The first car race probably happened when the second car was built and the first one had something to race against. It’s just how it is, people will race anything with a motor. Lawnmowers, Bobcats and the usual range of cars.
One the butts of all jokes is the Robin Reliant. For the non-enlightened it’s a three wheel, one wheel drive, fiberglass bodied deathtrap of a machine, and of course they are raced.
Friday turned into a rather long day at work, but then Friday night rolled around and once again I am reminded about how wonderful the people I choose have in my life are. I’m not sure when the last time I was up until 2:30 in the morning was, it’s been quite a while and I paid for the excesses today.
A quite wonderful time was had. I admit that when I took my 5am conference call for work I was questioning the wisdom of staying up until the early hours. But on reflection feeling like a zombie for most of Saturday was well worth it. 
I really do have some wonderful people in my life and while I certainly pay a price now for staying up into the early hours, it was awesome. Now I just need to remember to change the clocks tonight, as tomorrow morning is the Calcutta Cup from Twickenham on BBC America. to complete my dream weekend would be for the rain to stop long enough for me to get some stuff done in the garden,
Sitting at home on a quiet evening there are many things I could be doing on the Internet, but one of the best places to spend an hour is on Porsche.com/usa and playing with the “car configurator” tool.
Porsche is like BMW, the windscreen and three pedals is standard, everything else is an option (unless you want the carbon pedals that is). For example, a Cayman starts at a very reasonable $51,900. Want metallic paint – $710 (dark blue, looked hot), Carrera S wheels $2785 (I passed, they are not that much nicer), Sports seats with Leather interior is $5375 (and how could I not?) and so on.
By the time I was done my “it’s a lot of car for the money” $51,900 car was a touch over $83,000. Over $30K in options…
And I left plenty of options unselected. Getting the seatbacks painted in the exterior colour was $1580. The $340 for getting the seatbelts in yellow at first seemed a little excessive, but suddenly looked downright reasonable when compared to the $1990 to have the air vents painted.
Among the options I did select the $2340 Bose sound system and six-disk CD auto-changer, the $1560 Xenon lights and of course getting the Porsche logo embroidered on the headrests ($285).
In the world of the Internet car configurators anything goes. Want A 911 Carrera 4 in “Amethyst Metallic” (looks like purple to me, and rather stunningly is a $3140 option, yes that’s over 3 grand for purple paint) with a Carrera Red leather seats ($1510) with blue seatbelts ($340) and blue leather interior (well over $12K for everything) then go for it.
I do hope any remotely professional salesman would stop someone buying the purple/red with blue interior, even if its out of self preservation, one day he may well have to try to sell it as a used car.
OK, this picture a day thing has made it to day 11 (like anyone noticed), it’s been fun to look for something new each day.
Some are showing what’s going on, others may illustrate stories and some I may try to get creative with (or as creative as an manufacturing engineer gets) and have some fun.
Today’s illustrates part of a story, I’ll fill in the details some time, but it has been an illuminating day.
The conference was fun, I made some interesting connections and learned a few things that are only going to help.
One of the advantages of staying in Disney resorts are the restaurants. Disney has you and they would prefer you went for dinner in their restaurants, and Thursday night we obliged with a wonderful dinner in the Animal Kingdom Lodge. First this hotel is spectacular, zebra, giraffe and wildebeest roam outside the hotel rooms. The theme and attention to detail is exactly what you’d expect from Disney, exceptional.
Animal Kingdom Lodge
The food in Jiko at the Lodge was exceptional, great wine list and some interesting beers. The group filled up the show kitchen and the food was prepared as we watched, very impressive. I was wondering is the slower beasts found around the resort end up in the kitchen, I was assured this is not the case.
On Saturday I had a whole day to get my Disney geek on, Friday night turned into an unintentionally long night, but come Saturday after a decent nights sleep everything felt a lot better.
The idea was floated of EPCOT and going for a drink in each world, being within staggering distance of the hotel made this an easy option. Of those staying an extra day a few had over done it Friday night at the reception (including one of my managers, it’s going to cost them a good performance appraisal at the end of the year) and this idea did not appeal, so off to the Magic Kingdom we went.
We drove to the Contemporary resort, parked there and walked the 10 minutes to the park. Staying inside Disney and having the transportation service was really nice, but being able to park at any resort was even better.
The Magic Kingdom may be about the most micromanaged place outside North Korea, and I think that’s a complement to Disney and the way in which Disney does things, they really are the master in controlling the environment. The place is as ever immaculate and even though it’s only been 8 months since I’ve been there I still get that silly grin as I go through the turnstiles.
Main Street on a Saturday lunchtime
First surprise was how empty the park was for a warm Saturday in early September. Staff at the hotel had complained that trade was down significantly over a typical September. It should be quiet as kids are back in school, but attendance in the Magic Kingdom looked really light, so much that there was no queue for Space Mountain at lunch time. We walked straight in and onto a car, no waiting.
The park was rather spooky with the sparse crowds and I was wondering what we’d missed. It really was that quiet.
Not so scary Mickey
Talking of spooky, the “Not so scary Halloween with Mickey” was being pushed. The Halloween decorations were out in force and while this is a holiday I don’t understand, I really don’t get it. The roots go back to the British tradition of all hallows eve (early 16th century) and the even older Celtic festival of Samuin. I struggle with going from that to a giant fibreglass pumpkin with Mickey on it.
However it is Mickey and therefore I was at Disney, and that’s cool.
A word that’s been thrown around a lot in my life recently is “context”. I’m trying to put events in their correct context, or others are trying to understand my emotions and give them some context.
There are times over the last year or so where the regular rules have been thrown out the window and I’ve been working on pure emotion, occasionally successfully and other time not so much.
I thought I was prepared for mums passing, we all knew it was coming, but all this time later I’m still working through the grief. There have been moments in the last year that I’ve been in some dark places, others when it was about pure unadulterated joy.
It’s strange when those moments of joy have come, especially as they often seem to be dependent on factors outside my control.
I’m talking about sport, the Sounders, In-ger-land, Team GB, Coventry City and the Olympics.
For sport to be meaningful it requires us to accept that a mere game has significance. If we are realistic it matters not that England beat Mexico 3-1 tonight in their final home game before the World Cup, and I’ll admit that in the big scheme of things to most people it does not matter.
But to me it does, I can’t dismiss the inner child that makes this game played by grown men to mean something significant. I agree with the cynics that no one is worth the $150000 per week some people are paid for kicking a ball around, but the market disagrees with the realists in me and the cynic in others.
The players may be over-paid men who blow their money on Bentleys and are given an importance and gravitas way out of proportion to their contribution to society. They are held up as role models, a role they are totally unqualified for.
There are a couple of things that we require to enjoy sports, professional sports at the highest level we are talking about here.
You must suspend that cynic and allow the innocence or childishness to take over and give 22 men kicking a ball around significance way beyond what’s reasonable.
I think this is one reason why events like Hillsboro, Heisel and the Bradford fire are so tragic and they leave such a mark on us. It’s not just the death, its that death came to so many while pursuing something that required this childishness to enjoy fully.
The second part is the community that grows up around these events. It gives us a sense of belonging. On game day there are almost 36,000 people in Quest Field wearing “Rave Green” and screaming for Seattle. For those few precious hours we are in this together, we live and die with the fortunes of 11 professional athletes we’ve paid good money to watch.
There have been moments in the last year where I was so detached by a combination of grief and pressure that little moved me. Thinking of my mother reduces me to tears at moments. The images of my father in a hospital bed this week bring out the same intense emotions.
I’m not minimising what’s gone on, the grief is very real, but there are moments inside the grief and mourning where the normal rules are suspended. Fulham taking out Juventus is one of those moments. Seattle clinching playoff football in style in Columbus was another.
Sport, and that’s sport that I feel emotionally invested in, allows me to suspend the dark places and revert back to innocence. When it does it feels so good move on, even if it’s just for a brief time and enjoy the moment.
I can’t put these moments into context because they just don’t fit. And I feel good about that.
I wrote a little about the LCROSS mission that was designed to search for water in the moon and the singing PM. While I’ve still not started composing songs about my projects, the preliminary results have been announced by NASA and there was water in plume, quite a lot of water and more than was expected.
The LCROSS launched a large projectile into a crater at the South pole of the moon that’s been in permanent shadow for billions of years. A second satellite following the first by four minutes analysed the dust plume for water. It’s a very simple experiment and was extremely successful.
The results indicate there may be considerable water, far more than was thought, in the form of ice crystals in areas that never see the sun.
Clearly this would make any manned mission to the moon easier as the crews would potentially not have to re-supplied with water or oxygen, as both could be extracted locally.
Next step is identifying where the water came from, there has been considerable speculation that it’s from comet impacts over the last couple of billion years and could contain some clues about the origin of the universe.
A very positive result for NASA and to celebrate they got their own Googledoodle
LCROSS Google doodle
“The clubs welcomed the additional input into an ongoing process. However, they were of the opinion that bringing Celtic and Rangers into any form of Premier League set-up was not desirable or viable.”
So said the Premier League today.
Of the 20 Premier League clubs 14 voted against the proposal for Celtic and Rangers to join the League. I’m going to guess the only clubs in favour were those who felt happy they were not going to be relegated any time soon (United, City, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal and some other delusional former big club, maybe Totenham or Everton) and were not worried about loosing two places to the Scottish sides in a 36 team Premier-1 and -2.
Ultimately at the beginning of any year 10 or 12 clubs start the season with avoiding relegation to the Championship and the loss of Premiership money as job #1.
It seems that clubs have one chance in the lower division to come up before the combination of premier wage bill and Championship TV money (aided by the Premier League parachute payment) forces them to cut costs and compete on a more even footing.
Leeds, Coventry City, Leicester, both Sheffield sides, Reading and Ipswich have all fallen into this particular hole. Newcastle and West Brom seem to be taking this first year opportunity sitting in first and second with a little space between them and the rest. The third club relegated last year was Middlesborough, are they are just a couple of points out of the playoff picture.
The idea of Premier-2 remains alive. This has been talked about for a while and formally proposed by Bolton chairman Phil Gartside as a way to spread the TV money around, get a little more parity and reduce the spending gap between the elite and the rest.
If Premier-1 and -2 were to come into existence today Coventry City would be the 37th placed club.
Another thing that I found interesting was no discussion of promotion/relegation with the Football League (current Championship, League 1 and League 2) that I could find. As they are a separate body anyway, there would be nothing to stop Premier-1 and -2 becoming a closed shop totally outside the Football League pyramid. If this were to happen it would be a change far bigger than bringing the two Scottish giants into the league.
Incidentally the TV money is astounding, the Premier League domestic TV and foreign TV deals combined are worth a little under $5 billion (yes billion) in round numbers. To put this into perspective this is more than Major League Baseball ($430 million/year), the National Football League ($3 billion/year) and the National Basketball Association ($920 million/year) combined.
Formula-1 is hardly a sport known for surprises and this year has thrown them up left right and center. Honda withdrew from the sport after investing untold millions of euros and sold the remains of the team to Ross Brawn, who promptly went out and won both the drivers and constructors championships less than a year later.
On reflection Hondas decision to quit looks like one of the worst calls in a business that has a rich history of poor decisions by the money people.
The engine decision came late and caused a huge compromise as the chassis and gearbox design were already complete and designed for a Honda engine. Weight distribution was not perfect and the deal for Mercedes engines was not done untill December, but after a couple of mediocre efforts the aero was better than anyone else, and by quite a margin.
The car ran for the first time three weeks before the opening race, then it won six out of the first seven grand prix.
Clearly having the very good Mercedes engine over the uncompetitive (but I understand lighter) Honda made a significant difference in how fast the car was, but there was also a huge step forward in how good the chassis and aero was.
Ross Brawn as chief engineer has won nine constructors championships with three teams (Benetton, Ferrari and now Brawn), but this is the first without Michael Schumacher.
He arrived at Honda too late to do much about the 2008 car, but in 2009 it was his show. I get the impression from friends that he lets the engineers and mechanics get on with what they are employed to do. He leads and directs the team, removes the roadblocks and does not micro manage. It was put to me that “(Ross Brawn) created an atmosphere where we could do our job, be creative and be judged on results, not adherence to the plan”.
This is similar style to Ron Dennis, he knows what’s going on and allows people to show what they can do. He’s clear what does not work, but incredibly supportive, loyal and allows his people to succeed.
Next year is going to be challenging, Alonso and Ferrari are expected to be very competitive after an off year. McLaren came a long way during the second half of the year and with the F1 silly season in full swing have been rumoured to be talking to Jenson Button about joining Lewis Hamilton in what could be a phenomenal package on a number of levels.
Brawn on the other hand have a lot going for them, a big name sponsor is close to being announced and Mercedes have indicated they want to buy into the team. I’m told that McLaren is not exactly delighted by that prospect, but have been told their position with Mercedes is secure.
Under new rules next year a supplier may supply up to three customer and one works team. This year McLaren were the works team, Brawn and Force India had the customer deals. If Mercedes were to buy into Brawn it would seem to make the proposed engine deal with Red Bull (Brawn’s main contender this year) rather unlikely.
1) Seattle wins at Kansas City – they are in, does not matter what anyone else does (and guess whose been playing with logic circuits this morning).
Seattle in playoffs= TRUE if SEA>KC
2) Sounders get a point Saturday then they are still in if Columbus beats DC, and Colorado wins or draws against DC, and Salt lake or Toronto drop points (and they play each other Saturday at 12:30 so someone is dropping points).
Seattle in playoffs=TRUE if Columbus>DC AND Rapids => Dallas AND (NY=>RSL AND RSL =>TOR)
3) Seattle loose they will still be in if DC and Dallas loose and Salt Lake or Toronto draw.
Seattle in playoffs=TRUE if Columbus=>DC AND Rapids => Dallas AND ((NY=>RSL AND RSL=>TOR) OR (NY=RSL AND RSL=TOR)
NY host RSL Wednesday, RSL are eliminated of they loose. RSL host Toronto Saturday afternoon (assuming RSL beat NY Wednesday) the looser is eliminated (or potentially both if they draw). Even ignoring the playoff implications this is a decent looking game played by two of the more entertaining teams in the league.
Colorado host Dallas Saturday – Dallas are eliminated of they loose and RSL or Toronto win. A draw in the RSL/TOR along with Dallas dropping points means everything to play for in the final week.
At this point it gets complex (and I do not have that much time), bottom line is Seattle controls their own destiny and only needs two points in the last two games to make everything else immaterial.
Win at Kansas City Saturday, get it over with and look forward to celebrating when Dallas come into RBP for the loudest game since the opener.
At the beginning of the year I was not a fan of play offs, however after thinking about it a little more I’ve come to like it. It makes the end of season games mean something for more sides and gives the MLS a particularly American flavour at the end of the season. I’m not saying it’s going to work for every league, but any team that hits form can win the championship, having that hope heading into the play offs is rather fun.