again, where I took a crap on the toilet :)

Unfortunately most of my pictures are crap because my real camera lens kept fogging up. I used my gopro as a backup, and the nicer pictures are from Arturo.

there we so many lobsters, it wasn't even funny:

Some pictures from the wrecks:

π 2014-06-20 01:01 in Ntrips, Trips

Arturo invited me to join a few of his friends to go diving in San Diego, and we took some extra time to visit San Diego a bit, which I had started some years back, but didn't get to finish.

Arturo and I took an early flight on friday morning to enjoy most of the day in San Diego:

this is where we did our our diving trips from

downtown

Balboa Park where Artruo and I spent quite a bit of time when we weren't diiving

After landing we went to pick up Arturo's compact car :)

From the airport, we went directly to Cabrillo national monument to see the beach/tide pools before the tide rose too much. It was a nice hike by the coast:

Arturo was not much of a photo model, so I had to find other people :)

After the coast, we went to see the Cabrillo monument and went to get some picturs from San Diego and the military base:

how about that, it was a perfect fit :)

On the way back down, we went to check out the cemetary on the side of road back down:

From there, we went to the science museum in Balboa Park and went to see a couple of Imax movies:

Next, we went to the museum of man, which closed later and wasn't bad:

The next day, we met with Bill, Regis and Kyoko for diving, which is on its own page.

After diving on our second day, we had a bit of extra time in the afternoon, so we went back to Balboa Park to see the botanical and Japanese gardens:

Next, we went to San Diego Old Town, starting with Whaley House and then shops in old town:

The next day, Arturo and I started the day by going to the Midway Aircraft Carrier, which allowed me to see more of the top of the carrier and the command center which I hadn't been able to see last time when I concentrated on the bottom decks.

After that, we went back to Balboa Park and went to the natural history museum:

After it closed at 17:00, we had enough time to enjoy some yummy deserts before heading for the airport to fly home: