Josh and Erin in the Twin Cities

My stomach hurts.

And we're going back.

Ok, so I posted earlier about how when I was at Road America, we went to the team Realtime Acura BBQ and they had a buttload of rotisserie chickens cooking and how incredibly good they were. Well, it just so turns out that I bought a grill last year that had a rotisserie on it, so I decided it was time to make good use of it and made up a chicken for Matt, Kaleb and I to try.

Let's just say that it was a success.

So, with that bhind me, I thought it was time to get a little more ambitous. I decided that for dinner the night of my birthday pub-crawl I would make not one, not two, but THREE chickens on the rotisserie. I would make them using a different spice on each one so that we could try out a number of flavors. And with everyone there for my birthday, who was going to tell me no? So, I put all three chickens (vegetarian chicken, mind you) on the spit and got them babies a-turnin! I made one with Lawry's Season Salt, one with a Chipotle Cinnamon rub, and one with a poultry seasoning we had in the cabinet. The season salt one was gone in a flash, declaring itself a winner by the fact that all that was left on the platter was a little grease and a couple of bones. The cinnamon one was good, but it had nothing on the salt... Lastly was the poultry seasoning, looking like I had just laid it out at the end of service and not given anyone a change to try it. I think it is still in my fridge, maybe I could re-assemble it and make it a chicken again...?

Anyway, I am officially hooked on cooking things on the rotisserie and now want to buy a pork belly and wrap that bad boy around the spit and fill it with goodness. I can already kind of smell how good that would taste! I just have to get E to go away for a few hours, I doubt she would like it if I brought in a whole pork belly....

Yesterday was the annual National Sales Meeting, and while it was cool, it was not Colin Powell cool. We had all the sponsored X-Games athletes and the sponsored racing team there, but there were significantly fewer musical acts. They started off with Josh Groban, then John Legend, some kids band, and finished off with Christina Aguilera. Josh Groban and Christina Aguilera were pretty cool, but the rest of them I could have done without. There was also a whole bunch of different test foods and drinks to be had. Over all it was a nice way to spend 1/2 a day at 'work'.

Sonny just sent me an email letting me know that in the DDMMYYYY format, this is my once in a lifetime birthday where the day and month are the same as the year.

Pretty cool way of looking at it.

For some reason, this kind of brightened my day...

My wonderful and talented sis, Megan sent me a belated b-day prez today. She made this amazing yoga bag (little boy is laying on it in the pic) as well as a ganesh wind chime, a cooking pan and a movie and goodies. The pan she got me is a kind of inside joke and has to do with bacon infused cooking surfaces. We all know how much I love bacon. The funniest thing she sent was the movie Gremlin as well as microwave popcorn, milk duds and hot tamales. Megan said you're supposed to eat all 3 at the same time and it's like Christmas in your mouth. I guess I need to get out more ...

Thank you, Megan. I love you!

So, some of you know that last weekend I was at Road America for the ALMS races, but I really wasn't there for the ALMS, I was there as a guest of the Bimmerworld team that is running in the Speed World Challenge series running a couple of BMW 3 series cars. They have 3 drivers, James Clay, Seth Thomas and Nick Esayin.

How did I get myself into this wonderful situation you ask? Well, one of my friends that I autocross with has a cousin that is the crew chief for the team, and when he knew he was coming up here he sent along a couple of tickets. Matt's (autocross guy) girlfriend wasn't really interested and told him to bring me along, and viola! I am at Road America!

We showed up on Saturday morning, just after the qualifying session had ended, but there was still a lot of work to do for the Bimmerworld team to make some last minute adjustments to the cars for Sunday morning's race. We hung out with Matt's cousin for a bit and I asked probably more questions than he thought was possible, and then we took off to see the track and get some photos of the 4-hour ALMS race that started at 4 on Saturday.

Both of us were pretty fond of the 007 James Bond Aston Martin running around in British Racing green with a big ol' Union Jack on the roof. I have quite a few pictures of this car.
Matt managed to take over 1500 pictures on a camera he just bought a couple of days prior to the weekend, talk about breaking it in!! It was a good thing that I had brought my laptop, we were able to download the photos to the hard drive Saturday night so he could start fresh Sunday morning for the Bimmerworld race.



So, on to the race, James was qualified in fourth, Seth in 6th and Nick in 14th (he had food poisoning and was nearly puking in the car). James moved a spot down at the start but started charging pretty quickly to get up to third place behind Saini and Kleinubing. Couple of laps later he was chomping hard on the back tires of Kleinubing and a lap or two later he was through at turn 5! Now James is leading a Speed Touring Car race with only a handful of laps to go. He managed to pull out a gap of about 1.5 seconds at the checkered and won his first world challenge event! I would like to think it was all because Matt and I were there, but someone said something about preparing, practicing, and even setting up the car. What do they know?

So, we ended the weekend on a high with the team having gotten one driver on the box, and jumped into the car for our 5 hour drive home that turned into more like 7 once we got detoured 87 miles and stopped for dinner in Wisconsin. It was a great trip, we saw a ton of gorgeous cars, and let me tell you, those CTS-V Cadillacs in the Speed GT champioship are serious. I mean they shake the ground when they roll by, it is seriously impressive.

I didn't realy realize how much I missed the big tracks until I was up there watching the races. I think Matt and I both have gotten the bug for a little track time, and Erin/wallet willing, I will get my booty on up to Brainerd now that they have redone it without the dragstrip and take a few hot laps. Who knows, maybe I will find myself enrolled in a racing school somewhere, maybe Bondurant?

Don't forget to watch the race August 20th (greatest day ever in history) at 1:00PM ET on Speed, you will not see me, but you will see an exciting race!

Take 21:19 of your life and watch this video. Now git!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9153550196656656736>

I called, seriously I did. I think E must have had a dead battery or had the phone on silent in her purse or something.

Anyway, there were plenty of sweet cars for sale at the track, not just that gorgeous Porsche. There was a Ford GT, a BMW 545 with 19"s, and many others.

I'll put up some photos from this weekend tonight after I have had some time to look them over, but it was a good time all around. I got to check out more of Road America than I had ever before seen, and also got to check out some seriously sweet cars.

So J is in FonDuLac, WI this weekend at some car thing (don't ask, I have no idea). And I haven't really heard from him except for a photo attachment in an e-mail he sent me this morning. No “Hi honey”. Just a picture of a man with a car.

I mean you can't blame the guy for trying.

One of the guys from the autocross was out taking photos and posted them on Flicker for everyone to see. Lo and behold!!! There are photos of ME!

In my defense, she was called Coby because she was riding through a parking lot crossing an alley without looking down the alley when she crossed it. Essentially, not paying attention to what she was doing. I know it is a buzzkill to have to keep so vigilant, but that is what keeps your skin intact when you are riding a scooter, motorcycle, what-have-you.

Anyway, now that is settled, I have an autocross update. Yesterday was the first race on the new tires/wheels and I have to say that they performed beautifully. The tires gave great grip, turn in was more precise, and the car was more controllable all around. All I need now is a good alignment and the car will actually go where I want it to.

The first few runs of the day I coned on, and I was not improving, and I was getting frustrated. Basically, I was just trying to pussy-foot it around and be smooth. Well, there's smooth and then there is smooth and fast. You can be smooth and still push the front, rear, all four. So, for the afternoon session, I just said screw it, I'm going to slam one in and see how it goes.

I dropped 3 seconds off my best time from the morning. On a 60 (ish) second lap. I went from high 67s to a low 64 with no cones. I guess I was just thinking too hard about it and not just doing it. As I got better in the afternoon I got happier and was able to play more with the car. The M5 will have to wait a few more weeks at least. (incidentally, I did find a smoking deal on one, we shall see how the little lady responds to it...)

I still finished 4th of 4, but the top two were in the top 10 on raw time and top 5 in PAX, so I don't feel so bad about it. The car I was chasing all day is a little Nissan Sentra, and just when I thought I had gotten him, he upped his game as well and got me by a second or so. The good thing is that I was able to get my PAX time into the 80's (out of 150) and my raw time put me squarely on 100 of 150 drivers. Not great, but good for now. It is also good to know that I was just being a wanker and need to drive the damn car like I stole it.

My last run was a good one, but I probably lost about 1/2 a second in one section, it was a right, left, right and I was on a flyer. I got into the right nicely and the back started to come around, no problem, hit the left and flung it back that way, then slammed it hard to the right for the last corner of the set and the back kicked out that way. Slam on the gas hard and it all lines back up with minimal drama. I wish I had video of it though, it must have looked cool to see a front wheel drive car fishtailing through a short slalom.

I found a link to a video that someone took from their M3, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ7EfBxkdJc

Here is another that shows the course better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScDYYX6_bE4

Oh yeah, and we went to see the 'Dark Knight' last night, it was awesome. I highly recommend it to anyone that likes movies. Heath Ledger's performance was AMAZING. It was all Joker, no Heath in there at all, the performance of a lifetime. He was really freaky in a lot of the scenes and did an incredible job, I can't talk highly enough about it.

Ok. So I have to admit this scooter thing was a bit more scary than I thought it was going to be. I was fine until I got on the thing. Then I freaked out a bit. It seemed too much at first. Like Josh told me to ride around the garage a bit and get a feel for it. Either I was too much on the throttle or not at all. I remember learning to drive my manual Honda was a lot like this.

I had to drive the thing out of the garage and I almost bit it. I'm still trying to figure out the throttle: wrench back and it makes it go and wrench forward and you slow down. I mean it was only the first 10 minutes I was on the thing. It always seems your weakest moment is in front of a crowd.

So Josh drove us down the street and we got a bite to eat and found a really nice parking lot to practice in. I had a really good time there, no busy traffic or hills. I did get in trouble once. I got called Coby and Josh was coined Jerry. Josh is an excellent teacher though. He's very patient and thorough. I still think I need a bit more confidence before I drive on the road.

Now I need to find a helmet that fits me and I'm good to go!

We went to STL last weekend for J's bro's baby shower. The weekend went so fast we didn't take many pics. Not even of Jalynn's shower! Oops. I was too much in the moment.
Here are a few so enjoy!

Now our front room has an everyday purpose!