Arrant Nonsense

I do believe that was the most disastrous Halloween Classic we've ever had, up to and including the first one we attended where we slept in the back of the Willys in below-freezing weather and my fingers got slammed in the back window.

First of all, the weather was singularly uncooperative. Rain, rain, and more rain. And, as you may or may not know, drag racing in the rain is...problematic. We don't do it. Slick track + high speeds = unmixy. So, Thursday, they didn't get any time trials and instead went right into racing. Which meant that the Hubby had no idea how fast his car would go and had to essentially guess on his dial-in. (If you don't know what this means, don't worry about it. Suffice to say that it's a BAD thing.) However, in the end it didn't matter anyway, because he red-lit by .007 seconds, and was out after one run. The good part was that the car went quicker than it ever had before, and he laid down the quarter in 10.03 seconds...and that was after slamming on the brakes so he didn't go under 10, which would have smashed a few rules because he doesn't have the proper safety equipment for going that fast. However, he ran the numbers, and it turned out that he probably would have been safe and run a 10.013 or something like that. So, that was one bright spot in a fairly horrid weekend.

Oh, and the nice high-tech weather thingy he bought for better data? Yeah, apparently it doesn't work at low temps. It was dead as a doornail, even with fresh batteries. Not only that, but he was sick the entire time. Remember the cold that Da Boy brought home and passed to me? Yeah, it chose THIS WEEKEND (of course!) to hit the Hubby in all its misery. So he was up during all the nights coughing, poor guy.

And then it rained. And rained, and rained.

Friday, they didn't get any racing in at all--because it kept raining. To figure out the winner of that bonus race, they drew race cards. We didn't win anything by that method either.

Saturday, the weather finally shined upon us. They let them have a time trial, yay for that. Of course, since they were trying to get people through as quickly as possible, they ran an eighth mile rather than the quarter (to save on track prep and time in case anyone broke and oiled the track down, I think). And then the Hubby's hand slipped off his gear shift and his run was spoiled, giving him no data.

So, when it was his turn to actually run, he had no idea what the car would do, his run fell apart, and he was out in the first round. *sigh*

But then we had the party. Da Boy had fun trick-or-treating. My costume garnered stares, giggles, and a couple of screams. It nearly gave one poor old lady a heart attack; she was looking at the snake, and then it moved. *snerk* We were standing at the bonfire and saw a driver lose it into the wall; fortunately it wasn't a very bad wreck and he walked away from it, although the dragster was pretty much shredded. But he didn't roll or anything, which leaves him one up on the guy from the last time we went, who apparently had a really spectacular crash (which we didn't actually see). There's one every year, I think.

After the trick-or-treating, I was a frozen snake charmer, so I repaired to the motor home with Da Boy to try to un-numb my fingers and toes, while the Hubby went to see the wheel-standing contest. He said it was really cool and they had way more entries this year than they have in the past. I thought about going to the adult costume party, but I was still damb cold, so I bagged it.

And then today we came home.

In writing news, I did get to stick an END at the bottom of the BearFic while we were there, so I at least got that much done--and I'm not sure I would have been able to do that had we stayed at home. So...yay for that?

I have no idea if I'm going to be able to catch up with my flist. I haven't even looked at it yet...ETA: Skip=540, y'all. But I did it, with no filters. Of course, a lot of it was skimming, too. *shamefaced*

ETA: And to top off the weekend, I attempted to tape Pushing Daisies, CSI:NY, and Numb3rs while we were gone. You know, it really helps if you actually put the tape in the player when you're trying to tape something. AUGH.

Son of ETA: This should in no way be taken as a slam on the fine folks at Firebird Raceway. They did the best they could under very difficult circumstances and tried to make it fun for us all. The weather just chose this weekend to suck like a Hoover.

I have two stories formatted, printed, and in addressed envelopes, preparatory to being sent out tomorrow. The Abducted!Werewolf is going on its maiden voyage to F&SF, and the BeagleFic is heading out to Analog.

I have written absolutely nothing today, although I did format the BeagleFic properly with real headers rather than the ones I did by hand back when I didn't know how to do them. This...may be remedied after I finish this entry. After all, it's a Dare to Be Bad challenge, right?

Television tonight was awesome, and the previews for next week's Journeyman set off my MomDar like whoa. AUGH. Why you gotta do this to me, show? And I'm just loving Chuck. Ohyespleasegivememoreofthis. And if we could have Adam Baldwin handcuffed shirtless to the bed next time, that'd be peachy. *nods firmly*

There was a hell of an ugly wreck outside our backyard early this morning. From the looks of it, a Contour or something like it was turning left into the apartment complex, and a GMC SUV just plowed into him from the rear and shoved him up the street a good fifty feet or so. Da Boy woke me up for that (after four hours of sleep, yay)...and even though I went back to bed after the excitement was over, this may explain why I've been so very tired all day.

Da Boy was getting ready to put his bike back in the shed in the backyard this evening, when he glanced outside and said "There's a cougar in the yard!"

Now...we don't live in an area where we actually have cougars. They come down from the foothills and invade Sandy sometimes, but they don't get this far west. So, I looked, and it turned out that the neighbor's yellow Labrador Retriever had decided to jump over the five-foot-tall brick wall and play with our dog.

I don't actually have a problem with that. As long as they're happy and don't hurt each other, have at it, pups. Party on. Da Boy was kind of freaked though. He really thought a cougar was going to eat the PupperNutter.

Tomorrow I have to get ready to go to the last race of the season up in Boise, the Halloween Classic. Looking at the weather, this may be a disaster in the making, with showers forecast all week. Sunday is looking good, but...I guess we'll see. The entry fee is paid, and it's as much a social thing as anything else.

Getting ready entails packing, and buying my own Halloween costume for this shindig. I've decided to go with this one. Why, yes, that's a fake arm holding the basket, and the snake is a puppet. OF COURSE it is. This is, after all, me we're talking about here, right? Da Boy is going as a motocross driver, and the Hubby...isn't dressing. We didn't put a theme together this year, so he decided he didn't want to. Maybe next year...

Boy, that was random. Anyway, if you don't see me post for the rest of the week, it's because I'm in Boise at the race. Wish us luck. :)

Whoa, dude, what a weekend. *flails*

Long story short? The Hubby won the Bonus Race on Thursday, and the Bonus Race on Friday, and we came home with over $2500 in prize money. Which we're splitting after expenses and taxes (@#$%& IRS). He also went a couple of rounds in the Classic itself and got back some round money from that.

We've NEVER had a weekend that good. Ever. He's been fighting the car all season, and I guess it finally decided to come together for him for the Halloween Classic. He knocked out people who were regional champions...and he beat one guy TWICE who's been featured in National Dragster.

What's really fun is that he's got a kind of ugly car. It's a 1979 Ford Fairmont Futura (you can see a pic of one here)--and it doesn't look like anything at all. He's got a $60 Krylon paint job on it, and people giggle at it...until it does the quarter-mile in less than ten and a half seconds. Then, suddenly, Grandma's grocery-getter doesn't seem so lame anymore. The Ford people LOVE the thing, and believe me, there weren't any "Found On Road Dead" jokes this weekend.

And now...I shop. I've got my eye on a couple of Oaxacan carvings, and a bunch of books. Possibly S1 of Angel. Also? This is a paid-off laptop for me.

Also? I wrote three fics, which I'll be spamming you with as the day goes on. I started and finished a Lindsey fic for moviequoteminis (it's posted there if anyone just can't wait), and finished the Wash/Zoe fic I started awhile back. And I wrote the Beagle-smuggling fic. It's amazing what you can accomplish with no distractions or internet access. LOL

Anything interesting happen while we were out? I got to skip=260 on my flist before giving up. You all are fascinating, but holy crap.

( The Hubby Car )
( What is bracket racing? )

So far, we've seen folks from: Idaho, Oregon, Washington, California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, and Texas (!), as well as Canada. This is a truly huge event for drag racers in the region. One of the classes had 128 cars in it, and we probably have upwards of 700 cars altogether here.
( Thursday )
( Friday )
( Saturday )