|
chunter
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Birthday: 6/20/1975
Gender: Male
Interests: Music, vintage computers, music on vintage computers. And football. From lots of different countries, if I have time. And some kinds of motorsport. Preferably where the cars have to turn both left and right.
Occupation: Sales
Industry: Retail
Message: message meEmail: email me
AIM:  chunter203908
Yahoo:  chunter16
Jabber: chunter16@jabber.org
Member Since:
12/3/2002
|
|
| AMERICA | | |
| CHAMPCAR WORLD SERIES, 1979-2008As sponsors kept falling off, teams' and drivers' future in weekly doubt, many lesser drivers signing to one-race contracts just to make sure there was somebody in the car when it was possible to run, and draconian rule-changes intended to drum up viewer interest, all the signs were in place; as much as I liked it, I should have known the ChampCar Series would not survive CART/IRL schism.
This is a clear case of VHS defeating Beta to be the leading videotape format of 80's and 90's, because there are several reasons why Indy is not the superior product, but I suppose I'll spend the next year or two figuring it all out.
The series was making inroads to become a true and serious international phenomenon, as last year a short stint in Europe proved to be remarkable, the cars visiting facilities and areas that have not enjoyed that sort of racing for a very long time. Formula 1 dare not visit the place where Gilles Villenueve died, their current car needs much more distance and run-off space, but a ChampCar's controlled motor and ground effects handled the course well, in an atmosphere that could not be duplicated on US streets.
The final ChampCar World Series event was the Grand Prix of Long Beach last weekend, the only event of the series known to have a future, next time as an IndyCar series event. There are efforts to try to include other perennial races, such as Surfer's Paradise in Australia, but there is nothing in writing at this time.
Long Beach became an exercise in Will Power dominating using familiar methods in a familiar car, one without fuel and traction control, but with a turbocharger and a large engine. It was probably the second or third-to-last race for Jimmy Vasser, and unless somebody starts talking and dealing sooner, it may have been the last race for Paul Tracy, who has a sponsor but no team.
I feel very badly for the promoters, race marshalls, and safety crew that were preparing for an entire season of racing, but instead were at a single race, and that's it for them.
It was very odd to me that the senior ChampCar World Series lost its engine sponsor (albeit, not the engines themselves), and the title sponsor (though not the tires Bridgestone supplied) yet the junior Atlantic series, which I expect to soon be known as Cooper/Mazda Atlantics in the way they were Toyota Atlantics before, solidified their sponsorship in long-term deals, deals which are why they will keep racing in their brand instead of being sold off to Tony George and the IndyCar folks. Then again, Atlantics are much cheaper cars than ChampCars were, which themselves were cheaper than IndyCars are now. The Atlantic series is only a couple of regulatory changes away from being considered a FIA Formula 3 series, and I hope the owners that still have a stake in it will consider this- it will carry on the uniqueness that the street races of ChampCar brought without having to worry about needing a sponsor or large gate receipts and media attention.
That, and Indy boss Tony George seems to be warming up to street racing, and there seems to be a lot of talk that IndyCar teams want to absorb many of ChampCar's competition rules when street racing.
Of course, a rant like this wouldn't be complete unless I mentioned Danica Patrick becoming the first woman to win a major auto race, which I couldn't watch on account of the rain delay messing up the TiVo. The future seems interesting, at least.
...
Hope everyone is doing well.
See you next time.
| | |
| CAUSE, OR EFFECT?I heard about some study that linked leadership to owning several pairs of sneakers. Specifically, a poll found that people that buy more than three pairs of sneakers per year were 61% likely to exhibit other leadership qualities. An article on the subject is available here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080401/lf_nm_life/sneakers_leaders_dc
It is somewhat easy to see a connection- people that have a reason to own three pairs of sneakers in a year, and people that can particularly afford to buy three pairs of more expensive sorts of sneakers in a year, are probably up to a few things that give them the qualities of leadership; however, don't think for an instant that buying more shoes will cause you to make friends and influence people.
I compare this thinking to the so-called "Mozart Effect", a similar study that sought to determine that exposing babies (that are unlikely to be able to interpret classical music or any music in any way other than as a repetitive and rhythmic noise) to Classical music (capital "c" 18th and 19th century music specifically) will grow up to be accelerated learners and all around genius children.
Now, what sort of people would expose their children to Classical music at an extremely young age? I'd guess stereotypically that they'd be well-to-do and that they would also put their children through high quality day care and pre-schooling. Would a Mozart piece have a greater effect on a child's ability to learn than a Head Start program? I doubt it very much. The wikipedia article on The Mozart Effect is available here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_effect
"CHARLTON HESTON CASTS THE FIRST STONE"
Actually, I don't have much to say about the late actor turned activist, I just wanted to use the quote above. I'm surprised more people aren't abusing all the times he's dramatically said "Damn you!" or "Soylent Green is made of people!"
THE WORLD IS STILL NOT ENDING
In the past year, I've spent a lot of time reading bits and blurbs from motorsport bloggers that are worried about the futures of their motorsports since most environmental types despise the notion of cars burning extortionate amounts of fuel in the interest of proving one set of guys can make a car seem to go faster than someone else's over the course of a single weekend. Of course, we've never had a problem with gigantic rock concerts dedicated to the same notion as long as the beer bottles are recyclable and LEDs are employed to keep the power consumption down, and yes, I did and do like the music of Midnight Oil. There is not an easy juxtaposition between "I want to enjoy life and I want people to remember who I was when I die" and "I want to tread lightly and make sure the world is the same as when I left it."
I think time has shown that changes in life are inevitable and should be welcomed, for better or worse. It isn't very often that you see an article that shows that climate change is simply that: change, without it having some political or corporate ulterior motives, so I just wanted to share that article here: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,481684,00.html
When I was a teenager, I had feelings that the world would end soon and I understand why people would really want a disasterous end to the world, but no matter what you think of the subject, the world will end when it ends, in the same sense that people die when they die. You don't really get to decide this stuff, so there's really only so much planning you can do.
...
Much happier things are to come, but I'm not sure I'm ready to write about them here just yet.
I hope everyone is well.
See you next time.
| | |
| The drivers, managers, and engineers of Formula 1 are largely from Christian countries, but they're spending their Easter weekend in an Islamic country. Despite that, they're not having the strangest of Easters... Here's hoping the midwest can dry out and clean up this Spring.
RULE BY SECURITY AND FEAR
The history of human civilization is thought to be a kind of evolution of necessity, followed by a discovery of ruthless efficiency. People learned to stick with their families, and families got larger and learned to get along. Elders mostly presided over things, and they ruled because they were older, and the people did things simply because they said so. After all, disobedience led to ostracism, being put out being somewhat worse than simply running away, but ending in the same result that unless you really knew what you were doing and could create your own family, you would die in the dangerous wilderness at the mercy of mother nature.
As families grew to cities and countries, this fear of the wilderness grew to encompass the will of God or the spirits or the gods, fearful elements you cannot see, a fear exercised by your leader to keep you in service; the rewards for good service are protection and peace.
Once these countries became empires, there were some odd citizens; some noble, some rich, some ordinary peasants, that decided maybe the world God made would be nicer if people were kind to each other, and while that root thought persisted, it wasn't really implemented for a very long time.
In the times that follow the Industrial Revolution, this has now changed. Most people can live at least somewhat comfortably without the aid of society or government beyond perhaps the immediate family, and civilized and uncivilized people alike are by and large self-ruling and don't really seek to hurt each other. Between developed technologies and the sizes of our cities and countries, we rarely fear nature, and have our own security. Because of this, the sensation is no longer the sale of peace, but the constant explanation that there are supposedly lots of things still worth fearing.
The alternative is to sell an artificially positive and vague message of hope and change. Not a knock against anyone in particular, because if you're thinking of a certain recent candidate, he's not the first to use that strategy and he won't be the last, because when the right people get sick of hearing about fear, that strategy works extremely well.
...
I'm still not great at balancing the changes I throw at myself or that life throws at me, but I suppose if I found time to write this I'm doing okay. There's a new but strange music segment in the player on the right if anyone wants to have a listen, as I'm learning a new music program. I certain person is trying to get me to permanently return to pop music but that's for another day. I'll cut this one short because there's someplace I need to be.
I hope everyone is well.
See you next time.
| | |
| 
Every year I try to pay a visit to the people I used to know, be friends with, or live with in the midwest, though depending on the year, I usually don't have much more than a weekend to spend. This time around, I managed to amass two weeks because I did not take a vacation in the summer (which would have happened around the time another friend was in the hospital, so, understandable there) and it was a good thing, as the weather was rather nasty if I'd have had to rush around. Note the snow and slush outside in the window above, or my very unwinterized car below.
There is an aspect to this climate I miss very much; the notion that it's okay if you don't go anywhere or accomplish anything when the weather is that bad, or, more simply, the way the cold outside feels in the first place. It was nice to be in a place where tapping your cell phone while you sip coffee and chat with friends (though, frankly, I only really knew about three people there, the night that was photographed) is rather old news instead of some strange newfangled thing that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. (When I moved to where I am now, there were no Starbucks cafes, there are now three, and though I meet more and more folks in the digital wireless age every day, it still looks like most people where I live are very averse to that sort of thing. And my phone still doesn't work well at my father's house.)
It was very interesting how my closest friends appear to have completely cycled their old friends away, replacing what were decidedly negative relationships with new, mostly more positive ones. It is very odd how, perhaps nature and instinct, or maybe just an expected learning process, allows us to feel our way through things and become settled. This is most apparent in the friend that traded his sportscar and "driver" for an SUV, but it was his observation- I chose a family sedan above a sport subcompact.
Among the lessons of the trip are, compact voice recognition has a ways to go, though bluetooth is some powerful stuff, a trip to the kart racing track has proven that maybe I'm not in the right shape to ever get into motorsport (the g-forces gave me a headache and the lack of power steering hurt my arms... but they were fun, if I could get myself into shape for it somehow...), it is important to stretch before performing the manual exercise that is flinging a Wii controller around, and though I've known this forever, thanks to stuff like this blog nobody is ever really out of touch or completely alone.
...
Yesterday was the first time the date February 14th has had a real meaning for me since sometime in high school. Actually, that's not true. When I was in high school, I was a terrible boyfriend; embarrassed that I was given some flowers and a balloon, I hid them in my locker. I suppose if I had to wait fifteen years or so for another try, this one was done much, much better.
Naturally, the restaurant we wanted to visit was way overcrowded, but the second choice served us so quickly that we almost had our table given away! The food was good, and it was nice to not be in town for a while...
My goals have been very strangely altered over the past few months as I really have no idea what will happen over the next few... It's been a while since I've really had no idea what's going to happen, as I feel presently, and in a way, that's a bit refreshing, though it's disorienting at the same time. I'm still adjusting to a kind of new way of scheduling how and when I do things, but I'm adapting slowly and naturally, and gradually... and it's my hope that on my next big trip I'll have that somebody along that I can introduce to everyone.
...
Here's hoping everyone's been feeling at least somewhat as well as I've been feeling lately.
See you next time.
| | |
|
|
