pf01 [r]

My wheels came a scant three days after order, in fact three of them arrived on Tuesday. They look good, I might have gotten a darker hue were it an option, but they do their job and show plenty of rotor. The 18s with new rubber ride wayyy smoother than the worn 19s, I'll see how they handle load after break in.

Refinishing the garage floor [i]

Here's my summary/how to on concrete floors.



Rent a terrazo grinder, mine ran about 70 for the machine and 60 for three blades. Clear the garage because it'll be out of commission for a week.



Being able to hook the hose up to the grinder is immense. The applied water whisks away the concrete dust instead of letting it be thrown into the air. Concrete dust is fearsome.

You'll know you've ground enough when the floor becomes nice an white, see right side compared to left above. The grinder will leave swirl marks that will be visible, make sure this is the look you want. Machines that hone concrete are not used on existing residental applications.

A two car garage won't take more than a couple hours, so an overnight rental is entirely reasonable. An angle grinder with a concrete disc can take care of corners if they matter to you.

Don't worry about the smoothness of the floor, the epoxy layers will take care of that.



Notice how white the floor is when dry (and powdery). Years of wear had both smoothed and stained the concrete. My best guess is that doing the acid without grinding would mute the colors and leave artifacts where there were stains - could be good or bad.

Buy the chemicals. I picked up five gallons of acid for what I generously estimated to be 1000 square foot of concrete (including the inside of the house). When all was said and done I had only used half.

The shop had prescribed two overlayers, epoxy then urethane. In retrospect I might have just tried a couple layers of urethane, but more on epoxy troubles later. The square feet/gallon estimates here were pretty good.



Power wash and/or brush away the concrete dust and whatever else may have accumulated on the floor, the acid should be applied to a wet surface so don't worry about planning for any drying time.

I sealed up a crack knowing full well it wouldn't be hidden by the chemicals. Some might count this as a bonus for the distressed look. I hear there are elegant methods for blending patch jobs into the process, but I didn't take this route.



Applying the acid stain is best at night since you can wet the whole floor and not have to worry about it drying before you're done. Also, the acid works as long as it's wet, so the longer it takes to evaporate, the better.

Pump spray acid on a portion of the wet concrete and quickly brush it in. This is crucial and in the end you'll see any areas that weren't brushed. Then apply a top layer of the stain to eliminate brush marks and create some natural variation. Generally the mistiest setting works best here, if you streamed your name into the job it would stay.



The instructions advise removal of excess acid. I did not, since it would require retracing my steps and then spraying more on to cover my tracks. Kind of defeats the purpose. You'll see a layer of oil float to the top of the wet stain but this will just dry on top of everything and it all has to be washed later.



You're supposed to wait at least six hours, it's easiest just to sleep on it - not literally - and the fumes aren't bad so you don't have to worry about waking up dead.



When the acid stain dries it will leave a powdery residue. This should be neutralized with ammonia and removed.



The clean and wet floor will look like a marble, though notice some haze where there's just water sitting on top of the concrete. I can't explain it, though some of it's the fact that I don't have a polarizer for this lens.



The next step is to apply the epoxy. The instructions say the floor should be clean, but it must also be dry. Very dry. Even though the epoxy is water-based. And water should not contact the floor in any amount for several days, even though the urethane is water-based.

The epoxy goes on pretty easily with a sturdy roller on the end of a sturdy pole - it's much tackier than paint so the entire mechanism bears significantly more stress. A thin layer is best, I found success going over each spot once with lots of muscle, then very lightly to pick up excess and even it out. Any globs or thick areas will haze and that's quite bad.

I'd recommend against a second coat, but stay on the long side of the prescribed recoat time.



The epoxy goes on white, it'll dry clear.



The next layer is urethane. In the image above you'll notice the lamination where the epoxy has been put down, and that the colors of the stain are brought more to life. On the right you'll see the wet urethane.

The urethane is as sticky as the epoxy, but it goes on easier because it's thinner and the already-coated floor isn't so porous. It rolls on just like the epoxy. This is the chemical that gives stained floors their shine, though a satin version is also available.



The urethane dries pretty quickly, but has a longer cure time according to the spec sheet.



There's the white haze again, called blushing when referring to epoxy. I'm not sure what to make of it, I might point my finger at the epoxy, but it seemed to also be there when water was sitting on the unlaminated concrete.



Maybe the blushing will go away with the cure, maybe it'll be covered in road dust before then. It's local to some areas and depends greatly on how the light strikes it.

Other than that, I declare success.

A story told by portraits [s]

Four glorious hours in the darkroom. I toned these because monochrome just doesn't look good on a monitor, it's all bluish and you can't see detail.

Portraits that tell a story (?) [s]

Assignment three, portraits that tell a story. I went both directions, straight up portraits and capturing a well-defined sequence of events.





I imagine the four prints we turn in should be from the same roll, both have a few candidates but the photojournalism ones are more varied. Of course, the following are just blown up copies of the contact sheet frames.


Maybe a smaller aperture. It was overcast though, so the window wasn't providing much light.


Lens filter worked well with the eyes.




Shoulda gotten that engine chromed. I mixed up mid-motion shots with poseds.


Under the car was tough, it was very dark but it turns out overexposure was possible.




Requisite beer, light was pretty low at this point but I shoulda risked a polarizer.

Odds and ends [s]

I cleared out the car hold on Sunday thanks to the garage-media room proximity. I was able to relocate all of the tools to the adjacent storage room, though they've been in disarray since being displaced from the upstairs bedroom.

Now there's room for a work bench, should that be a pressing need when the indentured serv- family comes down for turkey and A Colbert Christmas.



And perhaps I'll I find myself in an industrious mood wherein the garage is a fine test spot for concrete polishing (Jay's garage, above). On the subject, a good amount of dust has accrued in the media room - and it's not like I've been sloppy down there; the couch, et al, are still pristine. Concrete's a quick clean, not so for carpet.



I think the shiny, minimalist garage will be a boon for the eventual sales process. Most of the houses I looked at months ago used the garage as storage locker, dog house, evil dungeon, or all of the above.



There's shelving to be done. First, a few for helmets and such to be located where my riding and surfing gear hangs. Next, some small ones for the sound system rescued from Casa Morelos. Apparently the thing only likes me- it would continually overheat and shut down for my old roomies and did the same for Rob when he tried it recently. Last night it worked seamlessly with my mp3 player.

The next step is to move the extra tv down there since garage activities mesh well with American sports. Then hook the ol' laptop up to the tv and audio system for access to Pandora and internet accessibility.



Now, Alfa owner I am not (yet). Nor do I wish to act the Ferrari owner. But how awesome is the above dude's place?

I'm a fan of lighting- flashes for photography, fluorescents for wrenching, and accents for everything in between. So I'd like to install some red, recessed led bulbs on a motion sensor. Red because it's close to safe light color, leds because they're instant-on and I could leave them going overnight and use less power than thirty minutes of tv. And it'd go nicely with a chair out front and some sort of beverage. My block isn't quite as interesting as the Adams-Morgan strip where I learned to love the practice, but excellent nonetheless.



So, those vents on the side of the garage. Are those for thermal equalization or what? Cause honestly I'd much prefer to close them up and stem the flow of moisture to my sensitive metal products within.



I'm still unsure how to execute on the storage room. It's a convenient way to access much of the house, so I'd like to keep it uncluttered. It's an accessible but unseen storage spot for garage materials and that will be its primary purpose. The room is also ideal for wine, perhaps the northernmost section could be outfitted with a rack. And there's the choice of ground cover for the exposed hillside.



I found some black crg levers on the Pro Italia site, so on Saturday I stopped by the Glendale store - yeah, the one from Entourage.



Good spot. I've never had any serious complaints about GP or Forza, but the shop is certainly much friendlier than their southern equivalents. They even knew Chris from Ca.



Barring any bad scoring corrections, looks like I have a shot at the Medieval Gridiron playoffs.



The Raiders game was a breath of fresh air. The recipe for success was a pretty obvious causation: half of Denver's defense was on the bench -> the Oakland offense could be somewhat effective -> the Oakland defense was not stuck on the field for fifty minutes -> there was no fourth quarter defensive collapse.

Rob Ryan is brilliant. I didn't need a victory to say so, this is just the first Monday I've actually wanted to think about football. Oakland has put up some fantastic challenges (remember how they dominated SD through three quarters) but the d would always falter having been saddled with spending the most time on the field and putting points on the board.

Russell and McFadden may be developing, the only thing to say for sure is that they need time on the field. Fargas is solid.

Cutler had a less-than-stellar day. Perhaps Shanahan trusted his second string defense a bit too much against an ineffective Oakland attack. Against any other team he may have tried making the game a shootout a la the Browns. The Raider secondary is good, but Cutler had a solid pocket all game and with receivers like Marshall and Royal, it's surprising he only completed 43% of his passes.

And then there's the absence of Jason Elam...

Double crossed [i]

The results are in. Good data all around and it looks like we have a nice rivalry between the Mazdaspeed 6 and the vr4.



Erik's thoughts regarding the practice and championship...

The championship course was roughly the same as the practice, but run backward with a change to the first slalom. This made the back section very fast, but it turned out to be just under the rev limiter, and had an uphill breaking section at the end that tested the anchoring of one's retinas.

Ian was in the first run group, and chose to run STU, meaning the cars he was up against had the same tires as him, but the added option of sway bars, lowering springs, intakes, exhaust systems, camber plates, and most importantly - wing and emblem removal/addition. He held his own for the first run or two and then got pushed to the back by some tuned up M3s. He was running about a second off the tuned Subies on a fifty second lap, so there's no shame in his fifth place finish in a totally under-built car.

I was working the first station during his group and got an up close view of some very tight competition. Apparently some of the drivers had enough control to 'nudge' the cones to the inside of the first apex without me noticing (a more experienced course worker alerted me to their shenanigans, and once I moved over to inspect more closely all the hijinks stopped, leading me to believe that they were intentionally bumping cones because they knew I - the nearest worker - was too far away to call them on it). Whatever the case, the caliber of driving was up a little from practice, as competitors only had four runs to put down a time and cones dislodged count against the time.

I only had one out-and-out cone to call the whole shift, and who was responsible? Who else…

Ian: Did you see where I hit a cone my last run? I don't know where it happened but they said plus one…

I was next to drive while Ian crewed for me over my break. A survey of the grid showed two other DSP drivers – a Civic SI and a four door Integra. The Integra wore street tires and didn't look fantastic at yesterday's practice (it ran while I worked course), so I was mostly worried about the SI running the same tires I had. The first lap out I was careful to go through the slalom the wrong way (Ian and I had spent much time discussing it and at the moment of truth I suffered from 'analysis paralysis'). When times came in from the other two cars I saw I was mistaken and the Integra, on street tires, four doors and all was going to be my main challenger.

Ian was instrumental in keeping my tires at proper pressure, cooling off the intake and reminding me that I should go through the offset slalom the right way – all of this allowed me to stay planted in the harness and keep my focus on the driving. I was happy to see my times improve steadily for the most part. The most intense point was finishing my last run (which did not improve on my penultimate fastest lap) and having to wait in the car staring at the clock for the Integra, who had been narrowing the gap all day, to finally finish his final. I kept a slight lead and since there were three cars in the class, I nabbed myself a trophy for the first place finish.

Ian had to work the third run group and I decided to go help him out when I got a call on the cell two minutes before the start

'So, what do I do with the radio?'

Competition being a little more controlled than practice, the radio is used to call in cone penalties, reruns, red flags, tech problems, safety issues, time-out for course repair and other necessary reporting.

With Ian practicing his radio speak (affirmative bandit, that's plus two cones on car five-ought-niner) and myself trying to translate the broken English of the other course workers in our section, we managed to make all the cone calls necessary (albeit way way late). There was a near-collision as the last few stations failed to red flag a speeding Corvette after an RX-7 suffered a spin-and-stall.

Overall the event went very smoothly and left a few lingering doubts, namely:

What class should Ian build for? The downside of buying the expensive performer is that the other car owners in the class have the money to tune them more than the average engineering student.

What happens if the Integra gets race tires? Does EA delve into the realm of power mods?

What class will CR build to? There is a lot of discussion here as he has already started down the path of modification against my better advice. Some of this can be estimated by factoring his times to mine (or Ian's) at the practice and seeing where it would land him in the other F-tuned groups if the same ratio applied to the I/E times from the event. Needless to say, there is no class where the three Falkens and one stretched Nankang will be the state of the competition (Ed: except F-stock which had no entrants), but practice handling the broken traction is applicable to sticky rubber, so it's all good fun now.

How many dates does CS have lined up with Corvette owners?

The results. And afterthoughts...

• If I moved down one class to worse tires and an engine driven fan, I would have had my ass handed to me, which is to say STS is a very competitive category.
• If Ian had run AS instead of STU he would have won his class.
• If CR had run FS he would have won his class (and come in dead last as well).
• If CR ran STU he would face the same trouble Ian did.
• If the proportion of times held up CR and Matt would have run in the mid-low 53s (calculating as a ratio of my best times to theirs).
• One more interesting point - the SCCA classes for the STi, vr4 and Mazdaspeed6 are a little strange. In stock they are (respectively) AS, FS and DS - in street touring they are all STU and in street prepared they are BSP, BSP and ESP.
  

A lack of focus [s]

Truth: variable focus is complete rubbish. Stop using it, everyone. Anonymous Cohort 1 was about 50/50 for having cars in focus at the last autocross. Anonymous Cohort 2 shot yesterday and was about 30/70. More than one person in my photo class have presented photos completely out of focus.

Then I picked up Ted's camera and, being unfamiliar with Canons, left it on fully automatic. I guess their firmware developers think the background is most important. Oh well.


Matt's Mazdaspeed 6.


The vr.


Bill Corbett, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy doing live commentary on Plan 9 from Outer Space. Well, this was the intro skit.


The street. Jon, Mike, and Ted in the foreground. Ugh.


Mike turned around briefly. Yes yes I have no shame.


We wouldn't have been happier had the Packers won the Super Bowl.

Spoken this weekend:
'Welcome to last year.' Apparently Liar's Club is gone. Colon-dash-open paren.
'How long do you go to jail for statch?' Yeahhh.
'I do what I can. And in the least biased manner possible.' Says someone completely dead to me.