articles

By peterm, 14 October, 2023

The image above was from a harvest yesterday, 12/1/23. There is at least one more pack of peppers to pick.

So, I may not have picked a peck, but I've had a pretty successful harvest this season. These were Costco pepper plants (Jalapeno and Fresno). They got fertilized and watered when dry. Plenty of 100+ days in the greenhouse this summer. My strategy was to do fewer plants spaced further apart. It seems to have worked.

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By peterm, 16 June, 2023

So, we've got a new Junior Guard. I was one back in the early 70's. Brad was one in the 1980's. Now we've got a new one. It's a huge program with at least 60 9 year olds. They don't do pillow fights anymore but I see lots of good discipline and it gets used on me when we play games... e.g., "ok, I'm the captain and Lynda is the LT and you drop and give me 10".

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By peterm, 3 June, 2023

During a group buy from Apex, I bought a set of 19" forged wheels for the track. In early 2023, I finally got a set of Falken Azenis RT660's installed. I've put a few days of AutoX on them, but haven't got to the track yet. 

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By peterm, 2 June, 2023

The Santa Cruz mountains took a lot of rain this season. I know I dumped my 5 gallon bucket at least twice. We saw some erosion on our new pathways that will have to be fixed.

In this shot, we see the beginning of a 5 day outage where one huge douglas fir took out more douglas firs as well as the power and utilities coming up hill. We did ok on solar and batteries for a few days but given the weather conditions and position of the sun, we fell back on to our dual fuel generator.

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By peterm, 2 June, 2023

Lynda bought me a new bike for my birthday. I did a lot of research and test riding. I landed on this Dutch made bike and have put about 1200 1700 miles on it so far. I've been working on sections of the Santa Cruz County Cycling Club's Mountain Challenge to see if we can tie a 50 mile section together. 

I've had a chance to put the bike on the Jeep and take it to some of the dog shows we've been to this past year including Napa, Palm Springs and San Francisco.

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By peterm, 2 June, 2023

We helped out with homework this year on Wednesdays. We picked the kids up from their half day, brought them back and worked on reading, math, bike riding, scooters, skateboards, tree climbing, baseball, etc. Here's a few shots.

When not in individualized study, we go outside.

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By peterm95018, 27 April, 2023

I was tracking down some rattles I was hearing in spring 2023. I'd been reading threads in Rennlist about door panel warping (mine isn't severe), loose rear window fitting, etc. Then the switch broke 'cause its old (old guy reference).

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By peterm, 19 October, 2022

I participated in the Santa Barbara region track day at Laguna Seca. I was assigned to the blue group and had a great day. Got a new personal best by following a faster guy in a Cayman.

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By peterm, 13 May, 2022

On occasion, you get asked about the number of track days when going out with a new group. This is a log of driving events from 2020 when I started doing more HPDE track days and the car used.

2020 Days
1011-1220 NASA Sonoma 2 day
0905-0620 GGR DE Laguna Seca 2 day
071920 Hooked On Driving Laguna Seca 1 day *

* Hooked on Driving 071920 - cleared to drive Solo at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
* Drove Solo with GGR per recommendation to CDI

By peterm, 3 May, 2022

I went with Hooked on Driving to Sonoma Raceway April 12th. Very windy and cold. Lots of downtime and black flagged sessions due to fluid leaks and a Corevette that hit the wall going out for a session. Got Covid at this event... even though I was vaxxed.

Session 1
I got out in front of the group and had lots of space in front of me. Session was black flagged due to fluid leak around the whole circuit.

Best lap: 2:04:73

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