I completed my first Porsche Drivers Education event at the Putnam Park road course this past weekend.  I'd been wanting to do something like this for quite some time, but just never made it happen.  I'm very pleased that I finally did.  The people I met were awesome and the time on the track was probably the most fun I've had in my Boxster in the 8 years I've owned it.

At first, I was concerned that I'd feel this strong urge to upgrade my 2.5L Boxster to something more powerful.  I was surprised that the weekend had the exact opposite effect — I was happier with my car than ever before.  It was more capable on the track than the driver and having less horsepower and great cornering is the best way to learn high-performance driving.

I was very glad to have an instructor in the car with me.  TJ was very calm and composed and slowly taught me the track without pressuring me to push beyond my limits.  By the end of the first day, he was telling me when to give the car more throttle and I was listening.  I was surprised by the cornering forces generated by my Boxster!

The second day started off with rain, which was zero fun.  I didn't feel like I was learning anything about vehicle dynamics on wet surfaces, so I started to push it a little more and kicked out the rear end much more than I expected.  The only thing I learned was "drive the exact opposite line of what you would when the track is dry."

Most people left (including my instructor) when the rain started, but Sunday afternoon turned out to be beautiful.  I was exhausted due to not being able to sleep the previous night but excited to go out on a dry track.  However, I wasn't having much fun because I wasn't pushing myself at all - just the same slow lap over and over (I had my solo sticker).  So I asked an instructor to ride with me and he was the burst of energy I needed — pushing me to enter corners faster and carry the speed around the track.  That was my last session of the day and it was thrilling.  I'm hooked.

I read an article regarding MP3 Player Integration on the SEMA.org site.  Here is a direct quote:

Ford has plans in the works to protect itself from potential prosecution for being a conduit to illegally downloaded music.  One of Ford’s ideas is a user consent agreement to be used for MP3 playback where car buyers would be required to confirm that the music they are playing in their vehicle was acquired legally.

This is yet another example of how out-of-touch Ford (and other domestic car companies) is with consumers, especially those in their 20s and 30s.  They can't be serious - a waiver regarding my music in my car?  Is this really what Ford needs to be worrying about instead of product design and manufacturing efficiency?  Did they make people sign waivers stating that they wouldn't listen to copied cassette tapes in the 1980s or copied CDs in the 1990s?  What's next, a dress code?  Just because a file is an MP3 doesn't mean that it is an illegal download.

I could go on (because it is so easy to make fun of this) but I'll just sum it up as: Ford = Idiots.

Great, after spending hours and hours ripping almost all of my DVDs to my server, I find a firmware patch that allows my DVD drive to read movies at about 10 times the speed.  Apparently there is a RipLock feature on most DVD drives that prevents high-speed reading of DVD movies.  I guess this is great if you're watching a movie, because the drive is spinning very slowly, but not when copying.  AnyDVD has a feature to slow down a drive in software, so if I really wanted it slow during movie playback, I can easily set it back to "slow" that way.

Anyway, here is a link to the modified firmwares for NEC drives.  I downloaded "Liggy's 3.07 Bitsetting Firmware" - the fast version that removes RipLock - for my NEC 3520 drive.

http://liggydee.cdfreaks.com/page/3520/

(I also downloaded binflash to install the firmware:  http://binflash.cdfreaks.com/ )

Setlist
Seating Location: Section D, 5 rows from the back

Our good friends Bryan and Tammy Willett came to visit us for the weekend and go to the show. They are professional UK tailgaters and brought all of their gear. We tailgated at Huggy Bear for a few hours, eating, drinking, playing corn hole, and being merry, before heading to the concert.

Our seats were a couple of rows apart, but there were some empties in between so we all sat together and people-watched before the show.

My summary of the night's perforce: an awesome setlist that seemed to be more geared to what the fans would pick. That alone can make for an great show, but the performance was as well done as ever. Adding trumpet player Rashawn Ross gave an extra dimension to their sound that I never would have predicted would work, much less great. I have high expectations before I see my first show each year and the band never fails to impress and exceed.

Setlist

Dave Matthews Band
June 3, 2006
Verizon Wireless Music Center, Noblesville, IN
One Sweet World G1 G2
Grey Street G1 G2
Everyday G1 G2
The Idea Of You G1 G2
Dancing Nancies …> G1 G2
Warehouse G1 G2
Steady As We Go G1 G2
So Much To Say G1 G2
Jimi Thing G1 G2
Crash Into Me G1
JTR G1 G2
Grace Is Gone G1
Tripping Billies G1 G2
Digging a Ditch G1 G2
Two Step G1 G2
Encore:
Sister + G1
#40 (Tease) G1
The Dreaming Tree G1 G2
Louisiana Bayou G1 G2
Guests:
G1 Butch Taylor
G2 Rashawn Ross