"you're here bright and early," the gate attendant said.
yup, i guess i was. it was 6:15 am on saturday morning at WATKINS GLEN INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY! NASCAR Nextel Cup at the Glen!! who hoo!!!!
talk about a quiet place though. all the boozing the night before had apparently zonked out all the campers in the infield. i've never been amongst so many people who were so damn quiet. there were tens of thousands of people, all hungover and asleep in their campers, tents, RVs, and converted school buses. i hadn't seen anything like it, because every other year we've been here i've been asleep at this time, too. this year, i drove all night with a pit stop in, and a tour of, ithaca. more on that later.
we've been going to Watkins Glen for 15 years, consecutively. except for last year--the only blemish in our record. so this was better than usual--it's been 730 days since i was here before. and the first thing i did when i got there was i went to bed in the back of my explorer--my sleep schedule is all screwed up now because of The Job. it was dead silent in the whole raceway until the first asshole fired up his generator to make a pot of coffee or some damn thing like that. people need to rough it more; leave the generator at home or get one of the quiet ones. but it really doesn't matter after the jet dryers come out on the track. if you've ever been to a NASCAR race before, you know what it's like--like being underneath a 747 on takeoff. and then race practice starts, so every minute race cars are roaring past so when you're trying to sleep in the back of your car like i was, you sleep like crap. but who cares, IT'S RACE WEEKEND!
i re-upped with cingular, btw
it was a good race and a good weekend. the new grandstands are twice as high and the weather was just right on race day. the only problem was, we had 4 tickets and only 3 people. i'd be damned if i could find anyone to take that 4th ticket. as a result, it was a bit quieter than certain other years, like back in the heyday of our trips to The Glen when we had 8 tickets and all my brothers would come. this time around it was just me, dad, and my uncle, and of course they were on the low-key side, so by default, so was i. the saturday night excitement consisted of drunken jackasses riding their beer coolers and radio flyers down a hill in the infield, and then there was also the school bus party. a lot of campers have old school buses as party wagons, and this one in particular had a regular bar scene going on with music, lights, booze, a racing theme, and too many sausages and not enough weiner buns, if you know what i mean. that's kinda the way it is at the races. lots of dudes and not enough chicks, except for the honky trashy chicks (blah) and the hot chicks that are only there because their boyfriends are. and R.I.P Gumbyland! if you've been to Watkins Glen, you know Gumbyland. it was a homemade scaffolding set up by the campers outside of turn 10, so called Gumbyland because of the giant stuffed Gumby toys (and, of course, the big sign that said GUMBYLAND.) the general idea of the place was it was an impromptu strip joint where any female brave enough or drunk enough could get up and show off her stuff to all the drunks. so of course, there'd be craploads of guys standing around waiting for it to happen, and when it did, you could hear the cheers from anywhere at the racetrack. but, sadly, the police (!) created a presence in the area in the last few years, so Gumbyland withered away to nothing. not to make it sound like it was a bad time, though--Gumbyland or no, Watkins Glen is always a good trip.
i was also a bit pre-occupied over the weekend with the woman situation, which has finally played itself out with certainty. for all of you who are curious and who keep asking, this is the verdict on the Svenska Flicka: it's been laid to rest. we are officially...friends. yeah, we really dig each other, but it's a logistical nitemare, with our careers taking us in different directions and being that we're from different countries and all. so it will stay a friendship, and that's that. seeing her for the first time in 10 months at jo's wedding was bittersweet. Jag är ledsen, min svenska är inte så bra. Ha det så bra, jag tycker väldigt bra om Er, jag älskar dig.
the AZ crowd at Jo's wedding
the wedding was a great time, though. got to see old AZ friends and act silly again. i took lots of pictures, too, as a last hurrah for my digital camera before i sent it back to Canon for warranty work. for about a month, the LCD screen has been farkled, so i couldn't read the functions & stuff, nor could i see the pics i had just taken. it was like using a 35mm camera, for christ's sake!! heaven forbid! take all the pictures you want, but you can't look at them til you get back to your computer! eek!! what did we do before digital cameras? no bother, my camera came back on monday and it's good as new. my only regret is i didn't have it for watkins glen weekend, so i had to use the sub-par camera on my new cell phone.
speaking of new cell phones, holy crap!!!! i finally got a new phone. goodbye to my old blue reliable, hello new Nokia 6230. yep, another nokia--much to The Swede's chagrin. she can't stand those damn Finnish phones. she's Sony Ericsson all the way, of course--swedish pride and all. to heck with it, i've always had good luck with nokias. it's all i've ever had. actually, this time, i got 2 phones--one for me, one with a new phone line for the detailing business. it's only a little more expensive than my old plan, cuz i was getting screwed on that ancient calling plan from 2002. that was the whole reason for new phones--i needed the 2nd phone line and they scoffed at my old phone (which has no sim card) when i wanted a new calling plan. no time like the present, i guess. hurrah for me, more money in the hole.
anyway, at least i got lots of pictures of my little brother Chris* singing 'Baby Got Back' with all the chicks out on the dance floor. you can see those pics on my www.flickr.com page.
* little brother from the frat, not the fam, for you confused non-AZ folks.
the elusive Right Wing Nut escaped being photographed
and the other thing weighing heavily on me this weekend was my trip through ithaca and syracuse on the way to watkins glen. it's been almost 7 months since i officially moved out of syracuse and nearly 4 years since i left ithaca. i miss them both, especially ithaca. i'm amazed at all the new construction down there. as usual, ithaca tears itself up as soon as it's done building something, so there's always something new to see. and of course, both cities offer so much more to do and see than anything in jefferson county. but, the fam is here, and there are so many good things about being up here. *sigh* the struggle within continues.
and in other struggles:
what's up with cologne displays in stores nowadays? or at least, in walmart? they don't have testers anymore!! how the hell are you going to pick a scent if you can't smell the frigger first? they've gone as far as to seal the boxes shut in impenetrable plastic blister packs. good luck smelling it! i wouldn't need to smell it if they still carried my stink of choice, "Contradiction" by Calvin Kline. the same bottle lasted thru 5 years and 2 1/2 girlfriends before i finally used it up in the last couple weeks. of course, there was that stanky interlude with the cinnamon-smelling "Fahrenheit" which i wore to please Kimmyshea. i didn't care for it, but if it made her happy, fine.
so anyway, when you're at walmart, you can't smell the colognes. if they leave testers, people probably take them, so you're totally on your own unless you want to use the "Stetson" tester, which nobody would bother stealing. but every guy that grew up in the 80's already knows what Stetson smells like cuz we all borrowed it from our dads in, like, 1985.
guess i'll have to go somewhere else to find my Contradiction. i know they still make it cuz i checked.
i just did a marathon blogging session--more posts waiting in the wings! check back soon!
