I like this for a lot of reasons. It was shot with a DSLR, so it has a technically pleasing immediacy to it achieved without spending a fortune. The contraption appears to be very well made, with quality connectors and a high level of technical proficiency. I realize it could be argued that what he does with it might be considered by some, outside acceptable boundaries, but then I smiled.

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

The best ringtone imaginable should make you not want to answer your phone. It should bring a smile to your face and fill you with joy or a fond memory.  Of course it should also be loud enough so that you know your phone is ringing in the first place. I believe I have found the perfect general purpose ringtone. It’s not anything like the song I hear when my wife calls, or the tune I’ve associated with my son, or the alarm that warns me my ex is on the phone.  (She’s not that bad, the alarm sound makes me laugh when she does call. sorry Cami.) This ring reminds me a great trip to Montreal and of the awesome power of an F1 car.

My new ringtone if a recording of several F1 cars speeding past, about 20′ away. The cars have just exited a sharp left turn in 3rd gear at about 85 MPH and continuing on through the gears to 180+ MPH. They’re shifting into 5th at about 135 mph on their way to 7th gear right in front of me. What a sound!

I’m not a huge fan of alternative ringtones but I do believe they have there place. I’d never pay for a ringtone. Instead I prefer to edit an audio file, save it and transfer it to my iPhone with a program called iToner. I know next to nothing about transferring ring tones to other phones.

Now the best part, like sharing this story I’m sharing the file I created. Here is the file for you to use on your phone. It’ll open in a new window. Right click it and save it to your machine.

This last Friday, the 5th was the first Friday of March. that means it’s a First Friday Nighter TSD road rally night. My partner Lance and I hadn’t done a rally in 5 months so it was time.

This rally drove north from the usual starting point in Mission Hills to the 14 Freeway, then it settled in the Agua Dulce and Acton areas. This rally was a lot of fun. Long winding roads through canyons and two passes through the small town of Acton at night.

We managed to fall for each trap in the first two legs and our times reflected it. We missed three different turns costing us a minute, 27 and 47 seconds respectively. We nailed the last two legs though,  with scores of 11 and 16. Those are great times! We’re hoping we were 3rd overall for class C. We’ll know for sure when the score are posted online towards the end of the month.

In the first we leg we fell for the ol “double left turn on the road that connects at both ends to the main road” trick. I fell for this on my first rally. I remember thinking what a clever thing it is. Since if you do it right or do it wrong you end up in the same place, only at different times. It works like this; You’re asked to turn left or right onto a road that eventually rejoins the road you’re on.  When you meet the original road you make another turn in the same direction as the first turn. This returns you to your original road/course. The trick is in which end of the side road you start on.

I wish I had video or photos to share, but it’s dark out there, plus we’re always in a hurry.

I do have a cool map with our course detailed on it. It’s made by recording our trip on a GPS receiver. I have the GPS device set to record a track point every two seconds. With that data I’m able to determine exactly how long any mistakes in our route take. Here’s a link to our course. As we do these rallys, I’m often impressed with the countryside we find ourselves in. I often think I should go back out there sometime during the day. I haven’t gone back out yet, because I’m pretty sure a lot of these places look better at night.

When I was younger I had a fascination with all sort of automotive auxiliary lighting. Mostly “fog lights” and a light known as a “driving light”. Driving lights were basically super bright, high beams.  Illegal as could be, so i never got got the courage to buy a set.  Even though the headlights in my S2000 are excellent, these very lightly traveled back roads are night have caused me to long for a set of modern driving lights.  I can’t imagine how I’d even install any extra lights on my car, so the worry is moot.

The Westboro Baptist Church came back to Los Angeles today and Kevin and his friends were there to meet them.  This time they were out in front of the American Jewish University on Mullholland in the Sepulveda pass.

The WBC arrived at 11:47 from having parked up the hill east of the University’s entrance. Kevin and his friends had parked on the university’s grounds and came running down the hill shortly after the WBC arrived.

Kevin, dressed again as Jesus, opened his giant folded sign that read “I’m with Stupid.”  He sang his own songs to drown out the protester’s songs. His friends engaged the protesters in a dialogue, without much success at convincing any of them in either direction. There were a few car horn honks, but I think they were mostly from drivers upset at those cars taking off when the light changed. There were also a few “one finger salutes” from some drivers.  I’m guessing drivers were mostly confused at the conflicting messages.

The WBC left after only 30 minutes. According to their website, most of their protests are short appearances like this. Their next protest is scheduled for an hour and 45 minutes later at the Sinai Temple on Wilshire Blvd.  After that Kevin and his friends will pester them somewhere around the Academy awards.

I dug out my 80-200 f2.8 Nikkor for most these shots. It’s much sharper than my 18-200. Heavier to be sure, but worth it for its image quality.

I couldn’t be prouder of my son Kevin.  He got out there in Long Beach protesting against the WBC (Westboro Baptist Church) from Kansas. This group hates gays, Jews and even American soldiers.  Apparently they’ve gained notoriety protesting at the funerals of returned service members.

The tactics of the anti WBC protesters is to block, annoy and diffuse the message of the WBC.  Watch the video and you’ll see  many conflicting messages including my son the dancing Jesus. Talk about confusing, I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.

Long Beach is great community. The fifth largest city in California and it feels like a small town. A diverse place that values that diversity enough to stand up for it. Go Long Beach!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch this video and you’ll see more of the WBC speaking for themselves at another protest outside Wilson High School.  I learned from Kevin that the WBC choose Wilson because that’s where a national gay and lesbian student group formed. Kevin, a recent graduate from Wilson finds that kind of ironic since that group had maybe three members in it his senior year.

Click here to view the embedded video.

When I started this site four and a half years ago, I all kinds of enthusiasm and strong intentions that quickly faded. But now my interest has been rekindled by a friend who has started a blog that is actually read (or at least visited) by people he doesn’t know. It helps that his blog www.frontageroads.com is focused on all things bicycle. I hope to one day find a focus for this blog, but until then I’ll continue to share what ever interests me at the time.

BTW. It’s my buddy John’s birthday today. In my life, John has held the position friend longer than anyone else. He’s been my best man, twice! He tolerates our differences and remains a solid steadfast friend in spite of me.  Here’s to you, John!  Happy Birthday.

image of new site design

This was an observation my daughter made about one of her toys. She was describing a creature’s make up in terms of the animals it resembled. At first her mom, (and I as well) thought she’d described this creature as more than a whole. Then we realized she was correct. She had not exceeded 100%.
I thought about renaming my site to ahalfasixthandathird, because I like how it forces one to realize the world’s a complicated place. That even as we try to understand an issue or event in simple terms, it’s really the sum of everyone’s understanding, that makes up the whole. What a first seems like different parts that don’t fit together are in fact a whole. The good, the bad, pretty and ugly. Cops and robbers, they all rely on each other to survive.

Well, It’s officially a tradition. That is if doing something twice, and speaking of doing it again next year can be said to establish a tradition.
John, Rob, Ken, Brian and myself met up in Malibu for a day of canyon driving and some quality standing around visiting. After driving Yerba Buena road for the first time, we all agreed it was a must do on our next trip. Lunch was at the Reel Inn in Malibu and was delicious as usual.

Here’s a link to our route through the canyons. You can see from the data there, where we stopped and see our elevation as we traveled.

Ken's Cortina as a late 70's magazine ad.

Here’s a link to a gallery of the day. There are POV videos of driving up the canyon roads and shots of many of the sites we saw that day. It sure beat watching parades and football. And judging by all the other car affectionados on the road that day, we weren’t the only ones to feel that way.

A road trip much better suited to younger folks. We left my house at 3:00 A.M. Sunday. We arrived in Monterey at 8:00 A.M. Had breakfast at a local diner and were in the raceway by 9:30. Walking though the paddock areas we were free to enjoy the cars close up. The crowds were not large and it was very easy to move about and enjoy the sights, sounds and even smells of all the old cars assembled there.
I’m very happy with the how my pictures came out. Pretty much every picture from the paddock area was taken with the Lumix LX3. This link will take you directly to my favorite view in my Vintage Races gallery. Use the arrow keys after following the link to advance the pictures.
We left Monterey at about 4 and traveled south on Carmel Valley road. It was about 50 miles of unspoiled California. The road narrowed in places and the center line wasn’t even there. Tight and twisty I’m sure we all wished we were behind the wheels of our own cars.

This Rally was a nice mix of the hectic and a nice drive through the country.

The odometer check ended in Simi Valley, just below the 118 on East street. At the end of the odo check there’s always a short break. My rally partner took the opportunity to relieve himself. Then once we took off he’d apparently lost his phone, We paused for him to get out and look under the seat while other drivers passed us. We found the phone and drove like the wind actually completing the leg with a penalty for arriving early instead of late. Not sure how that happened.

After rejoining the freeway for a short bit, we exited, and made our way towards the flat lands. Checkpoint number 1 is at the end of a short dead end road under “Camarillo” on the map.

From the first checkpoint we headed south where we were delayed by an Amtrak train, (thank God it was short). We made our way counterclockwise around the loop at the bottom. Here we reached speeds of around 90 to get our average speed back up to 48 to compensate for train delay. Successfully raising our speed the 2nd Checkpoint was just before the loop rejoins the road were traveled south on. This checkpoint was a “do it yourself” checkpoint.
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Now, back towards the airport, through a nice community of homes and a golf course.

Towards the end of the track we made our biggest mistake. The very end of the track, (on Arneill Road) is the Pizza place where we meet afterwords. There’s a short extension of the track to the south there. That was a missed turn. After we should have turned left (now a right for us) we should have paused for 2 minutes. That missed pause was the difference between our score of 363 and scoring 163 for the entire rally. Not enough to win our division but we might have scored a 15 on that leg. A very respectable time.

FFN Rally. Aug 07, 2009

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