Be positive

Ever heard of a horoscope based on your blood type? Apparently they're all the rage in Japan. How do I know this? Well, I finally found out what my blood group is on Wednesday - just in time to get my competitors license for JMMC dexterity 2. So earlier I was doing a search on Google this morning to see what blood group our baby could have when I came across an article about this on Wikipedia. (Incidentally our baby could be anything from A, B, AB or O positive or negative).

So in Japan, your blood type is popularly believed to be predictive of a person's character, personality and compatability with others. Here's how mine (B+) reads:

Type B
Best Traits:
Creative and passionate. Animal loving. Optimistic and flexible.
Worst Traits:
Forgetful, irresponsible, individualist.
Famous Bs:
Jack Nicholson, Luciano Pavorotti, Tom Selleck, Mia Farrow, Paul McCartney, Leonardo DiCaprio

Japanese blood type theory of personality

• Mood: lethargic
• Music: talking to J on Netspeak

Mijn auto dromen

My car dreams. There really is nothing like winning to whet your appetite for more trophies and accolades while at the same time reminding you that your position is unpredictable and could very well be tenuous. Last night at the JMMC Awards presentation for the 2005 season I copped the 2nd place Lady Dexterity Driver trophy. And as sat there with it (at least 2 feet tall, I swear) on the chair in front of me, I watched while FWD ace, who sat beside me, went up for six and other people and teams racked up trophies that easily totaled in the double digits. Now, it's often said that this motorsports thing is really an addiction, but while most people think that it has to do with the adrenaline rush, many forget that motorsports also carries the high price tags of other drugs, you know cocaine, heroine, that sort of thing.

Techincally, all I'd needed was a car with a rollcage and I could've competed in sprint events and maybe even a rally or two. Maybe not just a roll cage, let's add the 5-digit entry fees as well. Okay, wait, race suit, helmet... mind you I have no sponsors and the income bracket I'm in puts me out of reach of that new NHT double amount thing much less to say affording all these things. But yet everyone keeps telling me that so-and-so sells pipe for rollcages and you can get a cage from X party, as if I can just go out and charge it to some credit card that I must have because I've run a couple dexterities. And let's face it, I not buying no cheap rollcage when it could very well be the thing that stands between me and a fairy-lights coffin ensemble. So yeah, let's stick with dexterities for now :-p

Oh, and I've figured it out, by the way. How to increase my aggression at least 5-fold without having to lift a finger on my part. I'm just going to get the annoucer to ask all the spectators to turn their backs meanwhile I'm doing my run :-D Yeah, yeah, I know hehehe but it's an idea.

That said, what I really have to do is fix my power steering pump between now and Feb 26. According to the JMMC chairman, no power steering would be a good time to show everyone that I'm a big driver. "More like a good time to show everything that I haven't been to the gym in awhile," I couldn't help but reply with a grin. No one has any idea what my car weighs, even the mechanic at the front end shop was like, "Lady, you sure you can drive this? Yu sure yu nuh wah park it an tek taxi?" because he could barely drive it from Lyndhurt Road by RJR to Beechwood Avenue to come and pick me up! I'll get it together though, this will be my last dexterity until at least October, I have to make it count.

• Mood: tired, but almost done laying out stuff for work
• Music: the A/C and murmur of chatter on the floor

The most amazing thing I've ever seen

My doctor put the ultrasound transducer against my abdomen and there it was, our baby, in my womb... jumping around! I nearly rolled off the obstetrics examination table in my haste to get a closer look at the ultrasound screen. That first ultrasound pic is the one taken at approximately less than 6 weeks. Barely anything there, just the gestation sac and a small dot in the centre that's the yolk (sp?) sac. Another one was done at about 8 weeks but I forgot to ask for a print out. That one showed a really big head and a massive heart beating away. Nothing could've prepared me for the one today :-)

Now don't think I haven't been reading the books, websites, pamphlets... anything I can get my hands on really, so technically I know our baby's size and what's developed already (tiny arms and legs!) but I don't think anything can prepare you for the first sight of your child merrily bouncing around in your womb... with you unable to feel a thing. I knew it must've been an idiotic outburst, but I couldn't help it. At first he/she was just curled up resting (pretty much like you see there in the second ultrasound) and then next thing I knew it had "gotten up" and was leaping around. Arms out wide, legs out wide, looking all cute and goofy (which J swears means that it's going to come out looking/acting just like me, since according to him, in a good way, I'm goofy as hell *grin*). All I could say was, "But I can't feel anything!" My doctor just smiled and said, "No Kim, not just yet." Amazing sight, the only thing that detracted from it all was that J wasn't there beside me watching too.

• Mood: extremely pleased but feeling tired/sick (flu alert, bleh)

So what's a drift knob? ;-)

Scratchie - They're also called spin turn knobs and according to the Cusco website:

"This installs in the e-brake to eliminate the need to press the button in order to release the lever."

So pretty much it helps weaklings like me handbrake because you don't have to fight to depress the e-brake button before pulling up the brake. When you're ready you make sure that the knob is depressed and that's the equivalent of having the button permanently pushed in, so you can just yank as you need to and when you let go the e-brake will drop back into place. To engage the e-brake all you need to do is push out on the knob and you're back to normal. I love having one. It scares the hell out of some mechanics :-) At first they assume it's there for show but then when they can't get the car to stay still after parking it they figure out it has a purpose... most of them anyway, the other night when I had to get the valve stem fixed I had to jump in and rescue one mechanic. He was ready to just jump out my car with it still rolling backways down a slope!

Average name-brand drift knob price = US$20.00

• Mood: Happy, it's my Friday! (I work weekends so I take Weds & Thurs off)
• Music: carpenter in the kitchen drilling away :-S

Bumps along the road

This road less travelled business is hard. The bumps are massive and they hurt, not physically, but definitely my pride is feeling rather sore at the moment. Went out to Palisadoes today to practice handbraking in a sidewalk-free environment. It started to rain, but undaunted I headed out there to meet two of my friends. We switched my rear tyres over to a set of dirt tyres (which I still need to swap actually), so that I wouldn't chew up my wheels. Turns out it's not the rear I needed to be worried about, as now my steering is as stiff as hell even though the power steering fluid is at the maximum. Definite trip to the front-end people down the road from work tomorrow morning, I guess I'll ask them to swap the tyres there.

My pride now was wounded by seeing a rookie sail the back of her Toyota Starlet around the tyres without a care in the world. FWD is definitely easier. I didn't doubt it, but it definitely irks the soul when you know you're out there pulling your handbrake almost into your chest and your car is not rotating around the tyre in such a fashion. Lots of explanations given by my friends: a Starlet has a shorter wheelbase so the back will come around easie - true; it's FWD, less to worry and about easier to handbrake - true; my handbrake obviously needs adjusting because it should lock by at 2 clicks not chest high - definitely true; I wasn't attacking the back of the tyres - true... but good Christ Almighty I don't care about any of that, I JUST WANT TO HANDBRAKE MY DAMN CAR! Yes, that's the spoilt brat inside of me but seriously, have you ever set your mind to something, but it only comes in spurts? Don't think that today was a total bust, because it wasn't. Thank God for my drift knob (pictured) because then I could just pull the handbrake without worrying about depressing the button. So I had the car full sideways coming out of a sweet handbrake at one point and I did three 360s around one tyre... I just couldn't do all that consistently though.

But I will. One day I will.

• Mood: quite frankly, really don't want to be at work
• Music: Eric Prydz - Call On Me

Casualty: One Tyre Valve

Be careful, don't ever say to yourself, "I'm going to figure this out even if I break this [insert item here]". I said that approaching a corner in the Dulwich area of Kingston earlier tonight. Why that though? Why was I even in that area? Well, we'd have to go back to a blog post I attempted to make last week that got chewed by my fuddy laptop. The title was going to be The fast lane or the road less traveled? See after my performance at the last dexterity I was told by a prominent veteran driver that he believes I'm better suited to drive FWD. Actually, his words were that I'll be faster driving FWD. I don't doubt him. Even my RWD sensei agrees.

But what about the road less traveled? Acknowledging that mastering RWD will take more time means that I probably will take some losses while I learn but I'll be a much more forbiddable driver when I do master the technique. Not if, but when. I have the talent. I know it, I know it as well as I know my own name. I feel it when I drive, I feel it when I'm just sitting in the car. I feel it when I lie awake in bed at night thinking about driving the car. What I lack is technique. Initially I gave in and said to hell with it... I even lined up sponsorship for my fast lane pursuits. When all is said and done most of this agonising is based on my current inability to handbrake properly, and let's face it a FWD car is much easier to handbrake, you don't have to worry about the timing with the clutch to ensure that the driving wheels aren't engaged when you pull the handbrake. Keep all the variables you can constant, were the words of the veteran driver. And he's right. Like I said, even sensei agreed.

Here's the thing, sensei didn't become a star overnight. Neither did the veteran driver for that matter. FWD will definitely take me to stardom quicker... but with RWD, I'll be a superstar. And damnit I don't want to just be a good female driver, I want to run down the times that sensei makes. I said it to him last week that from now on I'm going to tell myself that the Lady Driver title is mine by default and I'm setting myself on being close to him and the leaders on the day. It may be a big leap, I may not make it, but as my current TA quarterly editor wrote, "If you don't aim high, you won't achieve high..." I've got to think big if I'm going to BE big. (NB Realise that in motorsports a little bit of arrogance is a good thing. I'm tired of appologising and downplaying myself anyway, I'm facing up to the reality, I need to drive as aggressively as I do with the cabbies on the road on the track by myself with the crowd. End of story).

So how did I murder my back driver's side tyre valve? I slid my car into a sidewalk, handbraking. That area has a perfect two-lane round-a-bout setup that circles a nice little distance so it's reasonably safe to handbrake because you won't slide into oncoming traffic. I'd just convinced myself to push down into the corner (as both sensei and the veteran pointed out, it makes no sense pulling the handbrake if you're not going fast enough for it to make a difference) and I'd nailed the turn too, unfortunately even though the car was in the perfect line to head back down the road, there happened to be some dirt right there in the corner, and it just carried my car - perfect line and all - smack into the sidewalk, which thankfully was more dirt than concrete. Was I daunted? Nope. I ran another lap before realising that I should actually get out and look on the car, at which point I realised the tyre was flat, so I took myself off (at less than 20 mph, hazards and all) to the 24-hour repair joint in Liguanea. Cheapest damage I've ever done to a car too, just J$190 for a new valve!

The moral of this story? Don't say or think anything to invite Murphy's Law down upon you. And always pick the road less traveled. Unlike the fast lane, you mightn't see the finish from where you start, but you'll have more fun getting there - even with the bruises - and you'll feel a lot more accomplished when it's all said and done.

• Mood: tired but decided and happy
• Music: DJ Tiesto - Breda 8 pm (DJ Montano edit)

Hormones and determination

This morning my good friend Dee sent me a link to Lilypie.com where they have the pregnancy tickers that you see above. I can only chalk it up to hormones that since the transperant background option didn't work too well, I decided, "Hey, why not change my entire blog template to fit the ticker?" :-) At least I remembered to save my customized sidebar before I ran off to find a blog with a white background *grin*

In other news, it's pretty much been business as usual. Some upheaval at work because the Editor-in-Chief resigned. I think that will only start hitting me next week when he's not there... strange, he's been a fixture there since I knew what inside looked like. It's going to be weird, well, now to see who's picked to take his place. Not much else going on really. I'm stuffing my face right now though, so maybe I'll blog more later :-)

• Mood: okay