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Been off on the John Muir Trail for a week with Thrice, here's the first photo from the trip I posted to my site, taken handheld with an RX100mkI at that!

So the performance driving program was an absolute blast! It is amazing how much you learn when you can really drive your car HARD. So now for the recap: We had 10 or 11 participants and 4 instructors. The day started promptly at Sonoma Raceway at 10AM. Having never driven on a track before, I was easily the least experienced member of the class. It turned out that I had the second shittiest car of the group (at least to start). People brought some seriously impressive toys. We had: A Ferrari (don't know which one but it was one of the GT ones because it threw its weight around a ton in the corners. That being said it was fast as shit). An R8 v8 (the silent assassin, seriously this thing is quiet. It was perhaps the most impressive car in the group with how flat it stayed in the corners. A true supercar). A couple of Carreras (one S, one not). A Shelby GT500 (the bruiser of the group and perhaps the least elegant). the Jag F-Type (my god what a beautiful exhaust note! must be loud in the cabin tough. also it looked very tail-happy but the guy who was driving it kept it under control). A TT RS (solid all around). An Evo (my Japanese brethren and the closest car to mine performance-wise). A beater E36 BMW (someone's dedicated track car). My WRX. (Naturally, the beater BMW crapped out before the end of the day making my WRX the slowest/crappiest car of the group. I can't say I expected that to happen!) The Mustang GT and Camaro in the pictures were the instructors'/tracks' cars. After a bit of classroom instruction, we started the day using a big parking lot and some cones to do two sets of drills. Half the group started on a slalom course while my half of the group started on a hairpin turn. The goal for the hairpin drill was to approach at maximum acceleration, hit the brakes Hard, turn in at a cone they had set up, make a proper line to the apex (also marked by a cone) then slam full throttle as soon as you hit the apex. It sounds easy, but I sucked at this drill to start. Prior to yesterday I had always thought that the apex was simply the halfway point on the turn. Yeah... that is defiantly wrong. The actual apex of a turn is past the halfway point, sometimes well past it. It took a while to break my bad habit of trying to hit the half way point. I kept turning in too hard right at the start which caused me to be 4-5 feet wide of the apex and come out of the turn at way to wide of an angle. When I'd go to power out I'd have to hit the brakes as my exit angle was taking me right in to the cone "wall." The cool thing about racing is that when you get something right you feel it. I knew right away on subsequent runs when I nailed the turn and hit the apex as I was able to have perfect run-outs at full throttle. We had about 10-12 runs each at the hairpin before we moved on to the slalom course. The slalom course had 5 S-turns in succession. The key to this one was taking it easy though turns 1 and 2 so that you had the grip you needed at turns 4 and 5 to put the power down on the exit. It was hard not to overcook turns 1 and 2. You would know right away if you screwed up as you'd start losing traction and start slipping and have to slow down to regain it. The few times I nailed the slalom felt great. When I get a good line down it minimized the amount of load transfer going through the S's. I was able to exit with much higher speed and felt more in control the entire way. I guess the point of the slalom course is to teach you that you always need to be setting up your next turn as soon as you exit. Lesson learned! We then broke for lunch and I had fun chatting up the other group members. Naturally, it was all guys. At 30 I was the youngest guy in the group, but there were a few other guys who must have been in their mid to late 30s. A guy who worked at facebook was driving my dream car, this blue Carrera S. Very nice whip, sir! I also went and sat in one of the Audi R8s. Go get one of these right now, VPI! The Audi school had basically all the R and S models sitting around. After lunch they had rearranged the cones in the parking lot to set up a little auto-cross course for us to practice cornering and transitions from corner to corner. Being a beginner, it was a bit overwhelming stringing it all together. I found it hard not to let botching one corner effect your performance in subsequent corners. Still, this drill was a ton of fun. We each had 4 runs of about 4 laps each. Like I said before, you new instantly when you had nailed a turn. The feeling of doing something right is pretty damn exhilarating. Stringing turn after turn together to put together a good lap is very challenging. For as much fun as I had already had, the main event was still to come. We were finally ready for the big-boy Sonoma Raceway track. Holy fuck, driving it was amazing! We split in to trains of 3 cars, each with an instructor and two students, and set out for two 25-minute lead-follow sessions. In lead-follow, the instructor car goes in front and the two cars in the train follow and try to maintain a distance of two or three car lengths. For going out on the big track we all had to have helmets and head-socks on, giving the entire thing an awesome feel. My train was me, an instructor in a mustang and the Evo. We started out going reasonably quick and picked up speed on each lap. I have no clue how fast we were going as I never really had time to focus on anything other than driving, but it was pretty goddamn fast. It is amazing how much you feel everything when you are going at speed. The load transfers, the tire slip, the velocity of it all. You have to feel it all too, as any mistake at speed on the big course can easily end up very badly. Sonoma Raceway is a crazy track. There are elevation changes and blind corners EVERYWHERE! Turns 1 and 2 are on an uphill and we would hit them so damn fast I was worried the WRX wouldn't be able to handle it. The tires howled, but she made it time after time. Exiting turn 4 was also insanely fast, as 5 is very gentle and you can take it at speed. The instructor flew out of 4 every time and it was definitely challenging (in a good way) for me and the Evo to keep up. Turn 6 is blind and on a downhill and I could never quite figure that damn thing out. The apex is way at the end, almost completely out of the turn. I could hit it, but it always felt like I was coming out of 6 slower than the Evo and the instructor and they would have to slow a bit going in to 7 to let me catch back up. The slalom turns at 8 and 8a were also easy to mess up, but very rewarding when you hit them right. When you didn't get the right line you could feel the weight of your car causing it to slide. When you did get one though, smooth like butter. We finally finished up at 5:30p.m. and I drove the WRX home pretty gently as she (and I) had had a demanding day. -- Suffice it to say it was a fucking amazing day! I haven't had a spike of adrenaline like that in a long time. I've never driven faster and harder than I did on the big track. I was glad the instructors were leading us, they pushed me to keep up and do things I didn't know my car was capable of. It felt like I definitely had the WRX at 90/95% of its capability and that I learned a lot in just a single day. TLDR version? If you get a chance to do something like this, DO IT!

In Poland audio, company fuck you.

Schiit?

I didn't touch anyone you can't pin shit on me but I wasn't being misleading or anything headfi is the place to do that sort of thing. even I take the time to separate certain posts between the two forums because this place is enjoyable and stuff like impressions is kind of the antithesis of that

See here http://web.archive.org/web/20150314234648/http://headwize.com/ Les

Also, Brent, this last one is for you. They had a bunch of these things set up for people to train on.

Morning Bake. This is a high Hydration (lots of water) loaf Bread Loaf Size (g) = 625g Hydration (%) = 90% Total Water = 562.5g Leaven = 93.75g Salt = 15.625g Flours: White 412.5g Whole 150g Oat 62.5g Bake: covered 500 20 min covered 450 15 min uncover 15 min Levain was 9 hours - bulk rise 4.5 hours - proof another 6 hours. This is the best loaf I have made. The Crumb and taste are almost perfect. Need to make more. Shared at work - high praise

Buy an Amazon Gift Card Multipack, Get $10 in Promotional Credit Happy Prime Day! Today only, Prime members can get $10 in Amazon promotional credit by purchasing select Amazon.com Gift Card multipacks. Just add a Gift Card multipack (shown below) to your cart and enter the promo code "PRIMEGCS" at checkout or click the yellow "Click to apply promo code" button below. After your purchase ships you'll receive an email containing a code for a $10 promotional credit that can be applied to your Amazon account for items sold and shipped by Amazon.com. Credit is valid through and expires on August 29, 2015. This offer is valid today only, July 15, 2015, and while supplies last. Promotion terms and conditions apply. Learn more. See more Prime Day deals. It worked on the $15 gift cards (3x$15 gift cards for $45, plus $10 credit).

Damn, Daryl only got the silver. Well done my man, Silver for the worlds aint too shabby. Yakimenko was on fire and would not be beat. Since Lance's coaches are Russian, when not fencing an american we cheer for the Russian fencers. Watch Lee Kiefer, Miles Chamley Watson and Garrick Meinhart in the coming days. Lee and Garrick are both Notre Dame fencers Lance worked out with Katie Holmes, women's epee, at the Caltech camp last month. The gal is a beast and could probably kick Naaman's ass. I would not fence her for all the Pappy Van Winkle 23 in North America.

That sounds super exciting Greg.

First free summer concert of the season at Stow House in Goleta. Mezcal Martini, a Salsa and Latin Jazz band. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

Pretty much the same here. The Stonewall Riots in June of 1969 really started the fight for gay rights. Though it's been a very long fight. We are the last minority still waiting to be granted the same rights and protection the rest of the population enjoys. I see it happening pretty quickly now. Anyone interested in the history of said riots should check out "Stonewall". It's a fun watch, and for Scandal fans, a fun new way to see "Huck".

I dont actually need 64TB at the moment. But it exists, which means I need it. They have 4k porn now. Liberating bitcoin doesn't feel the same as spending dollars for some reason.

Carbon resistors way out of spec?

Cricket, a most 'proper' sport...

Cleaned my grill. Which considering it has been in that exact position uncovered for two Michigan winters, I think it turned out okay. The top rack must be some really crappy stainless steel material or is just unrecoverable. The main grilling surface came out nearly as-new.

I'm taking Tuesday off work to attend my first performance driving class up at Sonoma Raceway. I'm excited... and nervous. I've never driven on the track before, so this is going to be a totally new experience.

All washed and shiny. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So I had to come back to Atlanta to do my transfer to a different store up in VA. Just my laptop and a pr. of senn hd201s. Then here comes the king of all friends...(that would be Purk) Brings me a pair of HD800 and HD650's. Sets up new software on my laptop, brings all cables and a nuforce converter, along with headroom desktop headphone amp/dac and desktop power supply. After 7 months of health issues and not being able to work, getting back in the groove was not easy. Having these tunes to come home to has made so much difference! Thanks just doesn't cover this much trouble and time he's put into this hook up. He's the best

Upgraded connection speeds Pretty satisfied, it's a bit above the advertised speed

Nice article on Robert Frank in the NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/05/magazine/robert-franks-america.html

Some initial pics of the DSHA-2 (which needs to be renamed, but that's what it's called for now.)