Most of September 2016

-Labor Day weekend – busyish weekend.  We drove up to our tuner on Saturday and he tested the MAP sensor he installed and plugged in an errant hose to fix a check engine code.  Unfortunately the code came back on the way home.  Susan met with the pug rescue on Sunday.  We went up to Alvin and Kari’s property for an impromptu BBQ with family and friends.  It was a nice time. 

-September 8 – After work I was working on installing a new power steering pump on the WRX (the old one had seized the day before and destroyed the accessory belt attached to it) when Susan came out with her phone to her ear.  Our friend Jeff was broken down on the side of E470 and needed a tow home.  Instead of going out there with our car trailer I called AAA and met them at Jeff’s car (I just need to be there for them to cover the tow).  It made for a late night. 

-September 9-11 weekend – Susan and I went to the Alamo Drafthouse on Friday night to watch Sausage Party.  We were entertained.  Saturday had us driving out to CORE early to check out new changes to the paddock and grid area.  Clyde (one of the guys who manages the land) had cleared a new area for us which will yield less traffic across the main access road.  We thought it pretty neat and left soon after verifying it would work for us.  There was a hill climb event going on all day and we left just before they closed the entrance for safety.  Once we got back to town we had breakfast at Village Inn before hitting Costco on the way home.  The WRX was making a funky sound from the front of the engine which I figured out was because two bolts holding the timing belt tensioner had worked themselves out.  This is a bad thing and could lead to other bad things.  We went to our local junk yard to see if we could find replacement bolts but ended up finding suitable front seats instead.  The seats in the WRX were replaced with seats without side airbags and had been causing an airbag light to illuminate the dash since we bought the car.  It was a lucky break to find the seats as they were in decent shape and cheap.  Sunday was almost a lazy Sunday but I decided to catch up on evo stuff (oil change, rear diff fluid change, side skirt fix, replace vacuum line) and replace the Suburban springs with taller springs (hopefully there will be less sag when we tow going forward).  It ended up being a pretty productive weekend. 

-September 13 – Goo Goo Dolls concert at Red Rocks.  We got off work a little early to show up when the gates opened and get decent parking.  Since we were actually running early we stopped at Noodles on the way there.  After parking we tailgated for an hour drinking wine out of water bottles.

Susan saw a fellow Goo Goo Doll fanatic she recognized from other shows and she took a couple of pictures of us.

While we waiting for the show to start (it was running around an hour late) we got nachos.  I brought ear plugs we used for the first two bands (I kept mine in the whole time).  We could still hear most everything but they helped our ears not be so abused by the end of the night.  The first two bands were alright.  I don’t remember the opener but the second was Collective Soul and there were more than a couple of songs we recognized.  The Goo Goo Dolls put on a good show with a cool lighting setup and a lot of old and new songs (we both thought these sounded much better live than in the newest albums).  Susan had forgotten to bring black balloons (a Goo thing) to which she was a little sad.  I told her maybe her fandom had waned somewhat.  She was not amused.  For the encore we descended to the second row as people were beginning to leave (we did have good seats on the ninth row).  We weren’t alone as some random lady held onto my jacket while I held Susan’s hand saying she was just following us.  We had brought ponchos with us as the forecast predicted a high chance of rain which started to materialize during the final song (fate perhaps?).  To me it was one of the better Goo Goo Doll experiences I’ve had and a nice way to spend a Tuesday night. 

-September 17 – rallycross at CORE.  We brought Sophie along with us to CORE.  She had gotten sick earlier in the week and we didn’t want to leave her at home in case she had an accident in her kennel (for the third time…).  Sophie did very well and got to sit in the timing bus with Susan and then the other timing workers while we raced.  We parked in the new paddock area and found that it worked well for the event’s needs (I’d posted the info about the new area earlier in the week).  The person who was to set up the course was running late due to traffic so I volunteered myself to design the course (my first).  This entailed my driving the timing bus around the land while another guy (Ken) dropped cones from the back, then me walking around placing the cones just so, and, finally, a couple of more experienced racers making the course better.  I enjoyed how it turned out and heard that more than a few others did too.  Maybe I’ll do more designing going forward.  Our car ran well though the check engine light flickered on and off at various times during the day.  Susan and I had another great day with me snagging first and Susan third (she would have been in second if she didn’t hit cones) out of 17 drivers.  We had a better turnout than the previous few events (47 drivers) and everything ran smoother as a result.  The event was a blast to help run and participate in.  As per usual Susan and I were the last to leave the site after it was over.  We stopped at Five Guys for food on the way home since they had outdoor seating.  We didn’t read the fine print on the menu (it was our first time there) and wound up both getting double burgers much to Susan’s chagrin.  We both happily stuffed ourselves and may make it a habit to stop there on our way back from CORE events in the future.

 

-September 18 – Pugs in the Park.  It was hard getting up Sunday morning to pack up the car for Pugs in the Park as we were still tired from the day before.  Nonetheless we loaded up the PA equipment and various other things (including Sophie) and headed to City Park.  While I set up the PA Susan conferred with other volunteers and helped put up the various Easy Ups used for the foster area where we always are stationed.  While there were only a few adoptable pugs on site there was a lot of interest from the many persons who came to check them out.  There were so many cute pugs all about.  The vendors were mostly the same as they’d been in the past and we bought some dog treats and a bandana with a water-absorbing gelatin inside that is used to cool off animals/people when tied about the neck (Sophie got to wear it most of the day although Susan also bought it for herself to use at hot rallycross events).  Our neighbor’s Kona Ice trailer was there as was a former fellow-rallycrosser’s food truck.  There was a Broncos game that started towards the end of the event and most people left, presumably, to watch the game.  We packed up and left afterwards and went home satisfied this year’s Pugs in the Park was a success. 

-September 19 – dropped of the beleaguered WRX, took Tweetie to the vet, had dinner and drinks downtown with an old friend.  I had tried to install new bolts in the WRX to fix the loose timing belt tensioner bracket but couldn’t get them started.  I was worried about messing up something major and undoing all of the previous engine work so contacted a fellow racer to do see if he could help.  Mark Smith has a shop close to the Denver Coliseum and agreed to fix the bolts.  We loaded up the WRX on the car trailer after we got from Pugs in the Park the previous day and I dropped it off at his shop on Monday (I took the day off to recover from the busy weekend).  It ended up that the two bolts didn’t work themselves out but had instead broken leaving remnants behind (this is why I couldn’t install the new bolts).  Mark pulled out the old bolts, reinstalled new bolts, and ended up installing a new axle seal too.  We were extremely lucky the timing belt didn’t jump a tooth or two which would have led to the engine possibly destroying itself.  It wasn’t cheap to fix but I believe completely worth it.  Tweetie had started producing similar signs to Sophie and I took her to the vet to see if she had the same stomach bug.  It turned out she did and got to get her own set of pills to take along with some to help her, evidently, collapsing trachea.  Monday evening had Susan and myself driving downtown to meet our old high school friend Nicolas Vansteenhoven for dinner and drinks at a small Mexican restaurant/bar.  Way back in high school I had joined his band where he was the drummer and we became friends.  We have barely seen him over the years as he pursued his musical ambitions.  His virtual anonymity in the music industry makes the case that he didn’t “make it” but he still is putting in the effort.  As he told us, he recently made some positive changes in his life and attitude and was hoping to rekindle old friendships and be more sociable overall.  As I’ve reached out to him several times over the years I was glad to see him again.  We had a nice time chatting about what we’ve been up to over the years.  He’s been reading self-help books recently which made the conversations interesting and him, I think, unusually prying.  I’m not complaining but it was fun to parse out where he was going with things.  He’s still a talented and nice guy and hopefully we’ll see him again soon.  Monday was a busy day. 

-September 24 – Got up earlyish to drop off the evo for an alignment.  Then we took Tia to an auto body shop to get on their calendar for repairs.  It’ll be about a month before they can fix the Miata but we’re ok waiting.  The check from the insurance company should be in the mail.  We picked up the WRX as we had shopping to do and went back out.  We had lunch in the Southwest Plaza Mall and walked around before heading off to get the evo.  It felt like a long day but it was only early afternoon so we did some prep work for the upcoming national rallycross event.  Susan had washed the evo on the way back from getting the alignment and proceeded to stick on number and class decals.  Unfortunately, the decals were a half inch too tall and she resorted to trimming the bottoms off them.  This was a perilous thing but she did a remarkable job and the final result is really cool and stylized.

I worked on replacing the lower front lip on the evo with newer garage door liner (I had replaced the original bumper lip as it would have broken off racing).  Jeff came over for dinner and to hang out in the evening and we had fun chatting about this and that and drinking our win. 

-September 25 – We went to breakfast at a breakfast place called The Toast in the morning.  It’s at Littleton Parkway/Bowles and Santa Fe.  It is a small café and was pretty busy.  We were lucky to find a parking spot and get a table right away.  The food was great and afterwards we walked up and down downtown Littleton, poking in a couple of the interesting shops.  Before we went home we stopped in a winery for a tasting.  The lady who served us was astute in her small talking skills and we had a nice time (even bought a bottle of their wine).  After we got home we pulled the Suburban up in front of the house and organized and repacked the various racing gear in it.  Later I brought the evo to Alvin’s house so he could raise the rev limiter to 8,000 from 7,600 to get a little more speed out of first gear.  We gained a whole one MPH but we’ll take what we can get.