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Activities
Nor'easter News
Car Care
Membership
Other Cool Stuff
Sponsors & Advertisers
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Porsche
Club of America
Out
In The Passing Lane
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 We
haven’t seen much snow so far this fall/winter, and from my perspective
that’s a very good thing. Every day that passes without snow on the ground
this time of the year is a bonus. I did have to putter slowly to work on
the day I authored this column, as black ice was prevalent on my normal
go to work route. Fortunately I missed the one major accident on Route
128 that shut down the northbound lanes near Gloucester, having arrived
at work before the accident occurred. I don’t know why Massachusetts drivers
can’t seem to retain winter driving expertise year to year, and thus need
to relearn how to deal with ice and snow every winter.
With this issue we welcome new columnists to the Nor’Easter. Rick Gilbert, the new region Activities VP, and Susana Weber, returning region Admin VP, will no doubt have interesting slants on automotive related matters. At December’s Annual Dinner Tom Tate was recognized for his contributions to the Nor’Easter over the past couple of years. His columns have been very entertaining, focusing primarily on the joys of working on and driving early Porsches. Thanks Tom for your ongoing efforts. Thanks also go to retiring columnists Andy Jenks and Steve Berry, who also provided Nor’Easter readers with entertaining columns every month. We’re always looking for region members interested in providing copy or photos for the publication, just give me a call or drop me an email to let me know what you’d like to provide. This month I’ve changed publication software, to now use Adobe InDesign CS. That change will provide more creative options for the publication, including the potential to generate .pdf files of the magazine that can be uploaded to the region web site. I’m far from proficient on the new software, so it may take a few months before I can take full advantage of the change. We’ve also changed printers (as of last month – you did notice how great the newsletter looked didn’t you), and mailing service – we’re not sure if that change went completely smoothly as for some reason the Post Office was slow to deliver some Nor’Easter’s (your editor still hasn’t received his copy!). I have finally upgraded my photographic capabilities, having purchased the latest and greatest digital SLR camera from Konica Minolta, the Maxxum D7. I waited until they developed a camera that would allow me the potential to use the lens that I already owned. Anyone want to purchase several Minolta 35mm film cameras, or a Nikon Coolpix 990 digital camera? I’ve probably taken my last photos using film, who would have thought that digital could replace film! Glad I’m not in the film business. The new camera purchase wasn’t without problems. The first one, which I ordered over the phone, didn’t work. I returned it promptly and the supplying dealer promptly returned it to me stating that they’d found a defective battery. Well it didn’t work when I received it the second time, they’d obviously not fully investigated the problem. A new camera was then shipped from Konica Minolta and that one worked perfectly. In addition to my new camera not working, I also was struggling to get a new electric bicycle, which I’d purchased at the SEMA convention, to work. That purchase arrived from the California distributor within days of our return from Las Vegas. The assembly proceeded without a hitch, but when I went to start it there was no power available. My subsequent calls to the supplier proceeded in an almost comical way. Their questions took the form of “customers are clutz’s”, with me assuring them that I could read directions, knew how to charge a battery, and could turn on the key. After several calls, one of which featured my talking to someone in California speaking English, who then relayed my comments to someone who could translate English into Chinese, who then spoke with someone at the manufacturing plant in China, who then relayed questions back to California. You get the picture! Simple questions took ten minutes to make the loop. I ended up returning the circuit board mounted in the frame of the bicycle to be checked out (no problem found). When the board came back and the bike still didn’t work, I went investigating on the innards of the electrical circuitry and found that the battery electrical outputs were not making contact with a mounting bracket that held the bike’s contact points – you can’t see the connection when the battery is installed (and no, I didn’t install the bracket!). By trial and error I repositioned the bracket until the electrical circuit was closed. Once that was repaired the bike worked perfectly, we’ll have better track transportation in paddocks in 2005. Hopefully that puts to bed all the new purchase headaches for awhile. I’ve started working on our 2005 DE schedule, hoping to participate in more events than we did in 2004. We’ll start our season at Virginia International in April with Zone 2, then head north to Mont-Tremblant with NER. The Porsche Parade in Hershey, PA will consume a number of vacation days in June (remember to register on-line at PCA.org on January 18th). In July we’ll head north again to Mosport with NNJR, and possibly then head to Watkins Glen. In August we’ll travel yet again to Canada to drive the new Calabogie race track outside Ottawa, Ont. The rest of 2005 is as yet unplanned – maybe we’ll go south to Road Atlanta in October – anyone wish to join us for that trip? I need to be thinking about 2005 to keep my spirits up through the cold and snow of January and February, especially since our cars went into storage at the end of last July! Fortunately this year I will not have any work conflicts intruding on our ability to participate in the New England Ramble. We’ve missed the last couple of trips with the region, not something we want to see continue. As I always remind myself – “all work and no play misses the point.” |
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