March 3 weekend – Saturday morning started earlyish with
coffee. We had bought some Dunkin’
Donuts Columbian coffee a few weeks ago and found it to be to our liking. After waking up from our waking up we
assembled and used our new shop vacuum to clean between the cracks in the
garage floor (it looked so nice afterwards).
During the past week we’d come to the conclusion that we could afford
and would like to own an enclosed car trailer.
To help raise funds our old trailer would need to be sold so I pulled it
up to the house for an inspection. One
tail light housing was cracked (my bad) and I wanted to file down part of the
underside so we went to Lowes to acquire the necessary stuffs. Soon enough Susan was replacing the housing
and I was filing away. Overall the
trailer was in great shape so Susan took a bunch of pictures and I posted a for
sale ad on craigslist. I was initially
going to wait to see what the interest would be before also sharing the ad on
the rallycross facebook group but changed my mind. It was a good decision as after only 35
minutes a fellow-rallycrosser said he’d buy it.
Danny Reid ended up coming by around 2:00 for pickup and payment. He’s also redesigning the Colorado RallyCross
website and we talked shop for an hour or so too. Initially we were planning on traveling to
North Carolina to purchase a new enclosed trailer as the cost was much
lower. I’d even gone so far as to put a
deposit on one. After some searching
locally we found a better alternative.
Parker Trailers had one with virtually all the things we wanted and without
too much of a premium price. We stopped
by before Danny came by to check out the trailer and essentially agreed to
purchase it on Monday after we verify the evo fits inside (this is almost a
forgone thing but we need to see it happen).
Very exciting!
To celebrate Susan’s birthday with our friends we planned to
have dinner with several at Mt Fuji in Parker on Saturday evening. Several friends came out (Jeff, Dan Hipwood,
Drew, Liz, Sandra, Greg, Tristan, Ken, and Randy). Our crowd was running a little late but our
reserved table was ready when we needed it to be. It was a bit loud for conversation with those
more than a few seats away but the food was fantastic and our Hibachi-guy did a
good job spinning his implements around and flinging broccoli to our awaiting
mouths (I caught mine, Susan did not). Susan
and I shared a giant bottle of Yellow Tail wine and all was well. We all had a wonderful time there and only
wish it was a more intimate setting. We
invited everyone to our home afterwards and a few took us up on the offer. Drew, Liz, and Jeff came by to play Exploding
Kittens. We hadn’t played the game in a
long time and it took one overly-long round to figure out the particulars. We had an absolute blast and our guests
stayed late. We finally sat down on the
couch with a tired Bella to finish out the night. Twas a busy day.
Sunday started too early with the alarm going off at
8:00. Breakfast was at the (now regular)
Great Beginnings with Jeff. We didn’t
stay as long as our normal visits but had a nice time (a baby being loudly sad
behind us didn’t help). Jeff was to come
over to our house to work on his Miata while I finished a few projects on the
evo. My time was spent replacing the
throttle cable (this took far longer than it should have), the axle nuts, and
wrapping part of the downpipe with fiberglass cloth to protect part of the
intercooler piping. Jeff wanted to
replace some of the rear suspension bushings in his car. As I was busy Susan stepped up to help him. First he tried burning them out but settled
on a method to press the old bushings out and the new bushings in which worked
much better. As we had an important CORX
meeting scheduled for 5:00 I went inside to put together an agenda as Susan and
Jeff finished up what they could. Jeff’s
work was not done but he got a good start on his journey. Around 3:30 we left to catch a late lunch at
Qdoba on the way to drop Jeff off where his other vehicle was parked (we left
his Miata at our house). We arrived at
the meeting place just in the nick of time (there was a delay from a car
accident). I led the discussion and it
went well. There was almost too much to
cover and we were there over two and a half hours. It must have been Accident Day as we were
delayed by two more on the way home.
Bella was ecstatic to see us when we got home and did some hardcore
cuddling with us when we finally sat down on the couch. Susan turned on some old How It’s Made which
was fun to watch and filled the rest of our evening before bed. What a weekend!
March 9th weekend – This weekend really began for
me on Friday afternoon as I left early to pick up some evo o-rings and then
drove to Colorado Springs to renew the rallybus’ registration. I was under the evo earlier in the week and
found that there was a small leak where the transmission and transfer case
connect. The obvious answer to why this
would be occurring is one or both of the two o-rings there were leaking and
possibly damaged when I reinstalled the transfer case. Thus I called around and found one dealer in
Denver with the necessary o-rings.
Unfortunately it was a bit north of Denver but luckily the traffic
wasn’t too bad to and from as I then had to drive down to the Springs. Again, I was lucky with traffic and was able
to get to one of their DMVs before it closed and out with a new sticker for
Susan to stick on the bus’s plate and a registration card to place in the bus
itself.
Saturday we both slept in late. It wasn’t until past 10:00 before I rolled
out of bed and started our first cup of coffee.
Susan soon got up and made us our second cup (French Vanilla this
time). My plan was to replace the
o-rings in the evo during the day and I soon set myself to it. Bella hung out in the garage with me while
Susan worked on removing some of the stickers from our new trailer. She had some luck on a couple of them but the
cold weather had others breaking apart badly which hindered the process. Susan will try again on a warmer day to get
these stickers off. Soon the cool day
had Bella and Susan back in the house while I continued to while away on the
evo. It took me over four hours but
eventually I was finished and the car was back on the ground. As it was the second time I had removed the
front suspension in a couple of weeks we dropped the car off at Tires Plus for
an alignment and continued on to Walmart to do some grocery shopping. Surprisingly the alignment went quick and by
the time we had finished at Walmart and made a brief stop at Pet’s Mart the car
was just about ready for pickup. I have
to admit I didn’t approve of a tech taking the evo out for an alignment test
drive but I suppose it’s a normal procedure.
Once home Susan ordered Jimmy Johns for dinner which we ate while I
worked on a puzzle at the kitchen table.
Oh yeah, we started a puzzle some days earlier which was the first one
we’ve worked on since we moved. This one
is a toughie but fun. The remainder of
the evening was spent with Bella on the couch listening to music streamed from
our Amazon device.
Sunday we were to have an early breakfast with Jeff at our
usual spot. Unfortunately Jeff slept in
and Susan and I ended up eating with just ourselves for company. Yes, Daylight Savings went into effect early
in the morning but it’s a poor excuse for oversleeping when our smart phones
automatically adjust. Just sayin’. It was probably for the best as we didn’t
have a lot of time to spare before we had to leave for The Subie Doctor’s shop
to help prepare for the 2018 Colorado RallyCross Kickoff event. I drove the rallybus so Todd could give it a
onceover and Susan followed in the evo.
We brought our little PA system and the unclaimed trophies from the
prior season. We helped here and there
but generally most everything besides setting up chairs was complete. The event time was to be 1-3:00 but I didn’t
get started until 1:30 to allow for late arrivals. I was weirdly nervous (perhaps it’d been too
long since last season) but soon got into the groove of talking in front of a
crowd (there were around 50 people in attendance). The presentation went on for about an hour
though fortunately for those in the audience I had others speak on
occasion. After I had answered various
questions I gathered up all the folks who’d never rallycrossed before for a
private Q&A where we went over the most basic of things. I believe it was a positive experience for
all there. It certainly was for me as
public speaking gets easier each time I have the opportunity to talk in front
of larger groups of people. As most knew
each other conversations were rampant all around the shop. After everyone else left Susan and I stuck
around to help with some of the cleanup though our crowd is polite and it
mostly consisted of folding up and stacking chairs. After we were home Susan started preparing
dinner while I unloaded the PA from the evo.
We spent more time on the puzzle before sitting on the couch with Bella
to finish the weekend. I would say it
was a productive time.
March 16th weekend – My weekend truly started on
Wednesday when I stayed home sick. I had
a cough again (last one was back in January) and didn’t want to be sick for
almost a month again. On Thursday I went
to the doctor where I was diagnosed with bronchitis and prescribed
antibiotics. I stayed home again on
Friday as I was still contagious. I
didn’t do a whole lot during those days besides sleep and spray the driveway
with Ground Clear.
Saturday started early for me as I was feeling better and
wide awake before the sun was up. I
eventually bugged Susan out of bed a couple of hours later and made us
coffee. I asked Jeff if he could come
over and move his Toyota Landcruiser he had parked next to our house two weeks
ago and he asked if we could follow him home in it instead. No problem so he came by and I drove the cruiser. We stopped at Chipotle for a quick lunch on
the way and, besides getting split up, made it to his apartment building
without drama. Ok, there were a ton of
tall unavoidable speed bumps all around the complex but Tia only scraped
once. Once home Susan and I mixed up
some broadleaf weed killer and set about spraying the young bastards all around
over our yard. It is a goal of ours to
head-off the thistle disaster we experienced last year. For the most part we didn’t encounter many
thistle plants except on the leach field where they were plentiful. After some time of Susan leading me around
with a pointing stick while I carried the sprayer and sniped the offending
plants we were finished for now. We were
planning on driving up to Fort Collins to pick up some signs Jonathon Nagel
had. He works for the city and has
access to a possessed stockpile of illegally placed signage we wanted to
repurpose for the upcoming rallycross season.
We eventually made the long trek up there where we gabbed about this and
that before finally heading home with six signs advertising child
tutoring. Once home after over three
hours of driving we called it and spent the rest of the evening on the couch
attending to CORX stuffs. Susan made
chicken and I steamed some broccoli of which both came out scrumptious.
Sunday I was up early again and sat on the couch with Bella
until Susan got up and made us coffee.
Eventually we made our way to Lowes to pick up spray paint for the
signs. We found this to be a poor choice
of paint as it would have taken many cans of spray paint to cover the signs
adequately. Eventually Susan found a
small can of white paint and a brush and used them to cover the adverts
quickly. Bella hung out with us in the
garage for a time and cried a whole lot when we put her back inside the
house. I’ve been trying to get her to
come to me on her own lately and it has been hilarious watching her antics as
she grapples with indecision and apparent rage.
Though she rarely barks normally Bella finds her voice over and over
again when I ask her to come to me.
Eventually she relents and Susan has had much better luck (I think Bella
loves Susan more). Once Susan had
painted both sides we went inside and commenced doing various CORX stuff on our
computers again. This included website
changes, creating places on Google Maps, writing up promotional Facebook posts,
answering a lot of questions, and many other things I can’t remember now. Eventually hunger for dinner had us up and driving
down to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. It
was packed enough I parked in the adjacent Walmart parking lot but Susan had
called ahead and our wait time was only a handful of minutes long. I think it is a sad part of me that gloats a
bit at the scores of folks who watched us walk in the restaurant far after they
did and us get seated far ahead of them.
Such is human nature I suppose.
Our steaks were great and, considering the rush of patrons, the service
pretty quick. The plan was then to visit
the Walmart I’d parked in front of but once outside we found the sky was
pelting us with wet sleet. This shock
changed our minds and we went straight home instead. Before going in the house Susan took the time
to add a final coat of paint to the signs. Bella was so darn happy to see and hang with
us on the couch while we worked on yet more CORX stuff. With the next weekend set to be all things
rallycross we were both busy making sure we and everyone helping was
sufficiently ready. Before long the sky was
dumping large snowflakes to the extent we could barely see our neighbors. We even had the power go out for a moment
which we haven’t experienced in person yet at the new house. We figure we received around eight inches of
heavy wet snow accumulation.
March 23 weekend – This definitely began before Saturday for
us as we had to make checklists and prepare for the event-packed weekend. We had to coordinate with the other chiefs to
make sure the school and event would go off with the minimum of hitches and
make sure we had thought of seemingly everything. A person might say the days preceding the
weekend were stressful.
Saturday began around 5:00 in the AM. I made coffee and prepared our lunches while
Susan took a quick shower. There was a
little last minute packing before I hopped in the Rallybus and Susan in the RS
for our drive to Front Range Airport (FRA).
We were the first onsite around 6:40 and we immediately started setting
up the course. Susan helped me lay out a
figure eight and dropped cones while I drove the bus around. We also set up signs we painted to help our
drivers figure out where to go. It
wasn’t long until the first students showed up followed by more and more
students. Generally our schools host
around 20 students but for this one we ended up having 41 which was great but
also difficult to manage logistically. As
most of those in attendance were unsullied in the ways of RallyCross I held a
long and detailed drivers meeting going over the fine details of how things
would work. Kubo then led the students
on a guided course-walk and we had the students get to their cars for a parade
lap. We gave them two shots at the
course before gathering everyone together so I could split them up into three
groups to have at three features (I designed the course to be split into these
features). Because of the size of the
group we were running behind and only had time to rotate once before breaking
for lunch. After lunch they rotated one
more time so everyone had exposure to all features before having them all line
up to hang out while we furiously remade a course for them to practice on. I got to do my favorite thing and was the
starter for the students and instructors alike who were allowed to drive the
course while Susan tracked their times.
Usually we give the drivers a lot of chances around the practice course
but with so many people lined up (over 50 including instructors) they only got
three runs. I spent much of my day
walking from group to group talking to as many people as I could. I met a lot of interesting folks and hope
that I made them feel welcome to our sport.
After we were done cones were stacked and we packed up the bus a bit. We were allowed to leave the Rallybus
overnight and did so, driving the RS home.
While I think there were many things we could have done better,
especially to increase efficiency, I believe the school was a good experience
to all who attended to learn and for those who instructed. We were the last to leave FRA and got to lock
the gates on our way out. Several
drivers couldn’t figure out how to get to the site correctly (very important
since it is on an active airport) so we went to Home Depot to pick up some
blank signs which we then painted that evening.
Eventually we both showered and went to bed at a relatively decent
hour. Oh yeah, I neglected to put
sunblock on all day which resulted in my forearms and neck being a crispy
pink. Fortunately I wore a wide brim hat
during most of the day which spared my face from the ravages of the sun.
Sunday also began around 5:00 when the alarm went off. Once again we made coffee and packed up a few
things before hopping in the Suburban and heading off to FRA (we’d loaded up
the evo days ahead of time). Also again
we were the first ones on site and after helping put up the new signs I
immediately started setting up the day’s course. Many others arrived as I was doing my thing
and eventually registration, tech, and worker assignments were happening.
As there were so many people attending we changed the
schedule to having three run groups instead of our usual two which would mean
the time to be used more efficiently and hopefully allow for more runs. Eventually I held a drivers meeting which,
like the previous day, was more detailed than normal to account for the newer
drivers. Then it was drivers to their
cars and workers to their work assignments.
The first run group went fast and I let them have eight runs before cutting
them off. This was a mistake in optimism
as the next group of only modified drivers had various time-taking issues and I
had to shorten their time on the course to six runs. Three cars broke down while driving (one
broke twice) which caused delays and the course had to be changed quite a bit
(modified cars are harder on the course than any others). I felt bad but it was the way of things. Soon the third run group got their shot at
driving and they, thankfully, didn’t have many issues at all. The course was changed almost after each run
but the safety stewards had gotten in their groove and the changes were quickly
implemented. I also gave the third run
group six runs before calling the event at 4:00. Volunteers saved me a lot of time by picking
up cones around the course while I helped check in radios and loaded up other
equipment. The different schedule meant
it took quite a bit longer for results to be ready. Fortunately (or unfortunately for those who
were forced to listen) I had a lot to tell the drivers and spent many minutes
on the microphone announcing, joking, and generally being annoying while Susan
prepared the results. Clapping broke out
when Susan finally came out of the bus and I got to read the results. It was also incredibly windy (had been for
most of the afternoon) and people were ready to go home. For the first time in years we had sponsored
event trophies and which made the announcing that much more enjoyable for
everyone.
After this was over most everyone left and went home. Not so for a handful of us as Jeff’s car he
drove (Alvin’s car in truth) was running poorly and he asked if I would trailer
him home in our new enclosed trailer to avoid further damaging it. *sigh*
I agreed and much too much time was spent swapping street tires onto the
evo from his car. It turned out the old
and crappy lug nuts he used had swollen and the sockets had to be hammered on
to loosen them. This took entirely too
long and we were very ready to be on our way once done. Dan Hipwood drove the Rallybus to our house
while I followed in the tow rig and Susan trailed in the evo. Will MacDonald had stuck around to help in
this debacle which was much appreciated.
It was around 30 miles into the drive that I realized I’d forgotten to
lock the gate to the site. This was a
huge bummer and potentially a major issue as this was a requirement of
ours. Thus I turned around and went back
while Susan drove on home. The icing on
the cake was a train blocked us in as soon as we arrived at the unlocked gate
which we had to wait to pass before once again heading home. It wasn’t until almost 9:00 that I dropped
off Jeff and the half-broken car at Alvin’s house before finally driving
home. I was still a bit amped up and we
didn’t get to bed until midnight. Susan
smartly took off the next day from work while I slept in some before dragging
myself to the office. This was the most
action-packed weekend we’ve had in months.
March 31 weekend – Saturday began early (if you ask Susan)
at around 8:00 when I roused Susan from bed for coffee. After doing our thang and getting dressed we
ran the RS up to The Subie Doctor to drop it off for some needed work. On the way back Susan suggested we find
something else to do since we seem to just run errands when we go out on the
weekends. Thus we had a late breakfast
at Denny’s which was surprisingly yummy over by Simms and 6th
Avenue. We then drove over to gaze at
our old condo and went to Mills Mall to walk around on the pretense that I
wanted to buy shoes at the Sketchers outlet store. The mall was largely devoid of people and
stores as it is still recovering from a massively damaging hail storm last
summer. As I should have expected the
Sketchers outlet store was one of the closed stores. We decided to walk the circumference of the
joint anyways and stopped in Off Broadway Shoes for a few minutes to look at
what they had. We left empty handed and
finished our walk before hopping back in Scrappy. Yeah, we were driving around in the Miata
with the top down all day which was fun in itself though, at the end of the
day, I did have a bit of a sunburn (worth it).
We dropped by Walmart for some stuffs before swinging by the Dawn rental
house to make sure it was still standing.
It was although it was clear the tenants didn’t mind having weeds and
grass growing amongst the xeriscaping. Ugh. On the final leg of our adventure we again
went to Walmart (a different location at least) to buy food stuffs for the next
week. After unloading all the stuffs we
spent some time spraying the thistles around the yard. Those little bastards are still popping up
and I take some pleasure in spraying them with liquid death. We then hung out on the couch with Bella for
a few minutes before heading off again, this time to play poker at the
Tiedemen’s house. We were close to the
start time which allowed a couple of hours of chatting before the game started. Seven hopeful poker players began and only
one finished with all the chips several hours later. Susan came in second and took home $10 which
helped take some of the sting of me being the first to go out. Blackjack Pizza was provided and we both
indulged heavily. We brought an apple
and caramel appetizer which was absolutely annihilated. We finally got home after 11:00 to a relieved
Bella who was so happy to see us.
The only plans we had for Sunday consisted of a CORX meeting
at 5:00 to go over the last event and plan for the next one in two weeks. Even though we could have slept in quite a
bit we were both up around 9:00 and Susan made us yummy coffee. The meeting was ultimately rescheduled and we
did our best to be lazy for the entirety of the day. Sometimes a lazy Sunday is just what is needed
to end the week.
That wraps up March 2018!
A lot of our spare time was spent getting ready for the first event of
the rallycross season. We finally got
some snow accumulation which will hopefully keep our state out of a
drought. Bella has been both a pill and
a cutie-pie (so basically she’s been a pug).
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