In an email from Paul.

Please deduct 100 man points from my total.  Anyone that can install a brake pad inside out deserves no less…

(at least now I know what that grinding noise was)

Paul has been installing brakes for the past week.  He struggled with the installation and none of his friends would ever have suggested that he would have the pad on ass backwards.  Simple lesson to Paul, put the brake pad on the right way.  Harder lesson to learn may be telling his friends. :-).

Lesson to all of us would be to keep asking the stupid questions.  You never know when this could happen.

After settling into my first week with the Motorola Droid, I have a much better understanding of its capabilities and shortcomings. I have become more familiar with the UI and can navagate between apps much more quickly than this time last week.

I’m surprised at what the device is capable of, but there are a couple of missing peices.

1) There is no provision for signature blocks in the POP mail client.

2) While the phone is capable of isolating numbers and addresses in websites and emails and sending them directly to the phone or nav system, it cannot direct this information to the contact list.

3) The navagation software talks while taking calls.

Some of these issues are rumored to be addressed in and Over the Air update due in the middle of December. We’ll see.

Some of the problems I have encountered were simply a product of my lack of knowledge with the phones interface. I’ll give it another week and see how far I progress.

For the past couple of days, I’ve been experimenting with my latest toy, my Motarola Droid. I’ve never owned a “smart phone” prior to this so the learning curve is steep, but the climb appears to be paying off. This post was generated from my new toy as will many to follow. Here we go!

Add or subtract? I don’t think that we established if you would get manpoints for having your manhood removed permanently?

Also, Louis should be nominated for manpoints for knocking up his wife.

It is time to get Manpoints running again. Jay is way ahead and I really do not believe that all of you are letting that go unchallenged.

Nominate someone for some Manpoints.

I have nominated Ed for getting springs on his car this past weekend and another 300 for being married to Jess.

Chicane Pig from Ian Wood on Vimeo.

Here is my little rant about the 2008 24 Hours of LeMons.  The included video shows, albeit not all that clearly, the #11 SCHWING Team car (the little powder blue Toyota), smacking into the back of me going into the chicane.  One can see that I had the line with several other cars and that the #11 car was clearly out of the racing line.  At the last minute he makes an abrupt maneuver to enter the line hitting the back of mine with his spinning me into the tire wall.

The perturbing part of this incident, is that WE were penalized for his mistake.  One of the other drivers of the #11 car was even overheard to say “We are professional drivers and the other drivers are just not driving to our level”.  All I have to say to that is “go race somewhere else then”.

The SCHWING Team did a great deal of aggressive driving during the event and was the topic of much controversy in the paddocks.  I think the majority of participants would have had a much better experience had #11 not chosen to attend.

You didn’t make any friends in our camp.  Roughly translated, that means we’ll be looking for you next time…

Let me begin by saying thank you to my teammates.  Without the support and understanding of this group it would not have been any fun at all.

Brilliant performances by Jay, Fez, Paul, and Jeff kept our team above the middle mark for the better part of the weekend.  I was proud to be a part of this team and have great respect for the skills and sportsmanship they demonstrated.

Much was learned about the politics of racing and officiating during our three days of competition.  I learned that rules are not the most important thing in competition, but rather knowing the landscape of the event.  In this case, I made the error of assuming that people would be held accountable for their mistakes.  I came to understand that the important thing is to pay attention to what you’re doing and forget about what’s happening with everyone else.

There were a number of teams, chiefly those directly adjacent to us in the paddock, that personified the very essence of persistence.  I would have given them all more than a pat on the back had it been my event.  I found myself overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of our neighbors.  The experiences had in the paddock were worth the trip.

I feel confident that we’ll be back doing this again.  We will be better prepared mentally and have a better idea of how to compete in this venue.

Some “In Car” footage taken by Team Unintended Acceleration during the event

Nissan GTR on Top gear test track

See more on Virtual Blight at the makeitcomplete.com blog.