While Gina watched a movie last Saturday night (actually Sunday morning around 1 a.m.), it started to rain… indoors. Meanwhile, while playing a few rounds of Battlefield 3 in my office upstairs, I heard screaming. Loud… Shrill… Panicked screaming. I assumed that several ninja had interrupted Gina’s movie watching and were now paying the price for their indiscretions.

I ran downstairs to find Gina running in a 2-foot-diameter circle in the kitchen while the sink overflowed, waterfall-style. I dove under the sink and unplugged the food disposal, when that illogical maneuver yielded no results, I ran downstairs and turned off our well pump. The water flow stopped, but not before dozens of gallons of water had filled the sink, flooded the kitchen, and emptied into our new basement theater.

We scrambled to clean up the mess and dry things up. The ceiling tiles in the basement had already turned into mush. They fell apart in small black chunks onto the floor while water streamed from the can lights. Gina started applying towels to the basement floor, while I began to suck up as much water from the kitchen with out wet/dry vac.

Things already looked grim for our kitchen floor. The laminated wood planks buckled and curled as they soaked up the water. Our (also) laminated countertop showed similar signs of distress. Checking on Gina, things looked more promising in the basement. She had made a lot of progress soaking up water with the towels. While water was in the soffet, no other drywall looked affected. The ceiling was ruined… but, apart from a dangling light fixture, the electrical looked o.k.

After two hours of clean-up, we decided to call our insurance company. Water squeezed up through the seams in our kitchen floor when we walked on it and the basement was still very damp. They were very helpful and scheduled a clean up crew for the morning. After arranging several box fans and placing our de-humidifier in the theater, we went to bed, defeated and depressed.

Before 9 a.m. Gina’s parents were at our house offering moral support and diagnostic assistance. We still had not figured out why clean water would come pouring out of our kitchen sink. Shortly afterwards, the awesome folks from JCG Disaster Recovery were on site, evaluating the damage, tearing our kitchen floor out and placing industrial fans and dehumidifiers in the affected areas. After a few hours of guessing and experimenting, Glenn (my father-in-law) helped us determine that our 2nd-story guest bathroom toilet was running constantly with the flapper-valve stuck open. Combined with a block drain channel, we had the perfect combination of conditions for a kitchen waterfall.

Pete Black Plumbing was at our house on Monday morning to clean out our drain and today, JCG returned to remove all of their equipment. Gina and I finally sat down to enjoy the quiet, do a little work… and write this blog post. Hopefully, we’ll be able to start work on repairs.

Pics here.

Enter Paintball… There are several great Paintball fields in the area. Action Paintball in Taylor is close enough to work for a quick match on occassion, while Hell Survivors in Pinckney is just 20 minutes from my house. They have open play every weekend for just $15 as well as regular events including a zombie hunt-style outing in October. In addition to dedicated and convenient locations, the hardware is more fun than I remember. The markers (guns) shoot and hit hard, air is free at most fields with entry and all of it is easy to find (compared to Airsoft) at one of several local shops (Exotic Sportz, Action Paintball, etc.). There are even some indoor fields to play during the winter.

I’ll be selling my Airsoft gear on EBay, unless somebody would like to buy it directly (let me know). I already have 2 outing scheduled for the upcoming weekends with some folks. If you’re not sure if you want to invest in the hardware, you can rent a marker and mask from any field and try it before you buy it.

Gina interviewed with a number of Universities and Research Institutes across the U.S., but decided to set up her new lab at Michigan State. She’ll start there in June 2012. We had a full and successful race season. A lot of the gremlins in my race car have been cased off and it performed very consistently, though we all agree it’s time for a new engine and upgraded transmission. I survived and enjoyed my first full year working in downtown Detroit. I’ve yet to drive to lunch and did more waking downtown than I would have imagined a year ago. We also completed our basement theater (with the only exception of an anamorphic lens for our projector) and game room. We even upgraded to a Sony ES 3D projector. We had a late summer/early fall trip to Florida with my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Gina had to present some of her work a a big conference, but it was a good excuse to hang out in a rental house with hot tub and pool. We even made it to the Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Animal Kingdom despite some sickness on my brother, nephew’s and my parts.

We’re looking forward to settling in for the winter and enjoying our theater while preparing to finish the bar area! If I’m really lucky, I’ll find some time to update this blog a little more often!

Shawn has updated his “museum” a fair bit since these photos were taken. I thought I knew just about everything from the history of Commodore/Amiga, but he has machines I never knew existed including the Commodore plus/4 and Commodore 16! Just about every Atari console and computer system were also represented. He has a few rare/odd finds including the Mattel Aquarius and Coleco Adam computer systems and a handful of game systems only found in Japan.

To cap it all off, Shawn had an old Super Cobra arcade cabinet made by Stern that he wanted to give to a good home to make some room in his garage. I gladly accepted it and will be restoring/updating it for MAME duties in our theater’s game room!

Gina and I spent many hours cleaning and repainting the theater seat hardware. They’ve been sitting in our basement and guest room for 4 years and they needed a good scrubbing, stripping and paint. I’m happy with how well they turned out. We’ve planned out the last details of our basement finishing and theater project. After doing some research, we’ve selected and are scheduling our ceiling, trim carpentry, and carpet. If all goes well, we’re on track for the theater to be complete by the end of the year.

Although I hoped to squeeze 5 race weekends into this year, a long an expensive first race weekend combined with a number of upgrades and repairs to my Spec Racer Ford eliminated a fifth race due to budget constraints. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot this year. With a little more prep on the car and some more seat time next year, I’m hoping to offer a little more competition in the spring.

Lastly, Gina and I delivered my first race car (an ITA/Spec Neon) to it’s new owner. Though I set the price exceptionally low to sell it quickly, we were surprised by the quantity and speed of responses from the members of Waterford Hills. It sold in a week to an excited new driver with some quarter midget experience. It should do well as I’ve invested a lot of time and money in the ole’ girl since I purchased it in 2003. Hopefully, he’ll seek out the expertise of Chris Childs at Angry Sheep Motorsports. He certainly knows how to get the most out of the platform as well as just about anything else with 4 wheels and a rollcage.

In other racing news, Glenn (my father-in-law) had a spectacular “racing incident” last weekend at Mid-Ohio. Another driver spun just ahead of him in a blind uphill corner. Without enough time to avoid the collision, Glenn hit the side of the other car between 60 and 80 mph, casing significant damage to his car, but no injuries (apart from a little soreness). We were very relieved to see him climb out of his car once the corner workers had gotten the remaining cars on track under control.

Christian (my brother) and his drywall crew finished the walls in our basement a few months ago. Since then, we’ve put a coat of paint on the walls (to make it easier to paint after the trim is installed), finished the remaining electrical wiring, routed and installed speaker connections, consulted with Eric at AVIO, tested the speaker locations (awesome) and built our 2nd-row riser. We’re on-track to have our theater finished by the end of the year!

Our company moved to downtown Detroit about 3 weeks ago, doubling my daily drive time. The good news is, that’s my only complaint. Detroit is great… and that’s coming from somebody that gave up on the D when the currently imprisoned mayor was re-elected. I went to school here and grew up on the edges of the city, so it’s nice to re-connect with my hometown. There’s hundreds of restaurants to visit at lunch, traffic in the city itself isn’t bad (compared to Chicago, NYC, etc.), and our new building is simply awesome. Our founder, Dan Gilbert, is trying to get more innovators and entrepreneurs downtown. If that happens, it’s only going to get better down here.

Day 1 of the “Cheap Points Double National” event at Grattan Raceway was an open practice hosted by the track. I got 4 sessions in on a set of generously donated, well-used tires from my father-in-law, Glenn. The course has been compared to a rollercoaster for good reason. The elevation changes and cambered corners are even more enigmatic when approaching them from 16 inches lower than usual. It’s a fun course, but difficult to learn. My times improved throughout the day, but I still have a lot to improve upon.

Day 2 was the first official day of the event. The national event schedule was a little different than the regional routine I was used to. Instead of a qualifying session and race on each day, everything was spread out between 3 days. Additionally, the races were longer: 23 laps instead of the 15-or-so that you get for regional races. First up: practice qualifying. My times were unspectacular, but I focused on getting to know my car. Ambient temps were already approaching 80 degrees and driving the SRF is a workout: manual steering, manual brakes and a whole lot more g-forces than I’m used to. The car feels directly tied to the course… un-buffered.

That afternoon, I got my first experience with brand new Goodyear tires during qualifying. The car was completely different. The limits were extended and it became even more predictable. It was able to hold off-camber turns much more confidently and I was more comfortable exiting corners, aiming the car and flooring the gas pedal. My times continued to improve, qualifying within a couple seconds of a more experience driver and ahead of another driver. After the session, Glenn, Gina and I inspected the steering rack and decided there was a little too much lash in the wheel movement so they helped me replace my steering rack with one of Glenn’s spares. The cockpit of the car is cramped, especially for somebody with my frame: 6′ 2″, 260 lbs. Moving the shifter further outboard helped a bit, but I continued to have trouble toe-heeling the pedals. Moving the gas pedal back a bit helped some, but I made sure to offset it further after I got home. Grattan always has a great dinner at the end of the race day. Though we got to the food a little late, what was left was still pretty tasty.

Day 3, Sunday. My first national race and I was nervous, but not as much as I would have thought. The temperature was peaking in the mid-80s and another driver gave Glenn and I zip-lock bags to fill with ice and place on our chests inside of our suits… and it worked very well. I had a great start and was moving along well during my laps. However, I was trying too hard to stay out of the more experienced drivers instead of staying on the racing line when they approached. Doing this allowed the driver behind me to catch up to me 3/4 through the race and pass me briefly. After I made a clean re-pass, he cut to the inside of a tight, technical corner. Instead of tracking out and recovering on the exit of the turn, he locked up his brakes, turned his wheels hard to the right… and spun out right in front of me. I t-boned his car at low speed… low enough to do no damage to his car, but crush my radiator and front fiberglass. My first race was over. I limped my car back to pit lane, carefully avoiding the racing line in case I was spilling fluid. Glenn and Gina helped me replace the radiator with Glenn’s spare and tape up the fiberglass. Repairs went smoothly and I was back in action for qualifying later that afternoon… though due to a scheduling mix-up I went out on my practice tires… oops…

The final day of the event promised changing weather: lightning, thunder, rain and… surprisingly… sunlight and a dry track in time for our race! Though a few rain drops fell before the end of our race, it was called early because of lightning strikes nearby. My times were o.k., but I was more focused on following the advice of some of the other drivers I spoke to that morning: slow down and figure out the car and track, then gradually speed up. I was spending so much time during the weekend trying to go fast, that I wasn’t thinking about how I was going to get there. While on track, I mentally broke it down into 3 sections and worked on smoothing out the corners in each one. This approach yielded my best times of the weekend as well as a better understanding of how the corners worked together in each section.

I had a great time. It was a lot of work, but just as much fun. We’ll return to Grattan in August. I’ll have a little more experience with the SRF by then and I’m looking forward to seeing what I’m able to do next time.

Our Nephew’s first birthday was last weekend. Personally, if 50 people showed up for one of my birthday parties, I would have had an anxiety attack! The little guy handled it well, though… especially the ceremonial first cake. All it took was one taste of Gina’s handiwork, and fist-fulls of cake were consumed in record time!

With some of her earning from teaching, Gina bought herself a new-to-her 2008 Impreza Outback Sport! I tease her that I’m jealous to cover for the fact that I’m actually jealous! It’s a nice ride: heated seats, wiper de-icers, premium sound system and averaging about 26 miles per gallon!

Racing season is right around the corner. I’ve been on edge trying to get our new racecar prepped. Gina helped a ton over the past week so I would be a little less stressed. Right now the car is fully assembled and waiting to be loaded into our trailer for a visit with Glenn for alignment and some scale time.

I’ve been running around a lot a work. It’s all quite exciting for me, but the details are sure to bore most everyone out there. Consider yourself spared. However in the category of "almost interesting" is how much work my brother (Christian from Degen Development Corp.) has gotten done on our basement project. He’s been coming over during the week when his big projects allow and we’re just a day of work away from insulation and drywall! I was stunned by how precise and meticulous his work has been. I didn’t expect anything less, but the level of detail in everything he does is amazing. Of particular interest is how cleanly he removed the old drywall from the basement stairs. It looks like it was just installed and the old stuff was never even there!

The weather has allowed temperatures to peek above the 50 degree mark on several occasions recently. That means that I’m officially obligated to get my butt out to the shop and finish up my race car for the season! More to come…

Gina and I are in week 2 of phase 2 of the P90X plan. We’ve had to skip a day of workouts last week and this week due to illness and schedule, but have otherwise stayed true to the diet and exercise plan. Phase 2 is more intense and the workouts seem even longer, but we’ve both noticed feeling better since beginning the workout. The end of this week marks the 1/2 way point.

We’ve been trying to complete our home updates, but our race season, Gina’s work travels, and our workout plan have severely limited the amount of time we can spend on our projects. Christian’s new company (Degen Development) is keeping him pretty busy, but we’re trying to book him before the end of the year. On the list are crown moldings for the den fireplace, new basement doorwall, and continued work on our basement finishing/theater.