My opening line for this blog was going to be something along the lines of mentioning that I was hopping on a plane Thursday (this one for Bristol). It then dawned on me that I have probably opened or closed dozens of blogs with a similar statement. If you get on enough planes, and you write enough blogs (It appears I’m up around 110 so far, but Bob Wilber can top that number in a six-month span), that will happen. Things add up.

Right now I was attempting to clean up around the house (okay, who the hell am I kidding, Jenna told me to organize my pile of paperwork crap) and wound up trying to close out my last few months of Hawley School entries. You see, I kept pretty good track of lots of data, like the number of students in each particular course (and type of car), number of runs, number of licenses signed, etc. I wasn’t able to completely close out everything to my satisfaction yet, as there were several classes that Thomas Bayer had to instruct all or part of when they conflicted with the NHRA race dates (and I don’t have data on extra runs and licenses), but I will try to get the rest of the info from Tom so I can share what should be some interesting numbers with you all. For instance, I know that I have thrown the starter switch more than 20,000 times during my tenure at the school, and a big class typically would yield only about 75 or less of those runs during a two-day period. It took some time, but eventually it added up.

I know that I am off on a major tangent (which is one rank above Captain Tangent) right now, so let me reel myself back in: We returned two days ago from our trip to Delaware to visit Cindy’s sister (Jenna’s aunt) Kathy. Though it has been 15 years since my mother died of cancer, situations like Kathy’s bring back some tough memories for me. I feel for the entire family, including husband George, parents Inez and Bill, son Ken and his family, and Cindy. Dealing with cancer is incredibly tough, but I really think it may be even harder on friends and family than on the person suffering. We all hope for a miracle for Kathy.

While we were out in “the First State,” we took Jason to the Philadelphia Zoo. Coincidently, it happens to be located in Philadelphia. In our typical fashion, we arrived at 3 p.m. (which for Jenna, Jason, and me would altitude correct to 10 a.m.) to find that the zoo was only open for another two hours. But, we haven’t become the masters of “speed tourism” for nothing ... we got it all in, and had time for a quick bite as well. Jason even has adopted our technique. As we would go from display to display, he usually wouldn’t look for more than about 20 seconds before uttering (that would be a really funny use of that word if we were at a cattle exhibit), “see more animals”. We got it done.

Awhile back I had promised a photo of the back of the helmet that I now wear. It was given to me by the 2008 crew (four of whom now are on Matt Hagan’s car) and features caricatures of each of the guys from last year. I know that it is tough to see, but I’ll try to describe each one in an understandable way.

From left to right: The guy with the 600-pound weight on his back is Mark Stewart, our resident power lifter; the shaky “old guy” is Eddie Otto, who was our, well ... older guy; with a cell phone in one hand and a clutch disk in the other; Terry Snyder is the tech guy, with all the latest gadgets, but he still gets dirty; poor Joe Chrisman accidentally whacked his head on the car a couple of times last year, and now he gets immortalized on my helmet; Johnny West definitely would be the tall, thin dude in the middle of this whole deal; “Smokey” Dan Neal certainly can’t be called a quitter, he’s the one puffing on a cig; replete with a Mohawk (the haircut, not the Indian) and battle axe, “Warrior” Chris Kuhlberg is on duty; poor Chris Afflerbach, he asks one too many questions and gets an eroteme (look it up) over his head!; last but not least, the “bulky” guy with the “D” in his belly is world famous Tommy Delago, sometimes known as “Tubby D”. So there you have it, nine of the best guys in the nitro pits. I sure hope at the end of the season this year the guys do the same thing for me, as I can’t wait to see what caricatures they’ll assign to John, Brian, Phil and Troy!

 

Our eternal bathroom project is still ongoing, and we have decided to legally adopt Jo, as he’s spent enough time around here to be considered a member of the family. He has replaced the damaged subfloor and is in the process of starting to get back to assembly -- as opposed to demolition — mode. I went over to Home Depot tonight to pick up a new shower door. We budgeted about $150 for it after we looked at them last month, and Jo went over there last week to check dimensions on the in-stock models so that he could frame the doorway. I guess we should have bought the door then, as it appears all the area stores have switched suppliers, changed their whole displays, and now the one we need is a special order, two week delay, $100 extra fiasco. Nice! Seems that money is another one of those deals that “add up." Tomorrow I’ll try another store in the morning and, if that doesn’t work, I’m stealing the neighbor’s door while they’re at work, or we’re going to rig up something made from a blue tarp and zip ties.

Speaking of things adding up, how about a guy that’s been racing fuel cars since the '50s and is still out there doing it? Chris Karamesines personifies the term “legend”, and is one of the all-timers (not to be confused with “old-timers”) in my book. He just ran at St. Louis, even qualifying on an incredibly small budget and running out of a trailer smaller than some teams T-Shirt vendor rigs. Somehow I got this photo of him mixing nitro from last year and, even though you can’t see his face, it’s one of my favorite racing photos of all time. Here’s an old-school guy checking nitro the old-school way ... awesome, Greek!

I was really excited that my Yamaha carb parts would be waiting for me when we returned home. Strange that a 42-year-old would get disappointed over something as trivial as that, but I’m still sleeping on the porch waiting for the mailman to bring my stuff. Ironically, I took the Kawasaki out for a short ride today (okay, that’s not ironic, but the next sentence tells what kind of is). When I started it up it sounded like it had a dead cylinder. If you’ve followed this blog, this is what started the whole ripping-the-carbs-apart-on-my-motorcycles deal. This time I played it smarter. I got a long screwdriver, a trusty hammer, and a nice tap on the offending float bowl brought that cylinder right back to life. Easy stuff! I suppose the Yamaha will have to wait until after Bristol, and this time I won’t let it sit for three years again, as that really can mess up the fuel system. I never intended it to be dormant that long but, as we all know, it just adds up.

Apparently the surf was outstanding while I was in Delaware. Let me clarify: the surf in California was great, I doubt Delaware was very impressive. Anyway, Rich said he went out several times, including twice on Saturday, so I couldn’t wait to get back in the water. Apparently (I know I used this word to lead off the paragraph, but it fits and I’m sleepy) the nice swell had come and gone, as it wasn’t that great this time. Oh, I had a blast, no question. Especially since I just love falling off the board time after time and getting spun around under water...that was fun.

Anyway, it’s past 2 a.m. and I’m going to call it a night. The passage of time, like frequent flyer miles, just adds up.

Stay tuned.