Speeking of M3's...

I think it's great that friends of mine also keep a tally of M3's on trips. And seeings how I was just recently talking about them as well... check out this pic. Isnt this crazy, I've never seen more than one wheel off the ground at an auto-x before, in person or other wise. Nuts.

Look guy, I dont care, take the points - can I go yet?

After a great day out on the track I had a run in with the SCCA rule book this Sunday. What happened kinda sucked and to tell the truth it put a shitty end to what would have otherwise been a great day.

I went to the event along with Leif as part of a Pan-Am regional auto-x Volkswagen invasion. When we arrived I had no idea what class the Corrado was supposed to be in and the helpful gentleman at the registration desk suggested I run in DSP based on the modifications to my car. There were two other Corrados there and they both ran STS because they decidedly had far less modification. Cool – I thought.

With out pushing the car hard at all I consistently ran in the 71 second range. This right in-between the other two Corrados, one with a fast time in the low 69’s and the other that came in around 74. I felt really good about the runs I took because it had been such a long time since I’d raced, best of all they were all clean, no cones. Further more with the only other car running DSP a good 9 seconds slower I was on the top of the world.

Turns out the other guy, a Mr. David Thomson, in DSP who drove a white 2002 Pontiac Grand Am GT had been quite upset that my time was so much faster than his. Also the added suspicion that there were two other Corrados running in another class gave rise to him protesting my participation in DSP. Nevermind the fact that DSP allows for more modifications that STS and one of the Corrados ran a faster time tham me. His complaints fell of deaf ears as far as I can tell until he really started crying – he pointed out that because I had removed my back seat I was not allowed to run DSP.

I let him have the little first place trophy because franky I didn’t care and I wanted to go eat. I thought that was the end of it. Turns out he also wanted my first place DSP points. 30 minutes of gripping latter (negating the fact that the back seat probably only weighs 20lbs – this was a principle thing damnit) about how he’d tried so hard to win the points race last year I agreed to let him have the points.

I got to looking at the results from last year and found the guy only participated in one event and he’d only received 7 points for the entire season. For this single event Mr. Thomas finished 3.4 seconds behind the only other competitor in DSP (a gentleman in a Fiat X19) and had the 3rd slowest time of the day (Putting him in front of an 86 Corolla and a Go Kart).

Speed Monitored by Aircraft

I’d like to know more about VASCAR and speed enforcement by aircraft. As far as knew it was out dated 1970’s technology and all those sighs on I-25 that read: “Speed Monitored by Aircraft” were just a bunch of malarkey left over from the first time they paved the high way.

I became interested in the current legality of this technique of measuring speed after environmental activist and Fiancé, Chelsie Rollins received a speeding ticket near the boarder patrol check point just north of Las Cruces. The officer that issued the ticket told her that her speed was taken from an aircraft equipped with VASCAR.

If you Google search VASCAR one of the results is a manufactures website designed to promote the technology and sell it to police departments. The site claims that: “Police like it because it makes no use of electromagnetic radio waves and radar detectors offer no defense against it.” As I read further in the article I took a double take. Pictured in the article as an example of a speeder being caught by the VASCAR system is a black Corrado! Seriously, see for your self below – I’ve right-click-save-as-blogger-uploadded the pic.

Watch Out Smrt, It's Raining Booze!

Richard gives me some free image hosting every now and then. I told him I'd pay him back with hot bitches that suddenly fell out of the sky and into his lap and expensive booze that rained from the sky and fell into his mouth.

He says that although those things might upset him at first, he’d eventually realize it’s for his own good. Here's the photo shop I did:

Whoa M

This morning on my way to school I saw 3 M3's (whoa right?) a red one turning into the hospital, a silver one going the opposite way on road runner, and a white one parked on the street on foot hills. If that wasnt enough, when I go to university... A BRAND NEW SILVER M5!

edit: on top of that this afternoon I saw a silver M3 convertable.

iPod No Worky

As far as I can tell there is a story behind this, so here goes:

To the best of my knowledge, Miles (Leif's friend) gave Leif his old iPod. The reason why he gave Leif his iPod is because "it doesnt stay on and my parents are getting me a new one." Leif never being the one to turn down free stuff, broken or otherwise brought it home.

To my surprise, today when I got home from school it was sitting on my desk. I'm assuming this means that the problem was to technical and/or envolves using a computer, typically Leif avoids computer problems that arent resolved by the reset button. As far as I tell at this point the battery is dead and the thing is calling for a good recharge from a wall outlet.

How do I know this? Ans: when I plug it into a (powered) USB port it displays an icon showing a two-prong plug and a wall outlet. I'm going to try to obtain one of these power adaptors before I take any more of my time on this.

VW Cup Corrado

This picture is sick! It's a VW Cup Corrado. look at the rolled fenders and how perfectly the 18x8.5" rims tuck. Also the spoiler has been hyper extended (kinda neat).

I used to have this one website…

I used to host a personal webpage on my laptop called “The Soggy Crouton.” It was used as outlet for all of the free time I had circa January 2004. I was pretty proud of the layout and some of the content was decent, but most of it was crap. The name “Soggy Crouton” was a derivation of a song by Beck, where in the lyrics go something like: “Rockin’ the town like a moldy crouton!”

It was a pretty ridiculous idea to try to host a website from a small Apple iBook and as the site began to see more traffic it became impossible for me to do anything on my computer while the site took hits. It’s been off line for ~2 years now.

Most of the imagery on the homepage was inspired by the artwork of Sam Brown and his works found at http://www.explodingdog.com. I created it in Photoshop using the basic methods described on Sam's awesome webpage. Paul Carpenter was the first to introduce me to the exploding dog site. So with out further ado the following are a few of the front pages I had on the homepage/welcome front page.


The standard soggy ctouton home page.

As requested by Nate, The Violent Crouton.

The Croutons... shameless Simpsons Rip-off.

The crunchy Bacon Bits... the Anti-Soggy Crouton.

Our hero on a bed of fresh greens, smothered in a delicate red wine vinaigrette.

More Old Artwork

Like I was saying about going though all my all art work the other day I also found these two drawings. Both are pencil on paper and drawn with in a few weeks of each other during my first semester at NMSU. I like the way they turned out.
"Pillow Talk" R. Rotsaert, 2004
"Nude from Behind" R. Rotsaert, 2004

I'm going to try to scan in a few more for archival purposes and when I do I'll post them up to.

Thermocouple Research Op!

In my profile I state that I’m a college student in serious need of a good part time job. Well guess what everyone, I’ve finally got one! I’m working as a research assistant for Dr. Donaldson at NMSU. I’m to help design and conduct experiments to better understand the effects of thermocouple drift.

I stole this from here, and thought I’d post it up as it seems worded perfectly.

All thermocouples are subject to calibration drift with use, it is just a matter of how much, and how fast this may happen. Thermocouple performance is critically dependent upon absolute uniformity of both physical and chemical properties along the entire length of the wires in the circuit. This is because the thermoelectric emf produced by the thermocouple is a combination of the emf produced at every point along its length.

In sort inhomogeneities or imperfections tend to occur over extended use and are more common if the wire is exposed to extreme environments. The more extreme the environment (whether it be extremities of temperature, radioactive or chemical) the more likely the metallic properties of the wire will degrade (or “drift”) and thus alter the accuracy of the reading.

Car-toons

As some of you may know Leif, my brother, is working towards being an art major. In an effort to eliveate some of the cost associated with art supplies I'm going to give him everything I've got (everything I can find at least). I was looking through some old sketches today and stumbeled across this drawing I made about a year ago (its dated '04).

During the time of this drawing I went on a car-toon drawing craze. That is I drew characterized versions of cars. I did a bunch, and gave most of them away. Of the ones I most remember are Shorty's 2002, Peter's MR2, Kevin's Contour SVT, the Corrado (as shown here), a Lotus Elise, and a Rabbit GTI.

That said, if anyone is really into this kinda artwork I could probably be persuaded to whip out the old colored penciles and make a car-toon of thier hooptie.

Make Friends With Your Fast

With the Launch of the 2006 mkV GTI Volkswagen has introduced this "Fast" thing, aka:Project Fast. Suposedly, when the designers at VW were given the task to design the new car; one guy doodled the image of Fast. Although it was meant as a joke, the group designed something that resembles the "Fast" within each one of us. After numerous late-night brainstorming coffee sessions and thousands of images, Fast evolved into the new GTI.

In the grand scheme of things, the idea here is that there's a Fast in all of us, and this Fast tells us things like:

"My Fast likes the windows DOWN!"
"My Fast likes to keep things LIGHT!"
"My Fast HAS a problem [Officer]!"

Naturally the ad campaign suggests that your Fast is responsible for things like driving fast with the windows down, avoiding the added weight of passengers, and all the law-related problems accosiated with spirited driving.

The ads seem to suggest that you get a Fast when you buy a new GTI. I did a little ebaying, to which I found suggestion that there were only 600 of these things made and they were only distributed only to select dealers. They're going for big bucks on ebay right now ($600-$300). Regardez les photos:

There's nothing funny about this, so dont even bother reading further than this title.

I was reading about "Corax and Tisius" for a comunications test. Corax had been teaching Tisius the art of rhetoric, which in those days meant the art of defending oneself in court. Tisius, feeling he had not gotten proper instruction in the craft, took Corax to court to get his money back. As the legend goes, Tisius argued that if he loses the court case, it proves his point – he did not get the proper instruction – and thus should win the case. Corax argued that if Tisius wins, it proves that he did get the proper instruction, and thus Tisius should lose the case. The story ends there, but it can be reasonably assumed that, at that point, the court spontaneously combusted.

Odd turbo location

Ok look at this picture, this cant be optimal! Functional?

From the name of the file, I guess it's an LS1 of some sort. I'd be so worried about scraping the blower over speed bumps or anything similar i.e. rocks.

I Hate Statistics, Episode 2

STAT 371 - I, dont like it. I just finished taking the fisrt big Exam. We had to go into the math testing center, and although we were aloud to go in any time it sure was a good thing there was no time limit.

I went in at 2:30... and I didnt finish till 5:30. Thats too long for an undergraduate 300 level class.

I was looking around for a motivational poster for Statistics but I could'nt find anything. What would be cool is one with a picture of a wagon train being chased by Indians, it would read:

STATISTICS
They probably dont have enough arrows to kill us all.

Deneriaz Takes Gold in Downhill

For the men’s downhill the favorites were Walchhofer and the Hermannator from Austria, and Bode and Daron from the US. To everyone’s surprise however a Frenchmen - Antoine Deneriaz came from no where and took first by 0.7 seconds on the last run of the day.

Not only is 0.7 seconds significant (about 7-8 car lengths distance wise) but the fact that he was the last runner meant the course was very rough and torn up from the previous 29 runs. Top ten race results are as follows:

1 (FRA) DENERIAZ Antoine 1:48.80
2 (AUT) WALCHHOFER Michael +0.72
3 (SUI) KERNEN Bruno +1.02
4 (NOR) AAMODT Kjetil Andre +1.08
5 (USA) MILLER Bode +1.13
6 (AUT) MAIER Hermann +1.20
7 (LIE) BUECHEL Marco +1.24
8 (AUT) STROBL Fritz +1.32
9 (ITA) STAUDACHER Patrick +1.49
10 (USA) RAHLVES Daron +1.53

As an aside, here's a picture of Bode on the course. Look in the upper left had corner at his speed. He's cruising at ~75mph in the air, around a corner. Downhill racers are known to reach speeds upwards to 100 mph at the bottom of the course. Sick.

A Little GT4 to round out the Weekend

I spent a big part of today playing Grand Turismo 4 (GT4). Currently I’m on day 1201 with 74.7 % completion.

When the game first came out I was on some waiting list and thus received the game 1 full day before the official release date. I spent every waking moment playing for the majority of the proceeding two – three months. However, other than the occasion 2-player mode that Leif and I play every now and then I haven’t played much since.

When Leif and I play we always race Rabbits’ and then take turns picking the track. We each have our own Rabbit on separate memory cards and it’s become a challenge to win as we both fine tune every possible setting in an attempt to out do each other. As it is I’m entirely to meticulous about the suspension settings and I typically have the upper hand – so much so that I often run a lower max power turbo set up over the stage 3 NA tune that is available just to level the playing field. I’ve found the turbo setups’ lag actually helps a little against the mass amounts of traction loss in the super light 200+ hp FWD car – this is great on city courses but I get pwned on any kind of straight away.

GT4 is different from previous versions in that changes to the suspension not only alter the handling but also are visually noticeable. Check out the two pics of the Rabbit for reference.

Finally, and this is probably really old news to everyone, I really like using the Photo mode in GT4. I’ve noticed that in photo mode the backgrounds in the track are rendered much finner. Take a look at these two screenshots:

BMW M5 at the Capri Ralley on the Costa di Amalfi:

Subaru STI at the Grand Canyon:

Edit: If any one has any record lap times around the nuremberg ring, please post 'em up! My best in the Rabbit (1976 Golf GTI) is 8 min 11.59 sec.

Torino 2006

We went over to Kenvin's to watch the opening ceremonies for the 2006 Winter Olympic Games Friday night. It was very well done. The choreography involving some 4,000 dancers, they did interpretations of a beating heart, and a ski jumper that totally blew me away. Although I didnt see the very end I was content after watching the Ferrari F1 do a full speed pit stop followed by some roadies on the stage. The car was driven by seven-time Formula 1 champion Michael Schumacher. It was very cool.

I'm going to try to keep in touch with most of the ski racing and will do my best to post up here about any thing interesting.

The Freestream, Hot!

ok this is seriously cool... I'm not going to say a bunch about it other than the two guys that designed it worked closely with the origonal design for the McClairen F1. Sure none of us will ever be able to afford it but geez, its good to know people still build cool shit like this.

For more info chech them out here: http://www.freestreamcars.com/

Smoke on the Water

Stole this from VW.com. I'm pretty sure its a photoshop - but it sure looks cool.

I Hate Statistics, Episode 1

Ladies and Gentlemen, the story you are about to read is true. I thought about changing the names but decided not to.

This is the class, STAT 371, Probability and Statistics for Engineers. I’m enrolled in the class… I carry a pen.

It was Wednesday, February 08. A call came in for a 10-20464, quiz… Science Hall, room 108. We were working bunko in the back row, taking notes before the quiz. None of it was making sense but I wrote it down anyway – I’m a student – this was a lecture –that’s my job.

The quiz consisted of two questions, each had multiple parts. The first question was straight forward, a real no brainer. The second question was nothing but trouble. I wasn’t the only one that had trouble either, lots of people complained about it. Time ran out and I was unable to finish, I handed in my partially completed quiz. Dr. Wang looked it over and then he engrished, “why you not finish?” and “what so hard about second question, is easy!” When I told him I ran out of time and I still didn’t understand the question he started yelling at me! “is like deck of cards… subset of S… what you not get, I write clue on board!”

I asked him to stop yelling at me and told him as politely as I could that I just didn’t understand the question. He yelled a little bit more, “you need more minutes, I give you a few more minutes, is easy.” Now I was getting mad and I said, “I don’t need more time, I don’t know what to do, but it would be nice if you could explain the solution to me.”

He said no. I’m pissed. Fin.

What kind of VW R U?

I took one of those online quizes today... you know the type. This one was alright though. I went through and aswered all the questions to the best of my ability and guess what, I'm a Corrado! Yes!

The Music Genome Project

I’m trying a new form of Internet radio that was recommended to me by Adam Pivonka. It’s different in that rather than selecting a station by the musical genera (i.e. Alternative, Dance, Electronica, or Hip-hop) you enter in one or more favorite artists or songs. Based on cataloged characteristics of the artists that you input as your “favorite” the player then automatically selects songs that are cataloged as similar. Typically the music they play is obscure enough that you may not have heard it yet - well hopefully. I've had to make a list sence I started listening to it of new artists CDs to look out for next time in a record store.

I encourage everyone looking to hear some new music that you’ll probably like to give it a spin. Visit: http://www.pandora.com

Post #50: Go-Go Gadget Thumb

This is a special post. I’ve selected this post as special as its ordered number of sequence is a nice round number large enough to consider significant. I wouldn’t call it an anniversary however I do plan to commemorate its published contents in a manner typical of such an event.

There have been 49 posts before this one – sure most of them are crap, but none the less that makes this post number 50. I’ve decided to celebrate the big five-o by researching a topic that I find interesting and then reporting below all the bits that weren’t too boring. The topic I’ve selected is the great sport of Thumb Wrestling.

The principle of thumb-wrestling seems simple enough. Two players engage their sweaty-fingers, entangling them to form a fist. In the conventional starting configuration the thumbs remain in the up-right possition and are posed for the ensuing action. Then you sing the little song... "One, Two, Three, Four, I declare a thumb war.... etc." It’s important to establish rules such as the allowance of tag teams and sniveling after loosing in this beginning song or chant. The players then try to catch or "pin" the opponent's thumb. In the case that a referee is present he or she will mark the winner's thumb with chalk – thus documenting the win. The overall result is hours of low-fi entertainment that is portable enough to bring with you anywhere you go.

Everyone’s got their trump move (or way to cheat, as you’d call it as the looser). There’s the daunting over the top-Yao Ming-thumb reaching high above the other thumb move or the "my thumb is dead, oh no look it’s actually alive and now it’s got you pinned" tricky-ass maneuver or the classic "let me rub my thumb against the base of your thumb to give you the willies and either cause you to quit altogether or lose based on the thumbs’ sexual tension" move.

There are numerous products available that attempt to capitalize on the great sport of thumb wrestling. I’ve found things like how-to books; thumb wrestling rings (as pictured right); thumb puppets in the likeness of you’re favorite WWF star; hell, you can even get small thumb-sized Speedos, hats, and gold chains.

In conclusion I’d like to leave you with these closing reminders about the great sport of thumb wrestling:

1.Always be sure to stretch properly before a match. Stretching will help to loosen up the motion of your thumb and allow it to move freely about the ring. This probably also helps to prevent injuries.

2.No hidden razor blades and no unnecessary violence. It’s OK to be competitive but keep it clean and in the ring.

3.The hands are to be kept as still as possible, use high-strength industrial-sized zip ties to secure the hands if this becomes a problem.

4.Clipped nails are extremely helpful and aide in reducing the amount of injuries caused by cuts and scratches.

5.No lubricants – leave that kinky shit in the bed room.

6.No sore winners, no one likes a gloating Gus.

Operation Chain Rule: Learn it, Live it

Back in the day at NMT I used to rack up lots of hours working as a grader for the math department. To the right for shear hilarity I found a picture of Dr. Kerr, my favorite math professor from NMT (this must have been taken in the 80’s – damn that’s great). Nation wide, policy states that full time college students working on campus are not allowed to work more than 20 hours a week. For a while though I was working close to 40 hours a week while only reporting the legal 20 hours. The secretary of the Math department was real good about keeping logs of the extra time I put in and during times like spring/summer/winter break she would back pay me for the extra time… ahh NMT Math department corruption at its finest. Actually that was really cool of her and I don’t mean to come off like I’m complaining about it cause it totally rocked.

One night Dan and I went out for a late night Denney’s session. I brought along a large stack of Calc 2 homework that needed grading; Dan was also grading at the time likely for either an EE or CS class. Coincidentally when we got there Corey and Jason were also there –both of them were grading stacks of homework. Across the way there was another guy grading something else – it was an all out grade fest! Most ironically of it all was that Corey was in the Calc 2 class that I was grading for, Jason was grading a class that I was in, Dan was grading a class that the other guy across the way was in and He was grading a class that Dan was in. Wow, did you get all that?

I’m bringing all of this up because this semester I got a job grading papers again, this time for the Mechanical Engineering department here at NMSU. I’m grading Statics and Machine Component Design. This is exciting because it means I don’t have to take a job working in a kitchen and it’ll give me more free time during the weekends and on school holidays to spend with people I love (ahem, Chelsie). Furthermore it’s a pay raise! Finally, in addition to the grading I may pick up a job as a research assistant working for Dr. Donaldson with the Sandia Forest Fire Burn Research project. Shibby!