Meeting Danielle at her office for lunch. The Bell St Deli is so cheap we can actually afford to eat out! Stopped at Ian’s but he had a mtg.

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Stayed up until 1 last nite getting the pics up and trying to come up with like 150 witty captions… not easy. Regardless, at least the pics are nice. So there’s a gallery of the Driven To Perform show that includes a bit of roll-in and everything i took wandering around the show floor for 12 hours. Then there’s a gallery for the NWN BBQ at Mt Seymour along with some shots of our driving adventures on the streets of Van City. And last but oh-so-certainly not least, a killer shot courtesy of the great James Walper of a model posing with my Z at the show. I know, i mentioned it yesterday, too, but i really like it! Plus i have a thumbnail now, and i re-hosted it locally. So go check it out, it’s kewl. ;)

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At home working on photos from the weekend. Sooo nice to have my computer back, it’s been a long two weeks! Big thanks to Mom for helping out with the parts! I'm also very appreciative that Apple did a decent job engineering this thing, and it’s actually survived the rigors of my use for the last 2.5 years, and hopefully will last a couple more, as it’s going to be at least that long before i can afford a new one!

Josh stopped by this afternoon to pick up a bunch of mail i'd been stockpiling for him, so we talked a bit about our respective careers and who’s hot on the E! channel (Brooke Burke). He’s off to play soccer in the sunshine… i'm back at the keyboard talkin to you'all. ;)

Have a new webcam to try out now that my computer works, too. Wasn't a total splurge, i bought one for Mom and then needed someone for her to video chat with. ;) And we'll save on long distance! It’s an investment, see? You see how i rationalize the money right out of my wallet and right into Amazon’s bank account? Neat, huh?

Met Patrick for lunch yesterday for a weekend recap. We're both so pumped from the show and the weekend that we're motivated to hit up more events this summer. Unfortunately the next big one falls on the weekend i'm in montana to watch Tim get married, but that actually would probably be too soon for us to plan (and me to save up any spending money) anyway. So we'll shoot for the ones in august. Now i just need to win the lotto tonite so i can buy the Nismo injectors, HKS intercoolers and JWT dual intake i need to win the next show!

If you've got money to burn, you should order some of this Japanese ice cream. It comes in lots of yummy flavors, like Corn, Crab, Ox Tongue, Horse Flesh, Wasabi, Chicken Wing, Garlic and Curdled Bean. And if that doesn't just send you running for your credit card and a spoon, here’s some more. Enjoy! :)

One last thing. Check out this photo Walper took of a car show model posing with my Z. Pretty cool, huh? :)

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Eating a bagel in line at the ferry terminal. Was going to drive the Z today - sunshine, kitsap highways - but it has no gas, & i'm broke!

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It’s alive! Alive!! I'd forgotten how nice this computer is in the last two weeks… ;)

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My logic board is here! Ye ya!

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Coffee, pound cake and soft jazz at starbucks on the waterfront. Waiting for danielle to get done at work.

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Driving my dirty truck was kind of a let down today! And i have serious tan lines. Lots of things to do now that i'm back.

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Van City Weekend: Part 3

Cleaned up and dressed down, we drove to the top of Mt Seymour for the NWN bbq and showoff. About 70-80 cars by my guess parked in rows in this vantage-point lot atop a windy mountain highway. An excellent drive up and a great way to finish the weekend. Some folks that hadn't been at the show - like Breezy and Aaron - that it’s always great to see.

After a couple burgers and lots of car talk, it was time to pack things up. There were 7 of us headed to WA or OR that left together, and managed to keep our caravan all the way to everett, despite half of us being geographically challenged and the other half not understanding the “driving in a group" concept. I, incidentally, was in neither half. ;)

We had a wild time moving thru traffic together as a posse, and when Patrick and I parted at the 405/I5 interchange and i was finally driving alone, it was the biggest downer. After such a rockin weekend with so many great people, it sucks that it had to be so short, and that such a trip is so rare! All at once my brain started working again, off vacation mode and back into regular trains of thought, and all the bills, worries, stresses, deadlines and confusion washed over me. The problem with good times, i realized, is that they remind you how bad the bad times are.

So now i'm back home, facing everything again. Still not sure if my rent check is going to clear. Still don't have my laptop working, leaving me professionally crippled. Contract job due on the 30th that has much more to be done, with no way to work on it. Should i start working nights? Can i wait until after Tim’s wedding (july 17th) to start? Can i even afford to be traveling for his wedding? Will i make it thru tmrw’s staff meeting without needing therapy? And what am i going to do with this hideous sunburn i acquired driving home today with the tops off? I guess all i can do tonite is just go to bed, and face tomorrow with a bit more sleep and some new perspective. Life shouldn't have to suck so much during the week just to make the occasional good weekend possible. Something in my life has to change. Also, i need to travel more! ;)

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Van City Weekend: Part 2

Friday we left Seattle early and after finding our way across the northern border and into Coquitlam (a Van suburb) we dropped our gear at Vince’s and took advantage of his generousity to wash the road dust off our rides. Once clean, we packed things up to head to Driven to Perform in downtown Van at BC Place Stadium. The plan is, you leave your car there fri nite, and come back saturday for a bit of last minute touch-up time and then the show runs thru sat nite. Took us a bit longer to get into Van than we expected, tho, with Vince’s 240sx on the side of the road! I was following him, and saw his exhaust heating up red-hot, and from the inside pipe out. On the roadside we could see his high-flow cat and a lot of the exhaust piping glowing red, as well. His car was only running on 2 out of 4 cylinders anyway, he was just going to limp it to the show, but this put quite a damper on things! We shuffled around the shoulder as first one, then two, then three tow trucks came by before we had the correct combination of flatbed truck and spare lumber to ease his lowered car onto the wrecker. We still made roll-in time, no problem, but Vince was not very happy about his car! The suggestion was made to bring his car home or directly to a shop, but Vince wasn't about to miss a show, so the driver unloaded his car right into the stadium airlock!

A few hours cleaning that nite, mingling around with the other competitors, setting up our booth. There were 8 of us showing for Northwest Nissans - Vince and Jeff with their 240’s, Patrick’s Maxima and my 300, and some new guys i hadn't met before - Luis, Aaron, Ron, Mike - also with 240’s. We all burned a lot of calories polishing and wiping, pushing solvent-covered rags across every inch of our paint, windows, dash, engine bay… all of it! … so everyone was more than ready for beer at Boston Pizza when we left and returned to Coquitlam for the nite.

A few hours sleep then back into Vince’s mom’s minivan (since all our cars were locked up!) for breakfast, where the waitress made fun of us for all wearing the same shirts. Then rush to the show, to wait around for several hours to have our cars judged, then wait around for 7 more hours until trophy-time!

It wasn't all waiting, tho. I talked with a lot of people, about their cars, my car, other people’s cars, things that fit in cars… and played some PS2 on the projector screen in our booth (sweet!). I also wandered around and took pics of lots of interesting stuff that i'll post when i can. I met several cool fellow 300ZX owners ("300 Zed-Ex" as the canadians call them) and explained to some honda guys that the blue computer in my dash is *not* a VTEC controller. Also spent a lot of time closing the hood so models could pose with my car, then opening it again so people could comment on how crowded the engine bay is… yeah, never heard that before!

After a whole day in the stuff stadium breathing exhaust and quick detailer fumes, we were all getting restless to go spend some time on the town. Before we could leave, tho, the trophies had to be distributed. None of us really expected much, as there were a lot of cars their whose owners have deeper pockets than us, but we were all pleasantly surprised when Patrick took the 2nd place trophy in the Nissan class!! The thing is freakin huge, like 4 feet tall, and i think he deserved it, even if he has his doubts. He may not have custom paint or some of the other big-$$ things the sponsored guys have, but all of his work he’s done himself (or with the help of friends… ahem. ;) even things most people wouldn't touch, like his custom leather upholstry. Also, some of his projects, like the “angel eyes" halo rings around his headlights that required baking open his headlight assemblies in the oven, were pretty intricate and difficult. He’s such a perfectionist that there’s not a single thing on his car that’s “just ok" or “close enough". I think that and three days worth of detailing are what brought him home a winner.

So, rejoicing in Patrick’s victory we dropped our car’s at Vince’s and piled into the “man van' - although this time Laura and Holly were along for the ride, the 'man van' was a little more co-ed - and found our way to Tonic, a hiphop club in downtown Van. Luis is THE MAN and bargained our way in despite the lines. Along the way Vince took a right turn and was promptly ticketed by a not-super-nice-but-thankfully-too-lazy-to-pay-close-attention cop who, although he didn't notice there were 8 of us in a 7-passenger van, did observe Vince violate a “no turning right between 11pm and 6am" sign in a completely non-sensical intersection that was incidentally jammed with an ambulance and was impassable anyway. Van City has some messed up traffic laws, eh!

We partied like rock stars until the club closed at 4am, then stumbled our way back our parking spot - some of us (Laura!) stumbling more than others. ;) By the time we reached Coquitlam, it was a little after five. The sun was beginning to come up, we could tell it was going to be a beautiful day. It was agreed there was no sense in going to bed, as we were planning on being up at 6 for sunday’s plans, so no sleep was had at all! Actually, i managed to slip in two 15-minute naps in between switching my camera batteries on the charger. Some nite! Er, day!

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