dlloyd.net – The World of Darren (and Dawn)

If you wanted a reason to back your crap up, here’s one. OS hard drive died with no warning today. Thankfully I had a backup (from July 6). After a trip to BestBuy (screw you guys for making ME pricematch your own website), I was able to reboot with my Windows 7 disk, restore the backup on the NAS, and I was back up and running in under two hours. Woohoo!

Lots of interesting racing going on recently. F1 last weekend found Ferrari “guilty” of team orders for telling Massa that Alonso was faster. All well and good. Rob Smedley, don’t get all fracking apologetic and broadcast your sorrow to your driver on the radio!

Brian Barnardt, I’m still (STILL) not sure of how Helio was blocking in the Indy race this weekend (and neither are other drivers I know). But whatever. Please look into implementing an F1-style “one move” rule.

Jaialdi this weekend. Euskadi!

If you can see this post, we’re on the new server! I still have some tweaking of file permissions and the like, but the basics are all here, and that’s good. I was actually surprised at how easy it was. Easy is good, because every other time I’ve done something like this it was painful (i.e. involved working until 2 AM with lots of bourbon).

Hopefully this server build means that  the office is a bit cooler, quieter, and the power bill will drop a bit.

Woo hoo!

…because once a month is better than nothing. Time to roll up the sleeves…

Of Racing and Teammates

Teammates are a big deal in racing, and the “teamwork” aspect of motor racing has been in the spotlight recently. Whether it’s Lewis Hamilton in Monaco complaining over the radio when asked to conserve brakes “do you want me to race these guys or not”, Danica Patrick stating that her car during Indy 500 qualifying wasn’t right and “it’s not my fault,” or Sebastian Vettel attempting to pass Mark Webber and crashing into him during the Turkish GP, promoting the McLaren cars to P1 and P2. To me, there’s one thing you don’t do as the member of any team: badmouth or undermine your team in public!

On Overtaking

The Red Bull incident in Turkey was weird. So was the issue with the remaining factory Peugeot and Corvette in the morning hours of Le Mans this past weekend. Lots of blame has been bandied about, but to me there’s one thing to remember: It is the responsibility of the OVERTAKING driver to execute and complete a safe pass. As far as the Prototype vs. GT in Le Mans, sure, the prototype is faster than the GT car. However, the Porsche Curves are not a place you can run two wide! The Corvette can’t exactly pull over to let the prototype through, so to me it would make more sense for the prototype to wait and make the pass either in the Ford Chicane or on the front straight.

On Racing

This year’s Le Mans was flippin’ sweet, however. Audi sweeps podium after all the Peugeots fail to finish, the Corvettes both suffering engine failures means Porsche takes the GT2 podium. By the way, check out the photos in that Le Mans article linked above. It’s one of those races I need to go to some day.

We continue to make progress on Eric’s race car – an issue with the fuel lines meant we decided it was safer to pull the plug on racing this weekend, but we’ll be heading our to ORP anyway on Saturday to check things out.

On Technology

Sprint finally came out with a kick-ass Android powered phone, the Evo. I’ve had mine for just over a week now and LOVE it. It took getting a phone that syncs everything to my Google account to really get my act together as far as contacts, calendar, and the like. I’ve actually moved away from using Outlook 2010 and am using Thunderbird 3 in conjunction with my phone and the Google web interfaces. Outlook 2010 is very cool, however, the lack of good calendar integration is too bad. Dawn and I are saving money, too – with the required plan change for this phone, we’re able to get more (unlimited data and texts for both lines, more shared minutes) for about $25 less than we were paying previously…the catch is now I think Dawn wants a PDA/smartphone.

On Life in General

Dawn and I celebrated our second anniversary this week (it’s really been that long already?). With it being on a weekday we didn’t do too much celebration, but since we’re headed out o’ town in a few weeks for a wedding we’ll do some continued celebration then. We’re itching for some better weather here, the rain has gone on long enough, thankyouverymuch. Normally I’d comment about the World Cup, but unlike 4 years ago I’m quite busy working (I got hired at Sage halfway through the 2006 cup), so I’ve watched almost none of the matches!

Hopefully a quick update is coming from Oregon Raceway Park this weekend…until then…au revoir!

This has been a rather epic May thus far. The weather here in Oregon has sucked, but thankfully the racing I’m watching isn’t here.

The Spanish GP and Monaco GP were back to back the previous two weekends. Monaco has my favorite corner in all of racing as seen in this Axis of Oversteer post.  Was hoping Lewis Hamilton could’ve cracked the podium, but it’s hard to get behind someone when they’re eviscerating their team on the radio!

Indy Pole Day was yesterday, with Helio laying down a blistering 228 MPH lap (227.9 4-lap average).  That’s impressive (not other driver’s inability to perform/take responsibility), so that’s what I’m focusing on today!  I was hoping someone could challenge Helio and get qualifying laps of 230, but it didn’t happen.

The 2010 ALMS race at Laguna Seca was also yesterday and is proof to me that GT racing is the best racing in the world.  Porsche, Chevy, BMW, Ferrari all could have one the race, but the Flying Lizards took the class win.  Go Lizards!  This is all the more exciting because Le Mans is in less than a month – in fact, almost half of the teams that were in Monterrey yesterday are on their way to France this week.

Bump Day at Indy is on right now…really pulling for Tony Kanan, who spun yesterday and then spun (and crashed) this morning.  Yikes!

The next month is really shaping up.  The Indy 500 is next weekend (and the Turkish GP), and then we have all kinds of awesome: Le Mans.  World Cup soccer (USA-England DURING the Le Mans race).   Eric’s first race at Oregon Raceway Park…it’s shaping up to be a great month of sports!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention that the Stanley Cup Final will be next month as well, though San Jose will have to win all 4 games to make it to that point.  D’oh.

For starters, I feel stupid that I didn’t bother to check and see if I’d published my Las Vegas update and it sat in drafts for a month.  Whoops!  Like always, much has happened in a month…

Back in March, I was asked if I could travel to Richmond, BC to help another Sage office go live with a software package that we’ve been using at the Beaverton site for a year.  Atlas, as we call it, is primarily call tracking software (but it does tons more) and having some non-programmer resources there to answer how-to questions and help troubleshoot was a good idea…so I went to Canada for a week to help.  I’d never been to Canada (how sad is that; sadder is that I still have yet to make it to Seattle), so that in and of itself was awesome!  The trip itself was a great experience…I think I worked about 13 hours of OT (which is lots, normally we try to avoid OT) but as much work as it was, it was very beneficial (for me and the Canadians).  I even got to wander around downtown Vancouver and see some of the Olympic sights (like the Cauldron, etc).  It’s me, so obviously photos are posted.

Dawn recently took and passed her driving test…it was one of those things that she never had to have, living as close as we do to campus, etc.  However, she’s wanted it for a long time and she’s very happy to have it now.    I enjoyed having a chauffeur to and from the airport when I went to Canada.

Racing season is in full swing!  Living this close to PIR means that the siren song of cars racing is quite audible…unfortunate the 944 isn’t out there yet.  Eric has taken the motor out of my old 944 and we’re in the process of rebuilding it, replacing the clutch, removing weight, installing a fire system, etc.  Installing radios is on the list as well.  We didn’t want to rush things in two/three weekends – that happened last year and wasn’t all that fun.  Our goal is to have it don so that when they return from vacation, the car is ready to roll.

F1, ALMS, and Indy have been amusing.  May is almost here, and that means Indy 500…but I’m much more a fan of road courses and street circuits.  I was experiencing racing overload last weekend – I watched the F1 race, the ALMS race at Long Beach, and the Indy race at Long Beach.  Of the three, the ALMS race was the best…but unfortunately the best battles of the ALMS race (in the GT class) didn’t get a lot of coverage.  Indy was okay, but not overly exciting, I thought.  However, I remember the now-extinct ChampCar Grand Prix of San Jose…the track isn’t very wide!  F1 is getting better, but the excitement is largely in qualifying and the start of the race, with some pit strategy (relevant to my interests) thrown in.  Ultimately, the pit strategy I enjoy the most isn’t going to be here for almost two more months (la Sarthe…Le Mans).

How about them Sharks!  The battle for Lord Stanley’s Cup is here, and the Sharks are a game away (tonight, actually) from making it out of the first round (small victories).  The Sharks haven’t fared all that well in the playoffs the last 4 or so years, which is unfortunate, since they’ve taken 1st in the West (or 1st in the NHL) the last several years…hopefully that’s changing this year.

Graduation at UP is next weekend(!).  I’m amazed that another year is over already.  I guess it seems shorter when you’re not in classes and whatnot.  I’m even more amazed that I graduated four years ago – it doesn’t feel like four years!  Congratulations, seniors!  I’m actually the only percussionist for the UP Orchestra at commencement this year, which could be fun.

Spring is here and that means we can finally start doing projects outside.  We lost two tree branches in some early April storms, so I’ve managed to chop all that up.  Finally have started cutting and fertilizing the lawns again.  I have a few patches in front that I probably need to re-seed.  I’m not sure if a dog got to them or what!  Dawn’s also working on random flowers and bulbs – I like flowers, I don’t have the patience to plant/maintain them. 

Another update is due soon – I’ve been reading lots of books and have a few things to say about them!