The Blogs

  • Don’t ruin your favorite street car

    Once upon a time, a young kid was told to get rid of his 1991 Mazda Miata. It was not a car fit for someone going to business school, his father said. You need something newer and more respectable. So the kid bought a brand new 2009 Mazda Miata. That was me, many years ago.…

  • 2023 SCCA Road Atlanta Time Trials fastest lap

    My fastest lap was a 1:37.053. Car was my 2021 Ford Mustang Mach 1 running Sport 2.

  • 2023 SCCA Time Trials Nationals fastest lap

    My fastest lap was a 2:18.816. Note that the start/finish for this event is not at the start/finish line on the front straight of the track but is in the middle of the back straight of the course. Car was my 2021 Ford Mustang Mach 1 running Sport 2. Track is NCM Motorsports Park.

  • Japan Trip, Day 3: Harry Potter, Akihabara, and dinner with Martin

    Harry Potter Cafe Lily and Amy and big Harry Potter fans. So naturally the Harry Potter cafe was on the must visit list. Lily and I arrived by subway; Amy and Diana took a taxi. (Robert didn’t join us for this outing.) The subway station next to the Harry Potter cafe, Akasaka, goes all out…

  • Japan Trip, Day 2: the Pokémon Center, Sensō-ji temple, and flamenco

    Right off the bat, we knocked out something that was on Diana’s must-do list: a visit to one of Japan’s many Pokémon centers. The Pokémon Center Tokyo DX The one that we visited was Pokémon Center Tokyo DX. It’s located in one of Tokyo’s more ritzy malls, but it has its own dedicated entrance with…

  • Japan Trip, Day 1: Traveling to Tokyo, Tokyo Tower

    Or, how to get very little sleep for two days. Lily and I arrived at the Detroit Metro Airport at 3:30am on Thursday morning, meeting up with our fellow travel companions: Lily’s friends Amy, Robert, and Diana. The objective? Two weeks of fun in Japan! I have traveled many times to Asia, but it was…

  • Loyalty to a site?

    If you didn’t know what was going on, judging by the posts on Facebook, you’d think someone had died. Long form eulogies for a patch of concrete and of good times past, photos from the wayback machine, people swapping memories, and so on. The news came out not too recently that Oscoda was no longer…

  • Done with autocross

    There’s a common refrain: “A bad day of fishing beats a good day at the office.” This phrase can be applied to many different pleasurable activities; for example, one can say: “A bad day of racing beats a good day at the office.” And so there I was, sitting in grid with my (no longer…

  • Goodbye, Barry

    I learned this week that Barry Rowe has passed away. I’m sure the fact that he’s gone will hit me like a ton of bricks in a little while; my mind is still in denial about the whole thing and cannot yet accept it. Goodbyes are never easy. A goodbye whose chance to be has…