Ahhhh... Nitro - the smell of speed!

"Dad, what would you do if you won a million dollars in the lottery?", my nephew asked.

My brother answered, "I'd take my two sons, fly to California and watch the 2008 National Hot Rod Association Drag Racing Finals at Pomona!"

Well, he didn't win the lottery but on Nov 15, my brother Thomas and his two sons, Luke and Gabriel, boarded an airplane and flew to sunny San Diego to see the races at Pomona... oh, and visit with Becky, Stephen and I. It was quite a surprise for us all. Thomas and I talked about it briefly on the phone and found that it might be possible. With the low gas prices, airfare had dropped pretty dramatically. So, the decision was made!

Unfortunately, travel plans seldom seem to go as smoothly as they should. Thomas and the boys had to drive about 2 hours to the airport in Little Rock. When they arrived, they were notified that their flight had been canceled because of mechanical problems. Thomas called and told me that they might not be able to come. Delta was saying they could not get them on a flight until the next day - bad news. Well, I got on the computer here and searched for alternative flights. We found a couple of alternatives on other airlines and Delta was willing to switch them over to one of these flights. So, at 10:00PM, Stephen and I picked them up at the San Diego airport. Whew... that was close.

As it turned out, SoCal was experiencing Santa Anna winds that weekend, so there was lots of sunshine and temperatures in the upper 80's all weekend. A pleasant change from the winter temps in Arkansas at this time of the year.

On Saturday, Thomas, Luke, Gabriel, Stephen and myself bid farewell to Becky and went to the races. This was my first time to the drag races but I had been warned. Stephen and I had 2 pairs of noise blocking ear-muffs and a whole box of in-ear foam earplugs. For the Stock Cars and the Comp Eliminators (gas burning cars), the noise wasn't too bad. Then there was a break and we went to grab some lunch. When we returned to the stands they were just about to run the top-fuel, nitro-burning funny cars. Stephen put his earphones on and I had the earplugs in. WOW! I never new something could be that loud! My ears were hurting, my chest was vibrating and I think my hair was probably flying back from the noise! Boy, did they accelerate! My brother told me that they burn through 16 gallons of fuel in a 1/4 mile stretch reaching speeds exceeding 300 MPH. It was impressive. Stephen, however, thought it was way too loud and scary. We stayed for a couple more heats and Stephen wanted to go. Reluctantly, I agreed and we went to watch Veggie Tales in the car until the noisy cars were done. That was round one of two qualifying rounds.

My brother had recently bought a new lens for his Nikon camera - a big one. For those who understand, it is a 80-200mm zoom lens with an aperture of f/2.8. That's pretty good for a zoom lens. He was able to take pictures of the cars with a shutter speed of 1/3200 of a second - that's a little more than 300 microseconds exposure time. That's fast enough to read the letters on the tires of a dragster traveling at 300 MPH. We know because we zoomed in on the photos. You could even see the wrinkles in the sidewalls of the tires as they strain to keep traction on the raceway. It was pretty impressive. The pictures I've included here are from my camera, not his, so they're not quite so great.

A special treat for Stephen came when we were avoiding the noise during qualifying round two. We walked around and looked at some of the cars in the pit areas. We came up on one car where the team was rebuilding the engine. I exhausted my entire body of knowledge about engines trying to show Stephen how the pistons move in the cylinders and turn the crankshaft which drives the driveshaft which turns the tires. As we were talking, one of the mechanics came over and gave Stephen one of the pistons out of the engine telling him it was his to keep. Wow, how nice. A souvenir directly from the engine of a top-fuel funny car that we had seen racing that day. I asked the guy if there was something wrong with this particular piston. He explained that they could not use it anymore because the top of the piston was non-flat by as much as 0.005 inches. My calibrated eyes can't quite discern that small of a tolerance so I took his word for it. I've included, to the left, a picture of the car it came from.

On Sunday, Stephen stayed at home while the rest of use went back for the championship races. We had a great time! We saw several engines blow out and a couple catch fire. We saw a car break off an entire wheel. To top it off, the last race of the day was the top-fuel dragsters. These are the baddest of the bad in drag racing. As the two cars raced down the track, pushing their engines for all they had, we watched as the winner crossed the finish line just as his engine exploded into flames and a giant fireball! No one was hurt and it was a pretty spectacular ending.

On Monday, Becky took Thomas, Luke and Gabriel to the ocean and to Point Loma. As they stood by the tide pools looking around, the ocean brought up a big wave that crashed on the rocks and drenched them all (never turn your back on the Pacific Ocean). I think they all had a good time visiting California for the first time and I expect they'll be back soon. It was great having them visit. Thanks, Thomas. Come again real soon.

Allen

GRANDMA!!

That says it all, right? My (Becky's) mom was here visiting last week, and we had a great time, of course. She was on the newly appointed Grandma Tour, which we can probably expect will be a regular circuit a few times a year. She began with five days in Phoenix for Grandma time with Phoebe, and then flew over to San Diego for 5 days with Stephen. Oh, and her daughters and sons-in law got a little Mom time, as well. Not so much text to type, but we did lots of stuff, so we'll show some pictures. She went to Taekwondo with Stephen and Allen (who, did enroll, by the way). We stopped off at the famous Torrey Pines Golf Course where we oohed and aahed over the lush greens with the ocean behind them. Grandma bought a Torrey Pines hat and a nice gentleman gave one to Stephen. Then we took her to Point Loma, our quickly rising favorite-so-far spot (we've still got lots more places to explore) where we were dazzled with views from the top of this penninsula of San Diego Bay and downtown to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. (Note the matching golf caps for Stephen and Grandma.) We made our way down to the tidepools and walked along the cliffs. It was a beautiful time and we could have easily spent more hours there.

The next day was Legoland. Lots of rides that would have impressed 5-year olds, but Lego sculptures to impress all ages, including scale models of many national monuments and famous buildings. We hung out, played mini-golf and ate at our favorite-so-far restaurant finds, and Monday, Grandma closed out her tour with a visit to Stephen's first-grade classroom and read during Grandma Story time.
Happy Birthday, Mom! We love you!

Smile, it Rained

I know this is old news, all of a week, but I took this picture for a reason. See, it rained here last Tuesday, which was also election day, you might remember. This is the first time since we've been here (July 28) that it's really rained. There have been 2 or 3 times where it barely drizzled and I had to turn on my wipers for a few swipes. But on Tuesday, it rained for a couple of hours. This is significant. I wanted to dance, and I could almost sense that in others, too. You know the old saying, "you don't realize how much you miss something until it's gone"? Well, it is definitely true of rain. There's this water allocation processs over here and southern California petitions whatever water agency makes these important decisions for their share of water that's allowed to come down here. There was an article in the paper about how if rainfall doesn't exceed expectations this winter that San Diego will get only 15% of what they petitioned the agency for. Fifteen percent. I know flooded St. Louis finds that hard to imagine. That means farmers will not plant and water will be rationed, said Governor Arnold. Not something anyone is looking forward to, I'm sure. So, with it also being election day, I smiled contentedly and told my friends at bible study how it felt like a true, autumn election day back in the midwest. One lady cocked her head sideways and asked, "Really?" I smiled and put on my education hat, feeling sorry for all these people that have never experienced a chilly, rainy, fall day, and explained, to amazed learners, how it typically rains in November in the midwest, and it can actually be dreary and cloudy for an entire day or three and how newspeople always wonder if the weather will affect voter turnout. In a spiritual sense, rain is usually the metaphor for blessings, which also made me smile. Pour out more, Lord!

BFF...

...in our 6th grade memories. Last week, I learned of the death of my best friend growing up, Stacy Davis. I've been flooded with lots of childhood memories, thinking of things I haven't thought of in years, all the stuff we did together - which seems like it surely must have been everything! I don't remember exactly how we became friends. My parents moved and I started 4th grade at a new school, Rose Acres Elementary, and it wasn't long till we were best buds. My memory snapshots are the classic growing up stuff of late-70s/early-80s suburbia. We were always at each other's houses, doing one-legged spins on our swing sets, playing hours of Clue and Monopoly, being mean to our little sisters, listening to 45s and dancing to Shaun Cassidy, Andy Gibb, and the soundtrack from Grease. She loved the Bay City Rollers, horses and video games. Her family was one of the first to have cable and Atari and we watched the first MTV and spent hours playing Breakout and Asteroids. We rode our bikes everywhere, including the woods and creek in the Wesglen Estates park. I still remember her birthday and phone number - we were the reason our parents got the new invention of call waiting! Her family always took me with them to Pantera's Pizza, skating at Coachlite, and countless hours at the Maryland Heights ballpark watching her brother's and sisters' softball games and spending scrounged-up quarters on candy at the quick shop. I loved cinnamon Jolly Ranchers; she, giant Sweetarts. I, who have no drawing ability, was jealous in 6th grade when she wrote this cute kids book about tadpoles and even illustrated it. In the summers, we candystriped together at my mom's hospital, walked to the arcade and spent all our babysitting money playing Ms. Pac Man (and she was better than me), had suntanning contests (she won those too) and listened to music on our Walkmans, although tastes had now changed to Journey, Def Leppard and Billy Squier. In junior high and high school, her artistic talents and athletic abilities really came out. She ran cross-country and racewalked on the high school track team. In 10th grade, our friendship went separate paths after we both experimented with things we were too young to handle, things that eventually took their toll on her. I never saw her after high school, but I wish we could have reconnected and shared with each other the things that are important in our lives now that we are adults and so much has changed.

Stacy is more than just someone from my past. She was my best friend and part of who I am. We were good for each other back then, pulling each other along and doing life together for six great growing-up years. I was blessed to have her as a friend.