Gone for a Few Days

Going to Tahoe for the weekend. Happy 4th of July everybody!

NASCAR Race

Last panorama shot for a while, I promise! This one is 12405 * 1351 pixels (1.7mb) big. I got hooked on these shots 4 or 5 years ago, when I found that my Canon camera came with a program that automatically stitches these things together for me. And then I promptly forgot about it. Here’s the starting lineup from this week’s race as seen from our (really nice!) seats.

The race was a lot of fun! We got to our seats in record time, 35 minute drive to parking and 25 minutes shuttle to the grand stands. And then we waited. Live races are a weird kind of affair – you don’t mind the initial wait much because there’s enough entertainment around you (this year they had an air show and a mini Chris Isaak concert) and you get to see the cars getting readied. The start of the race gets your blood pumping and you follow the race as best as you can, getting excited about the position changes and crashes.

But after about two hours of racing, the sun, alcohol and constant noise are starting to take its toll (unless your name is Victoria and you just take a 45 minute nap in the midst of it all). The field gets drawn out so much that there’s always a car racing by (making it hard to understand the track commentators), and you kinda lose track of the running order past position 8. But the last 10 laps make up for it as the action gets more intense. Crashes happen more frequently and you get to see if the winner can hold on to his lead. Then you watch the burnout, try to catch a glimpse of victory lane – and attempt to leave the racetrack while keeping your sanity. When 100,000 people leave at the same time there’s bound to be some traffic jams! This year it took us over two hours to get back on the road towards Sonoma. We skipped the long shuttle lines and hiked back to our parking lot instead (getting marginally lost in the process), then needed another 45 minutes to exit the raceway.

Anyway, back to work now, there’s just as much excitement around the office (albeit of a different kind). We recorded the race, gonna finish watching that sometime to see all the stuff we missed. IRL race coming up in August!

NASCAR Race Day

Race day! Here’s another panorama I took during qualifying on Friday. Today is gonna be 3x as crowded

NASCAR Has Arrived

The apartment complex in Larkspur where I used to live has a Marriot Courtyard hotel attached to it. Usually they seem to attract business travellers and the odd tourist, but once every year they would arrive late one night: big colorful trucks with glowing endorsements, numbers and somebody’s signature. I think I always knew that they were NASCAR haulers, but didn’t pay them much mind until I started watching the races more closely two years ago. Well, NASCAR is here again, and the trucks arrived yesterday evening.

The numbers seem to increase with every race, this year there’s seven trucks parked around the hotel. All Roush Racing cars are there, as well as the two Petty Enterprises cars. I dunno why I get a kick out of this – maybe it’s the fact that you could drive through all of Sonoma today and not see a sign of NASCAR, but the little hotel right next to where I used to live has so many of the trucks lined up. And there’s something cool about knowing that the cars that will be racing this weekend are right in there. Here’s a few pictures:

By the way, the camping ground around Infineon Raceway is starting to fill up. One more day to go!

If You Are an AT&T customer

Now would be a good time to cancel your account and tell them why.

Siggraph 2006!

I’m going to be at Siggraph this year and do a presentation involving a certain game. More details as I can talk about it.

Tires Anybody?

SFPD car with no tires at a random body shop south of Mission. Did it have all its tires stolen right at that spot or what? This seemed marginally funnier Thursday night after a few beers, but it’s just as random and unexpected now.

More Finches

I busted my knee and couldn’t do much today. Except for stalking finches on the porch with my camera, it seems. More finches. They crack me up. I dunno why, but birds have always had that effect on me.

100k Miles!

I declare today Random Picture Day! Victoria really loved this moment when her (just recently 100% paid off!) car passed the magic 100k mark. How often do you get to witness that in your life, after all?

NASCAR Is Coming!

Yes it is true, since meeting Victoria I have turned into a major NASCAR fan. No, we do not own any shotguns, RVs or vote Republican yet. We just like it, as do more and more “liberal” people from the blue states. Of course I pass Infineon Raceway every day on my way to work, where next week’s race will be held. 100,000 people will flock to the raceway, backing up streets for miles and miles (they got shuttle service from 17 counties this year, we’ll see how much that helps). Over the last week, the raceway has slowly been transforming – tents have gone up, advertisement panels been installed and portable toilets have been placed everywhere. Here’s a picture of the raceway as it looked today. The full picture is much bigger, but beware the file size: 1.3mb or so.