Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category

Touge

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

Last night a mate took me for a drive in his 90’s integra into the mountains, on some roads around a lake. As we were almost there (following a slower mx5), we came across a guy who had tapped his silvia into the side of the mountain. When we left a few hours later (around 2.30am), the car was being towed away. Here’s some dodgy camera phone footage.

Ok that’s the boring bit out of the way. A lap of the lake takes around 12 minutes, starting and finishing at the dam (marked with the red cross). There were lots of cars there, some imprezas, silvias, a group of ae86s. Everyone goes anticlockwise.

On the first half of our first lap, we got stuck behind a kei car (car with a yellow licence plate, has limited power) whose driver was driving really fast, it was quite surprising, and fun seeing a low powered front wheel drive getting the rear a little loose. After the first lap, the front tyres were a little warmed up, maybe between 30 and 35 degrees going by touch, with the right tyre a good 5 or so degrees warmer. After the third lap they were maybe somewhere around 40, with both around the same temp.
This video is from the last quarter or so of a lap.

(more…)

Work computer and thinking of home

Friday, September 19th, 2008

Who would have guessed it? My school has got me and another new teacher new laptops, so now I can create lessons from my desk, and not from the computer room. My job is suddenly much much easier.

I’ve been looking up Qantas flights for early November, but it seems that flights from Nagoya to Adelaide stop from October 25th, even though cheap flights are advertised until January or so (keep getting an error when checking online). I’ll try and find a Qantas office in Nagoya and see what the deal is.