Whoops

Holy cow it has been quite some time since I posted anything on here. Sorry to all my readers (A HAHAHAHA).
Summer has burst upon southern minnesota. It has been in the 80s and 90s for the last week or two and everything is green. The corn is shooting up from the fields and hay has already been cut once.
A week ago I was sadly at my Grandmother Alberta's memorial service in Warroad. It was a very small quite gathering, mostly of family at the cemetary in Warroad. I felt very sad on the trip up to Warroad since Alberta was my last living grandparent. This saddens me because I will never have the chance to learn directly about the past that they lived and their little pieces of history. I have to go dig out Grandpa Alvin's book so that Leann can see it, and I would also like to read through it as I haven't dusted it off in many years.

On the upnote, today was my friend Paul's son Tyler's first birthday! We stopped by for burgers on the grill, and to help Paul move the wooden swing/fort that we put together a couple weeks ago. Afterwards we drove up to Kasota and looked at a 1958 Alumacraft 18' Queen Merrie boat. It is very cheap and definately closer to usable than the Sea Rayder that we looked at a month ago. Unfortunatley it has no engine and is quite large. I am waiting to hear back from Father for some input as to wether or not these boats are worth anything and storage till we can find a motor. Leann is not amazed, but I rather liked it. :)

Well hopefully I can find some time to post more often this summer! I have two online classes and am hanging out with the Grad Students working on the FormulaSAE car over the summer. I will try to be more regular, and definately if I end up with a boat!

Janksgiver in Mankato

Well, I am sitting here digesting my Thanksgiving "dinner" and thought I would post what we had since I thought it was an accurate sample of what is probably being served on tables all over everywhere today.
8lb JennyO Turkey Breast. Since neither of us like dark meat it was a pretty good deal and it only took a couple hours to cook instead of half a day.
Turkey gravy, prepped as labled on the package that came with the turkey breast.
5lbs of Potatos, mashed with butter milk salt pepper and some garlic powder. plus potato water!
Two trays of Potato Rolls. I always loved Bob Marr's potato rolls so this year I gave a crack at them using a random internet recipe. For anybody who is not in the know- these are simply dinner rolls made with the water from boiling potatos and this particular recipie had actual mashed spuds in the dough.
From the Box Cornbread Stuffing.tasty tasty tasty, probably really unhealthy or something but there wasn't any nasty turkey bits in it either! :)
Leann had some Jello prepped last night...it looked tasty.
I made one Pecan Pie while everything else was cooking. I used a Pilsbury pie crust, which appears to have cooked spledidly, though I haven't cut into it just yet.

Thats about it for now. Just thought i'd put it all down for posterities sake.

A Day At the Races

Well I am certainly getting my motorposrts fix these last couple weekends! Two consecutive weekends of 1/8th mile drag racing on the motorcycle! wow. Way fun. Not super challenging by any means but good cheap clean fun! holy cow.

THe first weekend was the learning curve, this later second weekend was working on techniques and getting shit done! I got through two rounds of bracket last weekend, but this weekend I broke out on the first round against a set up racing sled. I was pumped though because I learned A) how to launch and B) how to do a burnout in the waterbox. I also topped my personal best to-date with a 9.25 ET. Reaction times still leave a lot to wish for, but I am still new at this drag racing on a bike thing (and drag racing period)

Leann came with this last weekend and I actually managed to convince her to run her Grand Am. Good thing I did that too! She Tophied! made it three rounds in elims! Way to go babe! :) an 11.00 dial in did the trick! lol :P

-Gabe :)

1/8th Mile drags@Humbolt! WEEEEeeee

Holy cow. What a long night last night was! We (the MSU Dragrace Team) gathered at the Auto Lab at 11:30am on saturday for the "drivers meeting" and a quick rundown on how things operate at the dragway. Then we hit the road. An ME named Dan rode down with me and the Zuki which was a nice way to break of the monotony of the drive.

We arrived and payed our entry fee, got a number for the zuki, unloaded, and zipped over to tech. Tech was probably the most relaxed tech inspection I've ever been through. The fellow looked at the bike, checking for obvious leaks probably, and stepped on the rear brake pedal and he was done.

Then we parked the bikes in the bike lane and went back to relax and get suited up. We all got one run in before somebody blew water in the lights and evertyhign came to a halt. Pretty soon all the cars were at the track and there was a line a mile long. Several breakdowns and delays ensued, including a K5 Blazer blowing oil over the entire track. They ended up having to "tire" the entire outer lane.

Everybody just relaxed and talked with other racers. There was quite the mix of cars bikes and trucks there. Eventually I got te run down on ET bracket racing and about 8:30 (two and a half hours behind schedule) I gave a dial-in of 10.37 on Al's recomendation. Since there was only a handful of bikes we drew chips for runing order. I got paired with a full on drag bike and was obviously blown away. Thank goodness for double elim! Second round I got paired with Calvin and his 1200 Harley Sporty. I ended up breaking out, but Calvin beat me to the breakout so I ended up winning! yay! Next round I got paired with Frase and his 883 sporty (probably my closest competition, which is why I ate his subway! haha!) but the track officials didn't know what the hell was going on and sent Frase down the track alone, and I got paired with some street-drag bike, who again blew me away.

My fastest time was a 9.857, best RT was 1.218 which is pretty bad.

great fun and I'll be out there again soon hopefully!

-gabe :)

My money tree is not in bloom...

So I was lookign through the Specialstage.com forums and such. I saw that Kyle Sarasin is meeting with M-Sport for support in the Fiesta trophy...which is awesome. I am very much in envy of that kid. I also saw some posts from Lurch about the Mazda support that is in place. and holy wah- I better just go buy a mazda right now. Sure I might be able to get some support from other manufacturers eventually, but Mazda has the information in place as-is right now. hard to beat that!!

-g :)

Hello summer!

The nice weather is finally here! it was like somebody finally remembered to light the pilot light on the summer furnace. pretty dang nice!
I went for a nice long walk yesterday, down to the post office and back. Took a little under an hour.
I've been driving the truck more lately and really am torn about what to do with it. I hate paying for it and really want it to be replaced with a nice ole car. :( Especially now that everybody else has their rides out for the summer. Oh well, i'll figure it out eventually.
Looks like I will be going to Ann Arbor for jesse's grad. That will be pretty sweet sinec i haven't been there in a long time. Hopefully Leann will be able to come with since she has never been there. Looks like summer is going to be a busy busy time this year. Still have to figure out next years schedule and any travel plans for the summer. aaahhhh!!! heheh

-g :)

So, the new camaro is out...and, nice enough. So I am looking through the Jalopnik posts with some rather flashy pictures of their new press lineup and I notice the blatant RS badge on the grill of one of their silver cars. So I meander over to the chevy camaro website to try and "build my own" 2010 RS camaro. and what do i get? nothing. LS 1LT 2LT 1SS 2SS? WTF does any of that mean? I don't see RS on that list at all. Is this why GM is falling on their face? TOO MANY options and models? They seriously should just go back to the tried and true- make a car. market it. if people like it they will buy it, if not you stop making it. grrrr

-g