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 Posted July 28th, 2007 at 8:31PM
Busy month, this weekend is my first one without a race. Just before the first event, I also picked up a used set of Hankook Ventus RS2s, one of the better autox tires out there. After figuring out tire pressures, these things are a huge improvement on my daily drivers. They should last the rest of the season too. And then it’s on to r-compounds next year.
July 8th I drove down to Connecticut to drive with a local club. Went down primarily to mix it up with some other MINIs, which was a blast comparing times and watching them. Turn out was decent, and in SM I took 4th place out of 8. Another MINI was 2nd. Our times were comparable, neck and neck most of the day, but I was cone happy. At the end of the day, I was 4/10ths of a second off of him. I believe my car is better set up handling-wise, but he has the power. Another day!
July 15th and I was at my home SCCA region, MoHud. Here I eventually placed 5th out of a large class of 14. The cars ahead of me were all regulars, and I solidly beat a few others who are making it to a lot of the events. I feel as if I can gain another position, but then I’m SOL until I get a lot better, give the car some more kick, and buy some r-compounds.
July 22nd was back to Ithaca College! Glen region was hosting an event on-campus and I just had to make it to this one. It was a lot of fun being back in Ithaca. My mother and I made it a weekend, but didn’t get to do a whole lot. Ate some decent food. Brought the dog and he behaved wonderfully. Glen is a small region and not super-competitive, which explains why I placed 1st out of 2 entrees in SM. I beat a Chevy Silverado.  Regardless, I’ll take the win. Looking at raw scores, I was also 5th fastest out of a field of 30 (excluding the karts)! Beating me were two Miatas, a Corrado, and an M3. Not bad company, eh? I felt very good about this event, even though I coned my fastest runs. I’m getting used to the sticky tires and can’t wait till the next round.
Posted May 22nd, 2007 at 2:07PM
Killing myself just to keep alive, killing myself to survive
These last few days I’ve been doing some of the tourist things that abound in Ithaca. Wine tasting, hiking, looking at flowers at Cornell, sitting on the shores of lake Cayuga, eating good food. Commencement was on Sunday, so my parents came for that, and they’ll be staying nearly a week. We’ll be taking in everything that the Finger Lakes region offers that we’ve never experienced. I’ve snapped a lot of photographs, which can be seen at Flickr. I’m learning all of the subtleties of my Canon Rebel XTi, so photos are coming out better and better. I might want to invest in a macro lens and some lens hoods and polarizing filters though.
Graduation was fine: the actual ceremony surprisingly painless. But I was in a funk, and it’s pretty obvious why. It wasn’t about college ending (I’m ready) or my impending move from Ithaca (I’m thinking of staying). It’s the fact that there are maybe a half-dozen or so people I’ve met that I don’t really want to say adieu.. to.
One in particular.
Plenty of my peers are decent people. I get along with most of them. But I won’t miss them. Just like high school, or each year these past four, when friends and loose associates have graduated. OK, I’ll admit. It’s about a girl. Missed opportunities and kicking myself for never doing anything. Making the move.
But as Mr. Natural would say… Deal with it.
Posted April 16th, 2007 at 10:31AM
So it’s snowing hard today. We were supposed to get all of the snow yesterday, but it was raining till I went to sleep, so now it’s snowing all day today. Driving with the summer tires on is very scary. I couldn’t make it up one tiny hill on the way to campus today, because there’s a 90* turn just before it, which I had to slowly do so I didn’t slide completely off the road. Having to go full-lock just to go straight really sucks. Especially when the roads aren’t even that bad.
I’ll say this much: I’m never going to curse at other drivers who’re going half the speed I’m going in inclement weather. I’ll just assume they’re running the wrong sort of tires and cut them some slack.
First an absolute blizzard in the middle of March. Now inches of snow in the middle of April. What a POS winter.
Posted April 7th, 2007 at 4:07PM
For a while there – last week of March, first couple days of April – we had beautiful sunny skies and temperatures in the 70s. Then, overnight, it dropped back below freezing and starting to flurry every day. The snow, huge fluffy flakes, accumulates overnight just to melt during the day. Repeat every night for the next several days.
This is more agonizing than if we hadn’t had a nice stretch of weather at all. This is the winter than would never arrive, and now – never leave. Bleh.
My pipes froze two nights ago. I went to investigate and the door to the little room with the water heaters and miscellaneous plumbing had been open overnight. I burned the last of my wood last night. I can’t wait for the warmer weather to arrive for good.
Posted April 26th, 2006 at 6:18PM
Today Al Franken broadcasted his radio show live from Ithaca College. I was fortunate enough to snag a ticket at the last second (they were free, but I had forgotten all about the event and never went and picked one up). Three hours, but it was generally fun. Variety of guests, from Ithaca mayor Carolyn Peterson to several professors from Cornell and IC. It was a good crowd, most of Emerson Suites was filled. Entertaining. I didn’t get a book signed however. I wanted to buy his newest (The Truth (With Jokes)) but it’s currently only out on hardcover, and I didn’t have the money to swing that.
Tomorrow is my last day of classes. Another semester down, only two more to go. Phew. The end of the year workload is really not that bad, but that won’t stop me from bitching. I need to work on two essays for my Public Essay class, I have two reviews, an essay, and a full-blown article between my Feature Writing and Writing as a Critic classes. A final in Macroeconomics.
Again, not that bad, but I’m also going to be moving out of my sublet this coming weekend (before finals). Speaking of which, I only need to be around on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, so I’ll drive to Ithaca early on Tuesday, then stick around, sleeping in the car, doing my stuff on Wednesday, and then jetting back home.
Posted March 24th, 2006 at 3:27AM
I present you, my faithful-but-sometimes-wavering reader, with a local Ithaca College event that will be kick-ass and which I encourage everyone to attend. From IC’s Intercom system:
“Know Occupation” Week Coming Soon
“Know Occupation: Israel/Palestine†week will begin with an art exhibition of political cartoons by an Israeli and a Palestinian artist on the Ithaca Commons on Sunday, March 26, and will continue with a series of films and speakers at Ithaca College about the consequences of military occupation for Israelis and Palestinians. The “Know Occupation†events, which have been organized the IC Students for a Just Peace, are free and open to the public.
The scheduled events follow:
• Sunday, March 26, Political Cartoons Exhibition on the Commons, Across from Unique World, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., features the works of Loui Jameel, a Palestinian student at al-Quds University in the West Bank, and Amitai Sandy, an Israeli artist in Tel Aviv. Refreshments and music provided.
• Monday, March 27, “Home Demolitions,†7:00 p.m., Textor 101, Ithaca College, presented by Daniel McCarey, IC senior, who participated in a human rights summer work camp organized by the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions.
• Tuesday, March 28, “Breaking the Silence†movie and presentation by Tamir Sorek, an Israeli who has refused to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces in the Palestinian territories, Textor 102, Ithaca College, 7:00 p.m. Tamir, currently an adjunct assistant professor in the sociology department at Cornell University, studies the processes in which ethnic and national identities are produced, re-produced, and dissolved.
• Wednesday, March 29, “Arna’s Children†movie and discussion with IC Politics professor Beth Harris, Textor 102, Ithaca College, 7:00 p.m. The movie, written and directed by Danniel Danniel and Juliano Mer Khamis, tells the story of a children’s theater group that was established by Juliano’s mother, an Israeli, in the Palestinian Jenin refugee camp. Juliano returns to Jenin during the Second Intifada to film what happened to the children who had participated in his mother’s theater project.
• Thursday, March 30, “The Separation Wall,†Williams 323, Ithaca College, 7:00 p.m., presented by Haley Singer and Nicole Brierre, seniors at Ithaca College, who visited the West Bank and Israel over their winter break on a delegation with the Faculty for Israeli Palestinian Peace.
Posted January 15th, 2006 at 10:57PM
Typing up the title, it was telling me that I already had a post entitled “Back in Town”. That wasn’t originally going to be the title for this one, but I decided to continue the tradition. Last time I was talking about “home”. This time around: Ithaca.
I took the first place I looked at. Three-hundred dollars a month, for a large room in a small house. Utilities, high speed internet, and a washer all included. There are two other roommates — one I’ve met (he seems alright), and another one who will be getting back in town at the end of this month (she’s in Colombia during research or something). Three bedrooms upstairs, and an open, flowing dining room / kitchen / living room downstairs. It’s a narrow house on a small street — it only goes on for two blocks, and one end is barricaded off. The house neighbors a church — Zionist such and such (a quick Google told me that it’s a strain of Catholicism originating in Africa (thought so)). The neighborhood does seem to be heavily black. Change from Freiburg? I suppose, but largely inconsequential. The bigger change is that I’m most likely the only undergraduate on the block. I’m thinking the majority of students live on their respective hill, although I’ve known people who live downtown (all of the cooler heads, naturally).
It’s downtown Ithaca, about squarely in the middle of things. The walk to the Commons is probably ten minutes (although sorry, it’s freezing and I’m not attempting it till it gets warmer!). Wegmans is probably fifteen, twenty minutes. Great location, me-thinks. Of course, I do have the Honda with me.
Like I said, my room is damn large, although the previous occupant / sublet-er (/owner?) has left a few rubber bins of belongings behind, stowed in a corner. I can afford it; with all of my stuff moved in, the room still feels sort of bare. It’s also pretty nippy in the house, and more specifically, my room. I just received a voice mail from the woman, and she said they “usually keep the thermometer at 65.” Not that I’ve seen a thermometer, and not like my room feels anything like 65 (the rest of the house is a good five to ten degrees warmer), but whatever. I’ll leave my door open, make sure the windows are closed (a few were cracked when I first got here), and wear an extra layer. It’s a good temperature to sleep in, and it’s been unusually cold these past few days.
EDIT: The temperature thing has been solved, the radiator was off during the night, and this side of the house is an addition, with a different thermometer, which was set at 60, now pegged at 65.
Wait a second, what am I talking about? Yesterday, and the day before, I was walking around in short sleeves. I had spring fever, it hit sixty something! But that was back home, and in the time that we left there and finally arrived at Ithaca, the temperature dropped dramatically. How depressing. Anyways.
Today, besides just idling in my room doing nothing, I went up to Pyramid Mall, to Best Buy, and bought a router. The house has Roadrunner, and it’s damn speedy, but I wanted to set up a wireless LAN, like I had in Freiburg. I got really use to having (wireless) internet on my laptop. What a luxury. Setting up the router and getting my laptop online was effortless, although the house computer’s CD-ROM drive doesn’t seem to work.
It’s begun to snow once again. I’m still debating whether or not I should sit in on German 202 tomorrow. I need to take a placement exam, and my expectations of getting into 202 are pretty low. I’ll probably just go tomorrow to make an appointment to take the exam, and see if I bump into my German professor. Then Tuesday I have my first classes. Four classes on Tuesday and Thursday, three of which are writing classes, all of which are right after one another. Those two days are going to be hell, but having the rest of the week free will be redemption.
Oh wait, I really need to get a job too.
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