In the beginning of 2002, my dad and I (mostly my dad) set out to create a racing for the Porsche 944. At the time, the 944 was the stepchild of the Porsche Club of America and we wanted a place where they could race, be competitive in their own class and it be relatively cheap. With the help of NASA, a then-fledgling sanctioning body, the 944 Cup was born.
We just finished our sixth season and along with that, comes the entry totals for the year. The 944 Cup has been the leading race series in NASA's Mid-Atlantic chapter for a few years running, so that in itself is a serious accomplishment. It's been #1 facing the likes of Honda-Challenge and Spec Miata, which are relative heavyweights when it comes to popular racing, so that's kinda a big deal.
That said, what's tooting your horn without some numbers? Included below are the entries for the various chapters that host the 944 Cup over the last four years. It's really amazing to me that a series dedicated to a 20 year old stepchild of Porsche can be this popular. If anything, I think it's a testiment to what my dad has accomplished. He is the National Director and, aside from relying on me for web/print media and an occational opinion on the rules, is the man who makes EVERYTHING happen.
So what do I have to offer? Well, I can't say I'm the PR man that my dad is, but I am the designer and webmaster for the main 44 Cup website. The site averages just over 11k page views a month and the forums average ~20k a month. Now it's never going to compete with the likes of any major website but considering they're sites created in free time around a Series created in our free time, it's an accomplishment. To put that in perspective, this site only gets about 350 page views a month. Eeek.
Anyway, included below are some web metrics I found interesting. I'm somewhat of a metrics dork (it's my job afterall) so you may not find them that interesting. If this is your thing, awesome... feel free to IM me and discuss it. If not, well... I'm sad for you 'cause metrics are neat. Here's what I found worthwhile from the month of October.
Remember, 11k page views a month
Monday is our most popular day and leads Tuesday at #2 by 17%
6pm is our most popular hour
89% of our visits are from Windows, 6% from Mac
Browser wars? 60% from IE and a surprising 24% from Netscape. Firefox is 10%, which seems on par with the industry.
73% of our traffic is direct navigation with 8% from search engines. Google has a 4-1 lead on the next highest search, Yahoo.
"944 Cup" garners one third of our search term traffic but we do we get 5% from "944 racing". As these are the people who aren't necessarily looking for us, those are the ones that really matter.
An estimated 67% added us to their favorites. I have no idea how this metric is calculated or if it's even remotely accurate... but it's impressive.
So that's it folks. That's what my dad and I have combined to add to society. It's not the cure for cancer but it definitely helps people spend their free time in an enjoyable way. Admit it, you're jealous.
As I predicted, I now have an additional loss in both my fantasy leagues. A bit more than halfway through the season and here's how things stand.
Big Money Father/Son League
Who - Palmer, Alexander, Portis, Boldin, Harrison, Gonzalez, Kaeding
What - I started this league off strong with a 4-0 record. I even beat the team with Tom Brady, who is now #1 in the league at 7-1. I then dropped the last 4 games to fall to 7th with a 4-4 record.
Why - For the most part, my RB core has been underperforming. Looking back, this doesn't really surprise me given that it's Alexander and Portis but I didn't see it when I drafted them. Portis is 13th overall and Alexander is 24th. That's simply unacceptable when it comes to starting RBs. Toss in injuries to Boldin and Harrison and you have the makings of a disasterous fall from grace. My 3rd WR, Berrian, is my most consistent performer at 25th overall.
Work League
Who - Manning, Barber, Jones (DET & NYJ), C. Johnson, Welker, E. Johnson, Vinatieri
What - I started 0-3 (see draft details below) and climbed to 2-3 before dropping the next 3. This team's record just plain sucks at 2-6 for 9th overall.
Why - This team is actually better than it used to be. I drafted Lee Evans, while Moss was still on the board, and Terry Glenn... what a waste. I picked Crayton up to fill in for Glenn and just got Welker effective last week. Welker is the #5 receiver overall and amazingly he was still available, so that should help. My schedule is the real reason this team has such a poor record. It's actually 5th in points for but 10th in points against. The average PA for the league, excluding me, is 744. My PA for the year? 920. I've scored 121, 101, 101 and 98 in 4 of my 6 losses. My wins were 90 and 73 points and when I scored 86 in week 6, my opponent got 165. Ouch.
In nearly every league I've seen or heard about, Tom Brady is on the #1 team. His production has skyrocketed this year and I think it's higher than most expected. Looking at some quick stats, he appears to have ~65% more points than the #2 guy (Romo) in leagues that equally weight TDs and ~35% more in those that weaken passing TDs. We all knew the Pats were gonna be good but there's no way he makes it to the 3rd round if people had any inclination of what he would do. The pisser is I've had Brady the last two years on at least one team and he's always been a consistent, but middle-of-the-pack sorta guy. Argh.
Hopefully I can save my 4-4 season but I have no expectation of making the playoffs in the work league. If I don't make the playoffs in either league, this will be the first time since I've been doing fantasy football to not make it in at least one league. Granted I'm only in two this year (versus 4 at my peak), but still. At least I'm 3rd overall in my family's pick'em league.
The EMIS admissions are rolling so they'll review my application as soon as all my supporting documents are in, which will be by EoW. According to what I was told, I should know by Thanksgiving whether I'm outright accepted, denied or if they want to hold me "to compete" for a spot. I'm fully expecting the compete response, which I guess is better than no answer at all.
As I said before, if I don't get in I'm gonna go the EMT route. How can a make such a drastic swing? Well, I don't see getting a Masters as a race and don't want to sacrifice participating in a program I believe in just to get some degree. Fall of '09 isn't that far away and besides, I'm not sure I could deal with another Statement of Purpose anytime soon.
About a week after seeing it originally, I decided that I wanted to see it again in the theatre. I never got around to it so when it started playing in IMAX I knew it was destiny. All of my original thoughts (I used the new search to find that :-) ) on the movie hold true but I came out loving it more than I did before. The second time had the added benefit of anticipation because I knew what was coming and looked forward to certain scenes. That said, here are some thoughts on seeing a major motion picture on IMAX.
Sound. Holy crap the sound in that place blows normal theatres away. At times it really sounds like bullets were flying over my head.
Seats. They don't recline, lean or move in any way and the angle is fairly upright. I understand why they're designed that way but it gets old during a 2 hour show.
Screen. It's pretty crazy when you have to look side to side to see the whole screen. It was awesome most of the time but did kinda overwhelm during some of the shakier fight scenes. I should note this is a fault with the movie and not the venue itself.
Concession. No food or drink is allowed in the theatre. I expected this and understand why, doesn't mean I wasn't thirsty as hell by the time it was over.
I should also mention this was the first time I'd been to the Udvar-Hazy when it wasn't a company holiday party. The actual museum part was closed to foot traffic but seeing the planes in full light, without cocktail bars littered around them all while not wearing a suit was pretty cool. I think I need to go back with a camera and a tripod before I pass final judgement on the place. Now if only I can arrange the "no people" thing.
Today's "real" post was going to be about my mid-season fantasy update but it got bumped. I guess it will have to wait until next week, when my record has flushed farther down the toilet. Stay tuned for that one!
Instead I'm going to outline just how much of a follower I am when it comes to the internet. Actually, first I'm going to mention that I added a search feature and cleaned up the links at the bottom of right nav bar. The search was long overdue and it wasn't until I got the code IMed to me that I was motivated to add it. That brings me to today's real topic.
We were talking about this today so included below is a list of things that I probably wouldn't be using without Jeff. He reads far, far more tech news/reviews than I do and as a result is way more "in the know" than I am. That's probably old news for some of the more tech savvy people but a shocker to those who come to me for tech advice. Yes folks, as hard as it is to believe, I'm not as uber-techie as I would seem to the layperson.
Blogger - This site wouldn't exist in this format without it.
YouTube - I've bailed for Vimeo but to think I used to host my own, geez. If you head over to my Video page you can see the remnants of that.
Vimeo - Search my recent posts for details on this.
Flickr - Visit my Photography page for the details here.
SHTML instead of Frames - If you don't know what this means, you won't care.
Netvibes - Simply the best website... ever. It organized everything I do online and even things I do offline. Its seamless integration of to-do lists, calendars, bookmarks and pretty much everything else in the world was revolutionary.
Google Calendar - I've used a dry erase calendar for years. I still use them to reference days of the week and whatnot but sharing work and personal dates with other Google Calendar users just makes life easier.
Pandora - It was AOL Radio at work and Winamp's Shoutcast at home but now it's Pandora everywhere. It doesn't hurt that it's integrated into my Netvibes via an IFrame so it's always at my fingertips.
Gaim - The newest version, Pidgin, sucks but 1.5 is so much better than my old AIM 5.9 coupled with the AIMFrame add-on. Yes, I said it.
There are probably more if we really thought it out. I tried some of these before he recommended them but it was until he demonstrated full functionality that I committed to it. As I said previously, I don't know how to use the internet properly without him. It's quite sad, really, and needs to stop. I have provided him with some quality apps to keep the flow of information open but to what extent that compensates, I'm not sure.
If you normally find your way here via RSS and somehow managed without it, congrats! It seems my host IPower, is moving to a distributed platform rather than server-specific deployment. While this is good news, because I'll likely get 300gb of webspace (like I need it) , a plethora more tools to manage it and better site reliability, it means there will be some hiccups during the transition. It appears my and Mike's feed are the first victims. You'll just have to load the actual page until it's fixed. Oh, the humanity!
I really find it quite annoying that I have to provide a drivers license and sign for 16 Liqui-Gels of Advil Cold & Sinus because a key ingredient is used to make methamphetamine. Perhaps if I was buying in bulk I could see it but is it really necessary for one little box? I mean it's not like meth labs are gonna go store to store to buy enough pseudoephedrine 16 pills at a time. That is all... please carry on.
This is all the interesting parts to my race Satruday. I'm trying to get more into the "video production" aspect of things and used this one as a test bed for Sony Vegas, my new program. It's no ubervideo by any means, but I already feel like I've accomplished more in 1 video than I had in countless others with WMM. I'm happy with the results and am really looking forward to making some travel video. Check out the screenshot of the project below... looks neat, eh? I think so.
Vimeo deserves another shoutout on this one. To support their includsion of HD video, they've upped their limit to 500mb per calendar week until the end of the year. It's likely you'll have to pay to get to 500mb from 250mb after the new year but I can see countless artists paying to get their HD productions online. YouTube is great for the masses but I think Vimeo really has the artists figured out. Down with YouTube!
I make it a general policy not to write about anything that's fairly personal or work related. The internet can be a fairly anonymous place but considering my name is plastered all over this site, I only post things I wouldn't mind telling a complete stranger. That said, I'm going to lead off this post with a bit about the goings-on at my place of employment yesterday. Yesterday was a weird day and telling you about it adds something to the story, I think.
Yesterday, there were a good bit of layoffs initiated by my employer. For the most part, people knew they were coming and that it wasn't going to be pretty but not everyone was privy to the details. I've been through my fair share of layoffs and I have to say that yesterday was different. We lost a decent amount of people yesterday, including the person who was largely responsible for my Living Healthy campaign. Yesterday was the first time I had a pang of survivor's guilt and that was a strange feeling. The reason I bring it up is because it's a glimpse into our mindset for the rest of the day.
Given the dealings of the day and the nice weather, a few of us decided to head out on a co-worker's boat for the afternoon. We headed down to Occoquan and jumped on his boat with a few supplies. Before the afternoon was over we'd had some eats, drank a few beers and tried our hand at water skiing. Now I haven't been water skiing in close to two decades and my prowess yesterday showed that. Depsite more than a half dozen attempts, I couldn't manage to get up on two skis. The problem was much the same I had as a kid in that I couldn't keep myself from doing the splits and eventually letting go of the rope. I used to use skis that were tied together when I was a kid and it appears I still need them. Either way, it was still a seriously good time.
After the boat we headed back to our co-worker's house to play some Wii. It was my first venture into the world of Wii and I have to say I had fun. Although simple, the interface is very engaging and I can see how someone who wasn't into video games that much would enjoy it. It brings video games to the masses and does it in a way that gets you up off the couch and moving around. I can honestly say that I worked up a serious sweat during my rise to Wii Sports Boxing Champion. Yeah, that's right... I won the double-elimination tournament, including a first round knockout in the Championship match, my first time out. I'm just that good.
My experience with the product encourages me to get one but that was a one-off. Like most Nintendo products, it's great for party gaming but I don't know the long-term viability as a single-user system. I live in the boondocks, some would say, and my friends don't want to come out that far unless we're going for a ride. I think the wife would like it and we would probably play together but I feel that most of the time, I'd be playing it alone. If that's the case, I'd much rather have an Xbox360. I'll mull it over while I figure out just how big of a step I'm willing to take in turning the basement into a media room. I have a feeling that if/when I do finish the basement, I'll have both a 360 and a Wii... also known as a Wii60.
This weekend wasn't a bad weekend in terms of racing. It was the last race of the season so I only ran Saturday but managed to come in second. I took second in the last corner of the last lap from the same guy I took third away from last year (in the exact same fashion). I have video of that and plan to spend the next week or so putting together my own video. I ended up in 5th on the year, which isn't great, but it was nice to end on a high note. I still haven't gotten that elusive race win yet.
Speaking of videos, included below is one I made from stuff my dad shot while we watched Sunday's non-points race. He wanted me to get something up last night and it was my first time using Sony Vegas in earnest so it's pretty basic. The software itself seems fairly robust, it's just a matter of figuring out how the hell to do what I want. It's a lot like using Photoshop as a beginner... you know you can do great things, you just don't know how. I did manage a soundtrack and some transitions but I know there's way more out there for me to find. My first attempt at rendering netted a 1.5 gb AVI but finally settled on this MPEG format that got me a 140 mb video. Considering it's 7:30 minutes, I don't think the weight is that bad, I just don't like the side bars on it. I'll have to mess with it more to see what I can come up with.
Finally, I wanted to do a brief intro on why I chose Vimeo for this video. Everyone knows that I don't know how to use the internet without Jeff and he recently switched back to Vimeo. His ravings about it and the fact that this video was over YouTube's 100 mb limit made it a pretty easy choice. Vimeo has better quality and sets limits based on the calendar, not individual files... which I like. I did have problems with the upload freezing twice in IE while I was browsing in other windows. I tried it in Firefox and didn't touch my computer and it worked fine. I'm not sure which piece was the culprit was but it was annoying. Hopefully it's not an on-going issue.
That said, I'm not sure if I'm going to make the official "switch" yet though. I have several people who subscribe to my race videos on YouTube and I don't necessarily want to whore them. Besides, the thought of moving all my videos over kinda stresses me out. Anyway, enjoy this (basic!) video for now. Take note that I didn't actually shoot the footage so don't grill me on that! Make sure you turn it up, the song makes it so much more interesting than it really is! (Best part starts ~4:15)
P.S. - Aside from the actual score, I was pretty much spot on about the Pats/Cowboys game.
I'm just throwing this out there before Sunday so I don't have everyone saying I had too much faith in my team. Yes, I think the Pats are a better team. Yes, I think they're going to win. Yes, I think they're going to cover the 6.5 point spread even though they're away. Let's break it down shall we?
The Cowboys defense really isn't that good. They will make a few plays but the Pats will score.
With a lingering injury to Newman, their best corner, they simply are not going to keep Brady in check.
The Cowboys have enough offense they will score at least two touchdowns. How much they score will depend largely on turnovers. I'm looking at you Romo.
They might score more but if it turns into a shootout they will not keep up with the Pats.
Final score: 34-24 Patriots
I still think the Cowboys are good. I still think they're one of the top three in the NFC. I still think they're going to go to playoffs and get to the NFC Championship. I'm just realistic about this Sunday's game.
I've always been one of those people who looked at people filming their vacation and thought "wow, you're never going to look at that again." After seeing my coworkers very brief video from when we were in India, I've thought maybe there's some merit in it. I love taking pictures but there's just some things that are better in video. I rock a dSLR but wifey has an Canon SD630 that does some pretty nice clips so I've always thought we've had it covered.
I'm not film maker, I don't necessarily buy into trends but I'm thinking making a movie for friends and family of our upcoming trip to Japan would be kinda cool. That said, do I really want to carry around a video camera in addition to a dSLR? I have one that's about 7 years old and works great for racing but I couldn't imagine carrying that. So that has me thinking that maybe I should pick up something small to carry around on our vacation. Were I to do that do I go solid state or MiniDV? Am I just looking to get more electronic crap for no real reason? Am I going to hate having to carry it around?
Wow... just... wow. The universe has a way of balancing itself out, I think. The ending in last night's game was payback for the heartbreaking loss to Seattle in last year's playoffs. I can't even begin to describe all the unfathomable scenarios that unfolded as that game went on. That game was definitely one for the ages... unless you're a Bills fan.
I was admittedly nervous going into the game because not only were people expecting them to win, I needed them to win to save my fantasy football season and win a side-bet for the week. It seemed the great guru, also know as Ron "Jaws" Jaworski, had correctly called it when he said, "It's the NFL. It's Monday Night Football. Anything can happen." Anything that could happen, did happen. I couldn't sleep for an hour after the game and as a result only got 6 hours of sleep... but I feel great.
In case you missed it, the NFL Network is playing the game via NFL Replay this Wed @ 10:30 pm. They play the entire game, including every play, in 90 minutes by cutting out half time and all the crap between plays. Even if you're not a Cowboys fan I encourage you to Tivo/DVR/watch it. If you haven't seen the show before, I definitely recommend you catch it at least once. They play two games Tuesday night and two games Wednesday night. It's a great way to extend football halfway to the follow week's games.
We ventured back to Patowmack Farms this past week. We'd been there once before, in February of '06, for my birthday. Our findings this time around were fairly similar to those from before in that results were mixed, but mostly good. I won't write the same things over again, just touch on a few of the key points. It was nice to get out to somewhere different but as I said before, it's a once a year sorta place.
The broccoli bisque was great and probably the best course.
The antelope was cooked perfectly and they didn't even ask.
The chicken roulade was a bit dry but everthing else on the plate made up for it.
There are two homemade breads, an amouse and an after-dinner treat not on the menu. It's expensive but you get a lot of food.
I didn't find the wine pairings particularly successful this time around.
Dinner took 2.5 hours again and their chairs aren't designed for it.
The atmosphere and location continues to be the "talking point" of the restuarant.
This video of our travels in Bangalore comes by way of Jeff and his digital camera. Included below is a brief description he included with the video but you should really check out his site for the full story. I gotta be honest, seeing this really makes me want to shoot more video on our upcoming trip to Japan. I just got Sony Vegas 7 and I'm a little bit cised to make a video of my own.
The video is pretty much about traveling by car in Bangalore and traffic, but that’s probably not too disproportionate to how much of the time it felt like we were sitting in it. The final scene is Chris and I braving our lives while crossing the street. I wish I had taken more videos of the food that we ate, and some of the random side streets that we explored. Oh well, I’ll know what to do next time. It was fun, onto the next video. Enjoy…
I did it... again! It was a bit tougher coming home with the grade, a head wind and a bit warmer weather but it really wasn't bad. My pace slowed a bit and I stopped to drink my water (had to buy a bottle with a twist cap) but I made it. Here are the last metrics you'll get until I hit... well... lets say a half dozen legs. I'm hoping I can ride again this Friday so maybe that report won't be that far off. Yay exercise!
Well, I did it. I rode my bicycle to work this morning and it felt pretty good. Since I've been trying to lead a healthier lifestyle and the weather has gotten cooler recently I decided to give it a try. It's only 4 miles each way and since it takes me 15 minutes with traffic, figured it probably wouldn't take me much longer than that on a bike.
I don't think I'd been on my bike since I graduated college so it's been awhile. I checked everything, including my gear, over this past weekend and amazingly it didn't need much. I put air in the tires, replaced the battery on my trip computer, reprogrammed it thanks to these directions and that was it. My gloves, my helmet, my lock and the bike itself were all in good working condition. I used my recently purchased backback, which replaced the one from college, to pack my work clothes and I was off.
All in all, it wasn't a bad experience. Having to pedal home in warmer weather after a long day at work may be a different story but we'll see. It was tough at times but I'm in better shape than I gave myself credit for. I have no delusions about being compeitive at anything but it's nice to know I might actully get back to riding like I did in high school. At no time did I feel like I was going to die, even though I forgot my water bottle in the fridge at home. Biking 8 miles isn't a huge endeavor but it burns calories and I feel like I accomplish something. As it is, I think I'm going to try and bike to work at least twice a week as a break from the gym.
I'm going to be keeping my stats in a spreadsheet and, if I continue, will update on distance traveled and whatnot. I'll probably wimp out come the dead of winter but hopefully I'll keep it up for a few months, which should be long enough for some decent data. Included below if my first ride's data so you can see what I'm starting with. Note that my total ride time includes stopping to strike my ID badge, so I probably lost a minute there. Like I said, not groundbreaking but it's a start.
