Lots of Wheeling in Raleigh

Having come up to Raleigh for the week, we decided to meet up with some friends and head out to some in town 4 wheeling. The good power line trails are way closer to Raleigh then they are to us in Atlanta. There are some great trails and mud 15 mins out from house. We finally learned what the Jeep could really do....its a lot.

We started off with a pretty huge hill, and after a few tries to get the approach right, Cathy climbed right up! We finished off the ride playing in the mud. Wish we would have kept the damn windows on, as everything including the interior got covered with mud :) Took quite a few pics. Only a few really good ones, but I'm posting em all as it was all good fun.

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Javascript if then shortcut

For some dumb reason, I can't ever remember this shortcut when I need it. Never again :)

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Race Car...

She's almost ready for the ARRC (American Road Race of Champions, the Improved Touring National Championship). Got a good amount of work done today. New radius rod bearings, coolant flush, radio install, caliper rebuilds, etc etc. Pretty much all that is left is to bleed the brakes and do a once over on all the nuts and bolts. I also put the new "REDRUM" sticker on the front bumper. I was going to paint it and then put the sticker on, but I decided I'll be doing lots of bump drafting at the ARRC, so I might as well make it pretty during the offseason. Last but not leas, but front splitter is coming in a few weeks. That should give me a bit of downforce in the high speed turns, but also free up a mph or two on the top end. I'm looking forward to that, as started to get to the point where I was going to make the car looser with a bigger rear bar. I think the splitter will be just enough to make it a tad looser then it is today, without going overboard. We'll see!

Project Fatass continued....

So its been about 2 weeks since I started Project Fatass. We sort of took last weekend off when we went camping, and went to the Apple festival and drank a bunch of beer yesterday. Other then that, I've been good and been following the diet. Its actually pretty easy to follow and I like it. I like the lunches a lot better then the usual microwave frozen lunch, and its actually more economical as I don't spend $8 a day on lunch every day. I'm a fan. I've lost 5 lbs so far. If I lose another 5 over the next two weeks, I'll be happy.

Ding, Jeep is done!

So after about 3 weeks of being down, and probably 12-14 hours of total work, the lift is on. I worked on it about 2 hours a day, every 3rd day, lol. I guess thats the nice thing about having plenty of other cars to drive. I took the car to 4wheelparts after the install to get the caster and pinion angles set during the alignment. Figured the $100 was well spent, as never having even seen a stock Jeep, I didn't know exactly what the pinion angle should be. They ended up finding that the front trackbar bushing was busted, something I missed during the install, so the $$ was well spent. Another $200 later, we had a pimpy adjustable front trackbar with spherical ends.

We took the Jeep out yesterday for its maiden voyage, up to the Apple festival in Ellijay. While the festival was fun, our search for some 4 wheeling in that area was a big fat FAIL. We ended up playing in some construction sites and gravel roads and found out the lift was a success. The Jeep is a beast now. Once we add the front locker to it shortly, it will be pretty much unstoppable.

Here are a few pictures in "highway" mode with the top up.

"Project fatass"

So my parents just "got" me the NutriSystem package after calling me fat for the last year or two. Guess I'll turn this into Project Fatass and see what I can do. I weighed in this morning at 224.0 and started the diet. I also have my plan to get back to "fighting shape". I've been playing soccer and tennis and just realizing that I'm way out of shape compared to where I've been in the past. Few years of sitting at a desk and playing with cars I guess :)

The nutrisystem is pretty cool so far. Good amount of food, but spread throughout the day, so you are not hungry. I think the main goal is showing you how much to each, and by liming the amount, making sure you don't overeat. Also, splitting up your food categories, so you get enough of everything. One of the first things I've noticed, is I don't eat much dairy and veggies at all. This plan has me do 3-4 servings of dairy/protein a day.

I'm also going to take the next season off of soccer and tennis and hit the gym and mountain bike to get some strength and endurance. I'll be back with a vengeance for the spring season :)

Quest for cheap radios has ended

In an earlier post, I talked about how I was going to get a nice cheap radio setup for the race car. Well, after turning on the Midland GPRS radios from Bass Pro shops that sat around for a while, I figured out they were busted. Crapola. So I decided to get "real" radios instead. After messing around on Ebay and finding some Chinese knockoffs, a friend suggested I call Sampson Racing and see if they had any used gear. They hooked me up with a set of Vertex radios, crew chief headset, and a PTT button, all demo gear out of the owner's race car. Sweet! Cameron at Conover Motorsports is going to build me a badass antenna, and I will still have my "cheap-er" radio system.

• Vertex 5-watt - $160
• Crew Chief headset - $90
• PTT + free car harness - $25
• Driver helmet gear - $140
• Badass Conover antenna - $50
• Misc adapters (headset to radio, car harness to radio) - $25

In the end, I've spend $500 and ended up with around an $800 system. My cheap ass is happy :) Looking forward to being able to hear my crew at the ARRC

The Urban Sophisticates

A couple of weeks ago, we went up to Raleigh to visit some of out friends and also see one of Cathy's favorite bands, The Urban Sophisticates. They are a mix of hip hop with horns and have a great sound. They played at the Pour House in downtown Raleigh which is always a good time. I brought the camera, but ended up doing more drinking then picture taking and it showed :) Check out their website as they have their music streaming on it.

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