The State of American Politics...

...is absolutely fucking pathetic. Worst yet, it's at all levels from the common man to the executive branch.


What was Lincoln's speech back in the day? Something about a house divided upon itself cannot stand? At least slavery was something worth fighting against. Today, the "us versus them" mentality of Democrat vs Republican is just sad. It's one of few things that genuinely depresses me - that so many people love to jump on the bandwagon of one "team" or another and get an adrenaline rush any time they bash Fox News or Barack Obama or whatever the hell. Beyond that, it's one thing for idiots in their teens and twenties to harp on this stuff - but for the President himself to follow this suit is just sad.


If you as an American truly, sincerely believe that either the Democrats of Republicans are inherently any more / less intelligent or reasonable than "your team" ... I am hereby judging you as a fucking moron. Don't bother trying to explain. You have been judged. Zip it, I don't want to hear it.


The fact that the past few elections have been relatively close, to me speaks to the point that we have mediocre candidates and it's always a "lesser of two evils" rather than someone who is legitimately good and an easy choice. Nobody knows shit about their local and state elections - and so jerkoffs make their way into the House and Senate. From this pool of jerkoffs come some presidential candidates - some distilled jerkoffs who are either well funded or smart enough to take advantage of people. 


Elections are all geared toward taking advantage of the naive, in my opinion. Campaign ads with a strong focus on slandering or demeaning the opponent? You've run out of anything good to say about yourself so all you can do is play depressing music and black and white scenes about how the "other guy" is the End of America? Fuck off with that, asshole. A campaign harping on "hope" and "change" ? I could give a flying fuck. People through the ages have come to power by tugging at such easy emotional strings, particularly during times of depression or unrest (Hitler being a good example). How about you show me a plan forward? More taxes or less... how about we first focus on auditing large government entities as they stand to make them accountable for however many billions in wasted taxpayer dollars. 


Worst of all is the branding. Republican. Democrat. Which am I? Who knows. Admittedly there are a number of other parties out there... none of which realistically have a shot in hell of winning anything for a variety of reasons. Maybe I'll post a video on that at some point. 


I like to call myself socially liberal and financially conservative. Legalize marijuana? Sure - within restrictions like we have for alcohol (e.g. not driving under the influence). Abortions? Sure. Gay marriage? Sure. It's not my place to decide how other people live their lives so long as they aren't destructive to the rest of the community. But I am not for a huge government - moreover one that is financially inefficient and irresponsible. Where does that put me and who do I vote for? Who knows.


What's the point of this rambling? How about this - stop being assholes, people. I've been guilty of it enough myself before. We, as a country, shouldn't be so focused on "beating the other team" as much as we should be focused on finding some common ground and improving things.

Professional Objectivity in Motorsports

Full disclosure - I currently work for a NASCAR team, and previously worked for a motorsport and OEM supplier. All opinions stated herein are my own and not necessarily shared by my employers or sponsors - past or present.

Admittedly my exposure to the working world of Formula 1 is quite limited. From what I gather however there is an immense pool of engineers / people who try to join the sport at the entry level, which makes it very competitive and with some base salaries I'd describe as adequate at best. Hell, I think I applied to (or emailed) just about every team on the grid when I graduated college [university for you accustomed to European nomenclature. Euroclature?] and was pretty happy just to get a rejection letter. Little did I know at that time that I didn't know shit about shit and was of little value to a racing team competing at a high level.

I'll pose this as a question to those living and working closer to the Prime Meridian than I - how many of those working in F1 are rabid fans of the sport? More to the point - if they are, is that a healthy thing? 

In my opinion you have to have a pretty good buffer of professional objectivity in this business. I'd say most of the people I've worked with have been in a few different organizations over their careers. Sponsors come and go, as do opportunities, and people move around. Drivers move from team to team. To me it would be almost embarrassing to have an all-out favorite driver or car or team. What happens if you get a job on a team in direct competition with them? Or if they're in your organization and leave? 

On the other hand I think you need to have some amount of emotional investment in your team to compete at a high level. When push comes to shove it helps to have something that will drive you to work the nights and weekends without any extra pay to try to win the next race. Striking a balance is key. 

To some degree I'd go so far as to liken being a motorsport engineer to being an NFL athlete. 

Let's give it a few minutes for the laughs to subside. Certainly nothing to do with being able to throw a deep fade to Victor Cruz for a touchdown - but a common theme in any NFL interview regarding contracts and shuffling around in teams is that "it's a business." That it most certainly is. So to all those looking to get your feet wet in racing, perhaps it's best to market yourself as a professional asset rather than a fan.

Let's Get It Started

I immediately regret the title of this first post as it is entirely too synonymous with That Terrible Song by the Black Eyed Peas. I suppose in and of itself, "That Terrible Song by the Black Eyed Peas" doesn't exactly make for a short list, but in this case you get the idea. Ironically enough it does remind me of Freshman year of college - which was a bit hit or miss in it's own right. Anyway...


So, I've had a blog on vehicle dynamics and racecar design. That went well. I started a blog on food, but that was a bit of a fizzle. Fine, a massive fizzle. But why keep all that shit separate? Given that my stream of consciousness is about as random as can be, why not carry that over here and mix it all up?


Speaking of mixing it up, it's a rare occasion that I find a remix of an old song that I really like - but here we have an exception. Check it:

Now that we have some good jams going, let's commence with the content.