Day After Yesterday

so I haven’t posted in a while, primarily because I have been busy, and I rebuilt my laptop and didn’t put the software back on it…

So what has happened since thanksgiving? Hmmmm… work is going ok, selling lots of stuff on ebay. The ebay thing is getting old, but we do need to move the stuff, and it is my job, so that is that. The boss is out of town tomorrow through end of the year, so hopefully I will catch up on all the little things that haven’t been getting done. Not that it is huge, but I have little things I would like to implement that I haven’t had time to work on…

I have a website project that I need to get working on… It is a site for a company that does something (I honestly am not sure what) but I am hoping to have the skeleton of the site done soon. There are some admin pages to control the content, so that will be kinda cool to work on.

Car related… the Jetta hasn’t been touched, but the Suzuki Throttle Bodies came. Those are cool. I need to order the standalone engine management too. Oh and start building the engine. I have been thinking about painting the car myself, although we need a bigger compressor for that. The Audi is doing fine. Al got me a great deal on the AC compressor that I need, so that will be fixed by summer. I also put snow tires on the Camry, although I didn’t replace the valve stems, so they leak air. awesome. Now I have to pay to get them fixed since we are driving to detroit this weekend and I am not risking that…

Mason related… I will post more on his blog, but he is doing good, although nothing super notable. He is smiling more, which is cool, but it is usually when we engage him. Soon it will be in general, which will be neat. He had some shots the other day, but he did quite well, barely cried and was fine since then. I am still waiting for him to be more exciting. It will come quickly.

Christmas is NEARLY here, which is kinda freaking me out cause I am not ready. We put the tree up, and there are pics posted of course… I also built shelves into the wall, which I still need to sand and touch up, but they came out pretty nice. I like them. Pretty modern looking.

I haven’t got my shopping done, which sucks cause I haven’t had time to think about what to get people. Time is slim now. And I am getting late in the season to shop online as I usually do. Grrrrr.

The xbox is cool. NES and SNES and Genesis games are cool. Old. But cool.

So there are more pics of Mason that everyone should check out. We are ending month 2. Word. He rules.

So the audi was supposed to be emission tested in april… but at the time, I didn’t have a working transmission, so I filled out the form and said the car wasn’t operational, etc. They rescheduled me to august… And I was still putting it off. In IL, if you have a 1996 or newer and have a check engine light, you automatically fail. Since the 2001 Audi A4 is a ULEV vehicle, the cat and it’s efficiency are checked pretty hard. I have a high flow cat in there that throws off that reading. I am sure that the car is still well below the state limits, I usually have a CEL all the time for the cat.

About 6 weeks ago, I reset the CEL with the stalk and it hadn’t come back on yet. I hadn’t been driving it much, but still, it was off. Saturday morning I was supposed to pick up Dylan and some concrete to work on the house… on the way out I decided I would drive past the emissions place, fingers crossed the CEL came off. Since Russ had said that the cat is not checked at WOT (and that had been proven at track events), and the car wasn’t all warm, I drove it hard to the emissions place. Pulled in, line was really short, and I was out in 10 min. with a nice sheet saying I passed. Score. Avoided for another 2 years.

The jetta is up for testing this month. And I am pretty sure it won’t pass, since it has a freaking beer can on the exhaust and they actually CHECK the exhaust. Gotta fill that form out and tell them it will be ready in the spring. The new motor should pass fine.

So we had an autox on saturday… while I thought the weather was going to suck, the clouds and rain kept the temps down. it was very nice. The computer timing went perfect. This was the first time this season that I have actually drove MY audi at an autox. It was kinda of nice to get back in the groove. It was also nice to get back in and kick some ass. You can see the results here. I was the fastest Audi, and only lost to the likes of a viper, miata, STI, etc. Not bad company. It was nice to prove to both myself and the rest of the group that I wasn’t that rusty. Sometimes it is really nice to win.

Even though it was hot as hell today in Chicago, we moved a bunch of stuff into the new house. Thanks mom, dad, and kevin. I still need to get my stuff packed and ready to go, but nearly all of rebecca’s stuff is over there. It is nice to know we have it in the place.

We also went to the place to get the hardwood. Mind you, the price is really really good, and so there is some ‘too good to be true’ kind of thoughts going on, but I should know more tomorrow when they call me. Hopefully I will have the flooring before the weekend. It will be really nice to get that in the house and we can finish the move.

the weekend was nice… But this is a long post so read on. Brief recap: Scott’s birthday, projector, video games, prenatal appt., baby registry, fireworks…
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Audrey is going to the shop tonight for her replacement transmission install… I haven’t driven her since early April. I should have her back by the end of the week… how nice will that be… and in time for the next Autox and Blackhawkfarms…

I got a little sunburnt on sunday, but I think I have used enough aloe and aftersun to counter it… I hope I have done enough to avoid peeling… I usually have sunscreen in my track box, but since I drove rebecca’s car, I didn’t have the box… oh well.

I did help a buddy’s wife learn to autox though, and that is always rewarding. People are so timid with their cars in the beginning. It always amazes me that people have never pushed their cars. I obviously mean in a controlled environment, but even then you would learn stuff. I think everyone should be required to autox or something to just get a feel for tire sliding, tire squealing, and weight transfer. It would improve the people’s accident avoidance abilities… but back to the student… she wasn’t comfortable with the sliding, the noises, etc at first… she just hadn’t ever done it, but she got over it quickly, and she was sliding and squealing around in no time. It was nice to watch her confidence level increase as the day progressed and her comfort level improved. We may even see her at another event.

It is also a nice feeling of justification for myself and likely car people everywhere when you have a non car person, who has likely asked what makes those $250 tires better than the $80 tires finally realize what it is you have been spending all your money on.

I got my father to an autox a couple years ago and I rode with him and in his non modded A4 and he learned stuff. Then I took him for a ride in my modded A4, and he was like ‘now I can see where all the money for tires and suspension goes’. It was a nice feeling.

I like to see people improve in their driving abilities. It is a nice feeling.