Specs:
Dual Opteron 2220 2.8Ghz Procs
32GB DDR2 667 ECC RAM (16 x 2GB)
48 x Seagate 73GB 2.5" 15k RPM with 16MB Cache each
Adaptec 3085 8-Port SAS PCI-E x8 with 256MB Cache with Battery Backup
4U of Rack Space Total
RAID 10 Volume - 1.59TB Useable
Cost - Just over 32K
Today was an interesting day. I will leave the first half of the day to myself, but I wanted to write up how my afternoon evening went. I had a mission to go to the track to move my truck. Sounds simple. Tasks always do.
1) I left Cupertino at 3:00PM on my way to Sears Point/Infineon Raceway in Sonoma/Napa - Normal people do not start at 3PM in the afternoon to do this unless they really enjoy traffic or have someone in the passenger seat, and still really enjoys sitting in traffic. Regardless, as we will see soon, all the passengers in the world are no match for the TRM.
I did not want to do the 'toll route’, instead I wanted to do the 'toll free route’. This involves going up 280, then 19th avenue, across the Golden Gate Bridge through Sausalito, Marin, and finally heading over highway 37 towards Vallejo. Sears Point is at the intersection of Highways 121 and 37. The return route is to continue east on Highway 37, getting on Highway 80, then 780 towards Benicia, then onto 680, getting over to 880 via Mission Blvd, taking 237 West onto Highway 85, lastly 280 north to the Foothill Blvd exit.
2) I had originally planned to stop in Fairfax to pick up the hopefully very cool Bluetooth helmet pictured below, but I missed my exit. (Sir Francis Drake, easy to miss). Oh well, I had a job I had to do or the track would quite willingly tow my truck at my expense because of the NASCAR Race this coming weekend.
3) Marching on, I made it to the track and said 'Hi' to people I really miss hanging out with due to my 'retirement' from racing. It was good to see my old friends and to smell the track and hear the sounds of practicing racecars.
4) I get to my truck and even though it has complete disconnects for the batteries for the truck portion and the RV portion, all four heavy-duty batteries are dead. Sigh. I need this like a hole in the head. I had a solution, but I just had to find it. I looked around my shop, found a starter kit, which was already dead. Useful, not. However, when I was about to give up I found what I was looking for inside the truck. My Death Cord Adapter. I had power in my shop and I had extension cords that reached to the truck, but without my Death Cord Adapter, I would not be able to use the power. The Death Cord Adapter is a 6-inch section of electrical wire with two male 3-prong ends on it. Essentially a gender bender for electrical power which when wielded in an aggressive manner can indeed be a Death Cord Adapter. With adapter in hand, I had the truck charging its batteries off the 110v power coming from the shop.
The length of time it takes to charge the two batteries to turn over a Mercedes Benz 450HP/1400lb ft torque motor is excruciatingly long. Each time you try before it's ready, it sets you back to zero. Argh.
Turns out, I have a new neighbor at my shop. The first motorcycle dyno will be installed at the track and the owner showed me an old Buell motorcycle that holds the world fastest bike of its type (pushrod motor/age/etc) at Bonneville at 135. Seems tame today, but looking at that bike 135 seemed plenty fast. Regardless, the bike was impeccable and a cool story.
5) Ok, after much chatter with my new neighbor I go to the truck to see if it will fire up this time. Viola!
There truly is nothing like a motor like this. This motor is what is in the big semi's that tow around 80,000 pounds. When this thing is going, you can just feel the power in your chest. It is good stuff.
6) One of my good friends who has taken care of many of my race cars offers to go way up into the back areas of the track where they want me to park my truck. Again, it is nice to talk with him again. I asked him to say a little prayer for Postini.
7) The Rig is now parked away from all the NASCAR crowds etc, I get a ride back to my motorcycle, er I mean traffic removal machine. I head towards the 37/80/780/680/880/237/85 toll free route. Now I have to admit that at this point, my ass is a bit sore from the ride up and I have to go back again and on a much bumpier set of roads. That is life in the big city.
8) On the ride up, there was stop and go traffic, but lane slicing is just great. Have to be very careful, this is one of the more dangerous things to do, but immensely rewarding psychologically as well as shaving amazing amounts of time off the trip.
9) When there were carpool lanes, I would hop into those, further helping my time out.
10) I do not have a license yet so I am not setting world records in speed, in fact my motto is make sure someone else is always going faster than I am. It worked perfectly on my return trip from Aptos this morning (yes, Cupertino to Aptos to Cupertino to Napa to home in one day) as a black prelude wanting to prove his car 'still has it' got tagged by a cop.
11) Riding home, I am amazed and truly mentally rewarded with the uninterrupted thinking time. There is no Treo, no laptop, nothing but me. I get to exercise my heightened sense of awareness and my own thoughts, which I can then truly work with and explore in peace. So much different from the interrupt driven world a lot of us live in.
12) I arrive back at my house at 7:30pm and having used 3.93 gallons of gas to drive 170 miles. 43MPG. Awesome. Driving 170 miles through some of the nastiest traffic situations around and having spent time dealing with my truck but still doing the entire round trip in 4.5 hours was simply heavenly.
Some thoughts I had:
- I like how much I can see. My bike rides high. I can see over cars, I can spot people on the phone, and I can spot people whose rear view mirror is biased for the drivers to look at themselves versus what is going on behind them. Sure, the possibility of surprise exists, but what I enjoy is exercising my heightened sense of awareness. Exercising my awareness is always fun and an important skill I like to keep honed, and one to use when I can. It has, for the most part, served me well.
- I notice the difference between 70 and 90 is nothing more than a glance. My goal was to keep it sub 80. People were driving fast today though so I would slowly follow a speeder knowing if a cop was going to tag someone; it would be the faster of the two.
- I think about enjoyable solitude. This is rare. A solitude I enjoy. Interesting – need to learn from this experience
- I realize how scary and what a force to worry about wind is. It was a windy day, and so far, wind is the one thing I do not like about being on a motorcycle. It is not too bad to manage, but it is worrisome because you do not know if you are going to be hit with a big gust.
- I realize that not only do I get to see cars, people in them, that I can really enjoy the visibility to where I am driving. It was reminiscent of walking through a town you had only driven though and realizing how much stuff you had missed because you were driving. I had this same experience today.
- I like the fact that 90%+ of motorcycle riders wave to each other.
- I love my black and yellow setup. Just like my racecars and takes away the sting of being retired from racing.
- I love the torque of an 1100 motor. It does not matter what gear, you can wiggle out of a situation you do not like very easily
- I love wearing my full gear. I see so many t-shirt cyclers and I just think it is silly. It is not that I do not understand the attraction of it, but just the added danger, and they are not taking this seriously.
- I dropped my bike for the first time. At my first fill up for the day. I thought the kickstand was down, ‘twas not. The bike is quite heavy to pick back up. It was highly embarrassing, but no damage done.
- I like the audacity of the bike. It really is outrageous looking and definitely gets respect on the road. That is always nice.
- I like people who move way out of your way to go through traffic. Those are good people. I always try to wave 'thank you' to them.
- Almost everyone is talking on his or her cell phone - all the time. I guess you do not notice this in cars so much but man everyone is just jibber jabbing away.
- I love the fact that I have now put my first 1,000 miles on my bike, I truly love it, and it brings me a lot of joy. It is healthy solitude. I am truly unavailable. Something I do not give myself very often.
- I was scared of highway 17, but turns out to be just a great drive on the bike. It sucks in a car, but the bike is great for 17.
- I was able to average 37 mph including the work at the track.
- I love the tip Steve Dinan told me on how to drive the bike with the handlebars and not by leaning your body. Long story, but man, it changed a somewhat scary thing into something much more enjoyable.
- I love reclaiming the ability to get from point A to Point B anytime of the day.
Company is Dainese, closest retailers is fairfax, CA - This has bluetooth all built in and ready to go.
One of the other uses for bluetooth in the helmet is to use a voice activated GPS Nav system, which I thought was cool as well.
What story from your wild-and-crazy youth would nobody believe about you today?
Heh, These QotDs are great. Here are some truths that you'd never believe I actually did
1) Sang a capella in front of a bunch of people "The Rose" originally by Bette Midler
2) Allegedly stole a couple cars, but allegedly put them back.
3) I was the head baker at my boarding school and I loved my giant Hobart mixing machine
4) I've done a 3 day solo in the southeastern desert of Oregon
5) I've built and slept in a snowcave
6) I've actually snowshoed
So they are advertising shows like months in advance. to far in advance to get the season pass action going on the show. This is my place holder for shows to potentially add:
Bionic Woman (Alias 2.0?)
p.s. We need a soft pretzel day
p.p.s. It was great to see Starbuck again.
This is a fountain that my Dad truly enjoyed. It drove the neighbors nuts, but to me (and my Dad) it makes the most relaxing drippling water sound. No, drippling is not a word, although it makes for a funny search on urban dictionary. If you can think of better word, (I came up empty on synonyms), I would like to hear it. I was thinking of rippling and dripping at the same time. Today I emptied and cleaned it up which I've been meaning to do for a while now. I definitely took the love of this fountain from my Dad and it's now my favorite fountain.
If I can't race yellow and black BMW 325Ci's anymore,
I can at least commute on a BMW R1100 S/Prep.
Did someone call for torque?
What was the most embarrassing hobby you've ever had?
Submitted by Billie Fable.
Heh, funny one. I don't know if I would call it a hobby, but when I was the ripe age of 15 and the year was 1985, I was known to be really handy with a sewing machine to peg jeans. Wow, I can't belive I'm posting this.
