CSI: The Midnight Assault.

My day started off bad. It started off at approximately 12:30am. I woke up screaming and bleeding on my kitchen floor...to be exact I woke up as I was sinking to the floor.

Now I should explain one thing: I do have a known record of sleep walking, and I have also woke myself with "outbursts" in the past but I have never had more than a sore toe or shin the next day to rember it by. This was an unprecidented event in nearly every way. And it was rather scary.

When I "woke" I was standing in my kitchen in the dark and my entire body felt like pain. I could tell I was screaming or yelling because I could feel my throat vibrating but I didn't hear anything. I tried to raise my arms up to feel my face but my arms hurt so bad when I did that I dropped them down and my entire body kind of followed them to the floor.
Now I am in a sort of upright fetal position on the floor and I feel a warm liquid on one of my hands. Blood right? Well I can't see since there are no lights on so I bring my other hand up to my nose to see if I have a bloody nose. Nothing there and yet the blood keeps dripping on to my hand. I try my nose again and again there is nothing there. I dont feel anything running down my face so i figure im alright in the head wound department. WTF.
So I stand up. As I stand up pain erupts from my knees, both of them at the same time. Ignoring that pain for the moment I am finally standing and the fluid is still dripping. Through feel I deduct that my chest is fine and free of wetness so I bring my hand up and as I pass my chin finally discover the source, the font du blood.

Now I finally decide to move; Bee line for the bathroom. on come the lights. I look in the mirror and what do I see? Blood, lots of blood coming from my chin. Ouch. I flex my jaw and find that it is about as stiff as can be and more blood comes out when I do so I make quick business of washing my face and eventually the flow tapers off.

By now I am semi-conscious and the pain has reduced itself to three areas; my chin (obviously), the front of my arms/chest, and my knees. I look down at my knees; both are flaming red on the front and appear to have some nasty rug-burn. My arms cause quite a bit of pain when I move them so I painfully remove my shirt and discover some very nasty bruises and scrapes. My left thumb-toe also felt broken and had a blood stain on it.

My brain tells my body that it is very tired and that everythign else seems okay so I lope back to my bed, replace covers onto matress, and collapse until my alarm wakes me up at 6:30.

Okay, now I completely remember everything I have just recounted. I also know that I consumed one alcoholic beverage, one half of one pizza, no OTC drugs, no prescription drugs, and no illegal drugs before going to bed last night. No furniture has been displaced other than perhaps my desk chair (on wheels) rolling around at some point. When I got home this morning I discovered more blood on the floor of my "living room" that might slightly resemble a pattern. At some point my chair rolled through some of the drops and made cute little trails to where the chair was when I woke up.

About the only solution I have come up with is that these are all related to me violently falling down at some point before I was conscious and while in a different room from waking. When I left my bed it was very quickly because all sheets/blankets where strewn from bed to doorway. I possibly stubbed my toe in/during the falling process as there has not been any further pain from my foot. Logically I fell in my bedroom at some point since I have skinned/burned knees and that is the only room with carpeting. When I fell I had my arms out at least a little and they took the brunt of the fall after catching something with my shoulders. The scratches on my left side match up but I cant match them with anything in the room. The triangular scab/scar on my chin at least indicates it happened in the fall...thankfully ruling out something self inflicted.

So...What the hell happened to me last night? I know this may sound like a riddle or joke but all of this happened to me within the last 24 hours. The only riddle is how/what/why? It made for a rather amsuing story at work, but initially it was kinda scary. Who knows...

-G :)
PS- I took the pictures this morning and the pictures dont do the pain justice.

Be in peace, Grandpa.

On a sad note my grandfather past away yesterday afternoon.
As distant as I may have been the last several years I will miss him very much. To quote the oh-so-quotable Busta Rhymes- "You don't know what you got, till it's gone."
Alvin was a great conjurer of thoughts with an endless stream of stories and grand plans or ideas. For any of you techno nerds out there I suggest reading his book: A Time to Fish, A Time to Dry Nets. It will carry on several of his memories.

Too much fun!

Okay I was reading my brothers blog and he posted this silly thing, and I had to try it. Surprise; it actually seems to work! amazing.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Inland North You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."
The Midland
North Central
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The South
The West
Boston
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

-G :)

Dis-saster again

Well, I got my new tires today...and on the $274 invoice there is a note indicating that my car needs new balljoints and tie rods. what a farce. Both sides too. That sucks big time as the Jeep Commanche is in the garage right now waiting for a new transmission. AHHHHhhhhhh Why do these things always happen at the worst time of year? I need to buy christmas presents, travel around, take time off work...all that = crap.

So i guess it's time to get the damn truck operational so I have something to drive while the Bimmer goes up on repair blocks for a third winter. It's depressing. At least the tires feel good. We dont have much snow yet but they felt fine on the way home at least. The car felt remarkably stable on the way home too which makes me think they did put it on the alignment machine but didn't quite finnish everything. *shrug*

we will find out how good the alignment/BJs/tierods are tomorrow sometime.
-g :(

Christmas already?

Last friday I put in my request for this years Christmas Holiday. 2 weeks starting the 18th of December. Right now there is a loose plan of going to the TwinCities for a while and then traveling around with my long lost brother when he gets back.

So if you have any visitation or gift requests i highly suggest you put them in now while the schedule is still loosly open.

I still want to by a car for christmas. :) So far I bought myself new snow tires and a really nice London Fog coat. I suppose i should spend a little bit on other people too.
-G :)

Nothing much

Well I feel like posting something sicne I am nearly finnished with a fishbowl of cherryrumNcoke, which i will post about later.
I have not been up to much since thanksgiving. Sadly another week is almost at a close. On the upside that means I have two days of weekend starting around 5pm tommorrow. Maybe then i can do some more complete posts.

The only real updates are that I ordered new tires today (at $65/tire) they are Cooper WeatherMaster ST2's. 195/65/15 which really isn't the right size but i have some ContiContacts in that size on the car now and it's fine. The car is going in for those and an alignment next monday so that I can have everything ready for the next weekend when i am heading to Cloquet for a TSD rally. I'm not sure who is going with who but i will likely end up driving with dad as Navi since nobody ever comes with me and I dont have a significant other to convince. :) heheh

anyway, more on all that later.
-G :)

James Bond; Casino Royale

Okay i went to the movie after Turkey Day Dinner.

Total hit. This is how James bond should always be. They haven't made one like this since Sean Connery's times. It is a much needed change from the last couple Bonds which were more comedy than anything else. Admitedly I did like Pierce Brosnan as Bond but in the last couple movies he had the worst scripts and most bad quips ever. The movie with Halle Barry stands out in my mind as being particularily bad. This new movie is action packed and fast paced with lots of realism and good camera effects along with top notch computer effects. I must also compliment on Eva Green's lovely performance. She was most lovely and emotional which is something very few Bond Girls of the past got to do; show emotion rahter than passion.

If there is one complaint i had about the movie t would be the ending; I was honestly thinking this movie would be a sort of closure of the Bond enterprise; It bears the name of the first film appearance of the Bond name, and had elements fo a real romance intrest for Bond. BUT these thigns were not realized when it came time to the credits. dissapointed? not in the least, just commenting.

On a side note- Turkey Day was delicious and jovial. My thoughts went/go out to my brother and the other family members who were not there. I hope you all had as good a day as I did. :)
Till later,
G :)

Congratulations Peter, and other fun things.

This past weekend I was in Milwaukee, WI for my friend Peter's college graduation. He managed to get a BS in Computer Engineering from MSOE in a mere 4.33 years. Congratulations Peter I hope you enjoy the 1.75L of Jagermeister. :)

The Ceremony was particularily drab and dull and they had the nerve to ask people to hold the applause etc till everyone had recieved their degree! What jerks! I felt particularily bad for the first three or four students who got ZERO applause or anything. We (me and about a dozen of Pete's close friends and roommates) made sure to give him a warm well rounded shout-out when he got his. The only thing we had forgetten were air horns, and only because we had run out of time.

Later that evening Pete had arranged for a dinner at a nearby safe house. Drinks came first followed by a rather dissapointing steak and then more drinks. The house has a list of specialty drinks which are not only tasty and delicous but you get to keep your glass when you leave! woohoo!
So $40 worth of booze from left to right; The Spitini (aka the ultimate martini), The Mission Impossible (a 40oz fishbowl of long island ice tea), and the Spy's Demise (a tasty hurricane style drink of the fruity nature).

And on the way home I purchased Sid Myers: Civilization 4 and a new wireless rechargable mouse. For the nerd in me. :)

What is in a name?

Last night while playing some nate night WoW I linked this blog to the guild in hopes of drumming up some traffic (even though they couldn't care less). I believe it was Nick who asked "What is dtmracerx?"
Well nobody had bothered to ask me that before even though in forethought it seems like a perfectly logical question. I actually had to think about the answer though! Basically it is two parts: DTMRacer & RacerX

RacerX

Racerx is a character from the hit 60s TV show Speedracer. He is the unknown brother of SpeedRacer himself and always wears that silly mask, which incedentaly has a large X on it.

DTMRacer

This is actually a two part bit. The phrase "DTMRacer" is a littel something from several of the BMW forums I frequent on the web namely DTMPower. It is a handle that seems to be horrible overused (even I have decided to use it!). But the handle consists of two parts Racer and DTM. The Racer part should be self explanitory; someone who drives. The DTM is the acronym for Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft which was a top German-based racing group for 22 years. BMW E30 M3's (a certain car as pictured above) dominated DTM in the early years (5 overall wins are listed on that wikipedia page alone not to mention the idividual races) So through some convoluted logic we can derive DTMRacer and meaning somebody who likes to drive BMW M3's (or BMWs in general!) which is definately me.

So my handle comes from those two combined into a sort of "mystery BMW lover/driver" which I would like to say is me...but I'm not all that mysterious. cool huh?

-G :)

Decals!

I finally got several things, one of which was ambition. oh my! :O
Anyway...
Several days ago I recieved my fog light block off plates from TurnerMotorsports (I have been buying alot form them lately!) which I had put off since about two weeks after buying the car. I realized that these plates are really very plain and dont match the rest of the red bumper. Not that they need to match anything but they needed a little something to spruce up their look.
It should also be noted that I have a small collection of vinyl decals that I have been gathering for some time in hopes of using them on my car.

I immediately pegged one decal; the NASA decal I got with my membership (why do they send only one?). It fit almost perfectly! Unfortunately I do not currently have any SCCAProRacing or GRM stickers for the other plate. Very sad. The next time i purcahse decals I will have to purchase several of each!

I also had in the collection two G-Force Racing Gear decals which were of a smaller size. I had been meaning to put one on each side of my car for a long time but never got around to it until today. I decided to place them below the bodyline of the door along the forward edge. I think they look very nice!

I also put an SCCA Milwaukee Region decal on the passneger side rear window finally! I had put the originnal on the drivers side several years ago just to give the car a little image...now it matches on both sides! woohoo!!!

All said and done the car looks great. If it weren't so damn cold I would take some pictures but I am now cozily inside for the night. This weekend I am headed to milwaukee so I will see how durable those plates are.

L8terz
-G :)

2006 LSPR

A couple weeks back I attended my 4th Lake Superior Pro Rally. I recently got an email from my rally acquaintence Dave Parps (navigator and salesman) with a link to this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DUCR9-7Qe4

The LSPR is a two day event that usually falls last on the Rally America National Schedule. It is a continuation of the infamous POR rally (Press On Regardless) which makes it indirectly the longest running rally on American soil. It is one of two rallys to have ever graced the infamous WRC circuit and is often compared to the European rally roads. This year 62 cars graced the roads of the upper peninsula of the upper peninsula of Michigan for the two days of grueling stages. Conditions were mostly dry, but peppered with several muddy spots which caused more car washing than crashing.
Several cars were off by the end of the first night including the #18 car of Matt Iorio/Ole Holter, which ended their bid for the Open Class National title.
The cars looked fast from our vantage point on Echo Lake. We had a nice view overlooking a railroad crossing which we hoped woudl provide some possible air for the rally cars but sdaly it wasn't enough and the cars were not going that fast. We were running radio and got stationed with Josh who I rememebered, after some memory jogging, from my days of working at the Houghton NAPA store. Small world.

Lots of happy times as always. As LSPR is where I got my start in motorsports I always look forward to going and this year was no Let Down.

-G :)

the simple explanation

Okay so what is with my very cliche-ish sounding title?

I'm not sure to be honest. It sounded right at the time. It also relates to my current life status- that of a young, uneducated youth without direction or determination. This is a common trait amoungst not only me and my friends but a certain similar demographic. So I will write in this blog as an attempt to connect with the rest of the technocrat youth of my knowing; the bloggers, the vbloggers, and the gamers.

My writings will focus mainly around my biggest passion- that of auto racing. I am not some big NASCAR nut or an F1 junky; I simply like racing. I think i like the machines more than anything so if you ask me who drives car number 26 i will not know, but I will be able to tell you about the tires, spoilers, engines, and safety devices that are in it. So I hope you enjoy cars otherwise you will get bored fast around here!
I also like movies, beer, and lots of other seemingly dull guy things...like guns, and explosions and stuff.

-G :)

The First

Well it is an evening in November and I have neglected to go to the grocery store again.
I may as well do somethign while I am sitting here then! I have been a fan of blogs although I seldom keep them up to date for long. I had a LiveJournal for a long time until drama sent me packing. Then I started my MySpace account which serves it's purpose for connecting but it really leaves alot to be desired when it come to the "blog" aspect. I liked my brothers blogspot so I am deciding to give it a whirl.
Enjoy!
-G :)