thirtysomething...

Been busy lately. Still moving stuff around in the house, blah blah blah.

Anyway, here's something fun to do if ya want. "Who knows me the best" It's a short 10 question quiz. Ya have to fill out just a little bit of info over at that site, and you can opt out of all the junk at the end. You can even create your own quiz.

Have fun. It's the first block over on the left border of the blog!


D

Everything is packed up! Finally. It seemed to take FOREVER. I think my niece knows exactly how I feel.

Is It Time To Go Yet?

Heather got me a ride & drive kinda thing at Brands Hatch for Christmas, and today I finally got to use it! The weather forecast for today was brutal. High winds, extremely heavy rain. Luckily none of that happened until we were on the way back home.

Brands Hatch is a very cool track. Lots of elevation changes with a few blind turns. The at the end of Brabham Straight the track has a dip right at the turn-in point for Paddock Hill Bend, which is just that. A somewhat blind hill into a right hander. It upset the Megane just a bit, but it really made the Formula 3 twitchy. Everything else is nice and fast. :) The single seater has only 4 gears and is rev-limited to 4000rpm. Which kept me down to below 90 mph for most of the track except the straights where I was bouncing off the limiter all the way down (~95mph). I could have gone faster in the Renault, (6 gears & no imposed limiter) but the instructors said No. Only use 4 gears to "prepare" us for the single seaters.

I was a bit nervous about driving the single seater. Never done that before. Once I got the car off pit lane (after 3 near stalls :noes: ) and past the first turn, it was such a natural feeling driving like that. Essentially you're laying down with your head sticking up. F***ing Brilliant. I felt more at home on the track in the Formula 3 that has no power steering, ABS, a suspension that barely moves, etc. than I did in the somewhat brand new, road legal Renault.

The Jag in one shot was driven by a track employee, giving "Hot Laps" for £35 to people wanting just to ride on the track. Only got passed by him once during each session. I passed at least 3 cars in each session, and lapped 2 cars in the Forumla 3 session. Go Me.

I'd SO give up autocross to do club racing in a formula. Brilliant. Just Brilliant.

Oh, BTW, I had the 2nd fastest lap of the day, and came in 1st out of my group of 25. :yea:


Clicking the photos will show a larger version. Special thanks to Chris Brier for shooting the pics!!!

Brands Hatch




The Track Layout


My Renault Megane Sport




Waiting in line on the pit lane




Coming out of Graham Hill Bend into Cooper Straight, about to pass on the straight.




Leaving Surtees going into McLaren then on to pass #7 on the entering Brabham Straight




My Formula 3. I happened to be #3 in both cars. :)




Me stalling the car.




Graham Hill Bend




Cooper Straight




Cooper Straight




More Cooper Straight




And again...




Entering Surtees getting held up by lap traffic. (Just got passed by the track's Jag)




Aaaand I'm done. It's much easier getting into the car than out of it.

Appropriate title, no? The Final Countdown by Europe... :hehe:

Yes, I've started counting the days. And the timer is counting down the seconds...

Oo Oo Oooo Guess What Guess What??


It's my grandfather's birthday!!


Happy Birthday, Papa!!

Yeah, I know. Slack.

I'm guessing you noticed the name change. :) March 15th and we're back in the US, back in the US, back in the US of A. I for one can't wait. Not that I haven't enjoyed living in England for the past 13 months. It's been cool. Cold & wet, too. I've seen a TON of stuff that I probably would never have seen on just a week holiday to the UK. Tons of photos. Yeah I know. You haven't seen them all. See the first line in the post. I'm planning on printing a few books when I get back. We've met a great group of people here in Headcorn, and will be sorry to leave them. They have definitely made our stay here MUCH more enjoyable and sane.

I've started packing up what I can. Mainly spring/summer clothing, books, toys, basically anything I can get away without having for the next few weeks. When we moved over we had 15 boxes shipped. When it's all said and done, 25 to 30 are going back.

I'm guessing you've also noticed the new blog layout. All of my photgraphs, css files, essentially everything that gave the AAViE version it's "Look" are stored on a local UK server which I'm having to discontinue soon. Once I get the Internets set back up in Charleston, I'll get the photojournals back up. :)

The house in CHS looks GREAT! I'll do a full write-up and before-during-after photo session once we get all settled in. Heather has had some trepidation during the whole renovation until the last few sets of pictures filtered in through email. Now she can't wait to get home and into the house! :whew: I'm glad we (read: she) weren't in the US when the renovation was going on. Just thinking about seeing the house day after day in such a state of disrepair gives me the chills. Progress is definitely more visible if you can cut to the next scene without seeing all the minor dull bits in between. It's almost finished. Down to a punch list now. :yea:


So, if there were too many words to read, here's the Cliff Notes:
Blog Name Change
Blog Layout Change
Moving to US March 15th
House is just about complete.

Just about a month or so left to go!!

Whenever I'm cooking for a party, I generally like to do most of the cooking a day before if possible. Nobody is around getting in my way, "You're doing that wrong", or "That's not the way I do it." Whatever. You're not cooking are ya. And I don't have to rush about the day of trying to get everything ready. Finding out I'm missing or run out of ingredients 2 hours before everyone sits down to dig in really SUCKS.

My neighbors probably have a Love/Hate relationship with me when I'm doing said cooking because I BLAST music while I'm in the kitchen. They love the smells, but hate the music cranked up from one end of the house to the other. And the house we live in, and most houses in England for that matter, share a common wall. I Know they can hear the music, I can hear them screaming at their children all day long & vice-versa...

Here's the odd bit. I'm blasting Metallica. :hehe: I generally don't listen to Metal all that much. Really only when I'm cooking like this. And it's been going ALL DAY LONG. :D

So my question to you, dear reader, is this: Are you Cranking the Tunes when you're creating mouth-watering delicacies for your flock of seagulls peeps? Yeah? Whatcha jamming to?

:rock:

P.S. Two days ago I also decided to NOT DRINK BEER while playing with knives in the kitchen. My fingers tend to get in the way of the knife and the succulents needing to be chopped. Especially vegetables.

Sad but True.

I'm trying to watch the whole thing, but Damn. This movie is messed up.

Being John Malkovich

I mean, WHAT THE HELL! I like Cusack, Spike Jones' style, John Malkovich, etc etc.

Maybe it's the writer that is a

COMPLETE NUTCASE.


I dunno.


But as I said, I'm trying to watch the whole thing. I'm having a hard time.

This past weekend Heather and I took a trip up to London to FINALLY see a West End show. And by West End I mean "Broadway" to you Yankees. :) We decided to see Wicked. Having both read the book by Gregory Maguire, which we both really liked, there was no real other choice!

In essence, it is the story of Elphaba, The Wicked Witch of the West, that the Wizard really would rather you didn't know. :) The musical strays from the book only in the end, but is still well done. If you ever get the chance to go see the show, DON'T THINK TWICE. Just Do It. You won't be disappointed.

We were lucky that the actress playing Elphaba was Idina Menzel, who won the 2004 Tony Award for 'Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical' for her performance as 'Elphaba' in the original Broadway cast of WICKED. Man, did she have a set of...lungs on her. And she didn't look half bad with green skin, either.

After the show we trekked back down to the Trafalgar Square area and had dinner at The Gay Husser, a Hungarian restaurant in an old bookshop. Very quaint and quite good. I must say though, Max & Moritz in Mt. Pleasant do a better weiner schnitzel.

Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

• 1½ cups powdered sugar


• 1 cup margarine or butter, softened


• 1 tsp vanilla


• ½ tsp almond extract


• 1 egg


• 2½ cups all-purpose flour*


• 1 tsp baking soda


• 1 tsp cream of tartar


• Granulated sugar

Mix powdered sugar, margarine, vanilla, almond extract and egg. Stir in remaining ingredients except granulated sugar. Cover and refrigerate at least 3 hours.


Heat oven to 375°. Divide dough into halves. Roll each half 3/16 thick on lightly floured cloth- covered board. Cut into desired shapes with 2 - 2½-inch cookie cutters; sprinkle with granulated sugar. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake until edges are light brown, 7 to 8 minutes.

Makes about 5 dozen cookies



*If using self-rising flour, omit baking soda and cream of tartar.

If you are planning on decorating the cookies, omit granulated sugar on top before baking.