Observations in Italy

Italy and Europe in general are far different than here in the states. Just the normal everyday things take getting used to. Here's a few things I noticed while in Italy.

1. Deoderant is optional for most Europeans.
2. Waiting patiently in line (or the queue) means nothing to Europeans. Just push your way to the front and you'll be fine. I now understand how people get trampled all the time at soccer (futbol) matches.
3. Customer service is non-existent. At restaurants, the servers never come back to see if everything is ok after you get your food. And, you usually have to ask for butter with your bread... which they charge you for!!!
4. Ketchup packets at Burger King cost 10 cents.
5. Everything is expensive.
6. People have much more driving skill. I guess when 90% of the cars are manual transmissions, you are much less complacent while driving.
7. Stopping at traffic lights is optional.
8. You take your life into your own hands crossing a crosswalk.
9. The smallest Euro bill is a 5, the rest is in coins. So you usually have to carry a pocketfull of coins everywhere you go.
10. Some Italians understand Spanish, but don't ask for butter in spanish. The spanish word for butter is mantequilla... In Italian, it is burro. Burro in spanish means donkey... See how this gets confusing. We thought our waiter was offering us a donkey to spread on our bread.

Ok, that's enough about Italy. Hopefully I can get back to my normal posting.

more stuff from italy

I'm still sorting through 1500+ pics. Here's a few I thought I'd throw up here.

The Ferrari Store in Milan. Too bad it was closed... not that I'd buy anything if it was open.

I got a kick out of the message board. Raikonnen is bad ass and all, but Hamilton should have won the championship last year. Oh well, it's
looking good for him this year.

One of the coolest paintings I've ever seen. This was at our hotel in Sorrento. Two of my favorite things, sharks and pizza.

This sign was on the dock in Capri... just reminding you not to drive into the water.

...and the Colliseum! I have about 50 more shots of this thing. Definetly one of the highlights of the trip. Just think of all the dudes that got wrecked there!

For the Honda Fanboys - Italian Style

In Rome, there is a chain of supermarkets called SIR... I thought it looked very Honda-ish.

We're Back!!!!

We just got back from a 2 week vacation to Italy. I've got about 1500 pics to sort through, so keep checking back. I'll put up some when I'm not dead tired... 11 hr flights suck...

Less traffic? Or is it just me?

Ever since July 1st when the hands free law went into effect, have you noticed a slight decrease in freeway traffic? I have. It seems that you don't run into that douche bag who is parked in the left land doing 60mph slobbering all over his black berry as often as before. I always hated when you'd be cruising along, and come up behind some jack asses who have no concept of lanes and traffic flow. That seems to have decreased a bit since the new 'hands free' law.
Anyway, I scored this Motorola H680 bluetooth headset (thanks Dan!). Its super tiny! Although I still think people look like tools when they wear them when you are just out and about. $50 at amazon!

The 4th at Big Bear

We went up to Big Bear for the holiday weekend. We know a friend who has a cabin up in Fawnskin, which is on the opposite side of the lake from Big Bear. There really wasn't much planned aside from relaxing and watching the fireworks. Here's where we watched the fireworks from.


I really should have used a longer lens, but I didn't have one with me... oh well, you live and learn.

The best part of the weekend was that the gas was FREE!!!!!! I was driving a company car the whole weekend. Not just any company car, a $80,000 2008 Lexus LX570. Man that thing is nice.

This thing is all kinds of nice. Radar cruise control, 1 million buttons on the dash, XM radio, nav, front and rear cameras, 4wd locking diff, hill decent control, ride height and stiffness settings. Very nice to drive. I also got a chance to take it off road for a bit. Just a fire road though. I must say, it is nice cruising on a fire road with the AC blasting sitting in supple leather seats with XM playing, turning the wood trimmed steering wheel while barely feeling the washboarded dirt surface. We got some funny looks from dudes in lifted S-10's, Blazers, Jeeps, and the like. I was like, "hey, this is just an expensive land cruiser, I'll run circles around any pickup and crappy SUV out there." It will cost an arm and a leg to fix if I bash it into a rock, but that's a different story.

Anyway, it was a good weekend. It wasn't too crowded at all, and it only took 1:45 min to get there and back. You should go some time.

Formula SAE

This past Friday, I volunteered at the west coast Formula SAE event held at California Speedway in Fontana. If you don't know, Formula SAE is an event where college students from around the country (and internationally) build single seat formula cars to compete in various events. I won't go into too much detail about the process, but you can read about it here.

I volunteered to help out with the noise / sound level testing. Basically, the cars had to be under 110db at 3/4 max engine rpm. All of the cars run different types of motorcycle engines, cbr600 and yzf600 being the most common. The majority of the cars have minimal bodywork covering the engine, and while I was measuring the sound, I got to peek around at the engine and rear suspension components. Man... did I see some janky crap... Let me first say this, "Engineers can design good cars, but they can't build cars for shit."

Some of the wack shit I saw was improperly routed oil and water lines, 16ga steel sheet horribly mig welded to the chassis as suspension pick ups, multi-link suspension with NO adjustment (positive camber on full slicks is not good), no bead rolling on intake components, shitty welds, horrible injector placement angles, and rediculously poor tuning.

Since ITB's were not allowed, the students had to fabricate an intake plenum and throttle body assembly. Creativity (or the lack thereof) took over from here. I saw some trick carbon fiber plenums that were really nice. Then there came the shit. There was one team from South America that made a fiberglass intake manifold. It had all kinds of sharp edges protruding, and you could pull out some fiberglass strands if you wanted to. They even molded the injectors into the plenum! 100% non servicable. If you needed to change injectors, well they you'd have to scrap that manifold! DUMB!

Another atrocity was the lack of tuning ability. Just about every team had some sort of programmable ECU. (I'm not sure if it is required). Haltech, Motec, dyno jet commanders, and many others were represented. Now I make no claims to being a motorcycle engine tuner, but these things barely ran! There was one team that couldn't get their cbr600RR engine to rev past 7500rpm. Keep in mind that that engine will rev up to 15,000! It was popping and misfiring like crazy!!! Eric, you should offer your tuning to these teams at a premium!!! Easy Money!!!

Anyway, there was definetly some cool stuff on display, but a lot of wackness. I really like being at the track for any type of motorsport event. I guess it is the smell of race gas that gives me a boner. I always get bummed though when I don't get to drive...

X-Files MOVIE!!!

Looks awesome. I can't wait to see it.