Mmmm, tasty car racing. The Daytona 500 is such a treat — start thinking about weather warming up, riding the Harley, grilling, etc. The race was quite good — my boy Dale Jr. did not have a fantastic race until the last 25 laps or so, then he did the usual ’shoot-to-the-front-in-5-laps’ drill. Alas, it was not to be a day for victory lane, as Rubber Head (Kurt Busch for the uninformed) managed to block the 8, allowing Jeff Gordon to hold on to his lead. Blech, drivers who enunciate have no place in my beloved sport! By finishing 3rd, Jr has given the massive horde great hopes for a good season — I’m rooting for a series championship, but 40 some odd races are left, so anything could happen.

On a side note, there really is nothing better than forced laziness on a Sunday — especially when Tivo affords you a mid-race nap. As tomorrow is a holiday for us US folks (well at least one of the ones CFS observes), I’m gonna be having a fine Monday of sleeping in and …god who knows what. The utility room and garage could use some serious help getting arranged, and I suppose a trip around the house with a mop bucket would not kill me. I really do need to get the place ready for use — especially if I am going to be potty training a puppy in the utility room. I’m guessing that dog pee does not help ones brewing equipment either. Mmmmm DoggyDoo Brew. I’ve got to say it — “now there is some GOOD brown ale!”

Hrm — there have been a few things rattling round my head lately, so hold on for some random rants…

I’ve spent the last week or two working on automating the release testing for work, and it is a good feeling to check in on things over the weekend and see things are still holding water. We should now have 100% coverage for the architecture and (supported) kernel version combinations. There are still little exotics like networking and disk that could vary, but that is for another day — if the clusters we use even have the hardware. Hopefully with that out of the way, I can finish up my training and start getting ready for the team launch in Boston. It sounds as if I am getting back into management a bit — but this time in a fashion that seems a lot more palatable. I’m hoping for a much different experience than last summer — that was too much and I have a feeling it contributed to killing my stomach and last relationship. On the whole, work in the last month has been fantastic — much like it was this time last year. I am actually being crafty and creative with the work I’m doing. I think that might be the best indicator of how much I am enjoying work.

Koelzter and I keep chatting about getting another pottery wheel so we can start throwing again — I think I need to start making this a reality soon. I am finding myself wanting to create some fun pieces — if nothing else, to fill in empty spots in my dish collection. I think with brewing beer and tossing clay, there could be some quite interesting creations showing up here soon. I am not sure where the creativeness is coming from, but I think a lot of it is just me being a lot happier, but of course having good friends for inspiration helps too. I am amused at myself — seeing myself starting to get more interested in these types of things is fun. I’m not saying that living on the Right Coast killed my creative drive, but I think I did not have near the opportunities that I can make for myself here. I do think that being exposed to the diversity of the art and culture around Philadelphia gives me a much more ‘valid’ appreciation of the arts. I’ll put it this way — I want to do much the same things as I did before I left, but now I really appreciate them more and have much more background to use to find ideas. Now if I could only find the food here…

Dirt bikes…so, Kris, Travis and Landon all have bikes. I’m thinking that I need to get another one (I blew up the motor on the last one a few years ago), as from the sounds of it, the group heads up camping and riding quite a bit during the summer and that flat sounds like a blast. I’ve ridden dirt bikes almost all my life, and there really is nothing like manhandling a bike around a field somewhere or going airborne for measurable amounts of time. I’ve got all the camping equipment and a pickup to get there, so just a matter of filling out the picture with a bike. The good thing about having friends who are really into bikes is that they find really good deals on used bikes. Hrm — with all this fun, I might have to break out my ‘real’ camera again to capture some photos for the walls here. I don’t think I have taken real pictures with the N70 in several years, but for action photos I have a feeling it will outpace the point-and-squirt digital by a few miles.

Cooking. It must be the return of my arse to the gym, but I really want to do a lot more cooking now. I’ve been pretty bad lately and have been hitting Wendy’s like 4 times a week — bad Nic. I’ve got a pretty good selection of favorites (honestly, a lot of them come from the big red Betty Crocker cookbook Allison bought me for Christmas a few years ago), and they are all pretty healthy, so I’m looking forward to eating the food too. Must be the desire to feel ‘light’ again — food is a big part of that.

Women. Being single again has come at a bit of shock, and for a while I was looking quite hard for someone,but I think that urge has subsided somewhat. Brooke said something the other night that was quite true — you need to be single until you are ok with being single again. Well put! So perhaps I am realzing that and moving on with things because I know I need to — not because I feel like it . I have to say that realizing that amount myself was tough for a day or so, but looking back it is kinda fun knowing myself this well. Weee!

Well I think I’ve exposed enough of my thoughts for one day — any more and I will probably scare my feeble readership to the hills.