First day of Spring

It's the first day of spring for those of you that actually experienced winter. For us here in San Francisco, we got no such luck. Felt like spring has been here ever since January to be honest. That's why the rest of the nation hates us (especially the East Coast people and their experience with the frozen tundras), and our land value is shooting up sky high (I'm likely to never buy a house here) - San Francisco is definitely the city to be if you hate the thought of having four distinct seasons. 

No complaints from me, obviously. Perhaps it's the decades plus of living here, but I have a real dislike of weather extremes. Anything above 75 fahrenheit is considered too hot, and it's entirely too damn cold once the mercury drops below 50. Spoiled, yes, but t-shirt, jeans, and light-jacket weather all year round? Can't beat it. 

Working in academia has it's perks (it isn't the paycheck; really), and one of them is I can actually take a week off for spring break. And I thought I was done with that sort of stuff upon graduation. Time to discover what it's like to have nothing to do for an entire week, starting this Saturday. Getting paid to go on vacation; that's how it's properly done.  

One of those days

When it comes to writing, there are good days, and there are bad ones. You'd hope it all just flow from your brain to the keyboard as smoothly and quickly as possible, but sometime that just isn't the case. Today, was one of those days. Took me far too long to churn out a mere 1,200 words, and the subject (cars) wasn't even remotely complicated. 

Say no to brackets

I'm not going to fill out a bracket this year; I'll simply enjoy the games for what they are - no allegiances. There's zero chance anybody will win that $1-billion dollars perfect bracket challenge anyways.

The first week/weekend of the tournament has always been the best theatre. Very much looking forward to it. Now if only I can call in sick...

San Francisco will host Super Bowl L!

Just announced this morning at the NFL owner’s meeting, the NFL has selected San Francisco to host Super Bowl L in 2016 (an endcap to the 2015-2016 NFL season). The event will be held at the new Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara (home of the San Francisco 49ers). For those less inclined on roman numerals, it is the 50th Super Bowl, so it’s going to be super special (pun heavily intended.)

It also will be the first time in my lifetime that the Super Bowl will be local to me. Since attending an actual Super Bowl is on my bucket of list to do before I hit the dirt, I think this Super Bowl L will be the perfect opportunity get it checked off. I’d save on airfare and hotel accommodations because the stadium is just a mere hour worth of train ride from my house. For sure the tickets will be exorbitantly expensive but going to a Super Bowl, for me, will be a one and done, once-in-a-lifetime thing. Worth it, wouldn’t you say?

Even though it’s a little under three years away, I am already very excited and anxious for Super Bowl L, in my hometown (area). Time to save up those pennies, then!

Domain name renewed

Paid for another year of this domain name today, wasn't too bad of a price since it's not exactly a high demand domain. I don't think there's another Healy Chen on this planet so it's not like I've got competition clamoring for it. If there is, though, I'd gladly sell it to you for a princely sum. 

It's a lovely noise when I drive through my work's parking structure and the boxer rumble from my STI trips up numerous car alarms. Don't blame me, the car came like it stock. You car's alarm is simply too sensitive. Nobody responds to vehicle alarms anyways; they just annoy the crap out of you until it goes away somehow. Not sure why the modern car even bother with such nuisance. If a thief wants your car bad enough, it's effectively gone. 

First night of vacation

You'd think I'd be all outside getting into all sorts of trouble on the first night of my 10 day vacation, but ha! I just spent like the past six hours watching episodes of the acclaimed television series Friends. 

Yup, this is the life, isn't it. 

Ken Block's Gymkhana Five

Ever since the first Gymkhana, I’ve been a fan of Ken Block’s video brand of rally car driving acrobatics. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found out that the fifth iteration of the series will be shot in the streets of my lovely hometown, San Francisco. The hilly and twisty roads of the city coupled with world renowned landmarks makes for the perfect canvas for Block to perform his technical car handling ballet with a rally car. Doing burnouts and massive drifts on such epic San Francisco locations like the Bay Bridge, Financial district, and Twin Peaks is something us regular car enthusiasts can only dream about. 

The reason I am a big fan of the Gymkhana series is that it helps introduce/promote the rally form of motorsport to the American public. Rally cars and the World Rally Championship (WRC) over in the Europe has been one of my favorite racing discipline. Just the sheer variety of terrain the rally cars has to traverse and the abuse it is designed to take is simply magnificence in engineering. Unlike most other forms of racing, WRC features race cars based largely on road cars you can buy. The greatest examples of this is perhaps the Subaru Impreza STi, Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, and the original Audi Quattro. These cars were essentially homologation road going models of the same rally cars campaigning in WRC. The kind of car Ken Block is using to zip through San Francisco with? You can buy one. Today - and that is absolutely magic. 

Unfortunately in the land of left turn racing, rally car is something many Americans are unfamiliar with. If it was not for racing games such as Gran Turismo introducing it to us and making us desire these type of cars, automakers wouldn’t even make them available to the American market (it wasn’t until 2003 before STi and Evos finally arrived to our shores, while the two have been sold in other markets for a decade.) What I hope ultimately happens with these Gymkhana videos is spread the rally motorsport discipline throughout America. It would be nice to see actual rally events in the States (and not just the X-Games.) The popularity will then push automakers to make road going rally type cars for people to purchase (that Ford Fiesta Ken Block is driving can NOT currently be bought in the turbo four wheel drive form). As a car enthusiast living in the U.S. that loves rally cars, this reality would be awesome. 

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