Hello again!
It's updatin' time.
Late in August Susan
started having a sharp pain in one of her back teeth. A visit to the
dentist determined she needed a root canal and a filling. Soon she got
her temporary crown but due to scheduling issues the permanent crown wasn’t
“installed” until after Labor Day. It was around this time that one of my
crowns popped off due to me chewing on Mentos. I luckily didn’t swallow
it and the crown was reattached a couple of days later with little drama.
On August
30 we raced at a rallycross event down at the US Truck Driving School
(USTDS) south of Colorado Springs in Fountain, CO. Normally the parking
lot that acts as our course is flat and stable but the unusual and almost
daily summer rains had caused many ruts and other unsafe areas.
Fortunately there was still plenty of space to race on safely and we had a
grand ole’ time on the low-traction course. It was a very close finish
with me missing 1st place by a whisker over a tenth of a second
(0.107) and Susan coming in 5th out of 13 drivers. USTDS
is always hard on tires so we used our older rally tires which took quite a
beating during the event.
We had originally
planned on camping at Chatfield Reservoir over Labor Day with our neighbors,
Gregg and Sandra Tiedeman, but ended up just hanging out with them on
Saturday instead. In the almost seven years we’ve lived five minutes
from Chatfield we’ve not yet visited there. While Susan had been there
before as a kid I’ve never gone. You might think I would have been
excited to go over Labor Day but not really. Despite my poor attitude we
packed up our Subaru with camping chairs, coolers of water and wine, umbrellas,
and fishing poles and headed over to the Tiedeman’s campsite. They
recently acquired a pop-up camper which they have utilized several times
already and it was in attendance again. I don’t know that I’d ever want
to own one but I see the allure. We hung out and talked with them for
awhile and then drove to one of the fishing areas.
Susan was the sole
fisher from our home as I decided to sulk nap in a camping
chair under an umbrella. Susan and Sandra fished and I slept. Susan
seemed to hoard all the luck along the shoreline and caught four fish while we
were there (those around us averaged far less than one catch per person).
I woke periodically when she reeled them in and we deemed two big enough to
eat. We headed back to the campsite to cook her spoils.
Susan did eat most of
her fish though she said they were mostly tasteless. I settled on a hot
dog and some oddly prepared sides. Their son Tristan came by later to
hang out. They started a fire and we played a couple of rounds of
Exploding Kittens as the sun went down. For some reason (probably a
diabolical one) the wind and smoke colluded to make sure my eyes were
constantly watery and my throat dry until we left. Though it may not
sound like it I did have a good time. Luckily for Susan she had a better
time.
The weekend of
September 19-20 was a busy one with racing and Colorado Pug Rescue’s annual Pugs
in the Park. That Saturday had us rallycrossing at Colorado
Off-Road Extreme (CORE). There are two available areas to use for
rallycross and we were in the lower one. The courses were set up to be
faster than normal and I had to shift into second gear many times throughout
the day (shifting out of first gear while racing is rarely necessary in our
car). I was putting down times that no one could touch when I had a run
where just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I managed
to get the back tires off in the fluff on one sweeping turn which caused such a
large cloud of dust that I blinded myself two turns later and had to come to a
complete stop while I waited for it to clear. Once I got going again I
overcooked a turn bad enough that I went off-course (almost hitting a shovel of
all things) and had to back up to get going again (I also managed to hit a few
cones). Despite that miserable run I fought on and finished in 2nd place
less than four seconds from 1st with Susan right behind me in 3rd out
of 12 drivers (her highest finish of the season in our very competitive
class!). We took our sweet time packing up after the event and were the
last to leave. It was as we were pulling onto the highway that I noticed
the car’s clutch was slipping badly. The sky might have darkened and
maybe some lightning flashed overhead at the same moment I felt the car not
accelerate when I pushed down on the gas pedal, I guess I don’t really recall
clearly. I’m sure something foreboding occurred though. On the way
home we stopped at Applebee’s for dinner with the Miller’s (another racing
couple that live in our neighborhood). Good times indeed.
The next day we packed
up the Subaru with our small PA system, chairs, and umbrellas and headed for
Central Park for Pugs in the Park. As we did last year we provided the PA
system used for announcements and volunteered under the foster tent. We
got there early enough that we were able to help set up the multiple pop-up
tents and tables used at the event. After things were more-or-less in
order we convened under the foster tent. Volunteering at the foster tent
entails managing the young volunteer pug-walkers (a disappearing kid+pug last
year prompted Susan to make a sign out sheet which was mostly used) and answering
questions from prospective adopters and potential future foster parents.
All of the available foster pugs were in high demand and I think most had more
than one person applying for them by the end of the day.
Some of the other
activities at the event include a pug-licking contest, pug-racing, a hotdog
(hotpug?) eating contest, a pug-drop (a pug poops on a grid and people buy
“land rights” to the squares within; the person who owns the newly fertilized
spot wins actual money), and a pug-costume contest. There were also many
different vendors selling various wares, a food truck, and a frozen-ice truck
(a neighbor of ours). As we were primarily the only adults at the foster
tent we didn’t venture out much but did make a journey to see the vendors and
bought a couple of plots for the pug-drop (the poop-gods did not look favorably
upon our offering and someone else won the poo-prize).
It was very busy with
hundreds people attending and/or passing through (it was the best-attended in
years which may have had something to do with the fact that the event wasn’t on
the same day as a Broncos game which it has been in previous years).
After the event was officially over we helped pack up and went home to hang out
with our own pillage of pugs (not the correct term for multiple pugs but,
really, it should be).
Knowing the next race
was only three weeks away and that I’m a mediocre (at best) and untrained
mechanic I began the process of replacing the clutch on the rally car
the Tuesday after the event at CORE. I started by asking a
couple of fellow-racers who own auto shops how much they’d charge to do the
work. The first guy literally laughed at me and said our particular car’s
clutch was one of the worst to change out and he didn’t want to mess with it
(the official dealer-specified time to complete the job is almost 11
hours). The second guy gave me a quote but it was high enough that I
decided to tackle the project myself. No need to go into too much detail
but I did work on the car almost every weeknight and weekend day since and I
just finished up over two weeks later. It was indeed a painful experience
(both physically and mentally) but very much worth it. I learned a few
lessons throughout (like my long hair soaks up gear oil like a sponge) and know
and respect the car more than I did before. I also hope the clutch never
goes out again. Ever. 4/10, I might do it again.
Alvin and Kari bought
some property on Deer Creek Road and are going to build a house in the next
year (hopefully). They had a BBQ to show off their land on the last
Sunday of September to which several racers and old friends were invited.
We brought “Max Sticks” (cheese sticks wrapped in roast beef and, yes, I did
name them) and some salad. Everyone got a tour of their basic plans and
we hung out and talked with friends for hours. By the time we left there
was only one Max Stick remaining to which I was proud. We are very jealous proud
of Alvin and Kari on their purchase and future plans.
In other news the pugs
are doing alright. We’re pretty sure that Sophie is now completely blind
and we have to help her get from place to place. It’s sad but she’s a
trooper. Bella is crazy for ice cubes and Tweetie has done her best to
get in on the chilly treats (though she still seems confused when she does get
one, like she’s thinking, “what’s the big deal?”). Satchel has decided
she’s too good to use the training pads if any of the other pugs have made
prior “deposits” and, after several mistakes, we’re much more proactive in
putting new pads down for her (slowly but surely Satchel is training us to be
the perfect pug-parents). She’s almost completely deaf now but still gets
around alright, albeit with a limp. We also have a cat-faced orb weaver
spider that has been hanging out on our back porch light for the past month or
so. Susan has grown fond of him/her and sometimes leaves the light on to
help bugs get attracted to its web. Oh how people change.
Susan is extremely
busy with work right now and has been putting in overtime along with working at
home in the evenings and weekends. The timing has actually been pretty
good since her work getting hectic began around the time I started working on
the rally car’s clutch (it’s less of a bummer when both of us are busy).
Quarter-end just occurred last week so my busy time is ramping up at my
reporting job which is fine by me.
Susan knits from time
to time and I play my guitar from time to time. We are looking forward to
Barbara visiting us in early November (both for her company and the excellent
excuse it provides to clean the house). Susan’s grandmother Norita just
had her 91st birthday on September 28th and is
still going strong!
We hope this finds you
happy and healthy!
Max and Susan
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