Monday, September 04, 2006
Crikey!
The inevitable finally ocurred and now Terri, Bindi Sue and Robert are left without a husband and father. Steve "Crocodile Hunter" Irwin was stabbed in the chest by a stingray.
His friend and manager John Stainton summed it up better than I could:
We'll miss you Steve. And whenever we hear "Crikey!", us yanks will always think of you.
The 24 hour autocross was a good experience. Very relaxed pace, no pressure to get a run in, no run groups to keep track of, only other cars waiting their turn. I worked from 4 pm - 6 pm as announcer, very cush job, sitting under a tree announcing times and car numbers and the occasional PSA (public service announcement). No results up yet and I left around 9:30 am, so I don't know if I got a trophy or not and didn't want to stick around to find out. But according to some printed pages that were taped to a table, I was leading my class by just under a second. Not including the Pro class driver in the VW Rabbit. He was ahead of me by almost 2 full seconds. He has also won 3rd in the nation in that Rabbit several times, so I wasn't too upset. Nice guy too.
My second work assignment was 2 am - 4 am, and I was literally falling asleep while leaning against the lightpost. I would close my eyes, hear a car, open them, watch them pass and make sure they didn't hit any of my cones, then close my eyes again. But it went by fairly fast and once I was done, it was 4 am and prime time for some hot night autocross action. There was barely a line. I would guess that there were no more than 10 cars in line, as opposed to the 60-70 during the day. Very different at night. You can't really see where you are going because you're looking ahead in the turn and your headlights are looking straight, so sometimes cones would pop out of nowhere.
I finally couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and went to sleep around 5:15 am. Then woke up at about 8:45, got in my last official run, number 20 (my goal was 20+, but I'm okay without the +), which was a 38.6 (plus cones if they saw them) and then started packing up. You got 6 "official" runs and you had to tell them when you wanted a run to count.
But I met my goal of getting my times into the 38s, and doing 20 runs, so it was a good weekend. And now I need new tires.
J went with me and we picked up a Nintendo DS Lite, so she would have something to do. So once I get a copy of Mario Kart DS, it's on Tom! And I need to get some of those classic Nintendo Game Boy Advanced re-releases too. Ebay, here I come.
"A wild animal is like a loaded gun -- it can go off at any time," [Jack] Hanna told CNN. "You have to be careful of that." But, he added, it's not the animals who are inherently dangerous, but the way they may react around humans. "It's not fair to the animal. It's only using the defenses that God gave it," said Hanna.This is what always ticks J off. A shark attacks a surfer and then there is a huge shark hunt when the shark was just being a shark. Not the sharks' fault the surfer looked like a seal and the surfer knows the danger is there, but takes the chance anyway.
His friend and manager John Stainton summed it up better than I could:
"The world has lost a great wildlife icon, a passionate conservationist and one of the proudest dads on the planet," Stainton told reporters in Cairns, according to The Associated Press. "He died doing what he loved best and left this world in a happy and peaceful state of mind. He would have said, 'Crocs Rule!' "
We'll miss you Steve. And whenever we hear "Crikey!", us yanks will always think of you.
The 24 hour autocross was a good experience. Very relaxed pace, no pressure to get a run in, no run groups to keep track of, only other cars waiting their turn. I worked from 4 pm - 6 pm as announcer, very cush job, sitting under a tree announcing times and car numbers and the occasional PSA (public service announcement). No results up yet and I left around 9:30 am, so I don't know if I got a trophy or not and didn't want to stick around to find out. But according to some printed pages that were taped to a table, I was leading my class by just under a second. Not including the Pro class driver in the VW Rabbit. He was ahead of me by almost 2 full seconds. He has also won 3rd in the nation in that Rabbit several times, so I wasn't too upset. Nice guy too.
My second work assignment was 2 am - 4 am, and I was literally falling asleep while leaning against the lightpost. I would close my eyes, hear a car, open them, watch them pass and make sure they didn't hit any of my cones, then close my eyes again. But it went by fairly fast and once I was done, it was 4 am and prime time for some hot night autocross action. There was barely a line. I would guess that there were no more than 10 cars in line, as opposed to the 60-70 during the day. Very different at night. You can't really see where you are going because you're looking ahead in the turn and your headlights are looking straight, so sometimes cones would pop out of nowhere.
I finally couldn't keep my eyes open anymore and went to sleep around 5:15 am. Then woke up at about 8:45, got in my last official run, number 20 (my goal was 20+, but I'm okay without the +), which was a 38.6 (plus cones if they saw them) and then started packing up. You got 6 "official" runs and you had to tell them when you wanted a run to count.
But I met my goal of getting my times into the 38s, and doing 20 runs, so it was a good weekend. And now I need new tires.
J went with me and we picked up a Nintendo DS Lite, so she would have something to do. So once I get a copy of Mario Kart DS, it's on Tom! And I need to get some of those classic Nintendo Game Boy Advanced re-releases too. Ebay, here I come.
# posted by Seth @ 8:34 AM 
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