The LazyAssGeek’s

This past weekend was Val’s first Pocono Race Weekend experience and as always, a good time had by all.  We headed up to my folks place late Saturday afternoon after making sure the kids were squared away.  Joe & Nat and the boys were up there as well as my parents and Doug, soon to be joined by our friends from Ohio, Ray & Shana. After a good dinner of dogs, burgers, roast pork, salad, fruit and pretty much anything else you can think of we settled into the basement to catch up and BS.  The Nationwide race had started so that served as early evening background noise.

Lou joined us not long after we’d settled in and added those evil Virginia peanuts to the mix, along with his sterling conversation of course.  He really let his hair down and had a personal best of FOUR beers! Kyle Busch won the Nationwide race but we missed his now-controversial guitar smashing celebration by turning over to the IRL Texas race. We had dragged along an Xbox and the Rock Band instruments, but nobody ever seemed to have motivation enough to move off the sofas so we never did play.

Sunday dawned an hour later than Val & I thought it did as the clock in the bedroom we were using was an hour behind. We headed over to the track around 11:30 with Ray& Shana, Joe & Lou were waiting on Billy & Bono to arrive in Billy’s truck, as well as for Mike Martin. Billy had a delivery to make Monday early AM at the NY state border so our dad did some calling around and was able to wrangle him a spot to park his rig behind the small shopping center just up the road from the house. We all wound up getting to the track at the same time as using the “back way” proved worthless this year.  We have always parked in the big grass lots just across the street from the track but they weren’t in use this year and so we had to slug our way sitting in traffic to get into one of the lots at the front of the track.  I called Joe and was able to spare him that.

Unfortunately the delay didn’t leave us any time to head over to pit road, but we did head into the fan zone area and Val got herself her first NASCAR swag, a #20 visor and a matchbox-size (1/64) #20 car.  She thinks Joey is so CUTE!

Val's First NASCAR Swag

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aka the Corvette Forum “Ridley Park Crew” annual BBQ

Saturday 5/30/2009 we packed up the convertible and the Mazda and headed to Ridley Creek State Park with Melissa, Robert and Sport (Michael was on a school trip) for the annual BBQ organized by a couple of guys via the Corvette Forum.  There’s a regular group of Vette owners that meets nearly every Sunday for breakfast and hanging out at the park and often a cruise afterwards.  I’ve attended quite  a few times but hadn’t made it to one this year, though Val & I did cruise with some of the guys to the Simeone Museum a few weeks back.

There was a very nice group of folks and cars there on Saturday, with quite a few hot-rodded old Fords, a couple of Mustangs, a Viper GTS and a Ford Model A in addition to the usual collection of Vettes.  All but the first generation (C1) of Corvette was represented, though with only 1 each of the 2nd & 3rd generations (C2 & C3).  Melissa & Robert seemed to both enjoy checking out all the cars and Val & I spent some time pointing out the differences in the generations and they’re both fairly proficient in not only spotting Vettes now but in identifying the generation.

The Ford Model A is owned by a guy I know through LMC.  He is a technician for Lance Co, the Haas Machine Tool sales & service arm in this part of the country.  Kevin has been in our shop more than a few times over the years servicing the many Haas machine we have in service.  He has a C4 as well, an 86 or 87 I think, but this was the first time I’d had a chance to see his Model A.  Apparently it was his dad’s car and they did a lot of work on it together, very cool that he still has it and continues to keep it running.  Aside from 30 year old paint showing the inevitable signs of age it’s in great shape.  Melissa had to be coaxed a bit, but she finally got up into the rumble seat and Kevin snapped this picture.

Melissa's Ready to Rumble

Kevin had to snap that pic for us because we had of course managed to yet again forget the camera!  So thanks Kevin, for the pic and for showing us your very cool old car.

The BBQ was quite good too, with a whole pig having been cooked up as well as burgers & dogs. I won’t post a bunch of pictures from somebody else’s gallery, so if you want to check out some pics of the folks & cars, click here.

Added:  Pics from James of County Corvette (just page 1)

Michael is 17 today. Blackjack burger is on me!

Jack & Katy McDermott’s niece Caroline Morris is a student at Temple University and as part of a course was using Dreamweaver to publish a photography gallery web site. She ran into a few problems as the TA for the course was of little help for anything outside exactly what he has done with his site so she asked for my help.  She had the site 90% of the way there and just needed a push in the right direction with setting up the navigation links to get everything working. With the site being 20% of her grade for the class she was pretty frustrated but got the hang of what I was trying to show her (I’m many things, teacher ain’t among ‘em!) pretty quickly and had the links all fixed up and the site up & running within about an hour.

She’s fairly excited to have a site and I think it’s very nice looking with some great photos. It’s definitely something she should be proud of.  So here’s the link!

http://www.carolinemorris.net/index.html

Congrats Caroline!

This is a copy of the post Mike made on Corvette Forum describing the stereo installation we did on his Atomic Orange 2008 Corvette Coupe. Since I donated my time & blood to the cause I thought I’d give the post a more permanent home here.  Click the more link after the first few pics as there are TONS of pics in this and I didn’t want to kill the load time on my front page.

Yesterday I finally put the finishing touches on the new system in my 08 Corvette. Below is a list of componets I used and then multiple pictures of the install. I also took this oppertunity to install the insulation kit that I purchased from Exotic Corvettes.

1 Full Insulation Kit
1 Kenwood DNX6140 (Built in BT)
1 Kenwood KCA-XM100V (XM module)
1 Audiovox CNP2000 (XM Mini Tuner)
1 Kenwood KCA-IP301V (Ipod cable)
1 Male-Female USB cable (to use both USB and iPod)
2 Subthump C6 enclosures
1 Subthump amp rack
1 Subthump amp rack cover
2 Rockford Fosgate P3 Shallow Mount subwoofers
2 JL 250/1 Class D amps (Powering subs)
1 JL 300/4 amp (powering Mains)
1 Pioneer Premier TS-C720PRS (Mains)
1 set of Komoman adapter plates (sprayed black)
Various installation parts and wire from Darvex

We started by disassembling the interior.

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Hard to believe it’s been three years since Rob & I flew out to pick up my convertible, but the warranty is up so it must be true.  When I got the car home from that trip it was filthy so of course I had to wash it.  That would have been April 10, 2006 and the weeping cherry in my front yard was in full bloom so I took advantage of that and snapped a few pics.  The following year that same weekend was the first cruise-in of the year for the CCDV so I prepped the car up for it and noticed the tree was again in bloom so I snapped a few pics again.  That picture to this day is my favorite of the car, it shows the changes I made during that first year – wheels, painted Z06 spoiler and painted door handles.  In 2008 I was in Europe vacationing with Andy & Biggi so I missed the tree’s very short window of blooming.  This year the tree has started to bloom and wasn’t fully bloomed yesterday but I thought I better take advantage of the opportunity while it was available anyway.  The pictures also would have been better with afternoon sun after it had passed over the house and would have been behind the camera, but again, strike while the iron is hot!  So without further preamble, the 2009 cherry tree pics.

All Corvettes Are Red

Except This One