I’m Peter McMillan. Enjoying retirement since 2019. Here you will find content about family, travel, track days, autocross, cycling, surfing, and Drupal.

Spring 2024

By peterm95018, 13 April, 2024

It almost felt like spring. We had some 80 degree days and we’re back to rain and high 40’s this afternoon.

I'm prepping the greenhouse for the season. We did well with overwintering a few hot peppers. Green onions and leeks are being harvested; tarragon, oregano, thyme are all putting out new growth. Fall saffron is dormant. Potatoes have just broken the ground.

Salinas Airport Spring Day

At least it was nice last weekend. Here’s the best Sunday run where I was able to drop a second off my last run. 

 I’ve been lucky enough to get three autocross events in so far. I’m working on breaking through some performance plateaus as I compete with a group that is always 1-2-3 seconds faster than I am. So, I’m studying some old video and looking for obvious mistakes that can be addressed.

In this next clip see what happens at 78 mph when you lift off the accelerator and make a slalom turn. When we hear “don’t lift”, this is one possible outcome. In reality, I was driving over the limit and should have been a little slower and better setup starting that turn much earlier.

Hopefully the tides will align this week and I’ll get out to surf a few times. Still working on consistent popups. Lot’s of the same skills used at Cowell’s are used at Laguna Seca; looking ahead, weight distribution, spatial awareness.

So, what type of content is here? 

In the Driving section are articles and notes about various high performance driving events that I’ve participated in. Most of this content is from 2019-2023 and includes autocross, track days and info on Porsches.

In the Family section, I’ve created some posts about our recent travel, Junior Lifeguards, a few pet stories and some California family history. 

In the Projects section, I documented the many home improvements and remodeling projects we've done on our home. These include building terraces, water harvesting, solar and batteries, grading, septic, kitchen and bath, garage, fire place insert, spa, patios, driveways, walkways, etc.

In the Tech section, I’ve created a list of various content about projects and applications I had developed while at UC Santa Cruz. These include Drupal powered apps such as Campus Maps and Campus Events Manager. Other tech projects were often explorations and prototypes of what we could do with various open source packages to meet specific business needs.

 

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