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Seat time

I had an autocross today, here in Bay Area we have a winter autocross season run by the San Fransisco region SCCA. I had not taken the Neon out for almost a month and was a little unsure about running without the power steering. Sounds like an excuses for some shakedown testing on Mines. It turns out it was a good idea I did. Less than a mile from home the motor let go. I limped it home with very mild rod knock. I was not surprised, I planed to change the rod bearings on this motor when I got it but ordered the wrong parts twice and just put it in the car as is.

I parked the Neon and decided to run the Supra and the autocross. Being at Candlestick running street tires is not much of a handicap. What was a handicap was my driving abilities. I keep thinking about upping the boost on the Supra and this autocross was a reality check. I managed to spin on 2 out of 3 runs. I guess 320hp is more than enough...for now. I did manage to finish in 4 out of 1o in my class.

Family

Today is Thanksgiving day. I worked a 1/2 day in Taiwan hopped on my United flight and arrived home for Thanksgiving day. The international date line is nice when you go east.

Thanksgiving dinner was really nice. My father girlfriend hosted a friends and family dinner. The food was wonderful, especially after all the time in Asia. More than the food it was really cool to hang out with my father. For some reason I don't have any pictures. Must have been the jet lag.

I miss the old family Thanksgiving dinner we did when my Grandparents were alive. My father has 5 siblings and I have not seen them all together in years. Maybe 2008...

Friends

With all the travel I have come to meet many new people and make many new friends. This is one of the best parts of my jobs. I love having friends from a diverse background. I realize this is typical "lets all be friends" talk but some of my best friends bring unique view points to me.

My challenge is maintaining many of these long distance friendships. My travel plans are not set by me and I often do not return to places I visit. This blog is part of my renewed efforts to keep in touch with the many friends I meet and who have helped me on my travel though life. Travel with me...

What happens in Macau stays in Macau...

I'm somewhere new today....

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As most of my friends and family know I'm a big fan (and participant) of auto racing. When I saw the commercial two nights ago for the Macau Gran Prix I immediately booked a hotel in Macau instead of Hong Kong for the weekend.

The Macau Grand Prix has a long an interesting history.... and of course I have to link to some video...
Since the video was shot the track has not changed at all. I really liked the grand prix with a mixture of touring cars, formula 3 and motorcycles...


The city/state (now SAR) is located close to Hong Kong and is the Asia's Las Vegas. Being part of China, there was constant huge scale construction projects. My hotel had 3000 guest rooms and soon there will be even larger hotels in the area.

What a night....

My 20..... heading to Ningbo...


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After a long day of work and a good evening or relaxing and socializing its up at 6am to head to the airport in Ningbo for a flight Shenzen. I got 1 or 2 hours of sleep and feel pretty good. Dominck and The Driver are hungry, we stop for a "simple" breakfast at one of the roadside vendors. Just what I need and tasty and filling.















I roll though Ming's home town in a light rain. Too bad I did not get time to spend more time there. Off to the nice and big Ningbo airport. The flight to Shenzen is smooth but I forget my Ipod and a book or magazine in my checked bag. I guess I'm not as good a travler as I though.

Had a good but long day in Shenzen. Hot and dusty with the contant construction.

I realized that the Macau Grand Prix was going on this weekend so, instead of relaxing in HK for the weekend its off to Macau by ferry...you know I was noy gonna miss that...

The view from the ferry before i fell asleep...

smooth as glass....

Here is where I spent 3 hours today.....

As usual China threw a little surprise in my travel plans....

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As usual the supplier sent two people to pick me up in the morning. Because of the long drive I had them pick me up at 7am. I later found out my Driver and the Sales person, Dominck, had driven from Cixi to Shanghai the night before.

There are driver and there are Drivers. Not only did Mr. Driver know all the shortcuts though Shanghai morning traffic he knew were we could have a spot of breakfast. After a traditional breakfast (We were the only people under 60 in the restaurant. Dominick said most young people are too busy to have a sit down breakfast in Shanghai) which seemed just like Chinese lunch or dinner to me we back on our way.

As the Shanghai traffic thinned I under stood that my driver was a Driver. Our Shanghai GM minivan was not passed by a single vehicle in more than 200km of driving. Gilles and Herve would have been proud.

I want to go on record as saying it first, the Chinese will come to dominate http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6519763973904403978&q=british+rally+manx&total=12&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

The high speed cruise came to stop after about an hour as traffic stopped completely (I was glad the rotors would get a chance to cool. Does GM test the Minivans on the Nordschleife?)

When the highway was closest for about 2.5 hours. We chilled out, walked, talked and even broke out the playing cards. No one seemed that upset and everyone just kinda took the delay in stride.

Of course our Driver had a short cut and we headed off the highway though some really small towns. Here you can see the traffic to get back on the highway.

In this picture you can see why the highway was closed, poor visibility due to pollution. i guess that you could only see less than a 1/4 mile

Back on the Road...

Today I'm here...


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After two good weeks at home I'm back in Asia. I got my racecar running, and running pretty good judging from a 3rd out of 10 at the car debut. Still lots of work to do but the $80 engine from Pick N Pull is running strong and the fact that I recycled an engine makes me even more of an environmentalist.

This trip is to China Hk and Taiwan. I should get back on Thanksgiving morning.

Here is picture me chillin at the Bund in Shanghai. I'm looking for my pictures from the other the other side of the river that I took 15 years ago. Its interested to me that 1/2 way through my life I'm crossing my own tracks.

As usual I was out visiting a company today. In the evening the owner was kind enough to show me around a little in the evening. It always good to have a local show you around. The jet lag is on me real tough and I will heading to sleep soon.

I have a 4 hour car ride tomarrow to get to the supplier.

putting the toe in the water....

Way back in the springtime the motor for the Neon let go. I'm sure it was my fault as the motor in this car was very nice (thanks Mark!). I was running my second track day at Laguna Seca.

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The first track day was some time in Feb or Jan and the car ran great good power (for a stock 2.0L) amazing brakes (carbotechs are the best) and nice neutral handling, with a touch too much body roll.

The second track day did not go so well with the an oil system failure and the car coming home on the hook.

Fast forward due to my travel and me and Aub have go a Pick-N-Pull motor and its time for out with the old and in with the new... Its been a few years since i did a motor swap and I'm alittle rusy but I lot is very familiar. Thank you Pat and Momma for letting me use the whole garage, I'll clean up soon.

Finally got a real plane ticket

I still here...

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Today I'm listening to
http://www.amazon.com/Beat-Konducta-Vol-3-4-India/dp/B000RZOQXK

I finally got my plane ticket...It was rough a total of 34 international phone calls resulted in me canceling my Expedia paper ticket and getting a ticket with Cathay. For the first time ever Kayak let me down. It showed the Cathay tickets at 1200$ Us but when i finally got desperate I and checked their website I was able to find a ticket for around 300$. (Plane ticket prices are straight mean...I have paid 25% of the person sitting next to me serveral times) I guess Kayak might have sold out like priceline and the other sights to show only certain low price fares.

Flying the friendly paper ticket skies

Here is here for now:


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My music is:
As usual i'm listening to the Cerritos Allstars and some "on hold" music

Today some of my time and most of my mental energy has been spent trying to buy a plane ticket. Having purchased mostly domestic tickets and having a travel agent for work I did not realize how easy i had it. This morning I attempted to buy a ticket for a Malaysia Air flight. I was alittle supprised to see that they did not issue E-tickets.
Remember those "real" plane tickets. The ones with blue and red carbon paper. They must have had 10 sheets of carbon paper, ink all over your hands and your sport coat or purse. Hmmm I wanted to post a pic of a old school plane ticket but can't find one...Google lets me down. I remember flying to the D with my mother and sometimes she would let me hold my ticket for a few minutes at a time. I had to be about 10 last time I saw one of those. What happens is you lost it? Were you jsut outta luck? Someone older and/or wiser let me know whats up.
After buying the ticket online I head to the Malaysia Airline ticket counter here in Taipei. Of course I walk out without a ticket becasue its being mailed to my house in Cali. I knew it was being mailed to my house in Cali; Expedia was the only way to get the ticket for less than 600 bux. But i figured with a little smilling the nice ladies would print up a new ticket due to my "misuderstanding" The problem is that Expedia will only mail the ticket to an address in the US. I knew this and bought the ticket and figured I'll just have them print a ticket here in Taiepei, well after an hour on the phone tonight I'm getting a little nervous.
Back on the phone with Expedia customer service....good thing I have skype...I've had a few customer service call to the US, I'm not sure how you could afford it in the past when travleing internationally.
Good thing the F1 race does not come on TV untill midnight...i have 4 hours to work this out.
So the plan is to call Expedia, they will then call Malaysia Airlines' imaginary ticket center in Las Vegas (its imaginary cause it does not have a phone number, must be the mob connection), Vegas will then "release" the ticket to the Malaysia Air ticket counter in Taipei, then Tuesday morning then will print up a ticket for me before I head to work. Sound easy right? Ohh and I'm using a bad Skype connection to make the call to Expedia in the US so it hangs up about every 15 minutes.

Hello for today....

This blog has been long in the making. I'll start off with today and slowly take you back so you can see how I ended up here.

Here is Taipei, Taiwan for today at least. Taipei, Taiwan....


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I have been meaning to start a blog for a while, but once i started traveling for work in Jan of 2007 I realized I really need to share some of my life with others. I also want to keep the memories as I have been meeting some amazing and very interesting people.