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I just wanted to add one more thought about the immigration problem. I am completly amazed by the reaction of Californians to this issue. I mean come on. The only state in the union that may have more illegals than AZ is CA. Obviously they are just pissed off because it will increase the illegal problem there. And what about the Los Angeles Mayor. Please I think the main reason she is so pissed off is because she must be the only white woman in all of southern CA, who hasnt had some form of plastic surgery. Did you see the jowls on that woman and the wrinkles around here eyes. Somewhere there is a bulldog puppy looking for his mother.

Immigration and the economy.

I have to say, I am truly amazed at all the people living in the United States and outside the state of Arizona that think they have some kind of valid opinion about the illegals that live here. Especially since I'll bet a good percentage of their parents immigrated to the U.S. also. Most likely coming into America legally thru Ellis Island. I wonder what those immigrants would have to say about the influx of illegals that we have to deal with here in AZ. I have to admit, when I first moved here and needed to hire some barn help, I found it was hard to find one, because the sherrif department pretty much patrols where they like to hang out and look for jobs. As time went on I eventually hired three equally inept individuals all legal and two were so stupid that cleaning stalls and feeding horses was way above their heads. I really longed for and illegal mexican. But now as I have watched, and been a victim of illegal crime activity involving illegal mexicans I have been completely converted to the side of send them home. All of the crime sweeps by the local law enforcement agencies havent slowed down the influx of the illegals. Today on the news they interviewed a woman who immigrated here legally from Mexico, and she was waiting for her husband to do the same thing. She talked about what she went thru and how proud she was to be a citizen. She doesnt think that they should be here illegally. I wonder what the people not from AZ who think they have a valid opinion would have to say if they shared a border with Mexico and they were being over run with them. Frankly I dont car who boycotts coming here for tourism. Those companies wouldnt hire an illegal or legal mexican to work for their companies.

The Double Standard Immigration law.

I dont understand exactly how this law is supposed to be a problem. Arizona is foundering economically, and I want to know just much of an impact the illegals have on the economy in this state and country. Education, Health Care, Law enforcement, etc. are all affected by the illegals. When I first moved to Arizona 5 guys wanted for stealing cars tried to hide out in my shop. 3 of the 5 were here illegally. Arizona currently has a crime problem, so are we supposed to just sit on our asses while our crime rate rises to that of Mexico. I have dark skin in the summer I get a bad ass tan. I get asked at all the check stations to speak and they check my I.D. to see that I am from the U.S. I dont feel discriminated against. I feel persecuted because of the illegals. They are dirty, they hang around the home improvement centers and the feed stores. How must the people who come here legally feel when the illegals are allowed to stay. A friend of mine was here legally work in a work visa and they had to go back home to their country, to reapply to come back this year. We cannot travel abroad, or to Mexico without a passport, let alone work abroad without a work visa. Can you imagine just how the mexicans would react if we all snuck into Mexico and started taking their jobs. Not to mention all the cats and dogs that are continually bred by Mexicans and dumped continually on our neighborhoods. Frankly I am tired of giving. I dont think that we should take any more Mexican cruises on the cruise lines. Stay home. Dont go to Cabo, or Rocky Point, or anywhere else. Enough is Enough. The tax burden is too great to keep letting the illegals flood into this country. I travelled to Canada and back this last week, while having lunch in Montana I learned they have no sales tax. Just income tax. Should we load up the illegals and ship them there so that they can support their share on their tax roles. Has anybody actually given any thought about the coyotes that bring illegals over here and just exactly how they are treated on the way. The news is full of stories where they bring 25 or more over and hold them at gunpoint, in slum conditions, feeding them substandard food all while waiting for their families to pay for them to be set free. They are doing this to their own people. Using their own passports to drive to Mexico and then smuggle them back here.

Get a Grip America. Out chocolate president promised immigration reform and he hasnt done shit. Nor has the congress or the senate. Its time to take our lives and our government into our owns hands and run our own counrty. Email your government officials and get them off their overpaid asses.

humans will be humans

This last week I had two really fun things happen. Thursday I had a filly born that is really nice. I was pretty sure the way her mother is bred she would be a good producer, and the stud she is by was a very nice, very underrated horse. I really like it when I'm right. The more involved I am in breeding the more confident that I am in my ability to produce offspring that are going to be really good individuals. I was really luck that she was born on Thursday nite because I wanted to go and race my car on Saturday, which meant leaving on Friday, I wouldnt have been able to go if she hadnt foaled yet. Lucky me!
Which brings me to the topic of my title and the other fun thing I did this weekend. A little background first. There is a new race track here in Arizona, it is south east of Tucson out in the desert at Wilcox set in the local mountain range. It is turning into a beautufil facility, more like a park than racetrack. The main reason I wanted to race there is this track is a dedicated road course. It is not an oval with a road course in the middle, or a dragstrip, or an airport. It is a road course, elevation changes, off camber turns, decreasing radius turns you name it. With my limited racing experience I really want to go. I had mentioned on several occasions to my fellow club members that if the track opened up please include me. Well some of them had gone a couple of times and new another event was coming up, you see they are mostly invitational at this point because the track is new, and nobody though to mention to me about the event. I happened to hear about it while surfing the web. Imagine that, finding information on the web.
Anyway I got online, sent a couple of emails and got myself invited. Well needless to say so far it was absolutely the most fun that I have had with my race car. The hospitality was fantastic, the track is incredible, my car was superb, I am slowly learning how to drive the thing. It was everything that I had hoped it to be. It was really nice to go to an event, where the promoter, in this case the track owner, didnt have his own racing goals in mind. Dont get me wrong, I love club racing, but it seems just like everthing else in this world right at the moment. Everyone involved seems to have their own personal agenda. Our last big event held on April 10th, was nothing short of a clusterf___! Aside from the typical drivers having on track dificulties, the overall organization of the event sucked. Time trial groups were run together without any notice to the drivers. That is who is paying the bills by the way. Ive heard that the best way to make an impact is to affect someones pocketbook, so I am going to switch clubs for most part the rest of the year. I'll still run a few NASA dates. One day a weekend instead of two, but I'm not out here running for points, I'm trying to learn to drive my car as best as I can. I'll switch over to Pro-Auto sports, for most of the rest of the events. I'm going to spend my money where I will have the best time.

grocery store hell

I recently went to the new Fry's Marketplace today to buy groceries for easter dinner. The store was exactly busy, in fact it seemed like there were more fry's employees standing around being pains in the ass than helpful. What appalled me the most, was how absolutly awful the shoppers were. Not all of them, but quite a few. One lady ran down and knocked over a demonstration cart in produce, and just kept right on going. Now I know she knew that she hit it because she looked at it when it made such a resounding crash upon hitting the floor. Next was a woman with a cart full of groceries and three kids hanging off her kind of like a female possum with its young riding on her back, with the exception of one little unruly bastard that was bouncing a super ball all over the place and running into people and things trying to catch it, he no doubt took it off a shelf, and didnt intend to pay for it. I saw one woman tell her husband he couldnt have any breyers cookies and cream ice cream and so he left it in the frozen chicken cooler. The best was the couple in front of the meat counter having a rather animated argument about something that probably wasnt even important enough to waste any breath on. What was so special about them is that he weighed in at about 450# and she was about 350#, and they had a cart full of stuff between them blocking the entire meat counter. When asked if they needed any help, the worlds largest oil sponge replied were just discussing something and they continued to argue until they finally waddled off and didnt by any meat anyway. And you wonder why I hate to go to the grocery store.

that little voice.

Today you get to hear about that little voice in my head. I dont often hear voices. Sometimes I even ignore people when they are talking to me. This weekend though I heard that little voice in my head and I surely should have listened. You all should know by know that I road race a corvette. It is truly an addiction for me. Ive always wanted to race cars and know I am fortunate enough to have the opportunity. Its on a very small scale, club racing, but it's still the most fun I've ever had.

This was a race weekend. One that I was really looking forward too. New shocks, New brakes, New tires, and racing at Phoenix International Raceway, I really like it there the infield is challenging for me and I have to work at it to go fast. This is also one of those tracks that is surrounded by walls, tire walls, concrete walls, walls with safer barriers on them, etc. I think the walls are somewhat like the rails in an arena. If you dont look at them, they dont really exist and you wont catch your pleasure driving cart on the. The walls are the same. You look at the walls and you run into the walls, I never look at the walls, until this weekend.

In the first session, I was just going to be cautious, lots of new things about the car, just find out what it going to do and learn. Well I learned I loved the new shocks, I really like the race brakes, and I hated the new tires. They were slick, you see race tires usually are a little slick, but most of the time they have more grip than street tires. Well these were like driving on ice. I had been running a used set of race tires on the front, and a really wore out set of nitto street tires on the back, so I was really surprised when my new set were so bad. More information here. They actually werent new. Just new to me. I purchased them from a friend of mine who had used them twice, and he purchased them from a friend who had only used them a couple of times himself. They were an old set of viper racing league tires, and I actually dont know when they were made, but they are hard as hockey pucks. After the first session. Which I was slow as an elephant in. They never warmed up and got any grippier. When I checked my tires pressures at the end. They were the same as when I started. Not good, I dont think. They were REALLY slick. I know myself well enough that when the little voice in my head says, your not going to like these tires, just buy new ones. I should listen. In the past when the little voice talks to me, it is ALWAYS right. ALWAYS. It would have been easy to buy a new set, because the tire distributor was at the track and I could have had them mounted and balanced, no shipping charge. Just go and buy them. I convinced myself to give them one more session. After all it was warming up outside there had been more cars on the track, I was slow so I was going out almost last if they were bad, I'd just get new ones.

Well on the warm up lap I was now pretty sure that my little voice was right. I still hated them. The brakes were great. The new shocks did exactly what I thought they should. I was liking the car except for the tires. Still like driving on ice. The green flag waved and I was going down the front stretch at 120 mph. That is not fast for my car a nice comfortable speed. You see at the end of the front stretch you have to turn left, there is a big bump and the middle of the turn where the track transitions from the banking of the speedway to the infield section so the closer you are to the wall, the smaller the bump. I know this. I love to stay close to the wall its a rush for me, great fun. I slowed down early because I knew the tires sucked and my little voice had already told me again that this wasnt going to work, and when I slowed down I looked back to see where one of the club members was because he was following me and I didnt want to get in his way, well by the time I looked back forward I had missed my mark to turn in. Not by a little, but about 6 feet. That put me right in the middle of the big part of the bump. This is when the part of my brain that I actually listen to said "you have F------d up. I had. You see when you miss your mark in racing, it is a lot like missing your mark when your riding your horse in jumping or some pattern class. Its not going to be good. I remember looking down at the speedo when I headed off into the turn and it said 75, i though well thats pretty slow, I have bialed off into this turn at over 100 before so I might be ok.. WRONG. I really hit the bump, the first time I've ever really felt it. Hard and the car really bounced, and the back end snapped around to the right. It's truly amazing how the brain works, I had my eyes open and I remember everything I saw and did. I turned the wheel to the right and thought the car might straighten up. It always had before, nope no grip it just kept coming around to the right, I saw Darrel in front of me spinning thru the grass and I though well at least I'm not alone, as the car continued to come around I saw the other Darrel behind me coming to a stop so he wouldnt hit me, and I looked back out the right side window because know I was spinning backwards and to the right and I saw the wall getting closer. I was looking right at it and I actually thought "I am going to hit the f-----g wall." I did. Backed right into it and an angle breaking the rear wheel right off the spokes. The sound of the impact was a lot louder than the impact felt, and then the right front snapped into the wall, also breaking the front wheel. I turned the steering wheel to the right and the car moved off the wall and came to a stop facing the right direction on the other side of the track. The rest of the story is only worse. The safety guys got there while I was taking off my helmet and gloves and releasing the safety harness. I had to wait in the car until the ambulance got there because your not supposed to get out of the car unless its on fire. You see you dont want to get hit by the other drivers coming by going oh shit, Dan hit the wall. Driving thru silver c5 corvette pieces laying all over the track. AT this moment, actually getting stuck by another car and getting killed would have been a lot less embarrasing. I got in the ambulance because they dont let you walk around and look at the car before they haul it away and I took the obligitory ride to the care center where they look at your pupils, take your pulse, listen to your heart and lungs, take your pulse, and check your blood pressure which ws 150 over 80, the emt guy said that was really low for someone who had just smacked the wall.
By the time I had signed the release forms with the ambulance, and then filled out the incident report with the track officials, I finally got to go back to the pits and get my bike and find my car which was at the other end of the track in the impound yard covered under a tarp. It looked really bad sitting there like that. I didnt actually cry until we had it loaded into the trailer at the end of the day. Its really not busted up all that bad. Doesnt need any body panels just a crack in the fender, two broke wheels, some drivetrain parts and the right front headlight bucket. Which was coming out anyway.
The point of this whole story is Listen to that little voice in your head. Sometimes it just might be right.
Until next time.

our government

I have thought for some time that our congressmen and senators really dont have a clue what goes on in the real world. I also thought that they didnt care either. Over the course of the last week I, unfortunatly have proven myself correct. I decided to conduct a little experiment, everyone says that to get a bill passed, or to stop a bill etc. To get in touch with you local state representative and make your opinion known, so I did. I have spent the last week. Looking up all of the local congressmen and senators and contacting them. I asked them a very simple question. Any time in the past 4 years have they sat down with any of their constituents and had a conversation about the economy, health care, unemployment, welfare, etc. I sent out a nice email. I used spell check so I didnt look like a drunk redneck, I tried to word it in the style of an open question. No accusations or personal affronts to whether or not I actually think they are qualified to have their particular public office. Just a very neutral nice e mail. You all know just how hard that was for me to do. Every one of their web sites had a contact button so it really wasnt very hard to do. I left my email address, and my contact information as requested. I am even a registered voter here in AZ so they could check up on me and see if I was allowed to have an opinion. I sent out basically the same email to 6 different state and national officials. Well guess what. NOT ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even send me a thank you for contacting us. Not a kiss my ass, your too stupid, anything. Just what does that say about the people we are electing.
If you run a business with a website and you put a contact button on it. I would assume that you do that so that you can get in touch with the interested party. Not this group of AZ elected officials. I have decided to take it one further. I am going to pic one of the local T.V. stations and send them the same e mail with my story and see if they would like to try the experiment also. I bet the average Tom, Dick or Harry gets no response, but if they send the e mail from their respective T.V. station. They will get one.
Until next time.