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Day 7 and 8 Update

Cruisey day today in San Francisco. Went to the US Postal Service, which is misleading, as they appeared to have very little service at all. 40 minutes later, I was out the door, and I think my package was put in the mail.

I always assumed the term “going postal” was about postal workers getting in a rut with their work and shooting people. The policy to eliminate this “going postal” has obviously been to eliminate the work aspect of the problem. I think it won’t be long before customer dissatisfaction may lead to a return of fire…

Walked down to the Ferry Terminal, where’s there some nice butchers and other food stores. Checked out the Cable Car Museum, before heading back to up to the Westfield shopping centre.

Picked up bags, headed to the airport, where the whole process of screening was really very hassle free.

Had an exit aisle for the 9 hour flight to London, mint! Not so mint was the fact that it was on the sunny side of the plane, and despite departing SF at 5pm, our route via the top of Canada and Greenland had our 747 in sunshine the whole night long.

On this particular big bird, the air conditioning blows onto the middle seat of the row, so it wasn’t a terribly productive flight sleep wise.

Once in London I did the standard touristy stuff- Big Ben, Westminster, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace etc. Suffering badly due to the lack of sleep, I came back to the hotel for two hours of kip.

Woke up, didn’t know why the alarm was going off, where I was, what I was doing- a pretty out of it 5 minutes of my life right there…

Walked down to The Oval via The Thames for the England Vs New Zealand. Two balls were bowled before it started to drizzle… at least was able to drink beer with Madam and Ashley in the drizzle. The game was eventually called off due to the drizzle, so I walked home in the drizzle. Disappointing England, disappointing.

Day 6 Update

Early start, off to Alcatraz on the first boat of the morning.

After watching a lot of documentaries on the place, to actually see where it all happened is incredible. Neat audio tour through the prison section.

Headed back to Fisherman’s Wharf for a lunch of clam chowder, which was odd, it didn’t seem terribly American as it had no cheese.

Went to Jack’s Bar for one of their 68 beers on tap, before heading over to the historic maritime museum thing. Some nice things, including an old old wooden boat that was filled with old timey wooden cars.

Cruised around for a bit, noticed that there was an Oakland ferry ready to go, so I jumped on it a couple of hours early.

The ferry unloads at Jack London Square, which has a nice glossy website, that paints it as a vibrant hub. Calling it a ghost town would be doing a disservice to ghost towns, as they tend to have ghosts.

With nothing going on, and nobody around, I caught a free-bus to “city centre” Oakland.

Walked around for a couple of hours, found one Starbucks and one bar. There were a lot of tall buildings, but I didn’t check to see if they had doors. Not many people around, and fewer shops open.

Trained it out to the Oakland Collesium to see the A’s take on the Cincinnati Reds. Cool deal, cool facility, but all of the concession stands are as dear as poison.

Had seats in the front row of the cheap reserved seats, which was slightly in the nosebleed section (ie deep left field). Fortunately the A’s brought their A game, and knocked a couple of sluggers over the fence in our direction… missed the ball by 10m! I left with 3.5 innings to go, however nobody scored after I left, with the A’s getting up 7-2.

Last day of cruising around today, off to England this evening. Have a good one y’all!

Day 5 Update

Who’s idea was it to set up San Francisco on mountain on top of a tectonic timebomb? Good grief, there are some hills around here. More on that soon…

Time- 4:45am, something went crash in a big way, sounded like a garbage truck exploded. Whatever, I was awake.

With it raining slightly, and knowing how Australian drivers lose all ability when it rains slightly, I decided to head the 61 miles back to SFO and drop my baby Mustang off. Sigh.

Even with some pea soup fog, the Californian drivers all proved themselves to be capable of steering without shunting.

Caught Bart back into the city (it’s the train), dropped bags, and cable carred it off to Lombard Street (the winding one).

Picked up a bicycle, which evidently had zero gears for going downhill or flat, but 21 gears for going straight up mountains. This proved useful on the first mountain. Hard work!

The helpful dude at the bike shop gave me some pointers on the best damage limitation routes regarding hills, and he was pretty much on the money.

Went around Golden Gate Bridge to the beach side, then through Golden Gate Park to the California Academy of Science. It was a neat place (including the most recent America’s Cup winning boat hanging from the roof), but utterly packed with small kids trying to run into your knees.

Weaved back over to the Bridge, which was still covered in cloud, but very spooky/cool. Rode over to Sausalito, cruised around for an hour or so, and caught the ferry back to San Francisco.

Dropped the bike off, lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf, and walked around the waterfront for a couple of hours, including checking out the SS Jeremiah O’Brien.

Caught the cable car back to the hotel. Knackered. Can’t really type too well. That is all.

Day 4 Update

The word epic gets overused a lot. But I don’t think epic is a strong enough word to describe today.

First thing’s first- didn’t get much sleep, and being surrounded by people who work in NASCAR, the baby elephant walk around the hotel at 5:00am had me awake way too early.

Subsequently got to the track at about 6:30am, then had a small kip in the car before heading into the pits.

First up I went to the Tweetup, I’ve always read about them, but quite obviously never had a chance to attend. Met two of my favourite all-time journalists, Jeff Gluck and Dustin Long. Had a good long chat, which was especially cool. Wound up winning a Jimmie Johnson hat from Old 5 Time’s spotter for correctly answering a trivia question- winner!

Met up with Marcos’s friends from Tassie Duane and Adam, and with number nine spotter Tim as our chaperone, we were smuggled into the driver’s briefing.

This thing was an utter circus. The rather large tent was filled with drivers, spotters, crew chiefs, celebrities, journalists, sponsors, it was the Ben Hurr of briefings.

The run down was 5 minutes of dignitary introductions, a 5 minute video (all custom animated to show the points of the track, much slicker than any actual TV production we have in Australia), a quick mention of the restart zones, two questions from Jeff Gordon, and a prayer.

Upon exiting, there was a police/security guard of honour restraining a mass of punters. I duly waved to the perplexed folk. That was cool.

Cruised around until the driver introductions, when Marcos said he would get us on the back of his pickup truck for the parade lap.

The standard deal is that each truck had an auction winner- the lady to go with Marcos paid $1,000.

With the four of us, there wouldn’t have been much room for pole sitter Jamie McMurray, so he was told to get his own truck.

Massively cool to do a lap of the track, awesome layout, huge crowd, and we Oi Oi Oied the Aussie Aussie Aussies coming at us.

Took in the pre race ceremonies from on the grid, another rad experience.

With the race start delayed by drizzle, we picked up some scanners and headed up to turn two.

In another rain delay, we went further up the mountain to the lookout where all of the spotters stand. Needless to say, the view was incredible, and it was brilliant to listen in on Tim and seeing exactly what he could see. He’s very pro.

After that, we headed back to the pits to watch the last couple of pit stops. Took these in from on top of the pit cart… that doesn’t happen everyday!

Marcos didn’t get the result he deserved, but that’s racing. Still, a day I’ll never forget.

Being told horror stories on how difficult it is to get out of the track, it appears they blocked off all exits bar the paddock car park, so I managed to get home in record time. Did not see that one coming…

Also, I found out today from a local regarding the all-stop sign intersection, you should “yield” to your left. I used this new-found info to my advantage driving home.

Tomorrow- head on down to San Francisco. They’ve forecast record rain for June. Since it’s never rained here in June, the actual forecast is for a 60% chance of showers. Wait and see… might be a fun bike ride!

Day 3 Update

My burning question of the moment- where should I have my heart attack, in terms of who offers the best health care? USA, UK or Germany?

The reason is that I have had the best race track catering ever today.

Since the team is sponsored by bacon, we had bacon for breakfast, and bacon wrapped sausages for lunch. Brilliant.

Another question- what’s the deal with those four way intersections with stop signs in all directions? Everyone sits there awkwardly, before edging forward.

Blow that, I’m taking the initiative, and going for it.

Final question- what’s the deal with the red rear indicators??

So today was qualifying day at Sonoma, a lot of effort for everyone to lob up for only a single lap of action!

I was going to go up to the top of the mountain with Tim the spotter, but he took off while I was chatting in the hauler. So I spent the session on the pit lane, still pretty cool.

Marcos put it on P2 after an engine drama coming to the green flag… what could have been.

Watched the first 15 laps of the K&N Pro Series West race- there were four cautions in that time, so I left.

Perfect weather, a Mustang, California- so I just started driving, not really knowing where I was going.

Wound up in Napa, which is like Movie Scene USA. Everything is manicured to within an inch of its life.

Got lost further and wound up at an outlet shopping centre. Bad news, credit card copped a bashing.

Wound up using my male internal compass to drive back east, and stumbled upon Sonoma.

Stopped off at the Kunde winery- amazing place. Terrific wine, and a brilliant facility.

Home earlyish so I can get everything together to depart tomorrow morning- off to the track for race day, then back to the hotel over the road for one last night in the area prior to moving south to SF on Monday.

Day 2 Update

Sonoma Raceway- if it were in Australia, it would be right in the guts of the Barossa Valley. The place is unreal.

The thing that gets you is the sheer scale of the joint, it’s massive. It’s built into the side of a mountain, and they built another mountain on the other side, so it sits in an artificial valley.

As a punter, it’s excellent, there are great sight lines of much of the track from pretty much anywhere, but sometimes hard to get around due to aforementioned mountains. TV really dwarfs the place- they say there will be 90K people there on Sunday, and I believe it.

NASCAR also is massive. We might think V8 Supercars is pretty special, but we have nothing.

On NASCAR, and it also being a small world, I signed in at registration to get my pass (dur). Because the girl behind the counter was a Kiwi who used to live in Surfers Paradise with family in Gympie, I was issued with a paddock car pass. Epic victory!

Got to hang out a bit today with Marcos Ambrose. It was a pretty full on day, with very little spare time to catch your breath.

Starting with a media conference, Marcos was ferried to the top of a nearby hill to film the TV intros for the V8s to be shown in USA, then another TV bit in the pits.

Practice one was next, and Marcos set the quickest time with a mock qualifying run. It’s important because it means he goes out to qualify tomorrow with the four other quickest cars of the session.

The achievement was also honoured with a massive trophy. That’s right, for being good in practice, Barbie and her two daughters presented Marcos with a huge silver cup. Everyone’s a winner!

Got to meet Carl Edwards, who stopped by the trailer to chat to Marcos. He’s the same top bloke from the TV, and also outrageously funny…

Drove out through Sonoma, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more picturesque wine region. Light brown grass, bushy dark green vines, magic.

Found my way back onto the expressway, but the traffic was awful, so I took a detour out to Bodega Bay. The bay itself was pretty nice, but the outside where the Pacific hits the coast was amazing.

Stopped by the Boat House in Bodega Bay for Fish Tacos on the way home. Magic.

Nearly hit some deer on the side of the road, but I managed not to use them as an apex marker. Also on wildlife, a snake nearly slithered into me on the way out of the track. It was yellow and black, so I hope it’s good luck!

Finished the night by purchasing a six pack of 500ml beer for $5.99. I’m well ahead on the transaction.

Day 1 Update

So the trip has started!

Things kicked off well when the nice lady at Air New Zealand asked “Would you like a free upgrade today, sir.” Yes, yes I would.

The first leg was near the front of the jet, and pretty bloody good. Leg two from Auckland to San Francisco was more interesting. I jagged a quasi exit aisle- it wasn’t technically an exit aisle, it was the one behind, but my seat didn’t have anything in front of it.

Things were looking even better with an apparent empty seat next to me… until the last passenger aboard took position. At first she wasn’t happy because she wanted an aisle seat because she “had DVT in the past, and need to get up a lot.” Oh man…

Things weren’t too bad until she got the mega night horrors about two hours after the dinner service, when everyone started to drift off. The horrors then somehow resulted in a spot of unconsciousness. Fortunately one of the hosties was a former paramedic, and got her going again, but it wasn’t great for the other two punters in row 54!

Anyhoo, had a win at SFO when the nice rental car man gave me a Mustang for the weekend. It’s a pretty good rig, a fair bit of sniff, reasonably good handling, but the road compliance of a pogo stick. Note to self, never hit a bump/grain of sand, or run the risk of winding up in a paddock.

Staying on the correct (wrong) side of the road hasn’t been an issue- in California there is a car ever five square metres, so there are plenty of people to follow around…

Did In-N-Out Burger for lunch. $5 for a large burger/cholesterol meal deal. Delicious. Root beer, where have you been in my life since 1994?

Visited the Walmart next door, what unbelievable quality at outrageously cheap prices. I was surprised being in the middle of Wine Country USA that shit Australian wines feature prominently in their offering.

Went up to Armstrong Redwoods- amazing place, the photos of these 100m/1400 year old trees do them absolutely no justice. The road there was pretty special, all of the vineyards are green and leafy, on rolling hills framed by redwoods.

Staying at the Hilton Sonoma Valley, it must be the spot, as everyone else here is from the NASCAR circus. Darian Grubb is in the room next door… to eavesdrop on set up chatter or not?

Airline Seat Review- QANTAS

Back when I used to work in the travel industry, I was subscribed to a blog that reviewed airline seats and service. Following a recent flight on a QANTAS jet to Sydney, I feel it is prudent to put index finger to keyboard, and bash out what I experienced.

First of all, a disclosure: whenever possible, I fly with Virgin. They seem to have nice people working for them, its lounges are excellent, it has an achievable frequent flyer program, and sometimes the planes offer free Foxtel, so you can watch The Simpsons mid-flight.

My first inkling that this was going to be an interesting experience was at check-in, where the lady scanning my ticket said “Morning.” It wasn’t a “Good Morning”; it was simply a “Morning.” Fair enough, I suppose she was accurate that it was before midday, so partial credit to QANTAS.

Unfortunately because I wasn’t high on the preference list, I was sitting at the back of the plane. My colleagues who more regularly fly on the big red skippy, checked in at the same time as me were offered seats towards the pointy end of the craft. The joke however may have been on them, as it was once pointed out to me that “planes don’t reverse into mountains”. Partial credit to QANTAS for looking out for me (?).

Upon arriving at my designed seat, the process of sitting down turned into something that could have made the weekly top-three on Funny Home Videos.

Unbeknownst to me, the seat had collapsed on one side, and had also lost the use of all pitch control. To put it bluntly, the seat was utterly rooted.

But how is this possible? In my travels I have sat next to some incredibly big boned folk, and never had they busted a seat. I can only assume that previously an individual with destructive lead-brick butt cheek implants was running a one man mosh pit, causing the extensive damage to the seat frame.

With the plane running at capacity, there wasn’t an option of swapping seats. During pre-flight final inspections, I leant back into my seat, albeit at a funny angle, as it was near impossible to sit up straight with lack of support provided. The hostess noticed my predicament, but either:

a) Knew it was busted, and knew there weren’t other options available; or

b) Didn’t give a shit.

Either way, she carried on and not a word was spoken.

The mid-morning snack was quite edible, but I wasn’t too pleased with the way it was dropped on my tray from some height. The classy thing would have been to place it down, but that would have been a bit of effort for passenger 43D.

One saving grace was the lengthy walk I had to reach the aerobridge on landing, as this gave time for my back spasms to die down before I had to walk through the terminal.

Zero stars.