sema gooda thinga to do ata the time

FLASH!!

ron just left to go pick up the shitzus. he thought he was just going to the groomer’s but as it turns out susie left them at the day spa.

well, you can imagine the cruelty involved in taking them to a regular groomer.

on his way to get the dogs, ron is stopping by to rent a new bentley as the day spa doesn’t allow anything less than a car of that price to carry away any of the animals they groom.

i hope the poor things weren’t rushed to quickly from their soak in the hot tub.

# # # # #

i have spent much of the past couple of weeks out of town.

it started with a trip to las vegas for the sema show and ended with a trip to santa monica and the afm show.

since i intend to add a few videos, i’ll probably do this in a couple of installments.

my trip to vegas began early sunday evening, october 28 when helen (who doesn’t want me to write about her, so just pretend you didn’t read her name) picked me up here in pebble beach. after a cruise around the coastline we headed over to cannery row for an unremarkable dinner at one of the area mexican chain-restaurants before driving north to san jose.

early the next morning we left youknowwho’s place for breakfast and then a quick jaunt over to the heavily congested san jose airport; what a mess that place is!

despite the craziness my flight got off on time and, for most of the trip, followed hwy. 101 as far as ventura before heading out to sea.

we began our approach to orange county’s john wayne airport with a sweeping turn over catalina island giving those of us on the starboard side of the aircraft a great view of the isle.

as we made our very graceful landing, we passed a b-25 and b-17 bomber, two c-47s and one reconnaissance (black, of course) aircraft that i could not identify that were parked on the tarmac. hopefully, they are all flight-worthy; it would be such a waste to see them rest as static museum pieces.

within moments i had my baggage in my hand at the carousel and walked to the “white loading and unloading zone” to meet my longtime and dear friend alan. he greeted me with a really pretty charcoal grey mustang he was attempting to diagnose a problem with a computer, which alan says is the first such problem he has seen in the model. he also told me that, in his opinion, which i would have to value being he is fairway ford’s technical service manager, the mustang is the best car ford is making at this time. this only served to make me want one even more.

we circled the airport and headed over to a little, very noisy place for some really remarkable fish tacos and a chance to get to talk, albeit loudly, face-to-face for the first time in about 5-years.

in far too short of a period, alan took me back to just across the street from the airport to meet ron where he was having a luncheon meeting with some of the roex folks.

before long we were headed northeast, across the mojave desert, to sin city and our suite at the luxor.

we checked-in, unpacked and trammed/walked over to the mgm grand for the first of the several parties we were invited to attend, one devoted to electronic devices intended for use in cars.

there was a seemingly unending supply of interesting and delicious foods to enjoy and rivers of upper-top shelf liquor (“knob creek, please!”) pouring from the three open bars as beautiful spokeswomen charmed and flirted with those of us in attendance.

our reason for being at sema was to recruit sponsors for the western automotive journalists media days 2008 in april. so, this party was a veritable gold mine of potential sponsors.

besides making some great contacts both ron and i walked out with brand new gps-receivers courtesy of magellan. neither of them appropriate for geocaching (like most magellans). but, both are wonderful for navigational purposes sporting features like address-to-address navigation and traffic detour routes. mine will find its way into the deathmobile and later into the mustang if things come together with the big project ron and i are working on.

after a cab-ride, which we seemed to wait for forever, the entire following day was spent on the floors and parking lots of the convention center schmoozing more potential sponsors and mugging with attractive spokescreatures of every flavor imaginable.

that night we attended a party put on by honda where the food and liquor continued until, assumingly by the way the crowd seemed to not waiver, far after we left.

before leaving, however, i noticed somebody sitting near our table who looked very familiar. i was certain he was a former bonneville official named bob, but for the life of me i could not remember his last name. finally, i approached the gentlemen and asked: “have you ever been to the bonneville nationals?” “only every year since 1961!” he replied. by then i was close enough to see that his i-d badge read “bob mcmillian.” bob mac, as i always (except for the previous 20-miuntes) remembered him.

bob was always one of my most favorite bonneville-people and it was great to see him that night! his friend, john, grabbed a picture of the two of us and i gave bob one of my business cards, so i hope to have a picture it in my online album before too long.

in further proof that this really is a small world: bob was not only at laguna seca for the american le mans, described in a previous edition of my blog, but was also in the audi vip suite! what a trip!

from the honda party we walked about 50 feet to the next pavilion to the nissan party, which was much more exclusive in as far as invitations went, but not nearly as fun as the others. but, the free makers mark poured freely in the form of a triple; my last drink of the night, of which i only got about halfway through before deciding i had had enough.

we took the monorail across town to the mgm grand and walked/trammed back to the luxor.

the next morning we were on our way back to pebble beach bright and early with a brief stop at david heavener’s movie-ranch in tehachapi.

more on david in the story of the afm in santa monica in the next blogisode.

we made it back to pebble in time to greet the first of the only 4 or 5 groups of trick or treaters to dare approach the castle gate.

# # # # #

FLASH

i just got an email from bob mac, which included this picture:

monty and mac

bob has been busy since i saw him in vegas: the nhra finals; el mirage exhibit at the wally parks museum and off to el mirage tomorrow for the lakes meet.

pitstops and packing for sema

i’ve been trying to get this post out for a week. i’ve been busier this week than i have since we painted the castle. we’ve been getting ready for the sema show in las vegas and the american film market in santa monica. some people can only handle one convention in one week. we, on the other hand, prefer to tackle as many as possible.

ron flew down to newport beach thursday to a luxury condominium villa where susie and barbie have been staying since sunday. i’ve been going back and forth between the castle and the dollhouse taking care of landyn and logan and shitsus and running the show here at the castle.

lemme tell you: it’s a good thing landyn isn’t my child or i’d be in prison for her death!

enough about the 16-year-old monster!

i did just get back from logan’s game. mpc won 26-3.

susie and barbie drive back tomorrow, so i’m off the hook at the dollhouse.

helen is driving down from san jose to get me tomorrow afternoon. i think we’re going to go to the haunted house at the american tin cannery on cannery row (she says she doesn’t like scary things but the haunted house was her idea). then, we’ll drive back to her place to spend the night. on monday morning, she’ll drive me over to the airport. i fly down to orange county where ron will pick me up, after lunch with my lifelong friend alan, whom i have not seen for around 5-years. from there, we will drive into vegas for the sema show. after a couple of days there we’ll drive back to the peninsula and ron will fly down to l.a. for afm for 2-days, fly back for a make a wish foundation banquet with clint and dina eastwood and he and i will drive back down to l.a. the next day for the rest of the show.

i heard from my friend gary who lives, hopefully still, in rancho santa fe, where one of the california wildfires has been raging. he was evacuated and he, his wife and their great danes were staying in the del mar hilton. they live on the golf course (i think i saw video of a helo drawing water from one of that courses water hazards for a drop). gary said, the last i talked to him, that flames were within ½ mile from their home. those fires are a very sad and scary situation and my heart goes out to him, his wife and everyone else affected by the fires. besides a ferrari, lambourghini and maserati, they have many other lavish items, including the house itself, they have been worried about.

i spent most of last weekend at laguna seca for the american le mans series finale as guest of audi, north america. they really know how to party! i spent most of the time in their luxury vip box eating great food and being treated like i am the dude that i am.

i also got to put on a firesuit and stand in the audi pit (the eventual race winner and season champions). this was a very cool experience! i had on a lightweight suit with a headset so i could hear what was going on.

i was placed just behind the wall about 20 feet from the nose of the car when i came in. i was able to take video of the experience. it is, however, unedited as i’m having so much trouble with the editor that came with the god-awful video camera that we have (advice: do not buy a camera called supacam! your life will be much better if you do not have it. the image quality is horrible, as you will see if you watch the videos, and it is cumbersome and a technical nightmare. according to ron: even i would have bought one after the demonstration by the long-legged-large-breasted-doe-eyed-viking-chick who sold it to him. i doubt it since my tastes in women run more toward the non-synthetic type. but, we have it so we use it from time to time.). the pitstop did not go well as they had trouble with one of the rear tires. at least it was under a yellow flag. they lost ground to the penske porsche team (you can see the two penske cars get out before the audi), but gained it back for the win at the end of the 4-hour endurance race.

in the first video, we are leaving one of the team’s travelers after suiting up and walking over to the pit. you can see several of the other teams getting ready for their pit stops as we make our way over to the first pit stall. i tried to narrate as i walked and during the stop, but you can only
hear me occasionally because of the noise.

after the stop, in the second video, i get a look at the tires that came off of the car. but, because i could not see the screen to tell what i was shooting my aim was a little off. same when i tried to
get shots of myself.

in the third video i get a few seconds of interview-time with andy, the pit tour guide and give you a little bit of a tour of the pits as i walk back to the vip box to hook back up with ron and say thank you to stephanie, who was my personal contact with audi while i was there. you can actually hear me in most of this video.

the audi people were very nice! i got to meet the president of audi, north america and a few of the other mucky-mucks.

one of the things that really impressed me with the audi cars is: they are all diesels! they were the quietest cars out there and had the most horsepower; a winning combination if there ever was one!

there have been a few interesting developments in the last week: i was invited to attend the grammy awards with one of ron’s friends, alison freebairn-smith. alison is in the music biz. her father, ian freebairn-smith, is a composer of note (no pun intended, but it was convenient) . alison’s boyfriend played all of george harrison’s licks in “concert for george.”

it looks like i may also have another chance at being in the movies. another of ron’s friends, whom we will see at afm, is filming two movies with chuck norris. maybe chuck will kill me in one of these. that would be too cool!

speaking of being in the movies: we’ll stop in at david heavener’s movie ranch on the way back from vegas to take a peek. he won’t be there or filming as he’ll be in l.a. for the afm.

i got notice the other day that, after all the years of living in northern nevada and trying to get adrian belew to play somewhere in reno, carson city or up at the lake, he’s doing a show on the south shore (lake tahoe will never be the same once he and the slick siblings rock 'em out! btw: julie's and eric's mother, robin, has a blog of her own listed on the sidebar in my "blog rollcall".) before coming down to slim’s in san francisco. not sure if i’ll be able to catch the tahoe gig or not. but, i’ll make it to slim’s for sure. this will be my third time seeing ade at slim’s and my first time to catch the adrian belew trio mark II.

well, i need to get packed and back up to the dollhouse for shitsu patrol.