"When is your next race?"

I get the question "when is your next race" quite a bit, but to be honest I couldn't answer it very well for the last few weeks because I tend to get a bit of tunnel vision with my planning when there's a really big event looming like our upcoming beach trip. But I decided I should get that schedule worked out more over the last week and have hammered some things out. I figured I'd post here so those of you who read this blog won't have to ask me in person when my next race is!

Things get started in late July with a likely trip to to the Finger Lakes area of New York state for a big ProSolo autocross. I'm not entirely sure what I'll be driving at that event yet and may not go. But it's getting somewhat likely.

Then I have a trip to Miller Motorsports Park just outside of Salt Lake City planned for two days of driving school. If the planets can get themselves aligned I may work that trip in with another ProSolo autocross in Wendover, Utah as the two are only a couple days apart.

Things start to get a little crazy in August. It all starts with the Koni Challenge race in Three Rivers, Quebec. I'll be driving a Mazda RX-8 in ST prep in an hour-forty-five minute endurance race. I'll be partnered with Jason Saini, a friend of mine and the reigning Mazda MX-5 Cup champion. I raced at Three Rivers last year in an MX-5, so I'm familiar with the track and the RX-8 should drive a reasonable amount like the MX-5 does. The next weekend I should take delivery of my new Spec Miata from OPM Autosports (which will look very similar to the silver and blue car they have pictured on their site) at Carolina Motorsports Park for an SCCA National race. The week after that I have two days of testing scheduled at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) in my Acura RSX-S that's basically World Challenge Touring Car spec'ed and built for ITE regional racing (specifically, the 13 Hour endurance race at VIR in November).

September is busy with the ProSolo Finale and the Solo Nationals followed immediately by another Koni Challenge race with Jason at Miller Motorsports Park. I've never been to Miller and that's why I'm doing that school in July. The school will have me driving race prepped Ford Mustangs, but this race will have me back in the RX-8.

October starts with another Koni Challenge race. This time it's at what I consider my home track, VIR. With any luck I'll get the RX-8 from Jason a few weeks before this one (or maybe right after Miller if we don't hurt it there) and can get some testing at VIR in it. I'm also hoping to race the MX-5 Cup finale at Mazda Laguna-Seca Raceway if I can get a rental car for it. Then there's a double regional at VIR that I'll likely race my Spec Miata in. The very next week is the 13 hour where we plan to race the Acura RSX-S. That takes us into early November and caps what I consider my race season.

Whew, that's gonna be a lot of racing!

Why I'm not getting an iPhone

I had many reasons for not wanting an iPhone before today. The biggest of which is that the Edge high speed network that the previous iPhone used was pretty terrible. Not very available and not very fast when it is available. But thanks to the ATT/Cingular merger, ATT now has a faster network, 3G. It's been wildly expanded, too. Apple announced today that the 3G iPhone will be available on July 11.

What did they improve other than the network, though? Many things. The biggest for most is that they now cost about half what they did originally. The next is the size...they are a good bit thinner. A cool feature I like is the addition of a GPS and mapping and navigation software, which should help folks that travel a lot. Given that it also has a camera and acts as an iPod, those of us who normally carry several devices can now carry just the one.

So why not get one now? The first devices will still max out at 16G of storage. I can't fit my music collection in that, and I feel like it's probably not too far off before they offer a larger model. I really need 32G at a minimum and would dearly love 64G. I currently use a 32G iPod Touch for music and love it, so a move to a 32G iPhone would be pretty great. I use a Blackberry World Phone for my phone and the one thing it has over an iPhone is the thumbpad. The iPhone/Touch requires you to use the screen for text entry and that works okay, but isn't as fast as the thumbpad and takes up valuable screen real estate to use it.

So for now I'll live with the two separate devices.

Oh happy day!

Great news! Verizon is gobbling up Alltel! Why is this great news? The end of the worlds worst advertisements...the Alltel TV commercials! YES! See for yourself.

Movie Review

Ash and I went to the theater to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That's a pretty big deal as I usually wait for DVD releases to watch movies, but in the case of big Lucas movies and all the Harry Potter flicks I make an exception.

I try to never spoil anything, so don't fear. But I will say that I found the story a little weak in this one. Sure, each Indy is "out there" as far as reality is concerned, but they still somehow make you believe pretty well. I had a tougher time in this one. That said, the acting and the production quality is very good. The action is somewhat believable. Perhaps most importantly, I saw good potential for some really fun Disney rides.

All in all, I'd recommend it, especially if you normally enjoy all things Lucas. I do, and I had a fun time. It's so easy to be critical when we have such a large body of work to judge it by, but I'd say it's good. Maybe not quite as good as the other three, but close enough to warrant the Indy name. Probably the best humor of all three, too.

Just get a Mac

Okay, I've been using a Mac for several months pretty much exclusively. I do still have a Windows machine on my desk because I have some software that requires it, but my laptop is now a MacBook Pro. I can't just say I like it...I REALLY like it. What makes it better?

• The UI is easy yet powerful and completely intuitive (at least once you drop your Windows-centric assumptions).
• Fewer reboots required by a lot.
• The hardware is really well made and seems it will last very well.
• Apple stays on the cutting edge with cool features like the multi-touch touchpad.
• Built in hardware like the webcam works great.
  

Apple used to pain me in how tightly they controlled their hardware. I used to think the competition offered on the PC platform thanks to the piecemeal nature was good. And at the time, it probably was. Now I feel like there are just far too many options competing and that requires far too many drivers on the Windows side and that's gotten impossible for Microsoft to keep things working together sanely. Apple just chooses the best bang for the buck to stick in their machines and makes sure the drivers work transparently. No conflicts between drivers, no strange issues. Things just work. At the end of the day, isn't that what it's all about?

Plus Apple has the best commercials.



My first Apple laptop was the MacBook Air. I do still love that device, but it's only good for the user who only does web, email, and documents. If you want to process any video or need to do a lot of image processing, it just doesn't quite have the horsepower. The Pro is wonderful in that respect. Apple still needs a machine in between the Pro and the Air, in my opinion. I don't need quite as many ports as the Pro and don't need quite as big a screen, but I do want the CPU and disk. But I'm pretty happy with the Pro as is, especially when compared to PC laptop options.

Is Apple worth the extra dough? I think they are.

Movie Review

Finally got to finish Michael Clayton today. I watched most of it on the plane ride back from Kansas City a couple days ago, but finished the last fifteen minutes today. I thought it was a very good movie. It's a lawyer movie with a few interesting twists, sort of like The Firm and other really good lawyer flicks. Definitely recommended.

Did you know?

Okay, this is a new category of my blog. I'll start it off with an interesting statistic. Apparently there are about one billion cars on the planet. But cars still have a long way to go to pass cows, of which we apparently have about 1.4 billion.