Hmmmm, isn't it?

More travelling.

This week I am in Alabama. It's been an interesting few days - from the flight being changed from one connection to two (and so a 4-5 hours journey rather than 3) on the way down to having to leave the circuit 3 hours early, dodging torrential rain...

In the process, I have learnt a few things about Alabama:

1: It's a fucking shithole.
2: See 1. Add a bit more to your perception.
3: When they say 'we may get a storm later', they actually mean 'in about an hour, we are going to come over and suggest you go over and take cover in the main building because there's a tornado coming'.
4: Everyone seems to eat a lot, regardless of how poor they look. Somehow, they seem to not suffer for a meal.
5: I found it very difficult telling the abandoned houses from the inhabited ones on the way to the track and back.
6: I don't speak Alabaman. I found it pretty hard to understand a damn word they said.
7: Birmingham, Alabama is the one city I have ever been to that you can drive around for nearly an hour on a Saturday afternoon, and the only sign of life is the guys standing outside the homeless centre. Nor can you actually find any sign of a city centre that implies life (but just happens to be closed). Weird.

The only good thing that Alabama? The fact that tomorrow I leave it to drive to Oklahoma.

Yep. That's it.

[Edit. Even worse than all the above, we found out tonight that the state doesn't sell alcohol on a Sunday. SHITHOLE!)

QotD: Long Distance Love Affair

Do you think real love can last throughout any distance, or will long distance end most relationships? 
Submitted by Miss Joy.

The difficulty there, of course, is that people assume that real love is present in 'most relationships'. I think the two are unrelated in the manner the question is posed. Most long distance relationships fail. Most relationships based on real love don't. I don't think the two statements are connected.

If you can't put up with a little bit of distance, then it isn't real love, is it?

QotD: My 10 Things

What are 10 things you've done that other people probably haven't? 
Submitted by Janette.   

I'm not sure I can come up with ten, but I'll try:

1: Moved on less than 3 days notice to a foreign country for a new job on the strength of a phone call with just two suitcases of possessions to survive with. Twice.

2: Moved on less than 10 days (the last time) notice to a foreign country for a new job on the strength of a phone call.

3: All car related, and so not deserving separate points, but still fairly unusual:
  3.1: Travelled at 177mph in an Aston Martin on a disused runway and not looked where I was going (I was checking data from the telemetry system that was ascertaining how likely the engine was to blow up if we went faster) as we rapidly approached a 40 foot high earth bank.

  3.2: Driven on the public highway at over 150mph in my own car.
 
  3.3: Purchased a car from 2,500 miles away, in a different country, having never seen it in the flesh (er...metal).

  3.4: Travelled across England with a broken speedometer (whilst being blissfully unaware of this) for almost exactly two hours in a 25 year old Ferrari (not mine) and getting out of the car to look at my watch and realise that I must have averaged over a hundred miles an hour to have made the journey in that time. I did think it was noisy for 85mph...

   3.5: Driven a racing car that I have built/Built more racing cars than you've probably seen on the TV in the last 5 years.

   3.6: Driven 1000 miles through 4 European countries in 10 hours (including a ferry crossing) in a ₤600 rust bucket of a car.

  3.7: [Insert a long list of incredibly irresponsible (ie much more so than the above) acts involving cars and speed (and, on occasion sitting on the bonnet at the time) moments over an extended period. Most, if not all, of which were illegal.]

4: Walked 35 miles non-stop over mixed terrain for charity. At night. At the age of 13 (although it did take me 12 hours and cost me several blisters and hypothermia for falling in a ditch full of water in the dark).

5: Driven a 100 mile round trip just to put flowers on my Mum's table for her birthday (by way of making up for all the other years I'd totally forgotten).

6: Willingly parted with over ₤2K just to get my then (psycho) girlfriend 'the fuck out of my house and my life'. No. I didn't have anything like that sort of money to hand at the time. But it was totally fucking worth it.

7: Piloted a two seater aeroplane at 1500 foot over my own house, being powered by an experimental/development engine that I had finished building entirely myself that week and finished installing in the plane (also entirely myself) that morning. And I don't have a pilot's license (although the other bloke in the plane did).

8: Made my (male, 45 year old) boss cry in a meeting involving everyone in the company just by answering his (possibly ill advised) question of "Well, honestly, what do you think I should have done, then?". I kept the job for a further 18 months and outlasted him, for reference, before I handed in my notice.

9: Been within 6 foot of a car when another car crashed into it at about 75mph and its fuel tank exploded. No--one was in it by this stage. I ran away.

10: Been on a beach at almost the very tip of northern Scotland, drunk, at 3 am on New Years day, running across a  beach 12 inches deep in snow chasing seagulls just because it was the most fucking bizarre thing that had occurred to me in weeks.

Yeah, I think that'll do. There are a million more car related ones (especially racing car related) that most people won't have done, and a fair few more not car-related that people won't have done, but that I'm not sure I want to crow about in the open like this. Some filthy, some not so filthy...

Story of my life...

Story of my life..., originally uploaded by Brock.

Geez. Even Thunderbird thinks it is unlikely that a woman will tell me I am someone special..

I find that a bit harsh. She sounded so nice...

ACHTUNG!!!!!

I had a bizarre little episode in Toronto, yesterday. I decided that, as I like boats, I would go to the Toronto International Boat Show. I wanted a nice little wander among the pretty boats, poking things and generally being all technical and looking at fancy bits of kit.

Most geeksome. Great.

I wandered around looking at sailing boats and sailing dinghys, pausing at this interesting little toy and talking about the cool, penguin flipper style paddles it uses for extra motive power. Very interesting, actually, Clever stuff. I moved along to talking to a nice old bloke (there were, er, more than a couple of 'nice old blokes' there, to be honest. Not too many skimpy hotties) and we were talking about changing boat design (most of my sailing and boat knowledge is 20 or more years out of date in technology), moving on to changing areas of boating expertise.

We were talking about how Germany was one of the stronger boat manufacturers, but (as the boat we were discussing was Polish) the guy was telling me how big boat building has become in the last few years in Poland, and the depth of expertise has made Germany really "sit up and take notice of what's over the border" (Which amused me) and also try and poach some technology and expertise, as "Poland is in danger of taking over Germany's boat industry".

This made me smile. "Well, that shows a somewhat pleasing sense of irony, doesn't it?"

The guy took a second and then chuckled away. "Yes. Why yes it does, doesn't it?" And he toddled off to a real customer who may actually buy something from him. Which seemed fair enough to me.

So I carry on bimbling about, not feeling moved (I realised later) to take any pictures as they would all be too full of people rather than boats, pausing to have a long, in depth discussion with a jetboat guy. The topic ranged from the amazingly shallow two inches of water these 20 foot boats could travel across while under power to various applications for decent automotive turbo diesels in marine applications. I am toying with the idea of trying to see if there is any mileage (Urf!) in moving into installations for boats when I get tired of racing so tried to work our how far behind automotive it is (10-15 years was our assessment). May be worth investigating for later, I reckon. Good excuse to live on a lake and play with boats, I think...

I moved on to an interesting device for automatically steering a sailing boat without any electrical requirement. It uses wind power alone and is really rather clever, and was being demonstrated by a nice old (see?) German guy. he explained to me how it worked, and we chatted about some of the materials and mechanisms involved and I expressed my admiration at the simplicity of it all:

Old Guy: "Well, it is also a rather old design, I guess you can't improve on elegant simplicity... it is made in England and was actually designed by an English man forty years ago, you know."

Me: "Really? That's great. I like to hear that we're still turning out such clever things every now and then."

Old Guy: "Well, the English produce many very good things. very clever engineers, the English"

Me: "Well, I suppose so, yes.." (not really sure where this was going as he'd already established I wasn't going to buy one) "but it's nice to hear a product doing so well after such a time"

Old Guy: "Its true though. After all, you won the war. You beat us, you know"

Me: (thrown a bit) "Well, er, well yes. I mean, we had help and all that..."

Old Guy "Even so..... anyway, this bearing here is made with......"

Bizarre. Came out of nowhere, and I really wasn't sure if he was taking the piss, or if he thought I was. He seemed to think it was a perfectly sensible conversational derailment, and carried on happily like before, pointing out things and explaining.

I blame the long show. It had been on for over a week, and was closing inside the hour, so I suspect that they were all going slightly mad. I've done a few shows, in my time, and they've nearly tipped me over the edge and I was only there for three days. I think ten would have left my gibbering like a fool and bringing up 60 year old history...

Maybe.

Still, the boats were nice and all that.

Eviction.

My flat is on the top floor of a three floor building. The lower two floors are for businesses, so there are only two residential areas - my flat, and the one across the hall, where my neighbour lives alone. The doors are about 3 foot apart.

All of this is necessary detail, you see, so you can understand why I heard rather clearly the argument and shouting match between my neighbour and our landlady today. When I came back from one of my many trips, he had a notice on his door saying that he was three months behind on his rent, and so was being evicted. Clearly he managed to wriggle out of that, but I think being late with January's rent (now 12 days overdue) as he is every month he does pay has been the last straw, apparently. Our Landlady had brought someone with her (I'm guessing her son, from his slightly over aggressive attitude, and the fact her husband' English is poor) who was getting pretty shouty about wanting the flat emptied. Apparently, my neighbour had already arranged to meet the Landlady in town one day with the money, but had stood her up and refused to answer his phone already this month. Genius.

So it looks like I may be getting a new neighbour soon. While she has threatened to kick the guy out before, I can't see him wriggling past this one much longer. I think his business is in dire straits (he's an interior designer) and clearly ridiculously short on cash.

Ho hum. I turned the music off so I could listen. He did a pretty good job of grovelling, actually, but she stormed off, unconvinced and left an eviction notice on his door again. Excitement, people!

Way-oop ya fucker!

Nothing wakes you up from the stupor of your evening commute than nearly having an accident while only having one leg in your car, I can tell you. The recipe is as follows:

Drive home through Toronto winter rush hour traffic - it takes twice as long as usual as it is icy and -9 degrees outside.
Get bored.
Get pissed off at the perpetual Bon Jovi on the radio stations (they are playing here soon, and I like Bon Jovi. I just also like variety).
Get more bored.
Eventually turn into the little back street where you park (just a few spaces down from where you parked earlier this week) and find that the front of the car loses about 2 foot of line on the shiny, solid ice.
"Caution, old son" you think to yourself.
Drive with care and smoothly around the very tight corner (the one too tight to tow my hideously massively long car around if they object to where I park) and pull into a space without slowing for fear of wheelspin and even linger to get in the, slightly uphill, space than the 25 minutes it took you to move 8 feet into the space the last time it was icy here (on Monday).
Stop and turn off the car. Try and wake up a bit. Look around for your hat. Zip your fleece up and your coat.
Start to get out of the car.
Get mostly out of car and notice the door pushing against you. Get irritated that door has shut on you and push it fully open.

Realise door IS fully open.

(fleeting moment of confusion)

Further realise that, completely smoothly and silently, the car is sliding backwards down the slight hill and THAT is why the door is pushing you. Because the car is moving. You are not, it must be mentioned, strictly speaking - or in fact at all - IN the car at this point.

(interlude: Ever since I started driving, I have had the habit of, whenever I am in the car and stationary, holding my foot on the brake. No matter how long I am sat there for, the foot goes on to stop the car and comes off only to get out. So in a left hand drive car, my last leg to remove is my right - from the brake pedal and straight out of the car. So the brakes came off as I withdrew my last leg out of the car. See how this is an issue if the car moves?)

At this point, it is best if you say, loudly, the title of this post.
leap back into the car straight onto the brake pedal and try and ram the car into Park while cursing yourself for not putting it in properly first time.
Car comes to a halt. Realise that car IS in park.
Release foot slowly.
Become amused as car slides down the hill again.

It seems that I had parked with my rear wheels on super smooth ice, and with my front wheels on snow. Hence grip at the front and none at the back. After a small period just checking that Park actually functioned, I let the car roll the rest of the way out of the space and got my (here's some I prepared earlier!)  de-icing granules out of the boot  and spread them over the area that my rear wheels were likely to end up. I then got a little bit of a run up and parked the car up the slope again.

There then followed a few seconds of gingerly lifting my foot off the pedal and waiting. Then jumping up and down. Then opening the door and looking at the floor to be sure. Is the car moving? Nope. Does it look like it will? Not yet.

So I ran around to the boot and got the granules back out and put loads under the rear wheels of the car in the hope that, should conditions change in some way and the friction become reduced where the car actually was, there'd be something dry behind it to stop the car from smashing into someone's garage while I sleep. The final part of the recipe:

Kick the car. Wait. Kick it again, eyeing it suspiciously. Slam the door shut and watch it again for a few seconds. Walk away wondering if it will be there in the morning.

I have, at this point, checked three times that the car is still where I left it. we'll see in the morning, I guess.

Parking.

So. It looks like I have lost my parking space. Well, when I say lost, I should probably confess that it wasn't (strictly speaking) 'mine' in the first place. Someone more interested in 'detail' may well push me to admit that I have been parking in someone else's parking space for the last seven months. But they'd be an arse.

It wasn't as bad as it sounds. I had noticed the spaces for the people on the floor below me (a business) hardly ever used their spaces, and as they don't work at night, they were always free when I wanted it - ie when I was at home in the evenings and over night. I made sure I never parked there when I went away (frequently - at least once a month, usually more) and all was going well. Then the bloody Vic decided to fuck things up.

I was due to go to Spain two weeks or so ago for ten days. The day before, the Vic decided not to play ball in a car parl around the corner (Canadian Tyre, fortunately - a general plus auto parts store). I spent a few cold hours trying to fix an electrical gremlin in their car park and managed to limp the thing home on the morning of my flight and was forced, through lack of time, to leave it outside the back of my building in my usual slot. All hell, it seems, broke loose in the meantime. I get back to find a parking ticket on my car, a long pleading phone message from my landlady to move it as she is getting daily complaints and had someone from the company in question explain to me (very politely and nicely, but with no ambiguity) that it was their space. Dangit. I'd kind of been employing the technique of parking in various spaces for the first few weeks when I got the car, moving it whenever I got a note on the windscreen, until I have been parking in the current one for the rest of the time with no sign of anyone even noticing, never mind being annoyed.

But it seems to be over.

Now, the only problem is that the parking in Toronto is hideous, it seems. I've looked into it a bit and the permit system seems to be overloaded (but we'll see) and there is no guarantee of a space being available within about 3 streets of me. Leaving my car having to be parked overnight about 1/4 of a mile away. In the depths of winter and -30 degree snow storms. Nice. Again, this isn't so much of an issue while I have my current heap of shit, but I'm not all that keen on having the Jag parked so far away, I have to say. It seems a massive arse.

I think I may have to bite the bullet and potentially pay for a slot in the underground parking for the block of flats at the end of the road, if they have any. I'd rather not pay $100-150 a month for parking, but I'd also rather not have my car halfway across Toronto from me.

Pissed off about this, to be honest. If my worst fears are realised over this, the convenience (and hence, to some extent, the appeal) of this flat just took a serious nosedive.

Overheard in a bar...

Annoying drunk and loud twat at the bar in cool pub last night. He was clearly well off, and wanted everyone to know in no uncertain terms. All of this is punctuated with loud guffawing and plenty of leaning back and looking to see if anyone, sorry everyone was listening or not. His voice could most charitably be considered 'strident'.

(paraphrased, because I don't remember the actual dates mentioned, as I care not):

Twat: "Oh, I know Nice like.....well..... Go there all the time. Grew up there, actually. See, if I were to walk out of the hotel (that the other guy had mentioned) I can turn left, and there is a cafe here (points) and a pastry store here (points to his other side) and the coffee is really good in the cafe.... (falters as example of in depth knowledge of Nice by locating cafes suddenly sounds FUCKING STUPID).... yeah, anyway, I know it that well. Oh yes."

Other, quieter guy then starts an anecdote and the conversation drifts to the woman that is - from what I can tell - with Twat, which Twat is not at all keen on happening and drags conversation back to him. Physically. By turning the guy in his chair and starting again:

Twat: "Yeah... HAHAHAHA! Oh, we had such a good time, you have no idea. It was so great. Seriously. HAHAHA! One night..... no.... one night...... no, listen. Wait, listen. One night we were there, me and Jamie, sitting there on the balcony drinking 94 Bollinger, smoking Monte 2's while the sun came up. It was a-mazing, you have no idea" (Guffaws and mentally pats self on the back. Loudly, if that is possible.)

He then went on to give several anecdotes that revolved around much the same thing. About how fucking great it was, how the guy had no idea how much fun they had, and every other one involved him ending up somewhere "simply wonderful" drinking a '72 pisswater or something, and smoking (again) a 'Monte 2' and leaning back and (I don't doubt) being pissing loud about it. I wanted to stab his eyes out for being such a prick. With my table.

Life is, dear poor and worthless 'normal people', only ever good when you are drinking wine and smoking cigars. And they better be good, name ones, or you may as well die. You'll never have fun. You have no idea.

The table of girls next to me had, despite their own loud conversation, noticed dickhead yelling how great he was and one of them had caught me looking over, shaking my head and mouthing 'Twat' to myself and had giggled and rolled her eyes at me. So, of course, I rolled them back to her. Arf. Anyway, the girls left shortly afterwards, and the girl that had laughed about Twat said to me:

"Well, er, have fun with your friend there, won't you?" and laughed.

I raised my eyebrow (the left one, if detail matters to you) and opined that if Twat should decide to take over their table after they left, I'd never talk to her again. Apparently, this was amusing, and she apologised, profusely and pre-emptively, and left.

Fortunately, Twat staggered out into the cold night air shortly afterwards, which is why I am not in a police station somewhere having a statement taken. There was a very amusing incident when, while attempting to be really pally and 'in' with teh barman, he slapped the guy on the back hard enough at some joke (HAHAHAHAHA!!!!) he had made and the barman was just cringing. Written all over his face was the ubiquitous 'if you hadn't spent the best part of several hundred dollars in here, I'd kick your drunk arse onto the street' face. I liked him immediately just for that.

QotD: As If I Need To Explain...

List five reasons (at least) why you are awesome.
Submitted by goobers18.

I think you'll find that it is spelled AWESOME. And, to be honest, I simply don't have the time to whittle it down to a  mere five reasons. Rest assured, however, that you can still go about your day and know full well that you are deep, deep in my shadow.

That is all.