Raining Again

I had begun to wonder about all this rain that was supposed to be coming with the spring and summertime here.  I have to say either I've been lucky so far or my expectations of rain nearly every day were incorrect!  Anyway, it's raining today, and rained just a little yesterday.  Tomorrow at Oulton is supposed to have showers too.  At least it's not very cold or humid!

Today is going to be a bit hectic.  A few meetings will fill up the morning quickly, and then I have to go look at the bigger room that is now available in Newport.  I'm 95% sure I will take it, unless it is just absolutely awful.  Yes the other room fell through again, and no I don't feel like giving details, I'm really fed up with how frustrating the search has been.  Then I have to get back home to finish packing up for the race this weekend.  We're leaving at 7 tonight, so I should have enough time.  I almost tried to pack last night, but wound up deciding to wait.

Maybe I'll be able to catch a little MLB Opening Day action too before we head out tonight.  I have no idea what my internet access over Friday and Saturday will be by the way, but I'll be back home late Saturday night.

Sleep!

After going pretty late and early for both basketball games and racing this weekend, I hit the sack pretty early last night.  Fell asleep watching the first few minutes of a BBC documentary about the years of F1 when fatalities were a really regular occurrence.  It was interesting, but I was really tired.  I also managed to sleep in till almost 8, which is amazing and I haven't done that in a long time.  I'm going to do some work on our project from home this morning - building a ChassisSim model of a rally track to use for car simulation.  Usually you generate the maps from data logs off of a car, but seeing as this track doesn't exist, we're doing it by guesswork and hand!

I did make myself a nice breakfast, egg and bacon on an English muffin.  Tasted good with some green tea on the side.  The weather is nice again today, a little over 40, but sunny and not too windy so it feels good.  Temperature might actually hit 60 this afternoon too!

Busy is Good

Finally I'm getting back to being truly busy with things going on.  Even if some of it is stuff I'm really just choosing to do.  Saturday was pretty much consumed with going to Silverstone to watch the Britcar GP.  There was some other racing too, an original Mini series, an Alfa Romeo series, ex Formula BMW cars and a couple others.  We migrated around the circuit and watched just about every turn at some point.  It was good, as I actually hadn't been around to some of the turns.  Watched a little basketball at night and went to bed relatively early as we finally lost the spring hour this weekend.

I got up early and got a ride from Rob to campus to watch the Australian GP with a group of us.  We had a BBQ breakfast of sausages and bacon, which honestly I think filled me up for the whole day.  I got back home and did a couple loads of laundry while finishing up booking trains and hotels for Jess' trip in a couple weeks.  Then I took a bike ride down the Canal to a garden center that I'd figured out has a good food and beer selection, mainly Scottish stuff.  Picked up a few goodies, but did resist their baked goods, mainly their scones, which looked really good.  From there I rode home and then back out to the gym for my first workout in like 5 days, which was good.  If you like inflicting pain, look up and try an exercise called a "manmaker".  Good stuff.

Then I stopped at a couple of Wetherspoons to see which beer festival ales they had on and found a few good ones.  The best part is they were £2.05 each!  Best one was a beer from San Diego - Ballast Point Calico Amber.  I think they fly the brewer over here and have the beer brewed on a system locally to avoid having to ship overseas.  An interesting concept that seems to work pretty well.

Going to have a light dinner tonight, still not truly hungry - probably just a little bread, cheese and a spinach salad.  I will attempt to stay up through the UNC game, don't know how successful that will be, since I was up at 5:30 this morning for the race!

Picasa Album from the BTCC Test day and Britcar event

2011 BTCC Media and Britcar Silverstone GP

Exciting Stuff

Yesterday was really enjoyable.  The 8 hours of track time flew by.  We were busy learning the car, adjusting ride heights, sway bars, front toe, and constantly filling up the gas tank!  The car was really easy to work on, it is quite a simple car, and nothing like working on the production cars I'm used to.  No more having to take of six other things just to get to the part you really need to change!  The weather really couldn't have been better, sunny all day, and almost 60 degrees too.  Wore a T-shirt most of the day for the first time in many months.  It was really great being back out at a track, I really was missing it.  I forgot my camera, so no pictures, sorry :(  There were some very nice cars there, M3's, a race prepped Porsche and Lamborghini, and a selection of Caterhams, Radicals, and a few other similar cars that I didn't recognise.  Standing on the pit wall as the Lambo was screaming by was just really great!

The racing is really getting going here now.  We're off to Silverstone twice in the next 3 days - today for the BTCC media and test day, and Saturday for a Britcar event.  Of course F1 is finally back too.

Our project is coming along too, still tons to do before April 12th for our next review.

Committed to a Place...

But there is still some uncertainty, the owner needs to find out when her tenant is exactly moving out.  Luckily I can extend my stay for a few days in my current place, so it should still work out.  It will be tricky because next weekend is the first Caterham race, so I'll be gone from Thursday night to Sunday night.  The place is in a great location, and there's only one other tenant.  30 second walk to the bus stop.  2 minute walk to 2 different Co-op grocery stores.  I'll have to figure out if I want to continue a gym membership, I might not honestly.  Hopefully I can nail down a move date this afternoon.

We have a presentation from Chris Aylett, the CEO of the Motorsports Industry Association today regarding Energy Efficient Motorsport.  It should be interesting to hear his opinions on where technology is headed.  Hopefully it will align with some of our choices for our project!

I did get a couple of key responses from 2 companies on our group project that we had been waiting on last night.  Things that we were kind of waiting on to further progress with our design.

Someone convinced me that I should go to the BTCC day tomorrow, so I'm going!  Yay for 2 weekdays at the track, the weather is shaping up to be (I think) unseasonably warm and not completely overcast too.

Semi Update on Housing

The place in Willen that I saw on Saturday will work I think.  Finally got two responses on other options in Newport last night and this morning.  Hopefully I can see those tonight.  At least I have one as a fall back now, though I don't want to keep the owners waiting on an answer from me.  It would be an improvement I think, but still a few drawbacks - smaller room, no real living room, and no desk area in the room.  It would cut about 10 minutes off the bus ride, which is better than nothing, but not as good as I'd hoped.  At least the bus stop is much closer to the house though - appx a quarter mile.

Been a busy morning so far - and have a small group meeting this afternoon.  We are definitely going to Snetterton on Wednesday for a test day with the Caterham.  Leaving at 6am!  Should be a good day.  Then on Thursday some of the class is going to Silverstone for the BTCC test and media day.  Since I'm gone all day Wednesday I might skip that to continue working on the project stuff.  Undecided on that, we'll see how the rest of today and tomorrow goes with that.

At the risk of jinxing my bracket - I am in first place after the weekend somehow.  Though my Southeast bracket is completely in shambles, I only have Florida left out of the 4 teams, and I had them losing the next game anyway!

What Rain?

It is shaping up to be a quite beautiful day here actually.  It's already 45 and sunny, and is supposed to get up to a little over 50.  I woke up to the barking dog this morning at 6:30 unfortunately.  But made it productive - caught up on blogs and stuff from last night, played around with some new software now that I can remote connect a true VPN session on campus, and then made some breakfast.  Just got back from a good workout at the gym, which didn't happen much this week, so that felt good.

I need to kind of plan what my bike ride this afternoon will be to take advantage of this weather.  Just need to plan it around visiting a possible option for housing over near Willen Lake.  I'm out of options in Newport unless I hear back from any of the ads I responded to in the next couple days.  Disappointing.  The Lake would be a nice ride, but it will be way too crowded with walkers I'm sure.

England is going for a Grand Slam in the 6 Nations this afternoon at 5 too.  So after checking out the place and whatever route I plan (that I will wind up getting lost on) I'm probably going to go out to watch that, it is a pretty big deal here.

Feels like a long week

It's been quite a busy week between everything I have going on.  In case you didn't see, my new room has fallen through, due to some unforeseen circumstances on the owner's end.  So i'm scrambling to find a new place.  I went to see one option last night, but it was just way too small.  I have two more places to look at on Saturday, so hopefully one or both of those prove to be good options.  Wish me luck, haven't found too many other options.

The group presentation went fairly well we think.  Good feedback, nothing negative - just things we need to do and clarify really.  Which obviously we know there was still a lot to do.  So we're plugging away on it, ideally we are more or less finished with the designs by the next review on April 12th.  Then we can finalise the report, poster, and incorporate comments that we get during the second review.

I hate my NCAA bracket by the way, having really only payed attention the ACC this year.  Who knows what that means towards how the picks actually go though.

We did finally get to pick up our passes that get us into Silverstone for nearly any event (not MotoGP or F1 though) so that is exciting, hope to get over there soon as the season gets going.

Presentation Today

Wish us luck for the first group review presentation today.  Presenting our basic concepts and ideas for the rally car and series.  Hopefully the professors like them and we can continue developing them.  Would hate to start over at this point!  Then I'm sticking around campus for an initial Toastmasters meeting from 6-8.  So a long day on campus.  An attempt is being made at starting a club that meets on campus.  I might keep going to the established one in Willen though.  Bit easier access with the bus, and it won't require me to stay on campus if I don't need to be here.  They will make sure there are experienced people at the Cranfield one, but I can't help thinking that the established club will be a slightly better environment.

Stupid loaf of bread started going moldy yesterday.  It's such a pain to keep it fresh.  Freezing is a hassle as is keeping it in the fridge because I just don't have enough space in there (another benefit of the new accommodations).  I did make some banana bread on Sunday, and it's tasting great, really glad I decided to give that a shot.  Now I'm looking around for other bread things to make.  Maybe this will replace some of the calories I'm apparently not eating.  I was all the way down to 91 kg (200 lbs) the last time I checked at the gym.  Kinda crazy.

Weekend

Obviously I've been working along on our project the last couple days.  We have to present our concept to the professors on Tuesday, so we're not necessarily doing more work or design at this point - but putting it together for the presentation.  I think our designs are coming along well and that we're on the right path so far.  The team is working well together too, which is really nice and makes things much easier.

I've also picked up something else to do on campus that involves building stuff and hand tools (which I've honestly been missing since I don't have a car or house that requires me to fix things anymore).  I can't really tell you what it is exactly though due to the non-disclosure agreement I signed.  But I got to go work on that for a bit yesterday afternoon which I enjoyed.

Managed to watch most of the ACC tournament games so far too.  Glad they are in the afternoons today and tomorrow, makes it much easier for me to watch!  The end of that VT/FSU game was crazy.  My first instinct on the Kitchen shot was that it was late.  Honestly didn't think it was as close as it turned out to be though.  The time difference does change to 4 hrs tonight though.  That will last for 2 weeks.

I've been making porridge for breakfasts recently, and have started soaking the oats overnight, which I do think makes them taste better.  Also makes it nice and easy in the morning, just pull the bowl out and pop it in the microwave.  Supposedly it also makes the nutrients in them easier to absorb for your body too.  I cooked them with some peanut butter this morning which was great.

Heading over to the gym for a workout soon.  Then going to look at the market for a cheap, hopefully silicone loaf pan - been craving some banana bread recently.  This afternoon I think I'm going to take a bike ride up to Wolverton, which is right about 5 miles.  There's a beer fest going on (with next to no details about the beer, so fingers are crossed on some good ones) and they'll have the Six Nations Rugby matches on too, so that should be fun.  Weather looks decent for the bike ride too.

I'd Write More Often

But really there just isn't that much to keep you guys updated on right now.  We are just working away at our project.  Our first review meeting is next Tuesday though, which will get here quickly I'm sure.

I did manage to ride my bike to and from campus on Monday, as the sun was out all day and literally no clouds in the sky.  It was a good ride, but I didn't bring enough for lunch or snacking, and wound up having to make a stop for some food and drink on the ride back home.  The route I took made it about 18 miles round trip I think.  Ironically though, I left the house about 30 minutes after I would've had to for the bus, and I passed the bus leaving campus as I was getting there! I averaged about 11 mph, the off-road tires make it hard to maintain much more speed.

Sainsbury's finally had scallops left on Sunday, which I'd had a hard time finding for some reason.  So I made a salad with them, using some other vegetables and some sauteed scotch bonnet pepper.  I used a bit too much of the pepper though (they have the same heat rating as habanero's - didn't realize this when I purchased them) and wound up having to cut some of the heat with blue cheese dressing.  Still a good dinner though.  I used the second portion of them last night sauteed with some tomatoes, mushrooms and peppers and served them over rice.  Came out pretty good, but I think I put in a little too much salt - either in the tomato mix or the rice.

That's kinda my update for now, been trying to organize some things in the room a little to make packing and moving easier too, not sure how much that will help though.

Weekend

Has been good so far.  Watching a spring training game from yesterday since the Duke/UNC game was not on ESPN3 - didn't realize it was on CBS.  But glad the right team won ;)  Yesterday I took the bike out for a bit of a ride.  I won't go into all the details, but the landlord has now made it a total pain in the butt to use the bike on a day to day basis.  So seriously glad I'm moving in a few weeks now.  I started by riding over to a wine store to look for a wine that Jessica is looking for but did not find.  Then went to a PC store to look for some new headphones and a screen protector for my laptop, but again unsuccessful.  I really want to find just a headphone plug that I can splice back onto the ones I have that I broke on the plane coming back over here.  I need to find the Radio Shack equivalent store, not sure what that is.  Then I went to try and find some of the local Concrete Cow brewery beer, at a few pubs that were supposed to have it on regularly.  But none of them did.  Oh well, so I didn't find any of the things I was looking for all afternoon, but it was ok, the ride was fun and it was nice to be out and about.

Got back home and watched some basketball online with dinner and my really indulgent dessert and beer combination.  Nicole and Adam were nice enough to bring me a bottle of Dogfish's World Wide Stout.  Background - Jessica got to try this in DC recently, and I might've made it well known that I was a little jealous.  So I found a chocolate banoffee pie to go with it, and slowly enjoyed the beer and pie.  Most of you probably don't know the beer is about 20% alcohol, so it took me around an hour and 45 minutes to drink all 12 oz!

Today I'm doing a little laundry, and need to do some grocery shopping this afternoon I suppose too.  My produce box apparently got stolen from the front door, so I need some "veg" as its called over here for the week. I'll probably head to the gym once my laundry cycle finishes, get back here for a shower and lunch and then out for shopping.  Fun stuff I suppose.

It's Official

I'm moving at the end of March to Newport.  Hopefully it turns out to be as beneficial as it seems like it will be.  Not really looking forward to packing everything up though.  Mark, the house owner is cool with me moving some things before the move date, so I'm going to try and do that with some things.

Yesterday was pretty busy, we had a presentation on promotion from the guy who started TTXGP - an electric motorcycle racing series that has really grown very quickly.  It was very interesting, I really wonder though if he was just in the right place at the right time.  They launched the prototype vehicle in 2008 when oil prices were so high because of the strikes, so that no doubt helped them out.  He thinks there will be no combustion engine racing by the end of the decade.  Well, I think he meant no top level, international type racing.  I don't think there's anyway it's completely gone that quickly.  Either way, it's very sad to think about, but I suppose it's a necessary reality that we'll all have to adapt to.

My thesis stuff is still coming along slowly, I do wish I could've gotten more settled while we had nothing going on at school, but our professors seem really busy and it really slows down getting things done for us.

We did finally get our jackets yesterday, which look quite nice and should be good at races and whatnot throughout the year.

I got to the gym early this morning for a workout which was good.  I always enjoy the morning workouts, yet it's still hard to get out of bed for them!  Finalizing a few thoughts about the project for a meeting at 3:30 this afternoon, and doing some thesis thinking and research too.

I had to go buy more bread and milk yesterday, and forgot to look at the date on my bread, which is today, so I've put half of it in the freezer and the rest in the fridge, so hopefully none of it goes bad.  I did find that Sainsbury's had 24 piece packs of Belgian chocolates on sale for 1.99, down from 5.99, which is a great deal and the two I tried were tasty.  Might go back and pick up another one or two!

So wow, I kinda jumped all over the place in this entry.  I'm sure you guys aren't picky though.