UnNatural Abilities

Somethings come so easy for people but the changes to my race car have not been the easiest to get used to. I am not like other drivers, hop in and instinctively know how to adjust immediately. Some may have this ability naturally but for me, it takes me some practice before I have a grasp of something. Even after practice, I am still going to make a mistake or two... I write about this because I am feeling good that I am more at ease with my car and felt comfortable that I am getting it, I am actually liking the changes particularly the transbrake. I resist change so often I am missing out on the better options available in life. I guess I was feeling pressure from Dan and others to just jump in the car and be used to the complete change of habits I had developed in the past 8 years of racing. It was like learning anything new, you struggle, feel like it's too challenging and then suddenly it's just there, the skill becomes natural.
I will not get over confident but I feel more confidence after Saturday night. I was hardly expecting to be competitive already but it turns out, I can still compete and do well. Sometimes the lord knows when we need a confidence boost!
So the weekend was spectacular, the movie was an emotional rollercoaster. I was dissappointed that some details did not follow the original story but I was impressed how well the story was woven. I was dissappointed that Lucas didn't use Padme in a stronger fashion given his use of strong female characters. I still left the theater in awe and very affected. I doubt the things that bugged me are concerning to others.
Saturday Hunter and I had a full day of Star Wars toys at BK and Walmart. We watched "A new hope" prior to heading to the track (maybe that is why I did so well) The race was fun and felt so good to win some rounds, it has just been so long since I felt competitive. Unfortunately a few oil downs made it for a much too late night as we got home at 4am...
Sunday was very special also as we picked up the enclosed trailer for my car. I was so darn tired, it was hard to comprehend until Dan drove Big Red into the trailer around 8pm. It is such a dream to have this, I am so blessed. I did feel sorta emotional I wished my parent could have enjoyed this dream they shared with me. Actually I always felt bad we didn't get the RV for mom to enjoy whereas my dad would have been beaming over the trailer...
I am not getting things done I want in my summer days so far, I need to buckle down and not lose precious time without students. I am taking an online course right now and in two days, it has been very informational and useful for improving my classes. I always wondered how online classes work, it is good for me to experience it.
I haven't heard any good 80's today as I didn't get to listen to BOB. I have been listening to FM96 in London today.
I did have an odd couple of happenings at the race Saturday night. Having a website has many good and bad points. I try to keep my site as positive as possible and keep the news tidbits away from any controversy or opinions. I do use a kidding around style on occasion. I made a reference to a racer, totally kidding around that he was mad at the forum because he hadn't been sharing his results like he used to. What I didn't know was, he really was "mad" at me. I honestly have no idea why as I thought I got on fine with this young man. I always wrote extra items about him as I was a fan of his racing. So I happen to pull up behind him Saturday night and said hi and he proceeeded to come over to me and unload on how ticked off he was at "my shit" and how I was one of the reason he would want to quit racing for the shit I write. He said he came out there to race not put up with people like me. I was truly dumbfounded and sorta thought as he was yelling,"he must have other issues because this was way beyond a tiny blurb I wrote" He called me stupid and other not so nice things. I only responded with "I am not like that" but he was already walking away when his tirade was finished. Usually someone yelling at me like that would get me all discombobulated (sp?) but I let it roll off me. It didn't really make any sense really. I am always amazed how angry I have seen some people at the race track, it is sorta sad that someone puts that much weight in how they perform at their hobby. I understand pressure to do well but there are so many other more important things in our lives than how you do at the track. It all started from me mistakingly referring to his car as "purple Yurple" instead of it's correct name "purple nurple" He yelled at me about that at a race a few weeks ago but I thought he was kidding.... I honestly don't know him well enough to understand the outrage but he also doesn't know me at all to accuse me of maligning him. Anyone who knows me I have only good intentions with the site. I wanted to tell him it was completely innappropriate to yell at someone who is sitting in their race car , strapped in, ready to go make a pass in a high powered vehicle. I observed him for the rest of the night and witnessed him to be angry all night. I saw him sitting away from all the other racers when there was an oildown, isolating himself from everyone, I also watched him go out of his way to avoid me. He was helping another guy who played some games on the starting line and got disqualified. His buddy got out of his car and kicked cones and the two of them stompped off together. His buddy even purposely blocked a line of cars from running while he protested his DQ. I am stunned if I am the only cause of Purple Nurple's bad night. I can't believe that at all. I would like to talk it out with him as I am always one to apologize if I wrote something he was that upset about. He certainly wasn't going to give me a chance that night. I suspect he is not doing as well racing this year as he did last year. For some people, that is all they hang their hat on.
It was a night full of lessons as another racer yelled at me later for something else. He asked me what kind of games I was playing but I had just made a mistake that he perceived as a head game-hilarious.... Most everyone knows I am just still getting used to the car. I quickly explained to him and he backed off. Ryan said it must have been a full moon, I looked up later and it was nearly full. Full enough... I am stunned that anyone pays that much attention to how I race. It is sort part of the sport but sometimes I think it has to do with being a female in a male sport also. I doubt either of them would have had the courage to come up to my window and make accusations if I was a guy the size of Dan. I don't think it's only about being a female but it makes it easier for them. I find it sort of facinating to analyze it. I am sure that would piss them off too!

Dance Desire

Heard Haywire's "Dance Desire" on the radio today. It really got me reminising about the road trips I would take with my best pals- the "pre-teens" as the guys at WQBR guys dubbed us. We got the name for our habit of screeching like pre-teens over things like EMU football players, Canadian Band boys, and squirrel chasing freshman. Karen, Nina and I's trips began with Nina driving us across the border to see Eye Eye in Windsor in 1986. Our next trip was driven by Canadian railway as we rode the train to Toronto. As we got older and I started driving, we took more trips to Windsor. After I moved to Arizona, we would road trip to Sedona when they would come visit. We also drove to Toronto on one of my visits back there. What I remember most about our road trips where listening to Canadian radio and always having a tape recorder with us that we used to record our conversations while driving. I think we picked up that habit from our buddies Nick Naime and Chuck Cordell at WQBR. When they would road trip they did the same plus make road trip music tapes. Pretty sure I made a few road music tapes for us too. Usually Karen would insist on holding the microphone and be sort of the host of our travel tapes. She was the inquizitive one, asking myself and particularly Nina the type of questions that would make us blush. Or in our terms, make Nina want to go "cue up a record." (when ever we were at WQBR and she wanted to avoid a question she would say she had to go cue up her next record) Karen would also use the mic to sing along to whatever tunes we had going. It explains her current love of Karaoke now.. I am sure those tapes are full of my current band boy crushes, Nina's talk of her favorite Sun Devil "Sparky" and our constant ranking of the upper echelon of Canadian bands. As I recall, our top 5 essentials were Haywire, Eye Eye, Glass Tiger, Corey Hart and Platinum Blonde. We called Bryan Adams "the lord god king boo-foo of Canadian" We worshipped Stu Jefferies of Good Rockin Tonight after he mentioned us on the show and sent us a bunch of 45's for the station. Nina had a strange attraction to David Foster and other older guys. I should go back and listen to a few of those tapes, it would really be a time piece. I guess that is why one gets hung up on an era of music, it is a very pleasant reminder of a memorable time in your life.

I can die happy now?

Well, I always said I would die happy after I saw George Lucas finish the story. I am going this evening for my first viewing of Revenge of the Sith. Yeah! we have been so excited to go, we have been watching all the movies prior and Dan has been playing the video game non-stop. It is a very eventful weekend. A constant reminder of how blessed I am. Tonight the movie, Hunter and Melissa will be seeing it with us, then my return to compitition on Saturday( so far I have only tested the car, not actually raced anyone) On Sunday, another dream realized when we pick up our new enclosed trailer - Big Red's new garage! All very exciting!

Random encounters

Seems I am in the mood for some random thoughts on this lovely Friday afternoon. It is not hot yet in Phoenix which is reason to celebrate alone!
I just heard Gob doing "Paint it Black" weird version. I heard Eight Seconds today on BOB FM and I happened to check the Seattle station at Udub. They had a live performance from Sloan on today. I listened live at noon, they sounded fantastic, were witty as usual and really made my day to actually remember to listen to something! I really could see me living my 90's over again only as a Sloan fan instead of Posies fan. Some of their band past history is very similar. I guess I would have gone to Canada more than Seattle to see Sloan! Sloan never ended up coming here, only as close as Indio for Coachella. A student of mine was so nice, he got me a shirt fromt he show-autographed!!!!! I will see them again. I found it interesting in the interview that they talked about how different they are live and how that doesn't tranlate to record. It is funny on two fronts, that is exactly what The Posies always said also. Plus it is seeing Sloan live that changed me from a casual fan to a megafan. Needless to say The Posies were always incredible live also.
It is final exam time at ASU. We had our end of year party for the station. While I will greatly miss some of the students, I was relieved to end this school year, this semester particularly. The stress it created was once again beyond any amont of money I am paid for my job. I can only now hope for the future and learn from my mistakes with this group. I know have the summer to get fully prepared for the 30 students who will fill the first year of Cronkite Village. I will also spend much of the summer getting the Blaze operations manual complete to present to the future staffs. I will miss my 394 class, I njoyed many of them this semester.
I have been realizing that I have taken on many of my mom's interests since she has been gone. I love reading cookbooks now, something I would have never imagined or ever done while she was alive. I also enjoyed my time in the desert while Dan was returning that girl. I walked around checking out different cactus and all the blooms on them. She would have been proud that I recognize the beauty in cooking and desert life now.
Dan surprised me and visited me at work yesterday. We are really enjoying doing various things together again. The time spent on building Big Red took it's toll on our time spent together.
Things I am excited for: Seeing Revenge of the Sith, a few months without teaching/blaze problems, maybe a vacation?, racing again(I have still only tested so far), getting Dan to put my new shelves up, getting an enclosed trailer, peaceful time in my heart....

Hot Hot Heat

Canadian boys playing on The Blaze as we speak. The heat plays into an odd tale I tell today of something that happened Sunday out in the middle of the desert. Dan and I went riding quads at Sahauro Lake on Sunday. We many miles into the ride when we came upon a motorcross bike rider. He flagged us down and asked us if we could give a young red curly red headed girl a ride. It was strange because as we rode up, it was apparent that she was not riding, she was wearing shorts and a tank top. She was bleeding on her face and her knees. She said her friends left her out there. Dan and I didn't really think too much about it, he just said he had to take the bike I was riding and I would stay behind. She kept saying thank you and seemingly crying as she got on the bike. She was visibly dehidratated and frail. I asked her at that point if she was ok and she started crying more. I talked to the motorcross guy after Dan left. He said he thought it was some kind of joke as he rode up because she was laying on her back spead eagle as if she was dead. She got up and told him she had been throwing up. She told him her friends left her but later she told Dan she had been with her friends at Butcher Jones beach and wandered off. She told Dan she had been walking for 5 hours. It was probably 10 am when we came upon her. Dan rode her back and she kept letting go of him. Dan feared she was going to fly off so he rode extremely slow. The motorcross rider asked if I needed him to stay with me but I sent him on his way. He ended up going back to the parking and meet up with Dan. He took her back to town. Honestly it was exactly like you hear on TV when a high school kid is lost in the desert, probably drugs and alcohol involved, dehidrated and rescued by a helicopter. We were very affected by the involvement we had in helping the girl. When Dan returned, we rode on and got to a turn off with a burnt out old car, we rode down to it and in more surreal times for the day, the ground was littered with shotgun shells. Dan took one look at the area and motioned me to get the heck out of there. Not sure if we rode into a shooting range or more so "unofficial shooting range" So I must go unfortunately without reflecting as much as I wanted but time to meet my new directors, all full of hope and promise....
Been hearing Plat nearly everyday!!Yeah!