February 14 every year, people around the world celebrate Valentines Day – a day to enjoy and rejoice in the company of your loved ones. When I returned home from work today, my beautiful wife had laid a few tiny surprises for me around the house. I love it when Claire makes little things, they are often simple in concept but they have her unique style and touch applied.
I love you my beautiful wife.
The weekend of the 4th & 5th of February saw the Brisbane International Speedway host the Australian Sprintcar Championships. Approximately 50 drivers turned up for the event, which was an excellent turnout.
At the start of the evening on Saturday, the track conditions where poor and far too wet. The first heat held for the sprintcars was actually re-run, as the drivers and event organisers felt they were at an unfair disadvantage running first. It was so wet in fact, that there was nearly a 30 second difference in a 12 lap race between the start and end of the night. As the evening progressed, the sprintcars wore the raceline in and they soon started to grip up as expected.
The large turnout of cars ended up causing some problems. Each heat was running about 12-14 cars and it was a little too tight; the by product of course was a seemingly never ending string of accidents. The additional accidents consumed more time than expected and as the clock kept clicking towards the curfew, events were dropped from the program in an attempt for us to finish on time.
Once the track dried out and the sprintcars started to get good grip, there was plenty of great racing taking place. On the whole, I don’t think they weren’t quite as fast as the World Sprintcar Series event held there towards the end of 2005. The single biggest downside to the event this time was parking, what a nightmare. Expecting that we’d be able to get out of the car park in reasonable time, we parked inside the venue. We received a rude surprise when we sat at a stand still for nearly 25 minutes waiting to get out of the car park. Next time, I think we’ll park outside and toward the main road – it’ll make for a much more convenient getaway.
Next on the motor racing calendar will be the Winter Nationals at Willowbank Raceway in June!
Opening 3 laps, looking primarily at turn 3, 4 and main straight. If you’re having trouble watching the embedded video below, you can view the first three laps of the Australian Sprintcar Championships directly on YouTube.
Opening 3 laps, looking at turn 1 and 2. If you’re having problems viewing the embedded video below, you can watch the Australian Sprincar Championship directly on YouTube.
In December, I mentioned that for my birthday, the guys at work bought me a soft breast look-a-like stress toy. Needless to say, it was a hit in the office with everyone taking every opportunity to give it a squish – even a few of the females.
As we continued to squeeze, squish and distort the breast – it appeared that there were weaker bits in the rubber. After a while, every time you squeezed it – it was distorting in the same places. As a result, when it wasn’t being squished, it now had lumps – it had tumours! Soon, we were tossing it around the office and deliberately distorting it by holding onto the base of the breast and wobbling it.
Following on from the deliberate wobbling, on Friday I enacted a Kung Foo Master – substituting the breast stress toy for traditional nunchakus. As it turns out, it stretched a little further than anticipated and as it swung over my shoulder and into my back – it burst! Needless to say, the contents of the stress toy went everywhere. Thankfully, it was filled with a slightly silicone based water and it dried and/or cleaned up easily.
Last night a friend and I stopped for a quick chat outside and noticed a massive spider web being spun. The spider itself would have had a body about 25mm across and a diameter (legs semi-extended) of about 10cm. The main anchors on the top of the web were attached approximate 5-6m high on one side while the opposite were attaching to the smaller trees and shrubs at between knee and chest height. Of course, that doesn’t give you an idea of how big the web was until you realise it was spanning our driveway – probably about 4m wide!
While we chatted, I walked closer to it to marvel at its size and to watch it spin its web. Unfortunately, due to where we were standing in relation to the lamp post – I failed to see another similar sized spider lurking in the darkness about 20cm above my head! As I moved to a better vantage point for spider #1 – the light caught the silk of the second web at which point my eyes immediately trained up to see the spider dangling just above my head.
I love spiders to look at, I think they are an incredible creature. However, due to their size (quite small on the whole), lack of weight and stealth – they tend to freak me out when I find them in unexpected positions. I’m confident that they would have been harmless but they always make my skin crawl when they get a little close for comfort.
I like roadworks, they are carried out to improve the condition of a particular section of road. What I don’t like is that the people that schedule them seem to have little concern for the volumes of motorists which traffic those same sections of roads each morning and afternoon.
If a particular section of road is undergoing major work, then closing the road or some portion of it is justified during peak hour traffic. If on the other hand, the work being carried out is quite minor, then the work should be scheduled for the off peak times of the day.
At the Gold Coast, there are two major arterial roads that run parallel to the beach and they service a huge amount of traffic at peak hour. This morning, a 500m stretch of the right lane was closed inbound to the city. The problem of course, is that they did it at peak hour – so the huge volume of traffic merging caused congestion and delays.
Is it too much to ask that minor roadworks are not carried out between the hours of 7am-9am and 4pm-6pm?
