Then my new team surprised me. They had a “meeting” on the calendar to hand off some jobs and then I walked into a conference room with cupcakes and workmates! I had a nice day. :)
Here are some pics to enjoy. The pictures really don't do justice.
Look at these gorgeous flowers Josh got me! They are from Pazzobello, an independent flower shop here in MPLS. I got an e-mail at work around 1 telling me I had flowers to pick up. How nice is that? I felt so special. I'm SO lucky!
Then my new team surprised me. They had a “meeting” on the calendar to hand off some jobs and then I walked into a conference room with cupcakes and workmates! I had a nice day. :)
Here are some pics to enjoy. The pictures really don't do justice.
Then my new team surprised me. They had a “meeting” on the calendar to hand off some jobs and then I walked into a conference room with cupcakes and workmates! I had a nice day. :)
Here are some pics to enjoy. The pictures really don't do justice.
So, I had the second day of the Autocross school and throughly roached the front tires of the TL. I rotated the tires on Tuesday and the fronts have almost no tread left on them. So, we got about 4 times the amount of runs that we would get during a normal weekend, and we were required to have instructors in the car for each run except for the final run of the day, or our graduation run. I was really frustrated throughout the day because I was learning stuff and I still wasn't going any faster around the course. My best time was only 1.5 seconds faster than my first run. So, this either means that my first run was dynamite, or i just stunk the place up. According to the instructor that rode along with me on my first run, it was pretty dynamite. The best time of the day was a 29.8 and that was in a Mitsubishi Evo 9 running slicks, my 31.4 didn't sound too bad after I heard that.
I had a couple of the instructors take the TL out for a spin with me riding shotgun during lunch break so that I could see what a fast lap in the TL really felt like, adn I learned that I was not braking hard enough, cornering too hard, trying to carry too much corner speed, and turning in too early for most corners. After lunch I tried to incorporate what I learned and had a really hard time with it.
So, after I rotated the tires, I decided to find out all the specs of my tires. It turns out that the treadwear rating of my tires is 500. To put this into perspective, the R-comp slicks have a rating of 40. So I am essentially riding around on bricks. Note to self, never get all-season tires with a mileage warranty! I wonder if I could take my tires back to the NTB and get them to honor the warranty, hmmmm, I wonder.... Nah, anyone with half a brain would look at those tires and know it is not normal wear and tear that caused that kind of damage. What kind of damage you say? Well, the middle tread of the tires is pretty much worn away. There is a high spot, but there is no edge to the tread. Then, on the edge of the tire you can see where it is starting to delaminate. Yup, I have absolutely destroyed them, totally roached. My friend took pictures while we were rotating them, but I am still waiting for him to send me the photos so that I can post them.
I picked up a set of brand new Michelin Pilots that come on the TL from the factory for a whopping $10 per tire, so I have a backup in case the Yoko's finally give up the ghost. I am planing on leaving them on until I finish the next race on the 29th and then swapping out the Michelins. I would like to get a new set of wheels that I can put summer tires on and race on those, but I have not been able to find anything on CraigsList that either I like, or weighs less than the factory wheels. I found some bitchin 19's, but they weighed something like 40 pounds each and the tires were 25 or 30 or something like that. Autocross performance would really suck if I added 30 pounds per corner! I may just have to buy some wheels/tires from the Tire Rack so that I get what I want and also get a decent weight for the wheel/tire combo. I still have that set of tires that E committed to purchasing for me when she was going for her new job, so that covers half of it, but with a joint account, it all comes from the same place anyway...
Well, my rents are coming up the last weekend of the month, so I'll see them soon, but for the rest of you, you'll have to wait until Travis' shower. Megan and Dan, see you for the 4th, I look forward to seeing Hancock, it looks hilarious!
I had a couple of the instructors take the TL out for a spin with me riding shotgun during lunch break so that I could see what a fast lap in the TL really felt like, adn I learned that I was not braking hard enough, cornering too hard, trying to carry too much corner speed, and turning in too early for most corners. After lunch I tried to incorporate what I learned and had a really hard time with it.
So, after I rotated the tires, I decided to find out all the specs of my tires. It turns out that the treadwear rating of my tires is 500. To put this into perspective, the R-comp slicks have a rating of 40. So I am essentially riding around on bricks. Note to self, never get all-season tires with a mileage warranty! I wonder if I could take my tires back to the NTB and get them to honor the warranty, hmmmm, I wonder.... Nah, anyone with half a brain would look at those tires and know it is not normal wear and tear that caused that kind of damage. What kind of damage you say? Well, the middle tread of the tires is pretty much worn away. There is a high spot, but there is no edge to the tread. Then, on the edge of the tire you can see where it is starting to delaminate. Yup, I have absolutely destroyed them, totally roached. My friend took pictures while we were rotating them, but I am still waiting for him to send me the photos so that I can post them.
I picked up a set of brand new Michelin Pilots that come on the TL from the factory for a whopping $10 per tire, so I have a backup in case the Yoko's finally give up the ghost. I am planing on leaving them on until I finish the next race on the 29th and then swapping out the Michelins. I would like to get a new set of wheels that I can put summer tires on and race on those, but I have not been able to find anything on CraigsList that either I like, or weighs less than the factory wheels. I found some bitchin 19's, but they weighed something like 40 pounds each and the tires were 25 or 30 or something like that. Autocross performance would really suck if I added 30 pounds per corner! I may just have to buy some wheels/tires from the Tire Rack so that I get what I want and also get a decent weight for the wheel/tire combo. I still have that set of tires that E committed to purchasing for me when she was going for her new job, so that covers half of it, but with a joint account, it all comes from the same place anyway...
Well, my rents are coming up the last weekend of the month, so I'll see them soon, but for the rest of you, you'll have to wait until Travis' shower. Megan and Dan, see you for the 4th, I look forward to seeing Hancock, it looks hilarious!
I had my first day of the Autocross novice school today, and while it was what I was expecting, it was still informative. The other benefit of the day was that I was able to sign up for the next event on June 29th!! I'm pretty excited about that, and I also found out that the championship scoring only takes the top five events that you enter, so missing MOWOG 3 wasn't as big a deal as I thought! I also looked at the standings so far this year and it appears that I am in 3rd for my class! (out of 10)
Tomorrow is my novice school track day, so I get to further thrash the all-season tires that are on the TL until I can find some good summer tires to mount up. I found a decent set of wheels with summer tires on CL for really cheap, and a set of tires in the same model as the ones I have been roaching for really cheap as well. I still will not have R-comp tires, but summer tires are a good start.
This summer is looking like it is going to be a LOT of traveling for us, especially for heading back to STL. With Trav's shower in July, MotoGP at Indy, a wedding in September, Thanksgiving, and another wedding that I dont know when it is happening, we're going to be busy and putting a lot of miles on the TL. Good thing the mods I did last year increased the fuel economy by 3-4 MPG. I also have another mod that I want to do, putting thermal spacers between the intake and engine to keep the intake cool while the engine is hot. I helped a couple of friends install theirs and they pretty much instantly noticed a gain of 3 MPG after installing them in addition to the added power. If I install those, that should put me over 35 MPG on the highway! Big savings on a road trip!
See you at the end of July in STL!
Tomorrow is my novice school track day, so I get to further thrash the all-season tires that are on the TL until I can find some good summer tires to mount up. I found a decent set of wheels with summer tires on CL for really cheap, and a set of tires in the same model as the ones I have been roaching for really cheap as well. I still will not have R-comp tires, but summer tires are a good start.
This summer is looking like it is going to be a LOT of traveling for us, especially for heading back to STL. With Trav's shower in July, MotoGP at Indy, a wedding in September, Thanksgiving, and another wedding that I dont know when it is happening, we're going to be busy and putting a lot of miles on the TL. Good thing the mods I did last year increased the fuel economy by 3-4 MPG. I also have another mod that I want to do, putting thermal spacers between the intake and engine to keep the intake cool while the engine is hot. I helped a couple of friends install theirs and they pretty much instantly noticed a gain of 3 MPG after installing them in addition to the added power. If I install those, that should put me over 35 MPG on the highway! Big savings on a road trip!
See you at the end of July in STL!
So, My buddy Dan just moved back to his parents place in Rhode Island. It's been a bit of a bummer because he was literally over here every night hanging out, and even on the weekends too. Erin used to joke that he was my boyfriend because we hung out so much. It was pretty cool because we were both interested in the same things, cars, food, hanging out, grilling, working on our cars, racing our cars, etc. So, this week has been a bit of a downer. The pic is of us on his last night in town at the local B-dubs. We all had a great time joking and what-not, hopefully he will come back for a visit or we can cruise up to the RI and see what it is all about.
We went to a happy hour with Erin's new co-workers last night and it ended up being a bit more happy than any of us had planned. We ended up in the hot tub VERY late and had a few people stay over to sleep it off. It was a good time and E's new co-workers seem like they are going to be lots of fun to have around.
One of the guys that I met at the Auto-X season opener is coming over this weekend for dinner with his girlfriend, so that should be interesting to meet the new people.
Curtis is turning 26 this week and so we are going out on his boat this weekend to celebrate. It should be a wild and crazy time. Last time on the boat Ala and Alex were acting like a bunch of kids and fighting on the sandbar we stopped at for lunch. It was hilarious to watch. I am hoping that this weekend it is going to be nicer than that day, it was 60 and windy so we were all bundled up the whole time.
We have a busy couple of months coming up, next weekend is my Auto-x novice school, then E's b-day, then possibly an Auto-X event, 4th of July, Travis' shower... Looks like lots of miles on the TL coming up. Look forward to seeing everyone at Travis' shower!