April 7 weekend – On Saturday we were up earlyish and I made us coffee. As we were concerned mud might be present for the upcoming rallycross we made a quick trip to Lowes to buy a tarp which we laid down in the enclosed trailer. I pulled the evo in the garage to swap out the wheels while Susan removed the Maxxis stickers we originally put on way back in late October for nationals. As Maxxis is no longer a tire sponsor there is no reason to represent them on our car via stickers. The stickers came off surprisingly well and Susan only had to aggressively use 3M adhesive remover on one of the four. I also checked the skid guard for drips from the engine and transmission and I thankfully found none. Once done with the rally prep (Susan also had to air up the tires a lot) we loaded and strapped the evo in the enclosed trailer. The day was a’movin’ on and we were hungry so swung by Texas Roadhouse for a late lunch around 2:00. Our steaks were tasty and it was nice to be there between rushes as they seem to be generally slammed when go (we’re part of the problem!). We hung out at home for a bit and then made a trek down to USTDS to take a very brief look at the site conditions. Last year most of the site was unusable due to erosion but it was clear the owners put in some time leveling things out which was great to see. On the way back through Colorado Springs we stopped by a restaurant to purchase a used center differential for Pitt (this was the actual purpose of the trip). As is the way of things it began raining at about the time I had to get out of my car to meet the guy. Our drive home was uneventful and Bella was ecstatic to see Susan and eat a late dinner. We spent the remainder of the night hanging with Bella on the couch.
Sunday we were genuinely up early at around 7:00. After a couple of quick showers and coffee we drove up to Valerie’s office for a 9:00 CORX chief meeting. We discussed the first event and changes to make for the next one. It generally went well as expected (it helps we’re all basically friends too) and we were finally on our way home around noon. We agreed we were hungry and made a stop at Qdoba for a windy lunch. After changing into our cool new CORX t-shirts we ventured out again, this time to the Lincoln light rail station. We were off to the convention center to help rep the rallycross brand at the Denver auto show. This was our third such repping (we attended Wednesday and Friday evening as well). As before we hung out by a rallycross car provided by a fellow racer Bret Hunter and proclaimed the good word to whoever came within range. I was apprehensive about volunteering but Susan and I both found the experience fun (hence coming out three times). We worked the crowds from around 3:00 until the show was over at 6:00 and talked to lots of cool folks. We saw an old compadre from back in our CONOC days David Muramoto and it was fun to reminisce a bit. We met a handful of Colorado Region peeps (we’re in the Continental Divide Region) which was ok. We ended up staying long enough to see the cars beginning to be driven out which was also cool. We once again hopped on the light rail back to our stop and the trip was uneventful. Feeling essentially starved I drove us to Walmart to pick up yummy rotisserie for dinner. A sleepy Bella finally noticed us from the back of the couch and, because she’s a good pug, we fed her dinner before settling on the couch ourselves for the evening. As is generally the case it was another great weekend.
April 14 weekend – Saturday started brutally early around 4:30. While we were mostly prepared for the day there were a handful of things to do. A fellow rallycrosser Josh was to drive the rally bus to the site and arrived at our house ready to load up his Chevy Sonic onto the car dolly (procured specifically for this reason). I had screwed together some wood for ramps based on earlier experiments and it only took a few minutes to have the car securely secured to the dolly. We then all slowly left to drive to FRA with me driving our tow rig and Josh piloting the rally bus. Our caravanning ways went alright except that we had to make detours because I70 was closed for the last few miles before the exit we needed to take (something about whiteout conditions on the eastern plains). This closure affected everyone who was to race that day and I was extremely worried many wouldn’t make the journey because of the inconvenience.
We arrived at the site a few minutes before 7:00 and set about setting up for the day. After dropping cones with Eric Adams in a rough approximation of a course I spent my time putting them upright while Susan set up equipment at the rally bus. The next hour or so was a blur getting everything ready before the drivers meeting. I tried to keep my comments short for the sake of those forced to listen to my ramblings before directing the drivers to their cars or worker assignments. It turned out that my worries about attendance were unnecessary as most everyone who registered also made the trek.
The first car off was at roughly 9:40 which might be some kind of record for us. We drove in the first run group and found the course to be extremely enjoyable. I took a couple of videos with our Garmin camera attached to the evo’s roof before finally putting the thing aside. Besides the expected course changes we drove almost continuously, getting five runs before switching up for the second run group. I called lunch at around 12:30 which gave time for the course to be changed and folks to eat in their cars. It was incredibly windy and cool out so I couldn’t blame people for not socializing more (Susan and I sat in the rally bus to eat ourselves).
The afternoon course was a revised and reversed version of the morning course. Again it was super-duper fun though we “only” had four more runs before switching over to the second run group. The feedback from competitors was positive and I believe the event went off better than the first one. Not a great surprise considering we’d learned some lessons from the first event and had far fewer folks attend this race. In the end 58 drivers made it out which is right around the sweet spot when it comes to attendance. Susan and I were the last to leave after awarding event trophies. I remembered to lock the gate this time.
We stopped for food on the way home. Susan wanted a burger but the parking lot in front of the Five Guys we went to was too busy for the tow rig so I parked across a busy road in a bank’s parking lot. We dutifully waited for our turn to cross the street and were promptly almost run down by someone wanting to turn right. Good times. We survived the rest of the journey and found the food worth the experience. The walk back was less scary which came as a relief. Once home and showered we vegged on the couch with Bella for the rest of the evening.
Sunday began both early and late. Because I’m me I woke early and couldn’t get back to sleep. I fed Bella breakfast and then plopped onto the couch where I fell into a stupor of sleepiness where I slept off and on until 11:00 when Susan got up. Fortunately for me Bella decided to stay on the couch with me the whole time. Eventually we performed our weekend coffee ritual and I worked on the results file from the day before. I had bought us 3:30 movie tickets to A Quiet Place at the Alamo Drafthouse earlier so we mostly just hung out until it was time to leave.
As is our way we purchased a glass of wine before wandering to our theater and Susan noticed a crowd of deaf folks signing to each other in the lobby. Turned out they were there to see the same movie as us which was kinda cool and made sense as it was a very quiet movie with few audible cues. We enjoyed the flick and our popcorn, food, and bottle of wine. We figure these infrequent movie-trips we take constitute dates in the traditional sense.
On the way home we stopped at Walmart for food stuffs. While we were putting away said stuffs Susan saw a baby rabbit in the corner of where the house and garage meet. When it saw Susan it bolted…straight into a small hole under the siding of the garage. We’re pretty sure this is the bunny we had shoed out of the garage a few days before. Eventually I was cutting holes in the wall of the garage to try and prod the little fella out. This didn’t work as there appeared to be a network of places in the walls where critters could reside. Great! We’re not sure what we’re going to do at this point. Susan patched the garage wall holes with cardboard for now and laid mouse traps by the entrance to the hole under the siding. She checked the traps later in the evening and found a mouse had been snagged on one but none of the others appeared to have moved (the next morning she found another caught mouse). Once done with this madness we hunkered down on the couch with Bella for the remainder of the evening/weekend.
April 21 weekend – Saturday started slowly with us sleeping in. Well, I was up at 8:00 but Susan wasn’t feeling it and stayed in bed until noon. No harm as I spent my time with Bella playing video games on the couch. When Susan meandered out of the bedroom she wrangled up some coffee which we enjoyed together. Eventually Susan made a quick trip to pick up a card and we showered and dressed to go to our friends Dan and Alicia’s wedding in Ken Caryl. It was held at The Manor House which is an old mansion built in 1914. As per our normal we arrived early. As Dan and Alicia are racing buddies there were many rallycrossers and other various amateur auto enthusiasts in attendance. Before the ceremony we spent our time chatting and checking out the house which was pretty cool though parts were closed off from viewing.
The ceremony itself was a lovely affair with the groomsman all in grey suits and pink shirts. Zeus, Alicia’s ginormous Burmese Mountain Dog, made an appearance down the aisle and wandered about as the ceremony proceeded as was his way. There was a young girl who was having a vocally dreadful time and the wood floors and other various hard surfaces echoed her cries quite audibly despite the distance her mother had taken her away from the room to the other side of the building. Of course the wedding ceremony was delightful with another friend Diego officiating. There were many racing puns throughout (it was a theme) and lots of smiles and laughter. Their vows were sweet and happy tears were shed. After the couple and wedding party made their way back down the aisle the crowd made its way to the open bar for beverages and conversation while the room was reconfigured for dinner.
It took some time but eventually we all funneled back to the great room and to our assigned seating. Susan and I got to sit with folks we mostly knew and pleasant conversations abounded. Dinner was tasty as was the eventual tiny slice of cake. The traditional cake cutting, dances, and whatnot occurred which we witnessed as was our duty. It seemed a blink of an eye and it was 11:00 and we were ready to go. It was a fantastic wedding we were happy to attend. Dan and Alicia are a great couple and we wish the best for them.
We would have liked to sleep in longer after the previous late night but were up with an alarm at 9:00 the next morning. After coffee we went to Walmart for some quick groceries and then set about cleaning up the house a bit. When I was finished with my tasks I prepared chicken and salad for lunch. Kari arrived at noonish with her new doggie, Piper, and we chatted while waiting for the chicken to finish up in the oven. The food was its standard yummy and I was happy to see we a lot of leftovers remaining. Once the dishes were cleared we taped down constructor paper and set up our easels for an afternoon of painting.
Susan had found some paintings online from painting class websites and we decided to try our brushes at two of them. Normally when we paint there are lulls where we are waiting for various stages of the painting to dry before moving on. This time we would set aside one painting and work on the other when drying was needed. It made for a good time as we were constantly painting almost all afternoon. The first painting was a multicolored dandelion and the second a lotus flower floating in water under hanging vines. Both were a lot of fun though I think we liked the lotus flower painting more as it was more complex. Time slipped by and Susan ordered Jimmy Johns for dinner around 6:00 as we were still going at the paintings. Soon after we were finished and the results were great. Coincidentally it was exactly a year since the last time we painted together up in Conifer (Facebook reminded us). We’re hoping to paint more as it has always been a good time. Piper was mostly good but managed to pee on our floor a few times. Such is the life of a new dog and we weren’t upset in the least.
After Kari left and we were alone we plopped ourselves on the couch with a tired Bella. She had spent most of the day alternating smelling Piper’s tush and sleeping on a bed we put next to the kitchen table. Susan watched various TV shows and I played my games for the remainder of the evening before we headed to bed. Another great weekend! It might also be noted that Sunday was the first day of 2018 where I flipped the thermostat to “cool” as the temperature was creeping up over 70 during the day. While I set it back to “warm” by the evening it is a sign of the nice weather to come.
April 27 weekend – This weekend began for me on Friday as I took the day off to run errands. After getting out of bed around the time Susan did for work I went to the DMV to pay sales tax on the enclosed trailer and take care of registration for the evo, Tia, and the RS (we tend to buy most of our cars in the spring). It was a packed house when I arrived but somehow I was only there for around 45 minutes though it felt longer. Afterwards I drove to Littleton Pull & Pay to find some parts for Pitt. Amazingly the first Impreza I came upon the needed parts. Me being me I did check some other cars to make sure I had exactly what was needed. Junk yards are the best when one finds what one is looking for. I then made a quick stop at the madhouse which is Costco on a Friday (seriously, do all of their customers take every Friday off to go there?) before finally heading home. I drove Pitt into the garage and proceeded to install the junk yard parts and then change the car’s oil. I then pulled the three lightbulbs from the overhead fixture in my room as they apparently were all burned out. I made a quick jaunt to Lowes for replacements but found that the issue was with the fixture itself as the new bulbs still didn’t work. Susan came home around this point and we ventured to Lowes again for a new fixture and some storage bins. We settled on an inoffensive LED-driven light and had it installed with little hassle after we got home. As I had already been busy all day and Susan was tired from her day at work we called off any further productive efforts. We ordered Jimmy Johns for dinner which was ultra-yummy and spent the rest of the evening with Bella on the couch.
Saturday began earlyish around 7:30 as we got up to drink coffee before going to breakfast with Jeff at 9:00. We had decided we prefer our own coffee over what Great Beginnings offers enough to pre-game our caffeine. When we pulled into the lot we were surprised to see Jeff walking to the restaurant. I did a double take at the car’s dash clock as we were five minutes early. A punctual Jeff is not the Jeff we know. We found the eatery to be pleasantly not too busy and Jeff had already procured us a table when we went in. The food was yummy and we jawed about this and that for a time. Often it seems these breakfasts are the beginning of a day of hanging out but this time we parted ways as Susan and I had our own plans for the day.
With my mother coming to visit next weekend we had a lot to do around the house to get ready. My spare room is the guest room and thus I needed to make it presentable. The first order of business was to remount my guitars on the wall. After one of my 2x4 boards three of my guitars were mounted on ripped itself free of the wall and said guitars tumbled to the floor some months ago I had taken down all guitars from the wall and just leaned them here and there. As I own three electrics, two acoustics, a ukulele, and a bass that makes for a lot of leaning things. It was clear the anchors I used last time were not up to the task so some time ago I had bought some alligator clip style anchors. Unfortunately I found the screws to be too short to work with the current setup and took a trip to Lowes to see if there was something else that might. I came away with some beefy 100lb anchors that I felt confident would do the trick. Not so! These screws were also too short so I decided to forgo the 2x4s and use 1x4s instead. Before actually making any alterations I came to my senses and simply attached the individual mounts directly to wall using the anchors. This simultaneously made the existing screws work and also allowed me to put the dang mounts wherever I wanted them to be. After spending far too long figuring this all out I had all the guitars back up on the wall and off the floor (sans the bass which will reside in the closet where it belongs). While I was doing all this Susan was working on getting her room in order and doing other fun tasks such as cleaning the faucet strainers from the bathroom sinks. I spent the next few hours organizing and making a large pile of donation stuff in the living room. At some point Susan made chicken for dinner and we called it quits for the day.
Sunday morning started later as Susan slept in a bit while I was unproductive playing video games on the couch. Eventually coffee was brewed and we started up again. I decided to be cutthroat in my closet and boxed up a bunch of 350Z stuff I’d been holding onto for a long time. I also helped Susan in her room as we went through this and that. Before too long we the pile of donation stuff was large enough we needed to do something about it. We loaded as much as we could in Pitt and made a trip to Goodwill to drop it off. Afterwards we hit Walmart quick before cruising home again. I decided to mow the lower 40 for the first time in 2018 while Susan did several chores around the house. I found there really wasn’t much to mow just yet but it felt good to be down there fighting the good fight. I cooked us up a dinner of chicken with salad on the side which came out well. We found a lot of various towels and blankets we had bagged up before moving that we wanted to keep and proceeded to do something like five or six loads of laundry which continued into the night. Around 6:00 we called a halt to being productive (besides folding the laundry as it finished) and hung on the couch with Bella for the remainder of the evening. Bella was such a wonderful little companion all weekend. She just wanted to be in whatever room Susan was in and would proceed to find a comfortable place to lay down and sleep. So cute!
April was a busy month. Between racing, racing activities, and our other weekend pursuits it seemed the month passed in a blur. Bella has been a sweetheart as always. She was scooting her rump on the floor quite a bit so Susan took her to the vet. Turns out there were no issues and the vet thought it was an allergy thing. Unfortunately the medicine seems to have caused Bella irritation to her eyes and ears so that experiment ended quickly. We’re not seeing if the apparent side effects pass soon. We haven’t seen much activity around the hole in the garage so are planning on patching it up soonish. We are sooo looking forward to my mom visiting in early May!
