2009 April

Archive for April, 2009

SMAD 301: Course Evaluation

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

For the sake of future SMAD students, I hope the department reads my eval and takes it seriously. Ben and I were both very truthful on our evaluations of this class. I would like to share my responses to let the world in on what I’ve been enduring all semester.

What’s most sad, though, is that I am completely serious here. Furthermore, such depressing evaluations should never have to be written and therefore read by the professor and his/her superiors. Unfortunately, this class did merit the evaluation provided…

What did you like most about this course?
It required very little effort. …

Two new “published” posted

Thursday, April 30th, 2009

I added two photos as published in The Breeze – one of JMU Fit, and a feature photo of students enjoying the Quad on a sunny Friday.

Ten Thousand Miles – the good and the bad

Monday, April 27th, 2009

My odometer rolled over the magic number this past Saturday, April 25. We’ve had 10,000 miles together over the past ten months (and a day), and I’m pleased to report that the good has far outweighed the bad.

I bought my Miata after having the local Mazda dealer conduct a pre-purchase inspection. They identified some issues, and I decided that the car was still a good deal. I knew that I needed to fix the leaky CAS O-ring seal, and that the rear brakes were almost shot, and that I needed new wipers. I also knew that the glued-in plastic window …

If you have 16 minutes, watch this.

Monday, April 27th, 2009

This is Cutlass, a short film directed by Kate Hudson and shown at the Tribeca Film Festival. Check it out and read my take below.

I think this is an interesting take on parenting and negotiation. The style will never change, just the prices and the lust-and-want-inspiring objects. It’s doubtful that I’ll fully understand how this all works until I have kids, but something similar definitely happened with my Miata purchase last summer.

Mom and Dad were generally receptive to the idea of me buying a car. They were …

New Photos Added

Thursday, April 16th, 2009

I’ve added the “GayMU” photos that were published in today’s issue of The Breeze to my Published page.

Close to Fully Functional

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

The blog archive structure is now in place, so all of my past ramblings can be read again. Also updated the Miatas at The Gap page for relevance, and it has its’ own archive now. Only page I’m still working on is the Design section.

Getting Closer: Less than 100 Days

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Dragon Hunting season is opening to the Miata bunch, with less than 100 days to go! I just received an email from the forum administrator, outlining some basic activities for the long weekend.

Update-wise, Tapoco Lodge has closed (and may be for sale), which displaced a lot of vendors and Miata owners planning on staying there. I’m very glad Dad and I chose to book at Fontana. Vendors have moved to Fontana, and I think that’s going to be the new “hot spot” for the weekend. Score!

I’m trying to figure out what we’ll be doing over the three-ish days that we’re …

Death of the Manual Transmission?

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

In a forum post on Miata.net, a member claims that Porsche has announced the phasing-out of a standard manual transmission on their 911 sports car. It will be replaced with “PDK,” a dual-clutch gearbox that has no clutch pedal, but is “fully manual” and operated by slappy paddles on the steering wheel. Cool, right? It’s just like the F1 cars!

I’m not so sure.

You can train a monkey to push the gas, and when the engine gets noisy, to pull the paddle marked (+) and keep moving. Driving a real manual transmission car, however, is an art. The driver must synchronize …

Still working…

Monday, April 6th, 2009

I’m in the process of structuring the blog archive. That’ll enable the “Blog” link, as well as various pages related to my Miata stuff.

Whirlwind Weekend

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

I realized I haven’t posted in a while, and I feel obligated now. This was the “big weekend” for Madison Motorsports, as well as the official-unofficial “alumni weekend/Spring Fest” at JMU. Lots of traffic around campus, but we had a very healthy turnout of MM alumni for the weekend’s festivities.

Friday’s events started around 2:30 with the pickup of barriers from Facilities Management on Main Street. I met Goodspeed and Peter over there to help load them on the trailer. We tried loading one into my Miata, but failed when the last seven feet of the barrier stuck out behind the …

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