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 Finally,
after a several year hiatus resulting from “work” related scheduling conflicts,
Susana and I were able to participate in the region’s annual New England
Ramble. While the weather was dreary and damp all weekend, the driving
was entertaining and the roads were generally great (with the exception
of most all roads in Massachusetts – what is it about our state highway
maintenance?). Bruce Hauben did a masterful job of laying out the course
taking us to the Sagamore Inn on Lake George in New York, and a even better
job designing the route home. It’s been a long time since I drove a Porsche
in such a spirited manner on public roads!
I’m a bit focused on road maintenance these days because I travel home each day on a stretch of I-95 headed north from Peabody. Over the winter the recently added layer (within the last couple of years) of asphalt completely disintegrated. Untold numbers of drivers were blasted by chunks of asphalt that broke windshields and chipped paint. The record for the most windshields having to be replaced will probably go to the Noonan’s as they’ve experienced multiple replacements. Given their experience I’d guess well over a thousand windshields bit the dust on that 10 mile or so stretch of highway. Well now that the snow has gone, the state is working to repave the highway, and that’s what has piqued my interest. They’ve been grinding off the remnants of the failed pavement utilizing monster grinding machines, that exhibit a level of precision well beyond what I’d guess they are capable Two of these grinders have been deployed for the work, supported by a fleet of dump trucks that haul away the asphalt as it is ground off. Moving from lane to lane you cannot detect any ridges of bumps, so the machines must be able to grind away pavement at a constant depth. It doesn’t seem to matter if there are surface imperfections or terrain induced variability. My second question concerns where all the removed material is stored before it’s reprocessed into new pavement. The removal of six lanes worth of pavement for ten plus miles creates a pretty large pile of old asphalt. Fortunately it’s not located somewhere that I pass each day on the way to work. I did notice that they’d started to pave the southbound lanes, so maybe they have a system whereby one team grinds it off, another team creates the proper mixture at the asphalt plant, and finally another team repaves. If that’s their approach then maybe storage space isn’t a big issue. That would fit with the concept of “Lean Thinking” wherein inventory is viewed negatively, and processes are supposed to work continuously (rather than batch) with a minimum of picking up and putting down. I finally got with the program and bought the latest tech gadget, an Apple IPOD. I’m spending more time on airplanes these days, and have grown weary of listening to the drone of the jet engines and the distractions generated by neighboring passengers. I’ve not previously spent any time uploading music CDs onto my computer, nor did I feel a need to purchase music online. I didn’t really have a feel for MP3 compression technology. Now after uploading fifty or so of my CDs onto my PC and thence onto the IPOD I have a much greater appreciation for the cleverness at work here. Somehow fifty or so CDs each containing 650 megs or so, have been compressed into about 5 gigs of bits now resident on the IPOD (that fits in my shirt pocket and could hold another one hundred and fifty CDs if I had that many I wanted to listen too!). When combined with my Bose headphones (purchased while on the Ramble at the Bose Outlet Store in Manchester, VT), the IPOD/Bose combination produces wonderful sound. I’m amazed with the sound quality generated from MP3 files. Of course now I’m looking at catalogues of add on items that work with an IPOD. Maybe I need a docking station with speakers for my office; I’ll be able to enjoy my favorite music while I read boring documents. How about a custom cover in my favorite color? Or maybe I need to plug it into my car stereo (oh wait, that’s why I have XM radio in my car!). This reads like the path I started down last month writing about over the top technology in cars. In my comments about a new Lexus and its many features, I mentioned the Bluetooth phone system that is incorporated into the car. A month later the owner is ready to return the car because that system is more hassle than benefit. To make it work you need a Bluetooth enabled cell phone, which you carry around as you would any other cell phone. When you enter your Lexus with the phone turned on, the car automatically connects to the phone, and thereby enables the communications features of the car. Essentially your cell phone is the car phone, which means the address book on your phone now is accessible by the car’s communication system. If your cell phone is turned off, you have no car phone. If your cell phone battery has not been recharged, you have no phone service in the car. So, of course, that means you have to be constantly aware of the battery status of your cell phone, which isn’t a problem if you’re a constant user of your cell phone, but for an occasional user it’s a real pain. Now the real kicker as far as this car’s owner is concerned. The car phone feature will not work while the car is moving. To use the phone Lexus wants you to pull over and park. This may make sense from a safety standpoint, but makes no sense if want to be on the phone while you’re traveling. If they can’t figure out how to disable that feature, I think the Lexus dealer will soon be accepting a return. I’ve recommended an Audi as a replacement, the phone is built into the car and you can use it on the move! The next six weeks are going to be very busy. We’re headed to Mont-Tremblant for our first DE event in ten months. A much longer layoff than I anticipated, but work got in the way of our fun last fall and then again this past spring. In preparation for our Tremblant trip, I hooked up our trailer which hasn’t moved in ten months. Much to my surprise, the batteries were still charged and the tires hadn’t lost any air. We’re also headed off to the 50th Porsche Parade at the end of June. I’m chair of the Parade autocross competition, so I’ve got a lot of preparatory work to do prior to that event. Some three hundred drivers have signed up to compete over the two days of the autocross event. That’s about 1000 runs which equates to two of our regional events. We’re staying at a wonderful B&B outside Hershey, PA during the parade, a much better option than spending 9 days in a small hotel room, and riding elevators to get anywhere. We’ve spent two days at that B&B already and really enjoyed the hospitality. We’re even thinking of making it a regular stop when we’re traveling south to VIR or Road Atlanta. Then there’s my “day job” which also has been very busy of late, as we’re in the process of acquiring another seafood company. The next several months we’ll be spending lots of time integrating the two companies. I’ll be spending more time on airplanes, something I’d rather not be doing during the summer (if we should happen to have enough warm weather to qualify!). As I write this column I have the TV in my office turned on to watch the NASCAR All-Star event at the Lowe’s Speedway in Charlotte. NASCAR has turned this event in a major production; complete with celebrities (Pam Anderson gets to say “Gentlemen Start Your Engines” – something everyone will be paying attention too given her choice of apparel!). They’ve also got a “Nextel sexist driver competition” underway that has attracted over 4 million online votes so far – amazing. They’re spending more time introducing and interviewing people than the race will take. The pre-race activities are taking an hour to complete – that’s as bad as the build up to the Preakness horse race that took place today. That coverage started at noon on ESPN for a race that took place 5 plus hours later! If you’ve not noted elsewhere in this issue, our region’s driver education event at the Calabogie Motorsport Park has been cancelled. The track remains unpaved and apparently they’ll not start paving for at least another six plus weeks. The owners are still waiting on the provincial government to complete the approval process. The pavement will need time to cure after it is laid down, which extends things another two months or so. That pretty much uses up all the summer, so the owners have decided to start operations in 2006. I was looking forward to driving a new track, so now I’m rethinking our schedule, and will probably opt to go to the Glen in August rather than Calabogie. Fortunately there are options with dates that mess with my current work schedule. |
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