Disclaimer: I normally pepper these ‘things’ with links of interest. However, this time I think I’ll leave it up to you, the reader, to simply Google anything (nothing) that you find interesting.

Bonneville Speedweek 2009

“I want you to do three things: Be Safe. Have Fun. Go Fast. Please do them in that order.” said Bill Taylor one of the coolest cats at Speedweek while giving me the rookie driver speech. “That pedal (pointing at the gas pedal) goes two ways. Drive within your comfort zone. I don’t care if you’re only going 60 miles per hour, let off if you need to.” Bill is one of the starters on the short course where we run the Fast Four Special. He’s been to all but one of the 61 Speedweeks that they’ve held in the Utah desert since the late 40’s. Apparently he missed the first one. He’s been there as crew, driver, and now is an official and endeared part of the SCTA/BNI (the organizational body that puts these races on every year). We look forward to seeing him every run, hoping there’ll be enough time at the starting line for him to share yet another story from land speed racing’s early days. It was comforting to have him as my starter on my first trip down the Salt.

            As comforting as it may have been, I was still nervous. Not as bad as I was earlier in the day though - total wreckage from the moment that Chris King backed up his record that morning. “You’re next!”, cackled Pedro sounding much like a medieval executioner (probably not how it really happened, but that’s how I perceived it). Mostly I didn’t want to kill it on the line/spin it before I got to 20 mph/hit anything/break expensive parts/miss a shift/etc. I sat at the starting line listening to the engine lope away happily at idle (in stark contrast to most of the other 4 bangers there if I do say so myself), staring down the center of the V made by the 1-2-3-4 mile markers on both sides of the flat white course, catching whiffs of race gas sweetened exhaust, tasting the salt crystals on my lips, and feeling the sunscreen laden sweat sting my eyes. Hand poised on the shifter. Waiting. Waiting for the “go” signal from Bill. Finally the course was cleared. Bill motioned for me to put down my visor and jerked his thumb backwards. I hammered it.

            For those of you that have no idea of what I’m talking about please refer back to my notes/emails/blog/ramblings from this time last year before proceeding any further. Not that reading my past drivel will necessarily clear anything up as I’ve never been accused of being concise or clear. And I, obviously, plan on keeping it that way.

Day 1, Thursday 8/6: I spent the day packing the truck with all the necessary accoutrements: camping gear, food, beer, clothes, lucky Montana Dodge Boys shirt, tools, motor documentation, more tools, more beer, etc. Sarah got off work early. By 6 PM it was hugs and kisses and I was on the road headed for the Bonneville Salt Flats. Since it’s about an 11 hour drive from here, I had it in my mind that I’d just drive until I got tired and then pull over. Pedro had called and said everything was going well and I didn’t need to rush down there. I’m not much for stopping though so I merely paused in Belgrade for biodiesel and hit the DQ drive through for a flamethrower burger (sadly, not nearly as hot as advertised, but still good) and glory hallelujah! a Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard®. All I can say is that it’s a darn good thing we don’t have a DQ in Lewistown anymore, and that they are offered ‘for a limited time only’. If you frequent my ramblings you’re well aware of my penchant for those little crack laced cookies – mix them up with creamy DQ soft serve® and there’s no throttling my consumption. Go forth and obtain one, but don’t say you weren’t warned. Next stop was Midvale, UT for more biodiesel and a quick whizz. Go ahead and Mapquest that. Yeah, a 425 mile bladder – and I was drinking coffee the whole time. I shoulda been a trucker. The moon was high and huge. Crossing the Mad Max wasteland adjacent to the ..Great Salt Lake.., the smoldering remains of a wildfire looked like either Humungous or Toecutter’s gang might be camped there. Maybe both. “They’re after my petrol”, I thought so I got the hell out of that bad area. Or, maybe it was just me, up too late and on the road too long. By 5:30 AM I hit Bend in the Road. It’s directly adjacent to the Salt Flats, and where we’d be camping for the duration of Speedweek. Threw the bedroll out in the back of the pickup and went to sleep, or tried to anyway. My legs were numb from that much driving and I lay there half dreaming that I was probably going to have a DVT. I was too tired/amped to sleep, but did finally nod off.

Day 2, Friday 8/7: Despite being up all night I couldn’t sleep past 9:00 AM. Excitement was in the air - the camp area was loud with rat rodders and their rods. I was jonesing to get out on the Salt and see what was going on. I put my lucky shirt on, slathered up with SPF 1000 sunscreen and headed for the pits. The salt was sticky and damp, slinging up everywhere and clinging to everything. Saying that it’s a weird place is an understatement. All was calm (relatively) at the pits. Pete and Dan #2 had been there several days already and had everything pretty well set up and dialed in. In a daze induced by the all night burn I simultaneously downed my daily allotment of coffee, checked fasteners, and just generally looked everything over. The crew was beginning to assemble and by mid afternoon we’d reached a quorum or two, whatever that means. As a team of seasoned veterans (yeah right) we decided that it would be in our best interest to get in line as early as possible tomorrow, rather than have a repeat of last year’s first run (waited in line for 4+ hours). After prepping the car, and consuming more than a few beers we shut the pit down and headed for Wendover. On the way there I popped in at the truck stop to grab a shower. At $7, you can probably guess how many more showers I took during the trip. Pulling into the Nugget, the nightly Show ‘N Grime (remember, these are rat rodders – shine is not really in their vocabulary) was just getting started so we headed in for a cheap and excellent dinner (plateful of $1.25 tacos). Grabbed a few beers and then went out to check the rods. Saw some great cars, the real deal (like Gig’s flathead Cadillac powered roadster), as well as a bunch of BS faked patina rods. Apparently rat rodding has hit mainstream and there’s not enough rusty metal laying around so guys are having to paint their cars up to look rusty and worn. I’m just being catty, but one guy had gone whole hog with safety wire but didn’t bother to learn how to do it right, or even close to right. If you’re going to be a poser, at least put some effort into it. Again, just being catty. Another guy’s sediment bowl in his fuel line was full of vintage rust & scale which has got to be worth some point in rat rodder land. Then it was back to the Bend in the Road to look at the stars and contemplate what the days ahead held for us. An incredible moon rise slowly whitewashed the star filled sky as I lay there worrying about how my baby was going to run (which was really dumb as it had run like a champ on the dyno a few weeks before). Had a bit of rain, but not enough to be concerned about.

Day 3, Saturday 8/8: Official start of Speedweek 2009! I awoke to Orion rising out of the East. Briefly I thought of Fall and hunting and camping and Cialeo going back to school. The parade of rods and push trucks heading out to Lands End snapped me back to the task at hand. Lucky shirt, sun screen, and I was headed for the pits. “Jump in!” was Pedro’s greeting as I pulled up to the trailer at 7:00 AM. He had the car hooked up, the push truck loaded, and was more than ready to go get in line. I jumped in the race car and we headed for the short course. Pedro was pretty amped up, doing lots of Rain Man “I’m a very good driver” but he wasn’t a wreck like last year which was great to see. We were really close to the front, maybe 8 cars back. The opening ceremonies started and in the crowd I saw the fastest man on land in the world (Andy Green, who drove the Thrust SSC to a whopping 763.035 mph). After downing a MONSTER Java MONSTER coffee energy superMONSTERcharged drink (they sponsored the event again this year) we headed back to the short course. Got Pedro dressed, buckled in, fired up, and he ran a 115 on a 111 record. We were now ½ way to putting the V4F/STR record back into the rightful hands (I’m okay with that statement since the other guy is a dirty cheater – it’s cool though as every story needs a good villain right?). Pedro’s changes to the suspension and chassis had transformed the car from an evil twitchy handful to a Sunday cruiser. Pedro was pleased to say the least and not another word was uttered about how he “wasn’t coming next year”. He was hooked again. It was uncanny sitting there in impound on the first day – exactly like last year. We had good company in impound. The Salt Cat team was there. They’re from Columbus, MT and run an ’84 Jaguar XJ-6 with a blown straight 8 Buick (yeah, you read that right). Also, the Lickety-Split team was there with their ’31 Ford coupe. We talked at length with the car’s owner/builder last year. He was yet another one of those cool old guys that was more than willing to teach us about going fast on the Salt. I think his daughter was driving last year, but it looked like he had another driver this year. Nice gal, she was really excited to be in impound.

Now ‘impound’ usually has a negative connotation, but not at Bonneville. If you run faster than an existing record you go directly to impound where you have 4 hours to work on the car (or if you’re a rookie team: jump around in excitement and fritter away the time drinking beer, never actually touching the car – makes for a very interesting morning as everyone scrambles around trying to get the car ready before the allotted 1 hr is up and you get disqualified…). The next day you return at 6:00 AM and attempt to ‘back up’ your previous run. They average the two runs and if that comes out higher than the existing record you’re the new record holder.

After prepping the car we headed back to the pits for beers and cheers. I spent quite a bit of time wandering around solo looking at all the interesting cars. Lots of diesels this year. There was a sweet roadster, much like ours, but sporting a high-tech Cummins 4BT. The Mormon Missile (now if that doesn’t sound like an euphemism I don’t know what does) is Duramax powered, and I saw several other streamliners and production pickups with diesels. The craziest one there though was ‘Salt Toy’, an ‘86 ..Toyota.. pickup cab sitting on a very long chassis with a 4-71 Detroit pushing it. It was blown of course, with an intercooled turbo feeding the supercharger. Very cool. Didn’t get to see it run though which was a shame. When they shut the Salt down for the evening I headed for the taco bar (no surprise there) and ran into the rest of the crew (again, no surprise). At the car show a very nice lady came up and said: “You’re Tony Smith!”. I was torn between several responses: “No I’m not!”, “Why yes, I’d be happy to sign an autograph for you”, or “Actually I’m Toni Smith, but the hormones haven’t kicked in yet”. In the end I replied with something unique and totally unexpected: “Hi”. She introduced herself (Fern) and her husband, Dan (this will be very embarrassing if I have his name wrong). It went down like this: Fern told her nurse about taking a trip to the Salt Flats, the nurse lives next door to Pedro who had told her (the nurse) all about the car (to get in her pants, perhaps?), so she (the nurse) told Fern about it, then she (Fern) ran into Randall Eck who came down to watch us last year and he (Randall) told her (Fern) all about me. Capiche? Fern and her husband (who is a snow-cat mechanic at Moonlight Basin – sweet gig, eh?) hung out with us for the most of the week which was really fun. Every time we’d get up to the line Fern would run over to the announcer’s booth and tell him that the Montana Dodge Boys were getting ready to run and fill him with fun facts about the team/car/driver/etc - all of which he was happy to broadcast out on the FM station. Cool!

Back at camp I drifted off to the peaceful sounds of yahoos partying and shooting off loads of fireworks. According to the rest of the crew I must have slept pretty heavy because I apparently missed two super MONSTER powered yahoos having a drunken feudal dispute across the ditch (directly behind our camp) at about 3 AM: “If you weren’t on the other side I’d kick your ass!”. “Oh yeah? Why don’t you swim over here and try?”(ad nauseum). Fortunately, that was really the only NASCAR fan type behavior I heard of the whole time we were there.

Day 4 – Sunday 8/9: Broke a low temp record last night, 55 degrees or so. Excellent sleep due to the cooler temps and not worrying about the motor. Headed for impound at 5:45 AM. Everyone was totally calm (nothing like last year!) since we had done everything the day before. Pulled out to the front of the parade and watched an incredible sunrise over the Salt. Pedro backed up his record with a 113, which averaged out to 114 and change. We were beyond excited at this point! Day 2 of racing and we had already reclaimed the record from last year! After going through tech and doing the paper work shuffle we headed back to the pits. Surprisingly word spreads quickly through the pits, whether it’s someone going into impound or getting protested everyone’s always talking about the latest goings on. The dirt today was that Tonya Harding was not only attending Speedweek, but was there as a driver. Yes, that Tonya Harding, not some poor sap with her name, but actually her.

            With one in the pocket, it was Chris’ turn at the helm running in the gas roadster class. Along with pulling the fenders and headlights (required in street roadster, but not allowed in gas or fuel roadster) we decided a gear change was in order, based on the revs that Pedro turned vs. the torque peak from the dyno runs. EJ had also fabbed up a nice windscreen which would hopefully reduce the roadster driver’s ‘bobble-head’ effect. The crew and about 20 innocent bystanders started tearing into the car with Ian and Nick Wood’s camera crew documenting our every move: drop the drain plug in the pan full of gear oil - got it on video, misplace several washers for the third member - got that too, 1000’s of snide/snarky/crass/sexual innuendos – yeah got all those too. Everyone was so jacked up we did it Indy pit-stop style and had everything zipped up in no time. There was zero reason to rush, but we sure had fun getting it done.

            We hit the fuel truck then got back in line at the short course. It turns out that mild mannered Winnett rancher Chris King takes on a whole new persona when donning the race suit. Someone dubbed him Dash Litespeed, the uber-famous French driver and all the rest of us went along with it. It went down like this:

“Dash! Dash! We’re getting awfully close to the front of the line, shouldn’t you get into the car?”

“I vill tell you when I am ready to get into le car.”

“Oh but of course Mr. Dash! When you are done sipping champagne and nibbling on geometrically shaped cheese we await your command.”

            It’s probably not funny at all written down out of context, especially without photo documentation. However, it was hilarious when killing time waiting in line, giddy with recent events and prospects of future ones. Apparently giving the driver crap, especially if they’re a rookie or happen to be named ‘Pedro’, is par for the course as I was soon to find out.

            Chris ran 117.4 on a 110.6 record. Wow. Back to impound. We were really starting to get the hang of this thing. You probably know the drill by now: prep the car for tomorrow’s return run, try to get the dirt on our arch rival, then head back to the pits for celebrating.

            During our levity a fellow racer, Barry Bryant, crashed on the long course at about 200 mph. He didn’t make it off the Salt. Watching those cars fly by at 2-3 hundred miles per hour I can’t imagine riding in one. Our little roadster flat out at 120 or so is about all I have the guts for. The next morning was pretty quiet and respectful in the pits, but it seems that racers know the risk and just focus on the job at hand. Along those lines, Cliff Gullett’s wife was back racing this year with Cliff’s brother as the driver.

            The days were really starting to blend together at this point, so we either did: taco bar, BBQ at McGinley’s camp, or BBQ at the in-law’s camp – I’m not really sure. The only concrete info I have for any given day down there is: who backed up a record in the morning and who ran in the afternoon. The rest of this I’m merely filling in the gaps with random events that did occur; I’m just not sure which day they occurred upon. Several times during the week I found myself consulting the ‘serviced on’ chart in the Port-A-Crapper to determine what the date was - not joking. Speaking of crappers, about midweek they changed to some different formula for the sanitation fluid. It smelled like Brut, by Faberge. Not pleasant to walk into on a hot day I must say.

Day 5 – Monday 8/10: Alarm at 5:30. Lucky shirt. Sunscreen. Impound. Parade. Queue up at the short course. Coax ‘Dash’ into the car with promise of espresso and biscotti at mile 4. Pet the Ram. Wait, I haven’t told you about petting the Ram yet have I? At some point early on Pedro came up with the idea of everyone petting the hood ornament for good luck before each run. Toward the end of the week even strangers were petting the Ram on the starting line. It might sound dumb, but racers are very superstitious, and even I found my scientific mind yielding to some of the “knock on wood” type tomfoolery. My niece Erika asked why my shirt was so dirty at day 4 (or was it 5?). I told her that it was my lucky shirt and I didn’t want to jinx us by changing it or even washing it. She thought about that for a while and said “must be lucky dirt then too”. Very cute. Back to racing. Chris backed up his run with a 115.4 giving us a record of 116.4! Headed to tech for paperwork, then back to the pits. At this point it was my turn. Earl held my hand through the class change and rookie driver paperwork shuffle. I figured the crew was really going to give me hell. There were a few remarks about me wearing pants (a rarity) and something about my pony tail whipping in the breeze slowing the car down and could they cut it please? After years of working at Strong Frames, these barely even registered on the crap-o-meter. Maybe they were actually giving me lots of crap and I was too whacked out to notice; that’s quite possible. Fortunately by the time we got to the line up I was done with being debilitatingly nervous – more like just plain old nervous. Fern held an umbrella over me whilst I changed into the blazing-hella-hot fire suit. Just what you want to slip into when it’s 95 degrees out and the sun is beating down (and up): nomex underwear, pants, socks, jacket, head sock, helmet, and gloves. Once I was in the car Fern ran to the announcers booth and told them that we had a different rookie driver, the engine builder. The announcer replied (on air): “The engine builder? This is really going to shake up things in the pits – all the engine builders are going to want to drive now!”

If you have short term memory issues or don’t like my Tarantino rip-off way of writing this ‘thing’ you can go back and read the first two paragraphs now. Or if you’re the anal type you could cut and paste them. Heck, if you’re that bored I’m sure the grammar/punctuation/formatting/wording could use a little help too.

That car really is a pleasure to drive. It wants to go straight. The motor pulls pretty hard for a little banger; it didn’t hiccup, burble, or anything. EJ’s tonneau and windscreen completely shield the driver from the wind. Part way through the first timed mile I realized that I only had one hand on the wheel (the other was on the shifter, which is stupid because I had no plans of downshifting). Just for good measure, and to please my driver’s ED teacher, Mr. Loe, I went ahead and put both hands on the wheel (at 10 and 2 of course). Time stopped, and simultaneously flew by in a rush of endorphins. I held ‘er straight down the V and kept it pinned it to the floor. It was like driving into the Judas Priest ‘Point of Entry’ album cover, sans the tractor feed printer paper of course. Heading out to the Highway blared in my ears. During the acceleration in 4^th gear my heart was skipping beats waiting for it to spin or do some unforeseen awful thing. Nothing happened. It got louder and louder (engine and wind noise began to drown out Rob Halford) but it kept going straight. I watched the air/fuel and RPM gauges like a hawk, occasionally glancing at the oil pressure and temp. Yeah, that’s how smooth that car is; I was able to monitor the gauges. The #2 mile marker flew by and I knew I was almost there, didn’t really want to shut ‘er down, but couldn’t imagine running like that much longer. After the 3 flashed past I eased off trying to not upset the car, or the gods of speed for that matter. After a bit of deceleration I kicked the clutch in, looked toward the return road for traffic and thought about initiating an arc to get there. Sketchiest part of the drive to be sure. I liked going straight, the car liked going straight, but now I had to make a turn. The 4 was coming up and I didn’t want to be the rookie that ran over the mile marker so I waited and started turning once it went by. All worries were for naught as it smoothly glided around with no trouble. Based on the RPM’s that I was turning I thought I’d run pretty fast, but didn’t know for sure. When Chris and Pedro rolled up in the push truck and said I’d ran a 118.8 (on a 109.8) I was blown away.

Back to impound baby! The Lickety-Split team was there and I congratulated the driver. She was very excited and returned my kudos. We were old buddies with the impound guys by now and had a great time chatting with them about how our week was going. Apparently there’s a bit of a derogatory term for newbies that show up on the Salt oozing cash from every pore, driving brand new big-rig car haulers, and are hell bent to buy themselves a record: shiny boys. The film crew spoke with some of the old salts there, asking what they thought of The Montana Dodge Boys. Most really liked what we were doing and praised us for not being shiny boys. Cool.

Worked on the car, back to the pits, beers, dinner, then a second dinner (big old fat buffalo steak – thanks Aaron & Gary!), G&T’s, (thanks again!), and off to an early bedtime.

Day 6 – Tuesday 8/11: Up early, boy was I excited! Upon arrival at the pits it was determined that I had followed Pedro’s driving advice a bit too well: “It has a stiff throttle spring so make sure you push hard on the pedal so that you’ll actually get full throttle.” He followed that directly with: “There’s a positive stop under the dash so you can’t hurt anything”. As he was warming it up that morning he noticed that the pedal was not in the right place. The linkage under the dash was probably the culprit. With only 1 hour to work on the car we didn’t want to pull the tonneau (a fairly involved operation), which left only one way to access the linkage: go into the driver’s compartment head first. Pedro volunteered, and started climbing in. If you’ve never seen the car (or a picture of it) this may not mean much to you. Suffice to say it’s a squeeze to get into the car right side up, much less upside down. To do it he had to lay over the cage head facing backwards, slide down until he hit the floor pan, then while standing on his head (and with us supporting his weight as much as we could) he spun around, and finally slithered down under the dash. After a bit of messing around under there it was determined that the linkage was fine but I had bent the gas pedal. I must have been trying to squeeze everything I could out of that run. At this point I would like to apologize to all the engine builders since after word of this got around the pits I’m sure that no sane car owner would ever let their engine builder drive. Getting Pedro out of the car was a bit more difficult. Three of us pulled (more like hoisted), rotated, and grunted him out of the car. It was a major extraction and thoroughly enjoyed by our impound mates. One question though, where the hell was the camera crew for that stunt?

Waiting in line I wasn’t nervous until a bit of a crosswind came up. That did make me prickle a bit. I saw the Lickety-Split driver who was looking pretty ashen. I told her to chant her manta and she smiled as much as she could muster. My return run would have been a breeze if not for the crosswind. I was drifting pretty good to the right, gingerly countersteering, not wanting to upset the car or scrub off too much speed by driving all over the course. With throttle mashed (but after yesterday’s ‘incident’ not too mashed) the 1 mile mark was rapidly approaching, and I was still drifting (straight toward the mile marker). I applied a bit more countersteer; the telltale on the steering wheel hit about 10 o’clock before the car stopped drifting. I felt that I had enough course left on the right side so I just kept it there. The 2 went by, then the 3. I managed to turn out before the 4 this time, and remembered to shut ‘er down not long after going into neutral so the plugs would read more accurately. The revs had been down a bit; considering that along with the crosswind I knew the speed would be down as well. Not too bad though, 116.4, which gave us a record of 117.6 mph. A rather large step up from the old record of 109.8! At this point it was determined that I should either reduce the font size, decrease the margins, or simply stop writing. 8 pages is a bit much, don’t you think?

We headed to tech for the paperwork shuffle, followed by a trip to the pits to change classes back to V4F/STR to better anchor that record (the gear change and other mods had upped our speeds quite a bit since Saturday – also there were rumors circulating about our rival considering switching classes and trying to snatch that record back from us). Pedro was back in the Captain’s seat. He ran a 116.7 that afternoon and backed it up the next morning with a 114.7 for a record of 115.7. This really put it out of  reach of our arch rival, at least for this meet anyways.

In the meantime, EJ had been ‘sourcing’ sheet aluminum anywhere he could find it. I know what you’re thinking, but no, no innocent street signs were harmed in the process (I have no comment regarding guilty street signs though). Apparently in the course of sourcing EJ stumbled upon the seedy underbelly of Wendover and there was a bit of an altercation involving some folks that didn’t speak English, but he was pretty traumatized and didn’t really want to talk about it. Now you might ask why he would risk life and limb for flexy-shiny metal (or ‘weldable wood’ as we used to call it at Strong Frames). To make an air-splitting nose for the car, of course. Still not clear on the ‘why’ part? To run in modified roadster you need said nose, and for EJ to drive he needed to get the car into another class. So, he hammered out a rather nice one which is quite a feat considering the tools that were available to him.

Somewhere in those last couple of paragraphs it became Day 7 – Wednesday 8/12? Assuming you’re still reading this, you’re really getting the feel of what it’s like down there – a total blur full of adrenaline, lack of sleep, too much beer, and lots of very, very cool people. Like the Aussie couple that ended up hanging out with us most of the week. Very nice folks that we randomly hooked up with.

We got EJ through the paperwork, found a helmet for his melon head, and helped him get the nose mounted. While all this was going on Tonya Harding’s name came up again (the beer swilling pit rat peanut gallery was talking about her). I asked which car she was driving and was greeted with questioning stares followed by: “Um, dude, the lady you’ve been talking to nearly every day, the one with the checkered flag jogging bra, the driver of the Lickety-Split car, yeah, that’s Tonya Harding”. Hmm, nice gal, doesn’t really look like she did back in her ice skating days, but then again thankfully neither do I. You apparently didn’t know I toured with the Ice Follies back in the late 70’s, with my short shorts, leggings, and feathered hair. That’s right, just try to get that image out of your head.

With a bright yellow rookie sticker on a borrowed helmet (did I mention it was a girl’s helmet – belonging to none other than the super cool Irene from the So What Speed Shop) we rolled EJ up to the line. Even with a missed shift he ran a 119.0. We made some jet changes, I believe, then he ran again with no missed shifts: 119.3 this time. The fastest run for us to date! Pedro and I went to Tech to see if the record for that class had been bumped at this meet. Truthfully, we were hoping that it had, as we were all pretty worn out by then. Another team had upped the record to over 123, which was well out of our reach at that point so we sat and had a beer with another of our favorite tech guys, Adam. Back at the trailer we did an Indy pit-stop style cleaning and loading job. We were done in short order, then it was off to the taco bar for one last hoorah.

Over a few last beers we discussed plans for the car(s) and motor(s) and classes for next year. I’m very excited to see how it all shakes out this winter. We’ll be back at Speedweek in 2010, but topping this year’s success will be a tall order indeed.

Hola folks,

http://bikemag.com/features/onlineexclusive/montana/

Many apologies to those of you who have received this link several times after already reading the original article in the magazine. Some of you don’t mountain bike, or really have any ties to MT but trail access is something I’m pretty passionate about. Due to this passion the rest of this will likely be a hard to follow stream of consciousness rant.

The illustrious Bob Allen, along with the Montana Mountain Biking Alliance (have you joined yet? http://montanamountainbikealliance.com/), and many, many other concerned cyclists in MT are working to save our trails from closure. I for one feel a bit ashamed about how little I’ve done for this cause. Don’t get me wrong I’ve always been a conscientious biker figuring that the best way to foster good will toward bikers is to be a good example out on the trail, I’ve done lots of trail maintenance (including official trail work days but mostly solo work every Spring), and I’ve written letters when the Forest Service has asked for comment on travel plans. However, more needs to be done by all of us if we have any hopes of maintaining access to our trails. The people trying to shut us out are well funded, well organized, and more than happy to mislead those in policy making positions via pseudo-science/conjecture/etc. If we’re not there to refute their claims they’ll be taken as fact.

I might feel differently if we were destroying trails like the lawyers from the wilderness associations claim, but we’re not. Studies have shown that bikes do little if any more damage than hikers on dry trails. Many will claim that we leave ruts that cause erosion. The only time a bike leaves a rut is either when the trail is wet (shouldn’t be riding that trail at that time of the year or the trail needs better run-off management) or the rider doesn’t know how to use their brakes correctly (which could be eliminated by better trail design and rider education). EVERY trail user should avoid the trails when they are wet, and some trails need to be redesigned to move them out of wet areas. The bottom of South Cottonwood in Bozeman is a prime example of this. The trail used to go through a boggy area that was wet 80% of the riding season. That trail sees heavy horse traffic so it was impassible on bike, and nearly so on foot due to the deep post holes left from the horses. I know some cyclists in Bozeman that are anti-horse solely because of that trail. A classic example of bad trail design leading to user conflicts. A few years back several bridges were installed and the bottom section was rerouted to an adjacent hillside. Problem solved.

          Read the above linked article, pass it on to your cyclist friends, and get out there and do something about it.

Season's greetings and other politically acceptable salutations to you! It's been an exciting 2008 for the Smith household (even if it was the dullest year on record do you really think I'd fess up to that in a Christmas letter?).

Late last year we increased the size of our clan by about 33.3%. If this is news to you we really should talk more often! Isabella's first year has flown by like an espresso addled tornado. It turns out she sleeps just about as well as her brother did when he was busy making sure that we remained in a constant state of sleep deprived insanity. Other than that small issue she has been a great baby: happy, healthy, hungry, and gassy (gets that from her mom). She has learned to recognize quite a few words like "food" and "hat", but unfortunately she thinks her name is "No no bad baby". Not walking yet, but she is standing unsupported for brief spells. Her only word is Mama, which she says continuously. I'm okay with that, she'll say Dada one of these days. Maybe. I hope. But really it doesn't bother me, doesn't bother me.

Kindergarten has been great for Cialeo. He loves his teacher, Mrs. Sparks, who is making sure that he stays challenged. After school he really enjoys beating the pants off of mom and dad playing games, especially chess and cards (blackjack and Uno are his favorites).  This summer he made the jump to two wheel freedom, deriding training wheels as "those are just for kids". As a big brother he's stellar, teaching Izzy all the important life skills like picking one's nose and burping at the table. Aren't kids just precious!

Small town living was initially a bit of a change for Sarah, due to the lack of night clubs and Gucci stores. After a bit of a settling in period and much soul searching she has embraced this new lifestyle by joining the modern Quaker movement. Modern Quakers are essentially folks that live very simply (AKA cheaply) and stockpile literally tons of food. As of late her speech has become altered as well. Why ere brekfast this morn she asked me: "Wilt thou feccen some hardtack and salt pork from the barels in the celer?". It's no coincidence that we've been reading the Little House books lately too. Juxtaposed to this new Quaker Sarah is Facebook Sarah. She has become rather addicted to this online social phenom.

I will resist speaking of myself in the third person, even though I'm nearly as addicted to Facebook as Sarah. In addition to my stay-at-home-dad duties I've been developing The Freewheeling Tony Smith which just had it's one year anniversary and is doing better than expected. I had 60 guns in this year despite my 2007/2008 advertising expenditure of $89. Motor work has been good as well. I'd tell you about the really cool old motor I built for land speed racing (the one that got the world record) but you've probably already seen/heard enough about it. If not, let me know as I'm more than happy to blather on and on about it to anyone that will listen. Hunting was great, as usual. I filled the freezers (Quakers require more than one freezer) and had a nice time with my dad, Cialeo, and a bevy of friends that came up for the season. Grand total was three antelope, one calf elk, one deer, and one destroyed wheel barrel/game cart. Sorry Sarah.

            Enjoy the holidays and the coming new year!            -The Smiths.

Woo Hoo! If you look closely enough in a tiny, isolated circle we're famous!

 http://www.moparmax.com/features/2008/iii_9-salt-1.html

 Cool.

Hi Ya kids!

Been a while, I know. Been busy, you know. I sent out a teaser about a week ago regarding my latest whacky adventure: building a motor for, and getting the pleasure of crewing on a land speed racing team.

            A bit of background may be in order as I've been fairly tight lipped about this project. About this time last year my good buddy Pedro "Pete" Hendrickson called and said he had an interesting project he'd like to run by me. I was all ears as I have some sickness that makes me interested in crazy projects regardless of my current workload (in this instance I was only starting a new gunsmithing business, entertaining/teaching/caring for a 4 year old, rebuilding a milling machine, caring for a sick pregnant wife, and getting ready for a new baby that was only months away, among other minor things). Like Ootek in Never Cry Wolf always said: "Hmm…good idea.".

            To make a long story really protracted and drawn out, Pedro had gotten to know a fellow Dodge fanatic named Chris King (who just happens to live only 50 miles east of here). This very cool rancher has a car & parts collection that is rivaled only by his immense knowledge of all things antiquated and automotive. He crew chiefs on Earl "Edgy" Edgerton's land speed racing coupe. Pete was invited to go with them to Speed Week which is held every August (to make sure that it's not too cold) at the ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Bonneville Salt Flats. To no one's surprise he came down immediately with "salt fever". Mid-way through the week he was coming apart with bubbly ideas of building his own car to race there. "I want to build up a car and race here next year" was the quote, to which Earl replied "Yeah right rookie; you'll never get a car built in a year.". After much back and forth, $100 was laid on the line: build a car from the ground up and race it at the 2008 Speed Week. I think he called me about 30 seconds later….

            The parameters were as follows: Dodge body, Dodge chassis, and Dodge engine, built to race in a couple of fairly new vintage roadster classes which were dominated by Ford cars and engines. Chris knew of a very interesting engine that Dodge produced for 8 months in late '28/early '29: The Dodge Fast Four. It was way ahead of the other engines of that era (primarily the Model A Ford) in that it had 5 main bearings, 5 cam bearings, and insert type bearings on the rods and mains. Chris just happened to know where one of these engines was too: sitting on his place in an old buckrake.

            The newly formed Montana Dodge Boys converged upon the King's ranch on September 19^th, 2007 to pull the engine and check it out. I was in deep at this point as Joe King (Chris' equally amazing dad) told stories about Low Gear Charlie the ranch-hand that frequently ran said buckrake and didn't know how to shift gears so he always left it in first gear and kept it pinned to the floor. If the motor had survived that (in addition to a fire, but that's a whole 'nother story) it should be stout enough to push our car to 100+ mph, right?

            I've been building motors since I was 16, but really didn't delve into it in earnest until about 1993. Since then I've done plenty of cool albeit fairly standard builds. This was a whole different kind of deal: an 80-year-old hunk of tractor motor looking-like iron that needed serious help if it was going to spin to a decent rpm and make any real amount of power. After several weeks of figuring and scouring parts catalogs I came up with a varied list of modern parts that could be crammed into this vintage block if one was crafty enough and had access to the right equipment: Chevy pistons and valve springs, custom Crower rods, Continental main bearings, Onan rod bearings, Cummins cam bearings, 340 Mopar gear drive and vibration damper, Pontiac pro-stock valves, custom Edgy aluminum head and reground cam, etc.

            Fast forward to early August 2008. After the 10 month crank debacle (don't ask) I finally had all the pieces I needed to finish the engine. With Bonneville only weeks away, I whittled away on the last of the machining and assembly while Pedro stood by patiently waiting for the engine and body to arrive so he could finish the car. 72 hours before Go Time the engine roared to life and somehow it all came together in the next few days. It may sound trite but wrenches were still being turned as the car was loaded into the trailer for it's maiden voyage. The Boys headed for the salt on Saturday the 16^th; I followed the next day. Lots of motor and a few Bonneville pics are posted here: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2124&l=c4679&id=1302868954.

Day 1, 8/17

Up at 3:45 am, brewed coffee, and hit the road at 4:08 am. Didn't see a single vehicle until Harlowton (55 miles away). Found biodiesel in Idaho Falls; nice. Held off eating in anticipation of Crown Burger in SLC. Around about Ogden I realized that it was Sunday and they are closed. DOH!!! Considered Denny's but couldn't stop driving, ate Crunch & Munch instead. Saw plenty of graffiti on the Salt Flats adjacent to I-80 made from rocks and/or garbage. I guess it's art. Drove the road to "land's end" and eased the VW onto the salt. I put on one pair of sunglasses, then a second pair of sunglasses, followed by a straw hat. I was ready. Met Pedro's dad at the trailer in the pits. Found the Boys waiting in line for tech inspection. Fellow competitors told us to watch out for one of the Tech guys that was out to get anyone competing in the same class as him (that'd be us). We, of course, got that tech guy. He turned out to be a super nice guy (found out later that everybody even remotely involved with putting the event on was incredibly friendly and helpful), couldn't be more excited about having us there and was very impressed with the car that Pedro built (coming to a children's book near you). Couldn't stop complementing us and wishing us good luck. Very cool. They found some minor tech issues and asked us to correct them but didn't want us to wait in line again to be re-inspected. They signed our book and took our word that we would go fix those minor issues before racing. We headed for the pits after that and implemented those changes. My dad, Ben Wah, and a couple other friends flew down so I drove in to Wendover to pick them up. We hit the taco bar (good tacos for $1!) and checked out the hot rods that had assembled in the Nugget parking lot. I didn't see a single post-40's car, and only one or two cookie cutter 350 Chevys (not that I have anything against 350s, as I've built my fair share of them, but it's refreshing to see something other than the standard street rod with a 350 backed by a 350 TH automatic – aka a '700 club' car). Rat rods, or "traditional hot rods" ruled the roost, and Greasers and Dolls were definitely making their presence known. If you've been to a few car shows you understand just how different this scene was from the standard fare. Pics here pretty much sum it up: http://bonneville-speed-week.smugmug.com/.

Day 2, 8/18

Hit the truck stop at 7:15 am for excellent Mexican breakfast fare and really pretty darn good coffee as well. Ralph "Sticky Fingers" Smith waltzed out with a coffee mug souvenir. The old five finger discount, except that he didn't realize he was carrying it until we were getting into the car. Parents, unlike children, don't seem to age at all and then WHAM! they're walking out of restaurants not realizing they're carrying stolen dishes. Hit the pits, checked tire pressure, made a few last minute changes and then headed to the course. There we sat for approximately 5 hours in the sweltering heat and blinding sun waiting to make a run. I think this may have something to do with why people think that Bonneville racers are nuts. Pedro was a tad nervous and, I felt, was acting a bit autistic. He kept repeating: "Check the belts, reset the air/fuel, did you check the Dzus fasteners?" Come to find out later that he was doing Dustin Hoffman impressions all the way down the course: "I'm an excellent driver, I drive slow on the driveway every Saturday." A team doesn't have a chance without a solid driver.

            So away he drives from the zero line, my motor singing a happy/angry tune. Chris and I jump in his truck and head down the return road to pick him up. They announce the speeds over the CB, which was eerily quiet during the drive out to the 3 mile mark. Pedro is standing by the car shaking his head: "Sorry guys, it's crazy out there, very squirrelly, I had to back out of it several times". So I'm like "I thought you were an excellent driver?". You know I'm lying about that one: I'm not that quick witted and nicer than that anyways.  We were standing around consoling and trying to figure out why it was such a handful to drive when the rest of the crew comes flying up screaming and waving. His really bad run was 106.271 mph!! That might mean more if I told you that the current record was 96 mph. To recap: on our first run with a brand new car, brand new motor, and brand new driver we broke the old record by over 10 mph.

            At Bonneville you have to back up your qualifying run to actually get the record (they average the two runs). Record returns are held the next morning so we towed the car to impound and proceeded to celebrate rather than work on the car. Damn rookies.

Day 3: 8/19

            Dad and crew had to head home early so I got them to the airport by 5:30 am. It was already 75 degrees. As an aside, it took them 2 hours to get back to Bozeman, a fact that resonated in my head later as I hit the 9 hour mark rolling into Bozeman on my way home. Headed to McD's for $1 sausage Mcgreasers. I was late and there was a heinous line at the drive thru so I went in and had to wait in line behind a loud talker: "I WAS OUT ON MY COMBINE BALING MY ALFALFA LAST WEEK BLAH BLAH BLAH".  Hmm, I don't know much but I've never seen a bale poop out of the backside of a combine. Then he went on to regurgitate firmly held but totally baseless truisms about biodiesel wrecking engines. "I KNOW A GUY THAT RAN THAT SHIT AND IT WRECKED EVERYTHING". Typical, absolutely no real world first hand experience with it but he knows all about it. Oooh, this was supposed to be a lighthearted update. Back to the story at hand.

            6:15 am I arrive at the impound to find a flurry of activity. Pedro isn't autistic anymore, as he hasn't slept in about a fortnight squared. Now he's in a manic panic. "Get the compressor!! Where the hell is the generator! Sorry! Aigghhh did you check the Dzus fasteners!!! Sorry! Get the wheels retorqued and the moon discs back on!! Sorry!" At about 6:59.5 am we pulled out of the impound (0.5 seconds from being disqualified) and headed to the fuel truck. Rather than letting us flounder a very nice SCTA official escorted us to the front of the line (it's in the rule book folks, record returns get to fuel first) much to the chagrin of the next guy in line. He was pretty miffed and started yelling. Chris went to talk to him and then the official reminded him of the rule. He calmed down pretty quickly saying "Sorry, I just got mad." Tell me that wouldn't have turned into an ugly brawl in any other motorsport, e.g. NASCAR.

            Pedro started to get autistic again so we buckled him tight into the car for his own protection you know. He told Bill the starter, a very cool old racer with tons of great stories from the old days, "I'm an excellent driver". In the cool morning air (80 degrees) that motor roared to life and Pedro didn't lift this time. 108.516 mph, giving us an average of 107.4 mph!! There was much rejoicing at that point as we were the world record holders! Did I mention that the hood scoop broke off while we were warming the engine up in line? Yeah, our record return run was done with a gaping hole in the hood, and nothing on the carb. Seemed to work just fine.

            Monster energy drinks sponsored the event and was giving out free drinks everywhere you looked. I got into some and the other Boys got to see a side of me they hadn't seen yet. I had gratuitous amounts of energy. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRuNxHqwazs.

            On the way to the motel that night a suburban starts honking at me and in my rear view mirror I see multiple guys hanging out of it shaking their fists, showing gang signs, and yelling incoherent things. I flashed them a sideways peace-out and drove .. a few minutes I deciphered what they were saying. It was a diesel suburban. "Yeah TDI! Diesel!! That's how we roll!". I'm not making this up: a bunch of white boy diesel gangstas glad to see me and my oil burner. Cool, I guess.

Day 4: 8/20

We were rock stars for 24 hours until another team broke our record with an average speed of 111.477. Now the real conspiracy comes to light. The team that broke our record is sponsored by the people that did our crank work. I wonder why it took them 10 months to get our crank done and then I had to have it reground because their work was so shoddy? Hmmm.

The lines were much shorter so despite lots of time in the pits changing everything at once (will these rookies never learn?) we got 4 runs in. Had a little spin incident during one of them. Pedro stayed with it though and continued to make more passes. We were banging our heads against 105 mph; nothing we changed seemed to make a difference. On the last run we put nearly everything back to baseline and ran a 109.962. 1.5 mph off the record, not bad!

We ended the day working right up until the pits closed so that we'd be ready to run early the next morning (hey, maybe these guys are starting to get the right idea!). At the taco bar that night drinks were consumed and ideas were tossed around. We wanted to make the car more aero, and a good way to do this is to add a Moon tank in front of the radiator. Pedro had planned on doing this all along, but the tank didn't arrive in time to get it on the car. We were discussing alternatives when the idea popped into my head to call Gig. Who's Gig? Well, he's one of the Montana Dodge Boys that lives in California. Some kind of dual residency thing I guess. Funny dude, nice dude, smart dude, and excellent at showing up right when you need him. For example every time either the generator or battery charger ran out of fuel (the two of them combined consumed about 100 times as much fuel as the race car did) Gig would magically appear with gas tank in hand. Uncanny. Speaking of the battery charger, it was a big hit – right up the alley for those Bonneville folks. My dad took an old lawn edger, removed the blade and made a mount for an alternator. Of course the alternator had bad electronics in it so he took the guts out of another alternator and mounted them on the edger's handle, wired it all up aircraft style, and voile!: a portable gas powered battery charger. Back to the Gig story.

Pedro calls Gig but doesn't get him. Naturally Gig instantly appears at the taco bar door, but doesn't see us. Pedro runs after him and tells him we're looking for a Moon tank. Gig comes back in a few minutes: "I found several on hot rods outside, but nobody wants to sell them." He was out there trying to talk some dudes into selling parts off of their cars! No dice, so we tell him our kooky idea of sticking two small stainless steel trash cans together and using that as a Moon tank. Gig says: "there's a stainless steel wok sitting out back of the hotel" but gives us no clue as to why he knows this. Then he just runs off. It's now 9:50 pm in Wendover, relatively speaking the middle of nowhere if you're looking for a moon tank or something to build a fake one out of. At 10:15 Gig runs back into the taco bar carrying two very faded large cardboard boxes of stainless steel cook wear. He pulls out two boiling pots that happen to be within the correct diameter as laid out in the rule book, then out comes a large pot: "you can just section this and use the other pots as end caps." He won't take any money, gives no hint of where the hell he found this stuff, and then takes off again. Yeah, I met some cool people there.

Day 5: 8/21

            6 am, back at the pits setting up the tents, getting the trailer ready, and puttering around until the other Boys showed up. We took a run in the early cool air with a different intake manifold and ran a 108.320. An old-timer told us about slippage and how even a little 4 banger could have 10-20% slippage at the top end. More weight ought to help with this and in our quest to find something heavy actually set a big floor jack in the trunk and were contemplating ways to mount it when we realized that we'd never pass tech with a jack in the trunk. At this point it was decided that running in another class would be the best bet as we were already running faster than that record. We pulled the fenders and headlights off and as the Boys were heading for the course I took off both pairs of sunglasses and drove off the salt, back onto the pavement, and on the way home. Pedro turned 118 mph in that configuration, but it got sideways and spun at about 100 mph. If you spin during a run, your speed doesn't count. It was late in the week and the car clearly needed some help in the alignment/aerodynamic area so they called it good and headed home.

            An incredible experience to be sure. I'll be back, as will the rest of the Montana Dodge Boys and the 60 car. In fact we're currently working on the car and engine to hopefully have it ready for the World Finals on October 8-11. We'll get that record back, and hopefully add another to our repertoire as well. It's a sickness I tell you.

Disclaimer: I can sometimes come across as preachy, know-it-all, and/or slightly harsh when discussing things that chap my hide or are really obvious to me. I mean no offense to those who have fallen for these types of hoaxes (although if you blew a bunch of money investing in one of these schemes I may be inclined to poke some fun at you). Sarah said this update is more bitter than my Bozeman bashing diatribe of 1/07, and she only proofed an early version…

Hey folks,

I've been stewing on this stuff for a while so look out. My dad and I have a tendency to catch what the advertisers and media in general spew forth as fact and dismantle it until it's shriveled innards are exposed. Global Warming hooked up with High Fuel Prices just before last call to produce our current media frenzy bastard child of alternative vehicles/low carbon footprint/Eco-friendly products. The best has to be the Dyson vacuum commercial where Mr. Dyson claims to be saving the planet via 'no carbon emission' vacuums that use "new" (but actually quite old) technology brushless motors. The carbon brushes in a common motor rub against the commutator and wear down over time releasing elemental carbon, which by the way is not the same thing as CO₂ the gas implicated in global warming. Of course these 'fancy' brushless motors still require electricity to run so unless you're powering them via solar, wind, nuclear, or other non-CO₂ emitting means running the Dyson vacuum still causes the same emission of CO₂ from the power plant. No, it's not just you, it doesn't make any sense, it's clever advertising and it'll probably sell a million vacuums.

Along those lines, the current breed of hybrid cars are a joke. You heard it here first (unless you've previously been subjected to my ranting on the subject), and this is coming from what many would consider a 'greenie-hippie-left-wing-liberal-long-hair'. I want to save the planet, wean the U.S. of foreign oil, and stick it to the man as much as the next guy but hybrids are the wrong way to go about it. Oh they might give you a warm fuzzy feeling, up your cred with other faux hippies, allow you free reign of the carpool lane (even if you're wasting resources by commuting alone), and in Utah earn you a special 'clean air vehicle' license plate. Paradoxically, a few weeks ago cruising down I-15 in Utah at 70 MPH (to save fuel – I averaged 43 MPG which is down a bit from the 45-50 that I usually get but I had bikes hanging out in the breeze) burning biodiesel, lots of these 'clean air vehicles' flew by in the carpool lane with single drivers doing 80+ mph, spewing pollutants, and consuming substantially more foreign oil than I. I hope they were getting that warm fuzzy feeling, because I sure as hell wasn't. Don't even get me started on the required payload of heavy toxic batteries with unknown life spans and questionable recycling compliance. Our VW diesel at least matches and in some cases substantially beats the real-world mileage that folks are getting with their hybrids. Hell, I know two avid readers that drive Honda Fits and they get nearly the mileage of a Toyota Prius without the added complexity, cost, and environmental degradation due to mining/refining/manufacturing/shipping materials for the batteries! Here's the real truth on hybrids vs. other cars: http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/media/cars_on_different_fuels.doc. Note the Dodge diesel/electric hybrid. It's only a prototype now, but if you must have a hybrid why not power it with an engine that is at least 20% more efficient and burns clean renewable U.S. made fuel?

Another media darling and purported savior of the planet is hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. They are neat, no doubt, mostly due to very high efficiencies (compared to internal combustion engines) however they are not magic. A bit of basic background, the fuel cell portion of the vehicle produces electricity via a controlled reaction between oxygen and hydrogen gas. The electricity is then used to propel the vehicle via an electric motor. "Zero emissions" or "nothing but harmless water vapor" is the common claim. This may be true for the vehicle itself (although my dad brought up a valid point, especially applicable to hydrogen fueled internal combustion engines, about the oxygen source being the ambient air which is full of all kinds of other crap like NO_x compounds which may react to generate other pollutants) but hydrogen doesn't just leap out of the atmosphere into the extremely explosive high pressure (5000 psi) tanks proposed for these vehicles. It takes energy (in the US the great majority of which is generated via burning coal or natural gas) to get H₂. You have to look at the whole cycle. There's no free lunch, yet they'd like you to believe there is.

Recently the "water fueled vehicle" scam has reappeared, most noticeably via email forwards (I've received 10+ of these from various people). This miracle technology is nothing new, as my dad recalls first hearing about it 50 years ago (back when gas was $0.17 a gallon), and they made a brief reappearance during the fuel crisis of the 70s. If you're fortunate enough to have missed these try here: http://www.hasslberger.com/tecno/hydrogen.html and http://www.runyourcarwithwater.com/ (as seen on FOX News, so you know it must be true!).

These perpetual motion people like to use fancy words and lots of smoke and mirrors to buffalo people, and they're good at it too (not to mention the average Joe is more than happy to swallow such crap completely uncontested). Most of these are simply disproved by the fact that "energy out" cannot exceed "energy in". You can't magically (or by any other means for that matter) create energy. You can release stored up energy by burning things, splitting or fusing atoms, turning matter into energy, pushing something off a cliff, etc. That energy can be harnessed to do things (propel a car, heat your home, squash things at the bottom of the cliff, or whatever) and with judicious planning you can even convert it back into stored energy. HOWEVER, along the way some energy will be lost (not really lost…it all goes somewhere because you can't magically make energy disappear; it is dissipated as heat, friction, vibration, light, or via other means). Because of this 'lost' energy no process is 100.0000% efficient (most are dreadfully inefficient). So in the case of Denny Klein (Mr. "HHO") or Carl Cella (heavy metal madman and water powered car genius) they are using hydrolysis to generate H₂ (hydrogen, a readily combustible gas) and O₂ (oxygen) gas from H₂O (plain old water). Read about it here. H₂O is very stable (tried burning any lately?) so it takes energy (typically in the form of electricity) to break the chemical bonds between the O and the two Hs. O and H don't like hanging around alone so they quickly pair up as O₂ and H₂ (not the magical HHO gas that Denny Klein claims). Efficiency of the process is well below 100%, meaning that the energy stored in the H₂(g) and O₂(g) created via electrolysis is less than the amount of energy it took to create it. We haven't even started the vehicle yet and we've 'lost' at least 20% (probably much more though) of our input energy. Here's what some folks that are WAY smarter than me say about H₂ generation via electrolysis: http://www.physorg.com/news111926048.html Be sure not to miss the google sponsored water fuel ads!! Hilarious. Sucker born every minute, right? If you want to read about the history of the shysters that have used this water fuel scam or delve into actual calculations look here: http://www.phact.org/e/bgas.htm.

But don't fret yet, things get much worse when we actually burn the H₂ in an internal combustion engine. The typical family truckster gasoline engine loses about 80% of the energy generated from combustion via thermal and mechanical (mostly friction) losses. 80% loss!!!! Even a highly tuned race engine is less than 50% efficient. Read about it here: No wonder there's an oil crisis. Back to the miracle of Waterfuel; when we fuel our car with it we can only extract at best 50% of the energy produced. Genius Carl Cella says the motor will drive the alternator which makes the electricity to power the electrolysis. That's fine, but alternators aren't 100% efficient either (even the newest state-of-the-art ones are only about 70% efficient - ever put your hand an alternator that's been running for a while?) so we lose even more energy there. All of the 'lost' energy needs to be replaced or the vehicle won't continue to go. This is basic perpetual motion hooey.

As a recap, we lost 20% in the electrolysis process followed by 50% loss in the engine, and finally 30% loss converting the energy back to electricity. If we put in 100 arbitrary units of energy (supplied by the charged battery), we would end up with 12 arbitrary units of energy left to power the electrolysis and push the car around. Even if we neglect air drag, friction, and inertia (which, by the way, we can't in the real world) this dog won't hunt.

It's been my experience that whenever these or similar miraculous technologies are discussed folks immediately start professing how some big bad entity (oil companies, car companies, government, etc) will certainly squash/buy up/hide/deny said technology to protect profits, the economy, or whatever nefarious reasons they may have. A shining example of this is the rumored magical carburetor that will make vehicles get 100 MPG or better. The oil companies are supposed to have bought up the patent(s) and suppressed the technology. Patents are published public information so I challenge anyone to show me these rumored patent(s). I guess some people don't understand what a carburetor does or how it works. It ain't magic, and simple physics dictates that 99% of the cars on U.S. roads are not capable of getting 100 MPG without a bevy of fairies pushing them (due to their weight, high drag coefficient, and inefficient motors/transmissions/fuel). There are cars out there that do get incredible mileage (near 80 MPG!) but it's mostly measured in L/100 km where they exist (check the Euro VW Lupo and Audi A2). By the way they don't have carburetors (magic or otherwise), don't have automatic transmissions, aren't hybrids (see rant at top of page), don't have room for 8 bucket-size cup holders or fat American heinies, and they certainly don't burn an inferior fuel like gasoline. Turbo diesels all the way baby. I may be biased, but I have good reason for it.

There, I've said my peace.

Later,

Tony

Disclaimer: Hope you like barrel scrapin’s, they go real good with pork rinds but not those fake ones made from corn, only the real kind will do.

Upstanding citizens I harken to thee,

I just got kicked off the couch. Apparently my listlessness and weird aura was driving her nuts. I get that way sometimes when my brain gets full - full of to-do’s, worries concerning proper punctuation use, potential possibilities, a myriad of projects in various stages of mis-completion, old jokes from the 4^th grade ("What do you get when you cross a helicopter and a rhino?"), license plates from the past (1BFW877 and PC 6408 to name just a few), esoteric metric conversions (355 ml = 12 oz, 454 grams/pound, 15.4307 grains/gram, etc), song lyrics ("don’t wanna be a bum, you better chew gum"), movie quotes ("Think ya used enough dynamite there Butch?"), Pi (for some inexplicable reason I memorized it to the 26th decimal place – talk about useless!), and a running list of ’fodder for email updates’. So in an effort to cleanse my aura (I did go to Evergreen you know) and improve marital bliss, I’m going to throw some fodder your way, hopefully freeing up some of my much needed internal RAM in the process.

Wargames, the Tony version

Speaking of RAM, our laptop had been running hot recently. Not hot like the freaks that hot rod and overclock their computers so much that they have to super cool them (You can’t make this stuff up.), nor like ENIAC (gotta love Wiki) which required giant industrial fans to keep it cool, but hot enough that it’s two tiny fans had been running more than usual and it had shut itself down several times. No biggie I figure as I’ve taken more than a few things apart, many of them highly electronic and some even worked when I was done messin’ with them. So after a bit of head scratching I managed to get most of the case off. It’s like one of those puzzles you buy at a magic store – impossible unless you know the secret, or in my case just get lucky. My first impression was: "Wow, they don’t build these things like they used to". There’s nary a recognizable component in there, and apparently they now employ very, very tiny beings for assembly as my fat fingers reaching into the computer to unplug impossibly tiny surface mount ribbon connectors was reminiscent of King Kong reaching in to pick up Fay Wray (check it). How is it that a fairly hardcore hacker/phreak/programmer/geek who rode ’first chair’ on the home computer wave of the early 80’s (my first computer: complete with a cassette tape recorder for storing programs, 16K RAM, and screaming 1 MHz processor) could be this lost inside something as simple as a computer? If I would have continued on the trajectory that I was on back then I’d certainly be wearing an earpiece Bluetooth phone, listening to my ipod, and accessing the ’net with my custom spec’d and self-assembled super computer via a hyper fast wireless network. Instead I’m just a total Luddite: no cell phone, no wireless, no portable music, no clue. I still vividly recall my first day of Intro To Computers in 9^th grade (they wouldn’t let me take Computers II without it; however they did let me skip Typing class which is ironic as my typing was very fast for programming in BASIC or TRS-DOS but absolutely sucked for writing anything in English or any other human language for that matter). The teacher (an older bleach blonde chain smoker – kind of like a hardcore version of Flo from the old Alice TV series: "Kiss my grits!" as performed by some down home folks) handed out questionnaires to gauge our computer knowledge. The last question was "What do you want to learn in this class?" You should have seen her face as she was reading the questionnaires aloud to the class and came to mine:

"Lots of you put down that you’d like to get more familiar with computers, a few just want to play games which we will have some time for, and who is Tony Smith? Um, we won’t be teaching machine language in this class."

Within the week I was promoted to unofficial TA and spent a good portion of the semester making 1000’s of copies (literally) of educational software programs on 5 ¼" floppies via a gaggle of Model III’s arranged in a semi-circle (Ah, the good old days). By the end of the semester word got around that I knew computers and would frequently get called to the Office, not for smoking in the boys’ room, but instead to change a printer ribbon or solve some other computer related malady. Things progressed this way into college where the programming languages ForTran 77 (now now, don’t get your panties all in a bunch it stands for Formula Translating which isn’t an acronym so it shouldn’t be in all caps although I seem to be the only one in the world that feels that way) and Pascal were added to my quiver. Around about that time Microsoft Windows really came into popularity. That was a transitional period for me as I just couldn’t make the jump to the ultra-buggy and resource hogging GUI (that’s graphical user interface) and therefore went from programmer to just plain old user; it’s been a steady decline since then. Which brings us back to me, my fat fingers, our laptop, and it’s microscopic parts strewn about my desk. To make a really drawn out story slightly more bearable I’ll abbreviate this considerably. To no one’s great surprise the cooling fins were full of dog hair courtesy of Mozart, the dog that never stops shedding. After a good cleaning, I reassembled the computer and amazingly it is no worse for the wear. And unfortunately for you the keyboard still works.

In Memoriam

I like to keep these updates light hearted, but unfortunately I’ve got some bad news. Boeing Surplus, absolutely without question the coolest ’store’ that I’ve ever visited has fallen prey to the bean counters. For those of you not familiar a little background may be in order. Boeing is one of the largest manufacturers of airplanes in the world. As one might expect a fair amount of tooling, equipment, supplies, materials, etc are required by this juggernaut. Rather than dump excess, old stock, worn out, and/or obsolete items they offered them for sale to the public at absurdly low prices in a gigantic warehouse. Here’s some of the "must-haves" that I spotted there over the years: an early (as in very large cabinets filled with vacuum tubes) electron microscope, blocks of titanium the size of Volkswagen bugs, vats full of nearly new files/drill bits/zip ties/Adel clamps/AN fittings/heat shrink tubing all sold by the pound, rows of airline seats, and some of the biggest machine tools I’ve ever laid eyes on. It was a veritable treasure trove, and a must visit whenever I made it back to the Seattle area. Some folks are even more upset than I am: http://www.saveboeingsurplus.com/.

Ripped from the headlines (or in this case the classifieds)

            Seen in Lewistown’s News Argus: "Wanted: old motorcycle, big anvil, church bell, and Ruana knife". I’m not really sure what’s going on with this guy: either Wile E. Coyote has moved to central Montana or the Freeman are gearing up for another standoff.

Spring is here (well, if you ignore the snow): time to gear up!

            Back in the day I used to knock road bikers as ’roadie dorks’ that just stayed on the pavement because they couldn’t hack a real sport like mountain biking. Then one day I actually tried it and my firmly held opinions regarding the sport were forever changed. It’s darn fun, and will kick you in the heinie if you’re not very fit. So, not long after this (about 1996) I built up a road bike and bought some Sidi road shoes from Dave Parks who was a dedicated racer back in the mid to late 80’s. They were old enough to have been made at the beginning of the neon era (which afflicted cyclists who are naturally predisposed to garish colors/outfits several years before attacking the general populous), yet they served me faithfully for all these years. You just can’t beat Italian leather! Their final hurrah was this February; as I was finishing a sprint interval on the rollers both shoes simultaneously ejected their retention straps causing a YouTube worthy wreck. Good times. So, I needed new shoes, but having been spoiled by years of bro deals during my tenure in the bike industry I simply couldn’t pay full pop (or anywhere near that because I’m cheap as hell) I went shopping online. After much searching I located a suitably sized pair of high end Sidi’s on Craigslist in Monterey, CA. $40 and they looked to be hardly used! So I emailed the fellow and asked if he’d be willing to ship them and accept payment via PayPal as I’m not exactly local to his locale. He said no problem, but would have to charge me for shipping and wanted a couple of bucks for PayPal fees. At this point I’m jacked as I’m looking at spending $52 for shoes that would have retailed for about $300. Nice fellow, he sent me a link to his website. He likes to ride long distances hauling lots of gear. If I haven’t cured you of any desire to read ever again you should check out his blog. He’s much more concise than I. After receiving my payment he fired back a sweet video of him and my new shoes. It went like this: "(holding up the shoes) Dude, Tony, thanks for buying these shoes, they’re sweet, I mean just look at them, they’re like new, and $52 is really a good deal, sorry about having to charge for shipping, but THE SHOES MAN!!! Look at them they’re really nice…". The video continued for several minutes and was a total scream. What? No Link? Yeah, go back and read the first item in this update and you’ll understand how I managed to save a copy of the email but not the attached video. Nothing like a joke without a punch line…arrgh, incompetence!

Fun at Dad’s expense

            The other inhabitants of this humble abode seem to take a very perverse pleasure in taunting yours truly. Our microwave was very intelligently designed with a ’sound on/off’ button so that it can be easily SILENCED. I can’t stand the beeping, whether it’s in the car or the kitchen. Never have been able to. Step one in vehicle ownership for me has always been disabling the beeping (although strangely enough two of our current cars have not been disabled yet – I must be slipping). This is usually rather simple: crawl under the dash and either locate the beeping offender and unplug it, or just start unplugging things until the madness ceases. I recommend the use of hearing protection while doing this as it gets really loud under there and it makes it easier to refrain from smashing things indiscriminately. Years ago in the Strong Frames van I had to resort to extreme measures as something vital was incorporated into the beeping module – the darn vehicle wouldn’t start when it was unplugged! However, that beeper shut right up when I filled it with hot solder. Back to the microwave story…smarty Cialeo likes to sneak into the kitchen and set the microwave to ’annoy’ so that when I’m warming a bottle at 3 AM it beeps incessantly at me. Haha, Dad’s annoyed! This is all fun and games but lately it’s taken an ugly turn with the blatant violation of one of the tenets our great country was founded upon: The Separation of Salty and Sweet. Whenever we have pancakes they’re usually accompanied with delicious bacon: porky, smoky, peppery, salty BACON. Like any sane law-abiding person I place mine on a separate plate to maintain the required minimum clearance from the syrup. These freaks, I mean people, that I dine with not only allow intermingling of bacon and syrupy pancakes but adorned with maniacal grins they deliberately slather, dip, and even bathe their bacon in syrup. ACK!! As a kid I thought my folks and brother were the only ones that suffered from this great affliction but I was way wrong.

I’m not alone: Coffee Addicts Unite!

Usually when I send these out into the ionosphere they are received much like old I Love Lucy episodes that are now polluting the airwaves 53,500,000,000,000,000 km from here: not much fanfare (although I suppose we’ll have to wait a while to hear back from anyone/thing that far out there). However my most recent diatribe regarding The Great Coffee Debacle must have resounded heavily on my readers as I received a glut of emails and phone calls regarding it. Astute readers from all over the country gave their sympathy and suggestions. Kathy of Rapid City spoke of an old Minnesota farmer’s trick: egg coffee. No I haven’t tried it yet (you go first!), but fittingly the whacky Minnesota cyclists here have: Egg Coffee. Mr. Austerberry from Michigan responded with the following: "You really should have looked deeper into your chemistry equipment. Think you could have made the external pressure of your aqueous solvent and organic suspension equal the external vapor pressure momentarily. A period of dissolution and mass diffusion followed by a rapid phase separation using gravimetric filtration media may just have worked . . . . Hey but I am just a dumb chemist." No, I don’t know what he’s talking about either. Many folks inquired to see if I was still using the Mr. Frankenmaker. He’s back in the basement, ’waiting in the wings’ to swoop in and save the day should he ever be needed again. Not long after the incident in question I located a vintage Bodum French press on eBay for super cheap; it even had the little insulating cork mat and yellow plastic stirring spoon. Other popular comments were: "Jeezus dude, you’re nuts." and "No need to differentiate Minneapolis from St. Paul as it’s all just the Twin Cities, you know". My favorite though was from a Mr. Elias in Bozeman: "much like major constipation, which I might add is greatly reduced due to the medicinal properties of coffee...it’s one hell of a colonical lubricant". Remember folks, once it hits my computer and/or brain (assuming I don’t forget it) it’s all public domain so watch what you say.

Kids

            Isabella is the smilingest baby I’ve ever met. She’s been really easy on us so far. Currently she bears an uncanny resemblance to Cialeo, this is compounded when I dress her in his old clothes. Cialeo has been an awesome big brother, helping out all the time and really caring about how Izzy is doing. Cool.

Until next time,

Tony

Howdy folks,

This just came across on the AP wire and I thought you might be interested.

2/16/2008

AP Press Release

Freaks pick date for annual Fruita/Moab Desert Trip

MONTANA -- An official decision has been made regarding the dates for our annual trip. The Fruita Fat Tire festival is April 24^th-27^th. It's a regular old hoot of a good time, as well as being a very very bad time to try and find a place to camp or ride without being inundated by the hoards.

During one of these festivals I was scolded and chided by several California types (they even went to the trouble of telling me that they were from CA) for taking my dog on the trail. It went down like this: It was a hot day, so we chose the shortest, most beginner route (Rustler's Loop – a 5 mile, flat, and sandy ride). Beavis, being the seasoned veteran that he was always picked a steady pace and ran at it. We bombed down the road to the trailhead and waited there for him. In a bit he showed up and got a drink from my Camelback. That's when these people rolled up and tore me a new one for abusing my dog. Not to be judgmental (a handy way of saying "I'm going to be very judgmental now") but Beavis was WAY more of a biker than these folks. He was at his prime then, doing 20+ mile rides at least once a week, and loving every minute of it. 10 miles would have killed these folks. Too bad I wasn't smart enough to ask them to join us for a 'little ride'. It would have been fun to watch Beavis and I and totally trounce them, and way out of character for me. Instead I tried to laugh them off and other than my grumbling about those people we had a nice ride.

            So due to the festival and since many folks had already requested the earlier time off we've decided to go with April 12^th through 20^th. Hopefully Debo can work it out because it just wouldn't be the same without him there. Debo, don't forget about that big refund George is giving us (I extend gracious thanks to my as-yet-to-be-born grandchildren for footing the bill!). Your country's economy is banking on you blowing that refund in the desert.

            I've heard from lots of 'new' folks (those that haven't made it down there with us before) that are very interested in going. Hopefully we'll have quite a crew. For those of you that don't know here's the drill:

- Incredibly varied riding (everything from beginner to NO WAY AM I GOING TO RIDE THAT) like you may never have had the pleasure of experiencing.

- Fun in Fruita, Moab and/or maybe even somewhere else…San Rafael swell?

- For the non-riding inclined the scenery and nearby national parks (Colorado National Monument, Canyonlands, Arches, etc) are truly unique.

- Convenient car type camping with fires and vault toilets. And Beer. And Coffee. And T-Bird?

- A wide variety of motorcycling, mountain biking, hiking, and 4x4'n opportunities.

- Warm and dry that time of the year down there.

Like we always say…"Be there or be talked about".

Contact me for more info.

Take care,

Tony

Disclaimer: Reading the fine print may cause eye strain

Hello, my name is Tony and I am a Mr. Cleanaholic. This may come as a shock to some of you as not that long ago folks all over the world (1140 blog hits to date!) heard me singing the praises of The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. However, after the initial gleam and sparkle of a clean sink begins to fade, the dark side ("Luke, I am your father"…is it just me or does Mr. Clean bear a striking resemblance to Senator Palpatine before we find out that he is really Darth Sidious…) of this miracle product shows through. At even the slightest hint of a stain I found myself fanatically scrubbing and rescrubbing the sink, counter, cabinets, floor, internal engine parts, whatever – just plain old 'clean' was no longer clean enough. I needed dazzling whiteness! To add insult to injury the evil geniuses at Mr. Clean made those erasers ever so slightly water soluble so that they slowly disappear under use. The other night (at 0300 hours) while scrubbing spider foot prints off the wall I resorted to using tweezers to hold the last remaining fragment of Mr. Clean Magic Eraser as my dealer (Albertson's) doesn't open until 0600. Lord help me if they ever run out.

See for yourself how they sugar coat this highly addictive demonic drug: Mr. Clean LIES!!. If you read between the lines the real truth shines through. I've surmised the high points with these direct quotes: "this product may block the gastrointestinal tract", "Formaldehyde", "for use by adults only", "could result in chemical burns", "physical abrasion", "health risks", "safety concerns", "safety risks", "toxic", "keep this product out of the reach of children and pets", "warning", "discomfort", and "consider seeking medical attention". Does this sound like a safe product to you?

Unfortunately my addictions don't stop there. You're all well aware of my penchant for COFFEE, a deep seated addiction which I've been nursing to perfection for almost 25 years now. After sharing a cup of Joe with my mom I moved rather quickly into brewing double super buzz coffee at Pizza Harbor (brew a batch in the Burn-o-Matic, refresh the grounds, and then run it through again) and drinking it, literally, by the beer pitcher full. The chicks dug it and it was just the ticket for fueling after-hours revelry, and/or completing homework assignments. Many high school nights were spent lying wide awake: just me, my thoughts, and my ringing ears. Good times. When the other hoodlums in high school were sneaking chaws of Kodiak in PE class I was busy munching on coffee beans (I always kept a few in my pockets). In later years nearly every mountain bike excursion was a coffee-addled (told ya I'd work it in at some point) dehydrated roller coaster ride. Rich thought I was insane (probably correct) the first time that he took me for a ride in Bozeman and I spent the entire ride slugging ice coffee (with cream and sugar) from my water bottles. Which brings us to a little sidebar (my especiality). Recently a package arrived from one of my loyal readers. A Josh Welsh of Minneapolis, MN (who just happens to be Sarah's brother, but it sounds way cooler if I have random fans sending me care packages) had parceled some wonderful fresh beans from The Peace Coffee Co. They boast delivery via longboard or bicycle for local businesses (Check it) and a 100% biodiesel fueled van for the outer reaches. It featured a nice picture of the front half of a Holstein calf on the bag…get it, "Half-calf" just my speed! So, at 0800 I ground some up, cleaned out my French press, and brewed up a batch. As it happily steeped away filling the room with it's delicious aroma I frantically scrubbed things with a ¼" square remnant of Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. When I'm in the Eraser Zone nothing escapes my eagle eyes, be it a juice splatter on the cabinet or a mystery stain under the dish drying rack…while swiftly moving the rack aside to scrub the beejezus out of it I under-rotated and clipped the protruding top of the not-yet-pressed coffee. Perhaps this little beatnik poem will sum up the moment.

Tip, tilt, waver…slow motion slide, CRASH, splatter…the mess, THE COFFEE!

Sarah said I looked as though I might try to lick the coffee from out among the ruins. What to do now? I mean obviously the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser had it's work cut out for it, but then what? My precious French press lie shattered on the floor. I suppose I could try to get a real cup (more like 4 cups) of coffee in town, but that is hard to do and I hate paying approximately 100 times more for an inferior product. Ah, yes, the old Mr. Coffee maker should be somewhere in the basement. I scampered down and quickly located it, but no carafe. Hmm. I seem to remember Eric Figura breaking it (along with nearly everything else) during his tenure as our roommate. No worries, Sarah has errands to run and I'm sure she can locate a replacement. Just before noon Sarah headed out. I get a little edgy when I'm deprived of my daily beverage ritual so I'm sure I reminded her more than a few times about the dire need to replace the missing carafe.

Faithfully (Journey, anyone?) Sarah returned with a nice carafe and as a bonus it was on sale (god I'm cheap). Unfortunately Mr. Coffee had redesigned their coffee makers in the years that had passed since we got ours. The carafe was a good inch too tall to fit in the machine. I examined the box. On the side, in bold print, was written the following: "Fits all Mr. Coffee makers ever produced". I began to wonder if all Evil Empire companies' names start with "Mr.", and if I was ever going to get a damn cup of coffee (told you I get edgy). It was now 1300 hours.

My mind somehow found the energy to spring into action sending the carafe, coffee maker, and myself straight to the shop. As I hunched over the bench mumbling to myself "No one is going to keep me from The Precious" I may have looked a bit like Golem. No matter as via micrometer, caliper, and steel rule it was quickly determined that there was enough excess material, window dressing if you will, built into the filter assembly that if removed would provide just enough clearance for the carafe. The filter assembly was chucked into the lathe and quickly pared down to bare minimums. Safety margins be damned! As a bonus the Mr. Coffee logo was neatly cut in half bearing eternal witness to the events on this torturous day.

Grinning like an undertaker (nobody, and I mean nobody will get that obscure musical reference) I headed back to the kitchen with Mr. Frankenmaker V1.0. At 1400 hours I fired it up for a cleaning cycle with white vinegar (hey, that thing had sat in the basement for lord knows how long and certainly wasn't properly cleaned out before getting initially packed away). A fresh water rinse followed with the grinding of beans immediately proceeding that. Finally it was brew time!

After about thirty minutes of clean up in the shop I went inside to check on the progress. Curiously, I wasn't greeted at the door by a delicious aroma. Once in the kitchen I was terrified to see that someone had broken in, drank all of the coffee, and washed the carafe such that it appeared spotlessly clean. Coffee robbers, and neat ones too. Upon further inspection however I found that although the switch was in the 'on' position the coffee maker was certainly not 'on'. The grounds were dry as my mouth. I verified power to the outlet and then cycled the power at the machine (back when I was working in the chemistry lab we would have frequent technical difficulties with the equipment. The first thing any service guy would ask was: "Did you cycle the power?"). The power light would come on momentarily but then shut off. Either the 'over temp' sensor or the 'you left the damn coffee pot on too long' timer had failed and was tripping the circuit. Damn computers are taking over the world!

"Hal, I'd like a cup of coffee please."

"I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Back to the shop.

Nearly 1600 hours now and I've got the guts laid out before me: wires cut, 'on' switch isolated, boiler element hard wired, sensors/timers/bells/whistles/safeties ELIMINATED. It'll burn the damn house down if left unattended but at least it'll brew a damn cup of coffee now. As a side, to this sidebar, here's a paper written by two Chem-E students on coffee makers: I shoulda been a Chem-E student..

By 1700 hours the kitchen was once again filled with the delicate aroma of fresh brew. There's nothing like the first sip of the first cup of the morning…or afternoon. Whatever, I got my coffee so all's well.

I had a slew of other miscellanea to tell you about: baby news, winter fair fun, an Ode to My Dogs, The Bruce's mystery middle name, among other things. But, as any parent will tell you: if the baby is sleeping you better be as well. So I guess the rest will have to wait until next time.

Take care,

Tony Smith