As Nicole mentioned mentioned in a post today, we were completely snowed-in until a entrepreneurial BobCat operator cleared our driveway (see her blog entry for pictures.) I was thankful for the modern mechanical marvel, especially given the fact that I spent an hour-and-a-half clearing the driveway last night only to have my work completely erased by snow drifts during the night.

Seeing all the snow and the machinery makes me think of a pretty amazing piece of equipment designed to function in a similar environment, the Antarctic Snow Cruiser. I first learned of the novel approach to polar exploration about 4 years ago when someone at worked passed me a PDF detailing this vehicle (it was powered by two Cummins engines.) I was wanting to read about it again and thought I'd turn to Wikipedia for some more info. I was surprised to find little more than three sentences detailing this 55-foot long monster. Instead of shrugging my shoulders, I decided to write a comprehensive entry myself. As of today, about 95% of the info in the Wikipedia article was entered by me and I included as many links to external sources as possible. Without further delay, here is the article.

To pique your interest, here is a brief description: The Antarctic Snow Cruiser was built in the late 1930's to explore the south pole. A crew of 5 was supposed to be able to live in it for a year without any external supplies or fuel. It could cross crevasses up to 15 feet wide. Unfortunately, the gaint smooth tires had virtually no traction once they touched the Antarctic snow and the vehicle was abandoned. The vehicle may still be buried under the antarctic snow and ice, or it may have fallen into the ocean when the ice shelf fractured.

After a disastrous experience with Mintex Red Box brake pads I decided it was necessary to upgrade something with much higher performance capabilities. I've gotten several recommendations, including Hawk HPS street pads, the Hawk track-only pads, and a couple of different Padgid track pads. However, my final decision was BHP XPS pads because they are essentially track pads that also can be used on the street. I really don't see myself swapping pads before and after every track weekend. Track pads don't perform well cold and street pads don't perform well when extremely hot, but apparently the BHP pads overcame this problem and give close to the performance of a track-only pad with great cold friction. I'll post an update once I get some experience with them, but they should be much better than the Minxex pads.

For anyone interested, I purchased the pads from Stable Energies.

I considered upgrading my front disc and calipers to 911 Carrera / Boxster brakes. However, I my wish list of stuff for the car to justify spending the money on them, even at salvage yard prices.

I'm also switching my brake fluid to something with more temperature capability. I think my previous boiling-fluid problem was due to the pads more than the fluid, but I don't want to take any changes. I went with the standard ATE Super Blue fluid. There are several other options that appear to be slight better (and also more expensive) but I decided Super Blue would probably be perfectly fine for my needs.

Last night, Nicole and I had several friends over and we wound up watching The Sentinel. The movie was not all that great but what I found even more distracting was the rattles in the room generated by the substantial bass of my subwoofer. I was probably the only one in the room that noticed or was disturbed by it, but so what. So today I'm identifying the offenders in the room.

I know the door covering the equipment rack is rattling and there is a light fixture in the ceiling rattling as well. But both rattle at different frequencies and it's a pain to re-watch movies trying to find the sections that caused the brief rattles. So I use a tone generator to generate different frequencies and isolate and troubleshoot the offending rattlers at each frequency. To do this, you need a Windows or Mac PC, a Palm PDA, or a Windows Mobile PDA and the NCH Tone Generator for the appropriated Operating System.

Attach your PC / PDA to your receiver using an RCA adapter cable (or your car stereo using a cassette tape adapter) and start a sine wave test tone at 100 Hz and work down to 15 Hz. You'll easily be able to figure out which frequencies cause which rattles.

Fixing the problem is the difficult part. Dynamat is a great product for eliminating rattles. Generous amounts of duct tape or extra screws are other alternatives. Using a rubber or foam window seal/door stripping are other alternatives. Be creative. Basically, you want to increase the natural frequency by making the rattling part more stiff or by adding more mass to it. Be patient and keep trying and your rattles can be eliminated!

For the third time this year, I visited Putnam Park for Porsche Driver Education weekend. This event was hosted by the Central Indiana Region, and thought they did a better job than the Kentucky Region and Mid-Ohio Region (but all were great).

I was surprised how long it took me to get back to the performance level I obtained during my previous weekend. I feel like I was slower the entire first day this session, but reached and maybe exceeded my previous levels on the second day. I don't have a lap timer (yet) so I'm not really sure how I was doing, but it's easy to tell when the tires are approaching their limit (or not, as was the case Saturday, because I was slower).

I did have several new experiences this weekend. I actually pushed the car hard enough to unsettle it a few times. (Click the image to enlarge for traces of wrong routes). The first "experience" in the very tight and very slow Turn 7, where I decided I could take the turn a little faster than I really could. The back end started to come around mid-turn but I was already back in the throttle, which started the transfer of weight to the back end. My mistake turned into a pretty nifty rear end drift, with the rear neatly tucking back in as I straightened the wheel. I'm sure I was slower through the corner and I'd never intentionally do it again, but it was fun in retrospect. And I learned something new about the car's handling.

The second "experience" occurred in Turn 2, which is one of the fastest turns on the track. It was my first session on Sunday morning. I was trying to carry more speed into the corner and was doing better each time. Until I decided to take the turn waaay too early — which means there was no way I could stay on the track because I was going too fast and point the wrong direction. So I said out loud "I'm going off the track", I pointed my wheels straight forward, and about 1 second later I was coasting through the grass. It was a very boring exit, the car was never in any jeopardy — my pulse didn't raise at all. I was glad that I recognized I was on the wrong line and chose the best escape. The "guest instructor" riding with me said that if I had tried to save it, I probably would have spun. I didn't even consider trying to save it and was pleased with my composure.

My third "experience" occurred during in Turn 1 of the first full-speed lap of my third Sunday session. I was trying to use a different visual mark for my turn-in indicator. I used the wrong one and I turned in too soon (experience #2 hadn't fully sunk in yet). My rear inside tire just barely got off into the grass and unsettled the car. I didn't know what was going to happen. I was ready to point the front wheels off the track and escape into the grass (experience #2 flashback all of a sudden). But the Boxster immediately settled down and stuck to the pavement. I was pointing in the correct direction and had a decent amount of speed. So I just kept on going. I talked to Colin, the driver following me when it happened (after the session was over), so that I fully understood what had gone on. (The picture to the right of this paragraph was taken about 20 seconds later.)

My forth "experience" was with my new Mintex "red box" brake pads. I was going out for my 4th and final Sunday session and heard a little grinding in the front when I hit the brakes in the parking lot. So I skipped the track and when in to check the front brakes. The and front left pad was completely consumed. Now, I'd checked the pads Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning and there was plenty of material left. But my three sessions on Sunday (and my increased speed) finished them off. Wear issues aside, I must elaborate on how terrible these pads were. They had no initial bite and required long, excessive pedal application to slow the car down, which causes more heat in the pads and more into the brake fluid. These pads were far inferior to the stock pads for both initial bite and maximum stopping force, when they were cold and at higher temperatures. And they didn't even last 2 DE weekends. These pads were terrible and I'll never, ever use Mintex pads again.

I had a great weekend and was happy with my driving by the end of Sunday. More importantly, I learned a bunch about how my car reacts to different situations and how to compensate for mistakes. The only downside is that, for the first time, I noticed my 2.5L engine's lack of power. I could drive faster than several (but not all) of the more-powerful cars in my C group as long as we were in the curves. But as soon as we made it to a straight-away, I'd start losing ground. I could sometimes catch back up for a little while (as long as we were between turns 1 and 7), but I was incapable of making up any distance throughout the other half of the track. I knew it would happen eventually, but I didn't think it would be this soon. But I'm not ready to purchase a more powerful car. Yet.

I would have missed out on this great car show if it hadn't been for my friend Kurt (whom I met at my first Porsche DE weekend) asking me if I wanted to go. So Nicole and I followed Kurt and his wife Becky to the small town of Oxford, OH. The entire downtown area was blocked-off for Porsches and there were a lot of great cars to see.

Had I known my car was going to be part of the show, I would have washed it. It was still dirty from the track and still had the numbers on the windshield, Oh well.

My favorite cars included a silver 1955 550 Spyder (Beck replica), a newly resorted black 356 cabriolet, a black 1980s 959. Apparently the photographer agreed because all of these made it into the 2006 event photo album .

There was a new 2006 911 Cabriolet (type 997) that really caught my attention, as did every new Boxster and Cayman. I don't need a newer car, but it's nice to think about!

I was the lucky winner of a $25 gift certificate to Griots Garage (an event sponsor). So I can't say "I never win anything" ever again.

After my first Drivers Education weekend, I was hooked.  I loved the opportunity to take my car to a road course and push my own limits (if not those of the car), all while having an instructor in the car with me and not worrying about being faster than anyone else.  I felt safe and had fun, so I was back for a second time.

I was not surprised that I remembered the road course completely.  I didn't lose much from my previous time on the track, but it took me until the end of the first day before I was back to where I finished the first weekend.  However, by the end of the second day, I could feel a huge difference in my driving abilities.  I knew and expected the slight 4-wheel drift through fast corners and I was able to hit every point on the track the way I envisioned them happening.  I increased my corner entry speed to levels that were approaching the ability of the car and I identified portions of the track where I need some improvements.

I experimented with threshold braking, but it didn't work so well.  The time I gained around the track was marginal because I was braking for too long.  And because all of the brake applications were as late and as hard as possible, the brakes absorbed quite a bit of heat.  Enough that it boiled the brake fluid — a soft pedal is something you never want to feel!  Luckily, I could tell when it was happening and I had no problems safely driving around and exiting the track.  TJ and Christine helped me bleed the brakes and I was ready for the next session.

My wife Nicole come along this time.  I wasn't sure if she would enjoy it as much as I did.  It's a mostly-male group and I think she felt too much pressure to prove herself.  It wasn't until the last run on Saturday that she relaxed and experienced some fun on the track. 

As with my previous DE weekend, the people I met were every bit as great as the cars on the track.  I missed seeing some of the people that didn't make it back from my first outing, got to be better friends with those who did return, and also met some great new people.  Even if you don't have a car, the people alone are reason enough to return.

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.

In preparation for an upcoming road trip, I purchased and installed at PhatNoise PhatBox in my 2004 Infiniti G35 Sedan. Initial impressions: holy crap, this thing is awesome! Why did I wait so long?!? Installation was extremely easy, just plug it into the satellite radio harness and it shows up as a CD changer, controlled directly from the factory head unit. To get it hooked-up and working in the car, total time was about 10 minutes (still need to screw it down though).

I know iPods are extremely popular; here's why I think the PhatNoise blows the iPod away.

• controlled by the factory head unit so controls are very easy to reach
• no FM modulators or chargers or cassette adapters required
• Voice Prompts - no need to try to read a little screen on an iPod or try to read scrolling text on your head unit. Audible searching by artist, album, genre, and playlist.
• Direct line-in input to the headunit; no low-quality FM or tape sound degradation

I know, with the right cable and the right head unit, iPods can have some of these features. Also, the iPod is more portable and the initial price is lower. But as with most things, you get what you pay for. If you want to go jogging, get an iPod. To listen to music in your car, I highly recommend the PhatBox. The voice prompts and sound quality make all the difference. It even supports my lossless audio format of choice (FLAC) and it was very easy to sync my music library via USB. The only possible improvement for this otherwise excellent device would be WiFi auto-sync every night for podcasts.

I participated in the PhatNoise user forum for well over a year. Unfortunately, it was shut down. Never fear, there is a non-affiliated replacement already well-established: phathack.com. I had a question and it got answered in a matter of minutes.

It's 2AM and I'm thinking about going back out to my car to play around with the PhatBox. It's that cool. It's TiVo-for-the-first-time cool.

I finally took the first step in getting my music collection back into my car. I used to listen to CD's all the time when I had my Pioneer 6-disc changer and a bunch of cartridges. However, after my headunit when bad, I had no changer and starting listening more to the radio. Today, I ordered a PhatNoise PhatBox for my Infiniti. If all goes well, I'll probably get one for my other vehicles as well. I was seriously considering the Omnifi devices (with openfi add-on) because of WiFi synchronization, but decided on the PhatBox because of FLAC support, OEM headunit interface, and voice prompts while sorting through songs/directories. No Apple iPod car kit can give you that.