What is On Jeffs' Mind

Over the weekend, I was at the annual Edmonton Indycar race,  and had a great time. The weather this year was pretty decent, maybe a little to sunny for my liking, since I sunburn easy, but the temperatures were pretty manageable. In the past, some of the weekends have been very hot, with temperatures in the mid to high 30′s, but this year, saturday was the hot day in the high 20′s, and the other two days were mid 20′s.

They had changed the grandstand layout this year. Due to the promoter Northlands cutting back on expenses, they did away with our turn one grandstand, and replaced it with additional RV parking. I will say, I was disappointed, as I really liked watching the race from that area. Our new grandstand was behind the pits, and we had a good view of the middle of the track, but I would prefer to be on a corner where some action happens. Some new promoters will be taking over the race next year, so not sure what they will do in regards to grandstand configuration, but hopefully maybe we get a chance to move to one in a corner. The RV parking bugs me as well, since that area of the track is blocked off to everyone except the RV owners. That is the section of the road course, and in the past we would go down and watch the cars in the practices, now we cant do that. I think it is short sited, and can see it is only a business decision. I could see where people who buy a general admission ticket, would not see the value in continuing, since there seems to be so few places to watch the race without a gransdtand seat.

I have never really cared for how Northlands have run this event, as each year, the off track entertainment seems to get less and less each year. I am hoping with the new promoters, that the party atmosphere comes back. I suspect Northlands figures since this runs the same time as CapitolEx, that is people want a fun atmosphere, they will go there, but since I don’t plan to, I miss out on what we had in the past. The food selection in thin as well, with not much to really choose from. You have your Hotdogs,  Hamburgers and Pizza, but not much else. A few specialized booths, but for the most part, the food selection is limited. As expected, the food prices are expensive, which I would be fine with, if there was more selection. But I can see, where bringing a family to this, would be a major outlay of money. As a simple hotdog and drink is going to cost around 10 dollars, so not family/budget friendly pricing.

I have always been and will be a big Champcar fan, so it has been hard to accept this new Indycar series, as the cars are inferior to the Champcar. One more year of the current configuration of car, and then they will go back to a Turbocharged car, and a chassis that is more suited to a variety of tracks, and not just Ovals. I am not really digging the proposed chassis, but hoping that the car will be more racy on tracks like Edmonton. I guess when I actually see one, I will have a better idea on how I feel. The current form of Indycar does nothing for me, we go through the paddocks, which is cool, but the cars are ugly to my eye, and underwhelming since they are 3 seconds slower on this track then the Champcar. But I was happy to see, with the new Indycar branding, and the IRL branding going out the door, that all the garish IRL tradmarks and branding are gone from around the track. I guess being a Champcar fan, I found the branding to be more appealing, and this new Indycar branding seems to be a step in that direction.

The race was alright, some controversy at the end, with Helio Castroneves being black flagged at the end of the race, and a surprise winner in Scott Dixon. Will Power had been pretty dominate in the race, but had lost the lead to Helio Castroneves a little earlier, and was blocked by Castroneves when attempting to pass. At the end of the race, Castroneves stormed the flag stand in anger, and provided some post race fireworks. Paul Tracy had a good run for the day, finishing in 6th, after starting so deep in the field. But watching this race, it really showed how much faster the Penske and Ganassi cars were over the rest of the field. Hopefully with the new Chassis, it will level the playing field out a bit more in the future. Simona Di Silvestro had a good qualifying, but unfortunately got bumped, and then problems with the car later on, but she looked very quick, and if not for the problems, would have had a good finish.

The Indy Lites race was alright, a bit of a parade at times, and only a handful of cars. We skipped the Canadian Tire race, as it seems like the same old same old each year, and without Andrew Ranger in the field,  we were not interested. I guess from that standpoint, we are casual fans, as we only seem to watch if certain people are in the race. The day before they had the Northern Alberta sports car race, it was fun to watch, and saw some good drives by a few.

I have some to the conclusion during the weekend, that at some point it would be nice to be a person who can go into restricted areas around the track. At times, it felt, like me the race ticket buying fan, that I help pay for this event, but a lot of times I am spending time looking at more privileged people from behind a fence. A race event is really a dichotomy of a class system, as there are areas for VIP’s that the rest can only watch from afar. Companies the sponsor cars or the series, seem to have people who get some pretty nice access to different areas of the track. I was watching the Pit lane from behind a fence, and noticed a bunch of people strolling up and down the lane. But for the common fan, you can buy a pit access pass, but it really in not pit access, as you are behind a fence, really on a few feet in front of the rest of the general public. To me, that access is a sham to sell, as they sell it as pit access, but it is not, but there are still non race team people strolling up and down the real pit lane. Maybe someday I can go to a race, and be able to walk into theses fenced off areas. But sadly to me, I notice more and more each year all the places that is restricted to me, and some of those places offer a good view of the track, and their is less for the person who actually buys a ticket.

Fun weekend, looking forward to next year, hopefully it will be better

Tags: Champ car, Edmonton Honda Indy, IndyCar

It has been a real long time since I have made a post. Life the last few months has been a bit unexpected at times, but I think it is starting to get more predictable, or at least I am getting better at how I handle it. I am going to be on the lookout for some cool things to blog about. Also, I will be putting in some more effort on my Collecting Podcast very soon, my basement is nearly completed, and I have a few days off coming up soon, so I can set things up a bit more in my basement to facilitate it.

From looking at the control Panel, looks like their is an update for the wordpress software I am using, so I guess I should update that, looks like a bit of a release as jumping up a number, so I guess there might be some changes coming soon on the layout. Not sure what they are, but I guess I will find out after the update.

The Annual Edmonton Indy Car race is coming up soon, so I will probably have something to say about that. Will lie if I say I am pumped for it, as I still find the racing package to be underwhelming, and from all reports, still have a nother season to go until their is any updates. But I will put a post in about the weekend.

A few weeks back, had a busy music weekend. On Saturday, went to see Iron Maiden, and they were great. This time around, they played songs mostly off of their last few CD’s, so it was cool to hear songs I had never heard live. They were touring in support of their latest CD called The Final Frontier, even though it is not released yet. On Sunday I went to see Star Wars in Concert. A great experience, and I really enjoyed it, cool experience, I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of Star Wars.

Tags: IndyCar, Iron Maiden, Star Wars in Concert

I have really been enjoying Hockey lately. Last Friday I went to the Edmonton Oilers game with my brother, they lost to the Dallas Star, but the game was entertaining enough. Actually the Oilers have yet to win in 2010 and the worst team in the league. I am not sure what it is but I am enjoying the games quite a bit. Maybe it is the race for last place in the league is thrilling, or watching all the new ways the team can lose, or maybe since the season is done, just doesn’t matter and can just watch the game for what it is, and not be concerned about wins. My wife doesn’t really under stand, and gets upset at me if I turn an Oilers game on, she was giving me strange looks as I was watching the Oilers get run over by the Chicago Black Hawks. On Thursday I was watching the Oilers play the St. Louis Blues, I was enjoying the game, but had to step away to do some work, and alas the Oilers Lost. Saturday will be a big game, the Calgary Flames are in town, lately they have been as woeful as the Oilers have, so it will be interesting to see who comes out with the win. The battle of Alberta takes on a bit of a new meaning.

Formula 1 teams are starting to launch their cars for 2010. So far it looks like there have been Launches for Ferrari and McLaren and a livery reveal for Mercedes. Both Mercedes and McLaren are going with a silver paint scheme, and of course Ferrari has its traditional red. I must say the McLaren looks very stylish, the Shark Fin on the back of the car gives it a different look then the Ferrari which does not. I always think it is interesting the production the teams put into these launches. Way different then in Indycar, where the only news lately is that Tony George is finally gone after all the irreparable damage he has caused, and who is not going to be showing up this season instead of who will. Check out the launch pictures here

Also, here is a cool Video from Redbull

Tags: Edmonton Oilers, Formula 1, IndyCar

The past month has been so busy, and just now I was able to catch my breathe a bit. I must admit I have been looking forward to this long weekend for awhile, and for the most part because I am not going to do anything special.

The past few weeks have been pretty much devoted to moving. Everything is done, and we are no in our new home. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures yet. Mainly because the house is still a bit disorganized, and I don’t really want to take pictures of rooms with boxes in them. My office is really cluttered right now, and I am hoping I can get it setup a bit better. My family room is very cluttered as well, with boxes and stereo equipment in the middle of it. I took a week off to move, and had about 2 weeks from when I got possession until I had to move out of my old place, and in the end, I really needed all those days.

I was pretty fortunate to get help from my family and my friend Dave to help me move. I rented a truck, to haul boxes and smaller things over to the new house. Also we took the opportunity to throw out old things we no longer needed. A few trips to the dump, and we had things cleaned out, but unfortunately I had forgotten a few things to throw out, so I now have them in my new house. For my furniture, I hired movers to move that. They came, and moved the furniture fairly efficiently, I thought the price was a bit expensive, but at least I did not have to burden anyone with the furniture. My one complaint was that I had to leave a tip, which I was fine with at the time. But when I went back to my townhouse to start cleaning, I walked into the main bedroom bathroom, it smelled really bad. They had gone to the toilet, and never flushed, and also made a real mess on the seat. The smell was really bad, as they closed the door, and it was like that for a day, and the weather was really hot. Took awhile to air out, and turned my stomach to clean. If I had known what they had done, would have never left a tip, as that was just gross. Not sure if it was done on purpose, or not, but really did not appreciate it. All I can really do, is never use that company again, and not recommend to anyone else.

Cleaning my old townhouse took a lot of time as well. Thankfully my mom helped me clean it. We went from top to bottom and did a real good job of cleaning. I try to keep it clean, but there were still areas that were dirty, and with furniture, you can never get to all places. It was a bit tough to do, as I was thinking about my new home, and the things I wanted to do there. I must say after the moving, and the cleaning, and the heat, I was really exhausted. I am not in very good shape, so I need to make more of an effort to get into shape.

On the weekend I went with Paul and Jason to the Rexall Edmonton Indy. It was hot, I drank lots of water, got a sun burn and a lot of walking. All in all it was good. Still not Champ car, but I guess make the best of the situation. Will Power won the race, good to see a Champ car driver get the victory. Paul Tracy was at the race as well, and cool to see him have a good weekend. With all the moving, and things going on in my life, I probably did not get as much out of the race as I would have liked. Also with being so busy, have fallen behind on Champodcast. Jason is busy editing a few shows as well for work, so what was to be our flag ship podcast, will not be, which we feel a bit sad about. But we will try to get a podcast out soon.

I could only take one week off from work, since my co worker was away on Holidays. So this week was fairly busy at work as well. I had a few things to clear up for the house, so I had to push off some requests for overtime early in the week. I still managed to do some later in the week, as I could not get away from it, and look like more next week. I have always been bothered with that, people pushing over the summer for work to be done. I guess business never stops, but I just get the feeling the people pushing, are the ones who then go and enjoy summer, well the rest of us are left to handle their requests. I am probably just complaining, and my situation is a lot better then others.

This week was also the closing on my townhouse. All the cleaning was done, everything moved out, with a big thanks to my parents. There was a bit of drama with that, and will be honest I did not like how things ended with that. There is still a loose string, that might come back to haunt me, but at least it was all done. I am in my new house, and no ties to the old place. So looking forward to unpacking some of those boxes around me.

I did feel a bit embarrassed earlier in the week. Where I live now, they do not deliver mail to the house, but to community mailboxes. The previous owners left the key and the box number. I went all over the neighborhood looking for the box, and could not find one that my key worked in. I went to the post office to ask, and they gave me a phone number to call. I called that and the customer rep told me the box number, but still did not help me. I just needed to know where the mailbox was. I was getting a bit stressed about it. Well I was driving back to the house after going out to dinner with my parents and Tao tao and her Mom, and I jump on the brakes. Coming into my street, there was the mailbox. I jump out, and run over, and voila, my key worked, and a stack of mail. The thing is, I had driven past this mail box every day, and never bothered to notice it. It was literally under my nose. Typical of me, I guess I was looking harder then I needed to.

I am hopeful over the next few weeks that I can get all the boxes unpacked, as there are a few things I still haven’t located. Tao tao and her Mom are going on a trip next week, so I am looking forward to making some progress on things. This evening I cut the lawn for the first time. Bought a Lawnmower the other day, it was the floor model, so got 10 percent off, but cut my fingers up getting it out of the car. I am hoping to maybe start painting some rooms soon as well. If not when they are gone, then in September. Tao tao’s mom goes back to China later in August, so it might be easier then, as I can store some stuff in the room she is sleeping in.

Probably the thing I want to do the most is my toy room, but there is some renovations I must do first, so it has to wait a bit. So I am hopeful I can get on those pretty soon. I have some ideas, so hopefully it can come together.

I must say, this new office is a great experience for me, my old office was very hot, whereas this one is cool and comfortable. I am hopeful that it will allow me to be more productive on my PC and my websites. If I make good progress this weekend, I will take some pictures as well and post them on the site. I am also really looking forward to getting back to my normal routine.

Tags: Champ car, Champodcast, Dave, IndyCar, Jason, Mom and Dad, Paul, Paul Tracy, Rexall Edmonton Indy, Tao tao, Will Power

This weekend I did not much, past sit in my house for most of it. A bit cold outside, and some things have come up, which will probably make me stick close to home for the next few months. But I digress, this weekend there were a couple of races on TV. On Saturday evening I watched the IRL race from Texas. I will be honest it is not a race that I look forward to, given the high banks, the full throttle racing and the complete Nascar bias by the track administration does more then enough to turn me off. Anyways, I watched it, the few Champ car drivers left in the series were pretty much uncompetitive, highlighted by a second lap accident of Graham Rahal. The race ended with Helio Castroneves winning the race. On Sunday was the Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix. Brawn GP continues their dominance of the season, with Jensen Button grabbing another Victory. This race was tough on the past World Champions as all 3 of them in the field could not get into the points. I guess my biggest complaint about both races was team orders, this is where teams dictate how their cars are to race ( or more correctly not race) In the IRL race, I was upset that Ryan Briscoe who was dominant for a good part of the race, ended up coming in second after a suspect yellow flag from the IRL, and then what I felt was favoritism on the part of his own team in terms of Castroneves. After the last pit stops, Castroneves got the front spot based off of where his pit stall was located. Team orders over the radio was for both drivers to not race, and put distance between them and team Target. Well by the time they had made some distance, Briscoe’s chance was pretty much gone, and I am sure he was told to just hold his spot. In the F1 race, not for the win, but for second place, the two Redbull drivers were told not to race as well. After some bad pit strategy, Sebastian Vettel was behind his team mate Mark Webber, at the end of the race, Vettel was coming on, but got the order that Webber was faster and to preserve the car. It was obvious to me that Vettel looked like he had something, but told to back off. I guess I felt frustrated, as in both instances, the faster driver was told to not challenge. I guess the IRL one really upset me the most, but it would be nice to go back to the days when people raced each other regardless of team. I understand not taking team mates out, but it really does take whatever excitement might be in the race, out.

This morning a friend of mine Dale, sent me an email about the next series of Star Wars Kubricks. This series will be based off of Episode III Revenge of the Sith. The series will include Anakin, Tarful, General Grievous, Darth Vader and a Episode 3 Clone Trooper. The chases are Tion Medden, Commander Gree and 4 arm version of General Grievous. Normally I don’t go for the chases, but this time, I really want a Commander Gree, to go with some of the other Gree items I have. It looks pretty cool, all the figures look cool, so I am excited for this to arrive. Dale said they should arrive in the next few weeks, and I am hoping the Canadian Dollar will keep strong.

Tags: Anakin, Commander Gree, Darth Vader, Formula 1, General Grievous, IndyCar, Star Wars Kubricks

The past week has been interesting for me, and a bit of a break from my regular routine

This week I went on training for work. I was enrolled in a Sun LDAP course, and was on training Tuesday to Friday. It was something that was quite different from what I usually do, so it was interesting to learn. First off we learned on Unix systems, and that is something I don’t know a lot about. I did some work on Unix about 6 or 7 years ago when I did Oracle support. I was never very good at it as it involved a lot of typing, and strange commands that I did not understand. This time, over the coarse I got more comfortable with the Unix, but probably more so as we used a lot of the Sun Directory Services GUI, which helped out. I am a bad typer, and it took me time on command line stuff, so hoping I don’t have to do a lot of it in the future. Not sure where I go with this training, but I guess over time I will find out.

The weekend turned out to be fuller then I originally expected. On Saturday, I had to cleanup the house as we had a showing late in the afternoon. Tao tao and I went out for a few hours. We went to the mall, and had dinner, then looked around for a bit. We came home and relaxed for the rest of the day.

Sunday turned out to be a busy day, and still wondering how I fit it all in. I started off the morning by working on my Collecting Podcast. I have the second podcast edited, and will now work on enhancing it. The I watched the Monaco F1 Grand Prix. Not a lot of passing in the race, but it was exciting to see the cars race as they looked so fast, and I really like street circuits.

After that Tao tao and I went to see the new Terminator Salvation movie. I must say that I really enjoyed this movie. It was a lot of action and explosions, and not really a dull moment the entire movie. I had been looking forward to this movie, as I had been watching the TV series closely. The story did not really tie in with the TV series, but that was cool. I thought Christian Bale did a great job as John Connor, and brought a different element to the character that we haven’t seen before. He was so intense, I could see where he had the outburst well filming, if he was channeling that intensity to his performance. The guy who played Kyle Reese did a great job, he reminded me a lot of the original Kyle Reese, he was also in the new Trek movie. I am hoping after his role in the Terminator movie, they give him more to do in the next Trek movie.

When I got home, I did an Interview with my friend Rick for the Take him with You podcast. We talked about some of my experiences growing up, and the different schools I had attended and how they relate to God. It was a lot of fun to talk to Rick, and he did a great job with the Interview. Rick also told me some other cool things, and played some cool music for me that he had. I am happy to have met Rick and made a new friend, as He and I share a lot of things in common.

After the Interview was over, I watched the Indy 500 I had taped earlier. The race was alright, though there was some scary accidents, which I did not like to see. For an Oval race, I thought it was alright, and there was some nice racing and intrigue to it. After watching this race, I have come to the conclusion that it is more the length of the race then the track itself that makes it unique. For the most part, it is all about setup, and a max throttle track, but once they get past half distance, then the uniqueness comes in. Most of the Indycar races are a few hours or a couple hundred miles, so after they get past a certain distance, bad luck and problems come to play, and it is interesting to see who has them, and how they deal with it. The track is pretty basic, and not as challenging as some other tracks, it is the length that makes this race different to me.

I finished off the night with this Blog. I would say that was a full day

Tags: Formula 1, IndyCar, LDAP, Rick Moyer, Take Him With You, Terminator 4, UNIX, What's in Jeffs Basement