Rally of the Lost Patrol

A few years ago, I went on a little drive in the snow with some friends. Actually, it was about 6,000 miles...from Seattle to Seattle, with a wee stop at the Arctic Ocean in the middle. The event was called The Rally of the Lost Patrol, and it's a TSD (time-speed-distance) rally held in the dead of winter (and up there, winter gets REALLY dead...we saw -57F!).



I went with my friend Paul Duchene--he wrote a story on it for the Chicago Tribune, while I shot the photos.

Hotel engineering

Having just returned from a quick business trip, I have one (1) rant and one (1) rave about Hotel Room Technology! :-)

RANT: the world DOES NOT need a new engineering idea for how to control water volume and temperature in a shower. Yes, I went to university, but I shouldn't need all my years of education just to turn the shower on in the morning! The plain old round turny things labelled Hot and Cold work just fine. LEAVE IT ALONE. I'm sorry your job is boring, Mr. Plumbing Designer, but it's not my fault and you're making things worse!

RAVE: ok, I'll have to support Matt Cutt's opinion on the curved shower rod invention...I like it!

Cars (and bikes) I've owned

An incomplete list...but found these old photos and thought I'd collect them in one place online.

things with motors

MotoGP race at Laguna Seca!

I missed the American Nicky Hayden winning the inaugural MotoGP race at Laguna Seca raceway last year (MotoGP is essentially the Formula 1 of motorcycle racing)...but this year, I'll be heading down with my friend Paul. He's doing a story for a midwest newspaper, and I'm shooting the photos. Gotta love press credentials! :-)

A guy with an even better job

I spent a number of years in Toronto, home of CFNY, the best radio station I've heard anywhere. Back then, there was this guy "Revvin' Kevin" that CFNY sent out to report on all sorts of local happenings. Well, Kevin's moved on and now has his own TV show on the Fine Living channel called The Thirsty Traveler.

Kevin wants a wee dram, so he goes to Scotland and tours all the big-name distilleries, drinks for free, then they feed him a fantastic dinner and more scotch. Next he'd like a beer, so (sorry Milwaulkie!) he heads for the Czech Republic, visits the Pilsner Urquell brewery, gets a few free beer, and a fantastic dinner. And more beer. Off to Brazil, where he messes around with Cachaca (made from sugarcane, sounds a bit like rum). He must have blown his travel budget though, because at one point he does a show on Canadian rye whisky.

Seriously, this is a great show if you like travel and are interested in the history of some of the world's most interesting beverages. My Tivo box is locked on...

World Rally Championship no longer on SpeedTV

I was EXTREMELY disappointed to find that SpeedTV had dropped the World Rally Championship series for 2006. I can't figure out whether it was Bill France or Barry Meguiar who bought the station :-) but the programming on SpeedTV is pretty grim these days (with the notable exception of Canadians Peter and Tom on Dream Car Garage!).

Register your indignation at this petition site--don't know if anything at all will come of it, but I felt better afterwards :-)



http://www.petitiononline.com/SpdTV/petition.html

I'm gonna be a dad!

Melinda and I discovered last week that we're going to have a baby! Due date is currently predicted to be Oct. 16th, which happens to be my father's birthday.

While undoubtedly Melinda's got the toughest part of this job, there is a silver lining...she gets out of cleaning the kitty litterbox for at least 9 months :-)

Motorcycle stuff

I've written a couple of articles at Motorcycle Online (www.motorcycle.com), one on the Ducati 748 and one on the MV Agusta F4 Strada...although I don't own either of these anymore *sigh*. Now I've got a Ducati 900SS, currently in pieces on my garage floor *sigh again*.