LeMonade

I’m so anxious that I think I may have wet my pants.  Unfortunately, I can’t rotate my head downward enough to confirm this fear.  A quick pat-down of my Nomex race suit finds no wetness, so at very least I can feel confident in the liquid-retaining power of the fireproof material that’s bundled about me.  I’m snapped out of my reverie by the waving of my temporary teammate’s gloved hand.  The car is ready to get back on the track.

Three hours earlier, I arrived at Motorsport Ranch on a blustery February day to cover the 24 Hours of LeMons Gator-O-Rama for Houstonist.  The LeMons series is a circuit of car races around the country consisting of $500 cars.  Teams have a lot of character, and the similarities to the art car crowd are not unfounded, except that these maniacs drive these cars at unsafe speeds instead of cruising down Allen Parkway.  After watching the race from various vantage points in the early afternoon, the Evel Kweasel team was ready for me to take a turn in their prized 1982 Toyota Corolla.

Unlike any 80’s Japanese econobox I’d ever encountered, this one has a full roll cage, a fuel pump kill switch, and a steering wheel smaller than a pie plate.  Climbing into the cockpit was not a task for anyone with a huge amount of personal pride; being harnessed into the racing seat also brought me in very close physical contact with these guys who I’d only met hours before.  One of the race organizers provided me with a red, Nomex-lined race suit, matching shoes and gloves, and a white helmet with the LeMons logo wrapping around it, furthering the idea that this was a real, honest-to-God car race.

Of course, I already knew this by the time I got the wave to go: in fact, the wheel-to-wheel action I’d seen from my safe, journalistically detached perspectives was what was really causing my anxiety.  (Even writing this, two days later, my palms have begun to sweat and I can actually feel my heart rate climbing.)  Races have winners, and observers are the people in the grandstands surrounding the pit row where the Corolla now sits.  By crossing the concrete barrier between the pits and the spectators, I’ve ceased to be an observer: I’m a racer now.

Only the race car isn’t moving.  I’ve stalled it.  The combination of push button starter and my trembling left leg have caused me to stall the car.  And stall it again.  And again.  Finally, the guys give the car a rolling start, I find 1st gear and pop the clutch.  Success! I roll slowly toward the pit exit and find 2nd gear.  But a race track employee is flagging me down.  Is there a limit on the number of times you can stall the car before everyone realizes you’re a phony and they haul you away? No, she just needs to see my driver-only wristband.  But I’m trying to manage the wonky synchros of 2nd gear, steer toward the right hand turn that leads out of the pits, and control my metronome heartbeat.  I fumble my limbs around my shoulders like an epileptic making the Sign of the Cross before finally tugging my glove upward enough to display the yellow wristband.  She waves me through before I stall the car again.  I won’t stall it again all day.

I round the right hander onto the backside of the track.  The Corolla wails like a horrific chimera of a Harley-Davidson and an angry infant, shrill and blaring at the same time.  The car owes its voice to the loss of its exhaust system (everything back of the headers) about 10 laps into the race, before my wheel time began.  The blare becomes a drone as I shift into third and begin to learn the track.  Fortunately, a yellow caution flag waves on my second lap, allowing me to take a more leisurely pace without having to worry about other racers passing me or vice versa.  I settle in behind a red Ford Taurus and learn the turns. Soft right, chicane, right, hard left, hairpin, hard right, hard right, long soft left, right, straight, hairpin, repeat.  I’m close on the Taurus’ bumper, and I’m starting to look anxiously for the yellow to drop so I can pass him.  When the caution is finally lifted, I’m reminded of the difference between a regular Taurus and a Taurus SHO.  The Yamaha V6 lights up and he’s blasting down the straight, forever out of my reach.

Now the racing begins in earnest.  The faster cars are flying by me.  A gold MR2.  A blaring red Miata with a curly pig tail.  A huge Infiniti Q45.  I’m trying not to let the passing affect me, but it’s an ego blow after getting my hopes up under caution.  I focus on my lines.  I shift rarely, 3rd gear providing the torque to power out of the turns.  The brakes are mushy but adequate.  I make some tire-squealing approaches to the back turns, getting faster each time.  I navigate the traffic that occassionally builds near the chicane without tail-ending anyone.  My confidence is building.  Ahead, I see my quarry: a orange BMW 3-series.

The 3-series is loping along at an even slower rate than I am. I’m zeroing in on the Beemer, cutting tighter turns, waiting to brake and accelerating out of the turns with purpose.  I’m on his bumper as we enter the chicane, dodging right and juking left as we approach a right hand turn.  A sharp left looms ahead, after which the track narrows.  I want to avoid the claustrophobia of the narrow stretch leading to the horseshoe-shaped turn ahead, so the left is my chance.  I mash the gas and sneak inside my orange nemesis.  It’s a sharp turn to take such a narrow line on, but the Corolla’s forgiving chassis has given me reason to believe that this won’t be a huge mistake.  I hope. I squinch my eyes shut as I rocket through the turn.

No sound.  No crunching metal.  A vibrating orange shape in my rear-view mirror shows that I have successfully passed the BMW. Big exhale. But now I’ve waited too long to brake for the right-hand hairpin.  Slam on brakes, crank the wheel right.  Squeal squeal squeal. Lift gas. Correct. Mash gas.

After making the pass, I realized that my playtime probably needed to end soon.  I was getting passed a lot, and I didn’t want to hinder the Evel Kweasel team in the standings.  I signal out the window that I’ll make one more lap, and cruise into the pits soon thereafter.  I immediately regret turning the fuel pump switch off.  I want to go back.  I want to keep risking life and limb three weeks before my wedding, because this is a peak adrenaline experience unlike any I’ve had in years.  But the pit crew is coming to unbuckle me, and I have a story to write, not a race to win.  It’s time to get back on my side of the concrete barrier.

Racing is fun, but it’s not where I’m meant to be.  This is where I’m supposed to be: sitting in my office, writing about the experience.  And I’m supposed to be in one piece for my blushing bride’s sake, so I think I’d rather risk a keyboard injury than figure out just how well the roll cage in a $500 car holds up.  Race on, fellas, and I’ll see you again in October.

—

Once more for the record, a huge thanks to Nick Pon and the Team Evel Kweasel boys for making this all happen.  You ROCK!

This Was Supposed To Be Coherant

But when you start off the week with a migraine, your ability to put together anything that even remotely resembles a cohesive narrative definitely suffers. So what you’re left with is another rambling blog post about nothing in particular, but everything in general. Which, I suppose, isn’t all bad. So here we go:

- I need to write here more often, if only to remind myself what it’s like to write in first person. Having to use the royal “we” over at Houstonist is like nails on a chalkboard at times.

- Not that I’m complaining about Houstonist, mind you.

- Thanksgiving was nice in a “good grief, how’d I get so tired?” kind of way. When your compass points to Conroe and Katy and points in between all weekend, with precious little chill time, you end up longing for Monday if only to get out of your damn car.

- Not that I’m complaining about Vesper, mind you.

- December looks about as busy, but spread over a longer time period. Which is good, I guess. After spending the past couple of years celebrating my birthday in a pretty laid-back fashion, my birthday falls on a Monday (free beer at the Saucer!) and the lovely Miss McNamara is planning something delicious. Should be fun.

- Not that I’m complaining about my birthday, mind you. (I have no idea how long I can keep this up)

- I’m seen as something of an authority on baseball within my social circle now. How crazy is that? Sure, it seems as though I’ve got a stronger handle on what the Astros are doing this offseason than Richard Justice does (does he snuggle up at night under a blanket with Chris Burke’s face on it? and does that blanket swing at bad pitches like it’s going out of style?) but I’m hardly a real expert. Unless….*runs to see if he can interview Ed Wade*

- Not that I’m complaining about the Chronicle’s sports coverage, mind you. (actually I am. this whole conceit dies here.)

- One of these days, I’ll actually interview a band or person on Houstonist that I’m not friends with, or where I have no previous connection. Until then, time to review Monica Pope’s new restaurant!

- I found my ticket stub from the Explosions In The Sky show in March (!), and that got me to thinking about the shows I’ve seen this year. Here they are, as best I can recall: Mute Math, Explosions In The Sky, The Hold Steady (with Illinois), Okkervil River, Guy Forsyth (3X), Trout Fishing In America, Junior Brown, The Avett Brothers, Girl Talk, Nickel Creek (2X), Zookeeper (2X), Ethan Durelle (2X), Two Tons of Steel (2X), The Church of Philadelphia (2X), Hollywood Black, and last but not least, Meryll. Throw in Asylum Street Spankers and possibly This Will Destroy You to finish the year, and the hits outweigh the misses (Bloc Party, Spoon, etc.) by far.

- New Favorite Nickname: Mr. Tummnus. This one will be nearly impossible to top. Especially when it’s delivered with the lisp of a 9 year old.

- Why oh why can’t we get these in the States?

Ok, that’s enough rambling. I will update more often because we are tired of we.

Fantasy Garage

In response to a late night conversation a week or so ago, I was prompted to come up with a list of dream cars. The list was subsequently subdivided by era, and what you find below are the results. It may have some questionable choices on it, but dammit, they’re MY questionable choices.

1. 1969 Chevrolet Camaro ZL-1
There’s only 69 of them in existence. Faster than any Corvette until the 2000’s. Plus, it’s ugly in an all-business, Steve McQueen kind of way. Case closed.

2. 1975 Mercedes 450 SEL 6.9
It’s got a racing engine with dry-sump lubrication, tons of room and luxury, and you’d look like a African dictator driving one.

3. Ferrari 250 GTO
This car is sex. That is all.

4. (Bonus one of a kind car) Steve McQueen’s Jaguar XKSS
If money is no object, I buy the car with the single coolest pedigree ever. From when the name Von Dutch actually meant something.

1980’s and onward

1. GMC Typhoon
In the early nineties, GM had this hilarious habit of using the same 3.8 liter V-6 in basically every car they sold. Then they decided to add a turbo to some. And then they added all wheel drive to this overgrown Blazer. In its time, it was faster from 0-30 than a Dodge Viper. One of the best sleepers of all time.

2. Audi RS4
Beautiful, fast, and luxurious. If my garage had all 7 of these cars, this would be my daily driver.

3. Aston Martin V8 Vantage N24
The big Astons all look like Jaguar’s with Beyonce’s ass welded on to them. Too big, too posh. Gimme this one: a race car sold to rich twits who will drive it at a race track and nowhere else. Plus, Aston Martin ran a production model (no modifications) in the 24 Hours of Nurburgring race, and placed fourth against dedicated race cars.

For a much more reasoned approach to this same question, check out Jalopnik.com’s Fantasy Garage. And before Vesper gets jealous, it’s worth pointing out that a couple of years ago, a Mini Cooper S would’ve made the later half of this list in a walk. So there.

Finally, for the end of the week: White Ninja!

My Next Mod

I better start saving my pennies.

Cheers!

I’m back on the wagon, and in good style. Sunday night saw me consume several fine Belgian beers at the Ginger Man, and Monday at the Saucer was like visiting family that you only see every couple of years. (Yes, for those of you saying, “weren’t you at the Saucer every Monday throughout Lent?”, I say, shut up.)

The weather has improved significantly, which has reminded me of two things: 1) having a sunroof is one of life’s necessities when you live in a sub-tropical climate like Houston’s, and 2) I need to get a good summer driving CD to push me through whatever road trips will happen between now and September. Franz Ferdinand’s first cd filled this role admirably several years ago, Sufjan Steven’s Illinois album was the answer last year, and Cold War Kids seemed like the front runner for this summer until I realized how uneven their Robbers and Cowards album really is.

Into the breach step the Fratellis. Think Black Rebel Motorcycle Club or Uncle Tupelo with Franz Ferdinand’s rhythm section, and you’ve pretty much got it. They’ve done a recent iPod commercial, but I don’t really watch live TV except for Lost (Everything else worth watching can be had for free from the networks’ websites), so I haven’t seen it. Regardless, their Costello Music album is a foot stomping, head banging, vocal harmonizing good time. I’ve got my solution.

It seems I’ve picked up something of a second job working the info booth at the Houston Farmer’s Market that meets on Rice’s campus on Tuesdays. It’s kinda funny, because I love junk food and don’t really care if my produce is organic. But several friends work there, they have killer gelato, and there are many hot patrons. It’s a win-win-win situation. If the free range bone-in pork chops I ordered this week are as good as promised, we’ll have to add a fourth “win” to the equation.

Of course, the ultimate win would be if Michelle is able to convince St. Arnold’s Brewery to be a vendor at the market. The implications make my head spin.

Get Your Strut On

I’m not the most handy guy in the world. I’ll never be in danger of having my own home improvement show on TLC, much less a Man vs. Wilderness “look I’m drinking my own piss” show on Discovery. But I do remember “righty-tighty, lefty-loosey” pretty well, and so I’m just competent enough to cause trouble.

I’m also a meddler. I’m rarely content to leave well enough alone. This applies to many areas of my life, but in particular we’ll focus on how it applies to my cars. None of the three vehicles I’ve owned have ever been sold without some sort of modification. Now I’m in possesion of the most perfect stock car I’ve ever owned, and yet I can’t keep my hands off her.

Vesper’s first mod went on yesterday afternoon. I justified messing with a perfectly good Mini in the name of preventative maintenence. The area of the frame where the front struts mount has a tendency to warp and “mushroom” under normal wear if you have 17″ wheels as I do. When you consider the crappy quality of the roads in the Montrose/West U/Memorial areas that I frequent, my strut towers were probably going to warp sooner rather than later.

Into this desparate situation rides a cowboy on a white horse. Ok, a Brit with a blacked-out Mini of his own. Simon at Bavarian Hyper Sports sold me a strut bar and walked me through the all-too-easy install yesterday, and I even got the Houston Mini Motoring Society discount, which now effectively has paid for the cost of membership.

I dashed over to my parents’ under-reconstruction abode to borrow the necessary 13mm socket that I’ll need for the install, and the bar and braces go on with little fanfare. No muss, no fuss.

Ostensibly, the cross bar should increase the torsional rigidity of the frame (read: make the car handle better), but the difference in day-to-day driving is so miniscule that I can only barely notice it. On sharp turns and windy places, it’s a bit easier to pick up on, but it’s still a slight improvement. A few more minor tweaks like this, and she’ll be the track monster I hope she can become.

——–

A quick follow up on the last entry. On my most recent trip to Nashvegas, the LJV and I had occasion to drop by Judge Roy Bean’s, a Texas-style bbq oasis in a pulled-pork wilderness. As luck would have it, there were a bevy of women at the bar on the night that we rolled in, and every eye was upon us as we hit the door. Actually, it was more like the evil eye. See, somehow Friday nights at this particular place seemed to be reserved for lesbian birthday parties. After sitting at the bar and consuming brisket while playing a spirited game of Guess The Gender, we hightailed it out of there like Larry The Cable Guy at a Maya Angelou reading. Good times.

Finally, please be in prayer for the family of Dustin Salter. Dustin was the RUF minister at TCU, and he passed away this week after being in a horrible bike accident last year. You can find out more about Dustin here. I have several friends who were under Dustin while at TCU, and he touched a lot of lives. He leaves behind a wife and three young kids. I don’t really need to emphasize all the people who are hurting in this situation, because there are so many. I appreciate your prayers for them.

Southern Comfort

I really hate it when I procrastinate about blogging. The events that I want to talk about grow hazy in my memory due to the passage of time, with key details being the first casualties. If I sit down to write as soon as something momentious happens, I’m usually pleased with the outcome. All that to say, I don’t think this post is going to do my trip to Alabama two weeks ago any sort of justice.

I left out of Houston late on a Thursday night, neglecting the fellowship of my community group in the interest of being awake when I arrived in Longview that night. Turns out that sleep and fatigue were the least of my worries: when I left Houston, it was in the mid-upper 60’s, and I was wearing shorts, flip flops, and a thin t-shirt. Upon arrival in Longview and the campus of LeTourneau, my car was beeping at me to signify that the temperature had dropped below 37. The flip flops were now a liability. However, I was pretty much a zombie at that point after crashing down from the caffiene high that had propeled me through the moonlight forests of East Texas, and so I collapsed on the futon of an unsuspecting college student and slept the peaceful sleep of the righteous.

The following morning, I threw on a suit and had meetings with a couple of area hospitals before getting myself and Emily on I-20 in the direction of Birmingham. I-20 is one of those highways that shows you nothing but the generic parts of America; I’m sure that Vicksburg and Tuscaloosa and Shreveport all have fun, interesting parts of town (ok, maybe not Shreveport), but all you ever see from the interstate is a neverending parade of Shell stations and Applebees. At least Jackson had a Rasing Canes.

We arrived in Birmingham in time for the end of the rehersal dinner and a hearbreakingly beautiful video presentation about the bride and groom. I’ll pause the narrative here for moment for the sake of two points:

1. The occasion for the trip was the wedding of Katy King and Mark Hersey, who are respectively two of my favorite people that I never get to see. Katy was the photographer at my older brother’s wedding, and has a unique visual approach. I knew going in that this would be one of the most visually appealing weddings I’d ever been to, and I wasn’t disappointed. Mark is a 6′8″ complement to his statuesque wife, and one of the most laid back, approachable guys I’ve ever met. There are couples that you meet and when they say that they’re getting married, you nod your head and say “yeah, I can see that”; then there are others where you jump up and down like a five year old and do a fist pump like you just hit a walk-off home run. They are the latter couple.

2. The music behind the video presentation included the song “Kingdom Come” by Coldplay. For those of you not familiar, it’s a song that Chris Martin wrote for Johnny Cash to perform. The Man In Black was called home before he could record it, so it shows up as a secret track on X&Y. It’s done acoustic and sparse, just like the Rick Rubin Cash records. I bring this up not so much to praise this excellent song, but because I want to put it to use. I tend to burn cds for my friends, but of particular fun is making a mix for a girl in whom I am interested. There are a certain set of songs I’ve always refrained from putting on a cd because they’re just so powerful that I didn’t want to waste them on someone I didn’t think I could marry. During the last relationship that I was in, I had the confidence to put all of these songs on various cds, because I had come to the conclusion that we were going to get married. Do You Realize?? by the Flaming Lips and I’m The Man Who Loves You by Wilco were the two worst casualties, tarnished and cheapened by using them too early in the game. But having heard Kingdom Come in this context reminds me that there are plenty of songs out there for use when I do again have opportunity to throw together mushy music together for someone who drives me crazy.

Ok, enough sidetracking. As I left the rehersal dinner, I pulled Katy aside and asked her what they were doing for a getaway car. She and Mark are both crazy about origninal Beetles, so I assumed that they’d have one lined up; as it turns out, their reservation for one had canceled at the last minute, leaving them with the prospect of driving away in Mark’s rental car. No freaking way that was going to happen.

Other thoughts from the wedding: I don’t know that tuxes are really necessary. All the guys looked natty enough in their tan suits. Spontaneity and improv in wedding ceremonies is under-rated. People who are raised in ultra-conservative environments cannot tell the difference between a regular conversation and the initiation of a relationshp. Canadians are dorks, in the best way possible.

After the wedding, the out-of-towners ended up congregating in the Five Points area of Birmingham for food and drinks. Ok, for me it was just food. Regardless, it was fun to meet some new people and catch up with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while.

Eventually, I found myself in a hotel room with four other people, drinking wine (ok, I did finally take a Sunday exception to Lent) and throwing grapes at one another. This new group of five appears to be taking the place of the larger group that first introduced me to Katy, and I couldn’t be happier. These are peoople that I’m a lot more in tune with than most, and plans are already afoot to reconvene in our nation’s capital around Memorial Day.

We closed down the hotel room party at 6AM, and Emily and I left Alabama after lunch. Emily is my sister in law’s sister, and one of the coolest kids I know. Simultaneously insecure and confident in who she is, she’s asking hard questions, and fighting for the answers. It’s spooky to see someone else wrestle with a lot of the issues that confronted me when I went to college. I love her to death, and I can’t wait to see where she’s going to be in five years. CHUNKY!

I love it when my friends are in love. I love long talks over long miles. I love making new friends and establishing new inside jokes. I feel very blessed.

I guess that wasn’t so bad. Still remembered most of the good details, didn’t leave any major events out. Great success! On our next installment: good suits, bad weather, and lesbians.

Almonds and other road hazards

I don’t have anything significant to say today, just a string of random thoughts without any connective tissue.

- Driving my car is one of the best sources of stress relief that I know. Saturday morning’s road rally with the good folks of HMMS was a perfect tonic for a long, crazy week (bad weather notwithstanding). I know I’m not a talented driver; I’ll never be on the cover of an Xbox rally racing game, but I can fake it from time to time. To spend several hours with little on your mind but gears, lines, and draft braking is definitely my idea of a good time. Plus, the aftermarket floodgates are about open. Within a couple of years, I hope to have remade Vesper into a lean, mean, autocrossing machine.

- I made a Sesame Street joke this weekend, and was subsequently asked how long it’d been since I’d watched the show. The answer is probably close to 20 years. Wow.

- I’ll be blogging later this week about my Lent reasons and experiences so far. Suffice to say that while I’d hardly be considered an alcoholic, I drink a lot more than I thought I did.

- I think that An Inconvenient Truth should be renamed the Passion Of The Gore. Watching the way everyone was loving on Al Gore at the Oscars last night was worse than what happens when a new girl shows up to Monday nights at the Saucer. Everyone was falling all over themselves to call him a great man and yadda yadda I think I’m actually getting ill just remembering it.

- On the heels of the rapturous post that I made about hanging out with the guys from Ethan Durelle, I’ve realized that I’m going to miss both of the Houston area concerts they’ve got scheduled for the next month or so. Supposedly I’ve got to “work” or something instead. It’s not as though I imagine the band hanging around before the show, nervously checking their watches, waiting for me to walk through the door, but I am disappointed that I won’t be there. Oh well.

- In one for the “be careful when you think you stand”, I’ve been assaulted with various temptations and discouragements in the days since my “wow, I’m optimistic again” post. Gee, who didn’t see that coming? The optimism is still intact.

- I was told this week that my blog may be too “edgy” for the tastes of any women that I might be interested in dating. I don’t have a joke here, I just wanted to share.

- Finally, one picture from the road rally. Sure, it’s off center and all that, but it’s the best I could do at a stoplight with my seatbelt on.

Clarity

Sometimes it all just comes together at once.   No, not the fact that Achewood and The Dugout are in the middle of two of their best weeks in recent memory, or that pitchers and catchers are working out in Florida. This is actually pretty serious.  

I’m feeling unabashedly optimistic for the first time in months.  The odd thing is that it’s not for any one reason in particular, rather it’s the convergence of several things that have been building up for a while.  Today is Ash Wednesday, and for the first time in my life I dragged myself out of bed and went to the service that Christ the King had this morning.  I’ve been really wrestling with my sin recently, after an extended period in my life where I was getting frighteningly good at brushing it under the rug.  For a number of reasons, what was once cold is warm again, and the service this morning was another big step in that direction.  When Paul handed me the wine with the words, “Taste and see that the Lord is good”, it actually meant something to me for the first time in a long time; moreover, it did taste good in a way that I can’t even put into words. 

After the service, I went out for coffee with friends, which served as a reminder of the great level of fellowship and encouragement that I have been blessed with, and that I often fail to recognize.  I’m a very social person, but I very rarely avail myself of the resources that my circle of friends represent.  Having been burned in the past has made me reluctant to open up at any significant level, and as a result people don’t always know what I’m really dealing with on a day to day basis.  Trust has been built up over the past couple of years to the point where I have many sounding boards for my wild-ass theories and plans.  I don’t thank my friends enough (mostly because there’s no greater conversation killer among guys than that kind of Lifetime Original Movie emoting), but I’ll take this as an opportunity to do so. 

Finally, it’s absolutely gorgeous outside today.  The sun is bright, it’s in the mid-70’s, and there’s a gentle breeze fluttering around.  It’s sunroof weather.  The new Explosions In The Sky record came out this week(it’s phenomenal, “hairs on the back of your neck stand up” kind of stuff), and with that in the cd player, the sunroof open, and the Mini fired up, it was awfully tempting to just blow off work and drive around for a few hours.  But then there’s the other piece of good news: I closed my first official sale for the new job yesterday, so there’s a lot to take care of related to that.   

Life is good.  I’m more blessed than I ever could have imagined, and way more than I deserve.  And I believe it’s going to get even better.  Not bad for a day that began with anguish over my own brokenness.

Here Comes The Sun

Lo!  What light through yonder clouds doth break?  It ain’t no death-pact making Italian chick, I’ll tell you that much.  It’s the sun!  Almost forgotten what that looked like.  Naturally, it’s due to start raining again tomorrow, but I’m not complaining.  Good with the bad and all that.

Auto show this weekend.  I’m still on a high with Vesper, but I can’t resist the tempation to go partake of the automotive goodies each year.  If anybody is interested in going, give me a call.   We’ll be going to the show and then out to a pub or something afterwards. 

I’m off to Oklahoma on Monday.  You know, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain?  Should be exciting.  And flat.