The Franco-Taiwanese Alliance

Mrrr.  My sleeping has been really messed up for the past half-week or so, so I’ve been constantly tired… more so than usual.  I hope I get relatively rested before the trackday on Friday.

Trackday on Friday!  Thunderhill with Rosette… I hope she doesn’t throw me. 

I’ve been playing Disgaea 2 again (because I don’t have enough things taking up my time), and it is fun, as usual.  It’s pretty brain-melting for me, though… the more open-ended a game is with player choices, the more paralyzed I get playing it.

France in a week and a half… wow.  This is going to be the longest I’ve ever been away from home.  I hope the cats are okay with the friends we’re going to leave them with. 

Almost through with the stack of car/motorcycle magazines.  I also started reading the last Alvin Maker book, The Crystal City.  It feels like I missed a book, although the title list claims I haven’t.

I just had a pretty decent game of Supreme Commander with Ryan… us against two Supreme AI.  We got creamed in short order the first time, but got our revenge the second time, with the assistance of T1 bomber-rushing on one of the two AI to take him out of the running early.  The rest of the game amounted to us stalling the other AI with suicidal base attacks while teching up, taking his infrastructure apart with T3 artillery, and striking targets of opportunity with T3 strategic bombers and T3 gunships.  We may suck (especially me) compared to serious SupCom players, but it’s fun for us!  I managed not to let my base stagnate this time around… usually I start forgetting to build upon reaching T3… I’ll set a bunch of things with long build times going, and then I’ll forget all about my base and run around like a maniac with a small group of units, get them killed, get my base attacked, and sit back until I die or Ryan saves me.

The Transformers trailer… wow.  It looks like it’ll be a fun action movie (as expected of Michael Bay), with no substance whatsoever.  And forget about adhering to the source material… Megatron isn’t a gun, and you can’t even tell what any of them are supposed to be when they’re in humanoid form.  Half the fun of the old Transformers was that you had a robot with distinctly recognizable car (or whatever) parts as arms and legs.   Bumblebee as a new Camaro, though, I can live with that.  And Megan Fox… I’d like to have a relationship all over her face.

The Alvin Maker books (Orson Scott Card) are pretty good, as expected of Card.  I’m going into the fifth book (Heartfire) soon.  My favorite character so far has been the judge who presided over Alvin’s trial… pity he didn’t get a bigger part.  Judicial pwnage ftw!

It looks like we’re not having that comment contest, since nobody seems interested.

Oh, and I’m now officially enrolled at Wyotech, in their chassis and powertrain program.  I start in October.  Nine months of eating and breathing cars, and doing terrible things to make them go faster.  You can bet Faye won’t come out of it stock.

…was bloody awesome!  Pics tomorrow.

I went for a brief ride today with a few of the 530riders.  Well… I say “brief”, and it was just to The Corners and back, but it still took just under two hours, all told.  It was an uneventful but fun ride for me, at a decent pace (for my crappy skills!), with no oh-shit moments and no crashes.  We stopped briefly at The Corners and had a little chat about the June 8th trackday at Thunderhill, and then we went our merry ways.

My new(ish) Alpinestars leathers were worn for the second time, and they held up just fine.  I had issues with the pants the first time I went out with them, but I think between better-fitting underwear and the leather starting to break in a little bit, they worked better today.  In fact, I sat around at the Silo on the UC Davis campus for about an hour, waiting for a lunch date with Alice and friends, and they were remarkably comfortable.  Getting them on and off is still and issue, and I really hope they stretch a bit more before settling in, but they’re perfectly workable.

The rest of the suit is doing pretty well…  The jacket, which I wore without the liner today, fits well and doesn’t impede movement, even though I thought it was just a touch big for me before.  At least while I’m on the bike or doing other things, the jacket seems fine.  I’ll probably appreciate the extra room when it gets cold again and I need to wear things under it.  One thing I noticed, though not exactly a downside, was that the thinner material on the inside upper arms surprised me a few times during the ride, because when a bug or small rock hit me there, I would FEEL it.  Nothing terrible though, so oh well.  The gloves are doing great, though they’re complicated to put on, and the same with my new Gaerne track boots.  I guess I’m all kitted out then, as far as safety gear goes… next up is moto maintenance, and then rider training!

I was feeling weak and shaky at the bank about twenty minutes ago, Faye’s springs suddenly started creaking significantly where they were silent before, and Helen just bluescreened and rebooted herself… what’s going on today?

So I was right, and my foot is still wonky today. No gym today, no running today… I’m actually pretty sad about it. I was hoping to build up some momentum this time. I guess I’ll just do some sit ups today, maybe some pushups to try out my wrist, and some squats if my foot and legs don’t complain.

Starting work right now, I’m watching the Speed Channel in the background. I just watched the end of the Spanish Grand Prix 125cc championship 2nd round… what an incredible finish. Gabor Talmacsi (I’m new to following the races, so I don’t really know who these people are yet) led Hector Faubel, both on Aprilias, for at least the last 4 laps of the race, pretty much no gap separating the two of them. Faubel refused to take the lead, even when Talmacsi let off fairly significantly, until the last few turns of the last lap. Faubel turned inside Talmacsi into one of the last turns and took the lead, but then Talmacsi drafted him and pulled alongside him in the home straight and took back the lead… by 14 THOUSANDTHS of a second! I love motorsports.

A day later, make that 4 out of 7.

Despite how I feel about the brand in general, I may have to buy a Scion xD when it comes out… solely for the name.  XD

What a crazy damned month.  The most recent development is that I crashed the Ninja again on Saturday.  I’m relatively okay, but very sore, and I also got some road rash on my palm, due to one of my gloves failing.  Typing this is hurting quite a bit.  Forming sentences is also hurting a bit, so forgive me if this is a bit stilted.  Positive news is that I’m going to stop being such a damned pussy (meaning both pain endurance and also willpower), whatever that means.  Let’s take it slowly, but surely.  Roar!

So I went on a group ride with the crew from 530riders.com on Saturday. It was a fun ride, lasting about 4 hours with a few rest stops… but unfortunately, the end of the ride saw me lowsiding the Ninja on Russell, coming back in to Davis. I followed the person in front of me too closely and didn’t notice them reduce speed drastically in the first part of a 40mph sweeping left turn. I hit the brakes to avoid tagging his back tire, went off the pavement, and lost traction. The bike slid out from under me, and we both skidded about 30 feet on grass and dirt to end up in a ditch.

Damage to me: one bruised elbow.

Damage to gear: armor is a bit green, burrs everywhere, helmet is iffy and being replaced.

Damage to Ninja: right handlebar insert snapped, right footpeg/rearset snapped, right front turn signal popped off, left front turn signal housing/lens broken, sidestand bent, and the all-important Vacaville Motorsports license plate frame snapped. Light scratches to the plastics.

Lesson: DON’T TAILGATE! Also, for in-turn panic braking, straighten out, brake hard, resume turn - don’t try to brake and turn simultaneously.

Here’s a link to the group ride thread… the last three pages or so have commentary on the ride, as well as pictures. Here’s a link to my Flickr photoset of pictures I took on the ride… nothing too exciting there, though.