Chuck Frank wrote:
We didn't get back until last nite, first after finishing loading the trailer sat AM we get ready to pull out and the laptop refuses to boot: "missing or corrupt winblows system file" worked fine the nite before. After about an hour of trying to get it to restore from the cab files on the hard drive, we drove over to the SCCA building to see if anyone there could burn a bootable cd with the system files on it. Wasted another hour there since the only person we could find who even knew how to burn a cd had a laptop set up by IT so it would not copy system files.
Back in the truck and after hitting on just the right key(s) at the perfect moment the restore decided to open, giving me two options, 1: format the hard drive and totally start over, wiping out all programs and data, or 2: move everything to a backup file and then doing a complete reinstall. Could not reinstall just the operating system! Fearing the former I chose the latter. An hour and a 1/2 later it was still "working" at the reinstall.
The problem was we use Streets and Trips with GPS on that computer as our route planner, and we had to take a different route than normal to return a set of borrowed rain tires on the trip home. Donna then mentioned she packed the HATED Garmin as a back up, so we pulled it out in desperation and set the destination in it, while the Gateway was still showing hourglasses and progress (so slow that I would count the bars and receck several minutes later to see if another bar had appeared) thermometers. We headed out and got as far as KC before the laptop restarted. Meanwhile the DOT had closed I 670/ I 70 interchange for the day, (with NASCAR in town and the track five miles from that interchange!) and routed everyone off onto city streets without putting up detour signs around back to I 70. The Garmin insisted the road MUST be open and kept directing us in circles back through it. (did I mention how much I
HATE the Garmin?)
Finally we pulled into a gas station and I reloaded S&T onto the laptop. Unfortunately with all the overhead from the tons of USELESS and processor hogging bundled software that the restore reinstalled, the installation took about another 15 minutes to complete. Finally we were able to find a way around the construction site (they were pressure blasting/cleaning the stone retaining walls!!!!)
So by this time we had lost most of our first day's travel time just getting out of KS.
Garmin's can do some goofy stuff, but on the whole it's more a matter of getting used to the interface. I can re-route with a Garmin around a closed road with little difficulty now, but I do admit that it takes a LOT of getting used to how to operate the thing to get it to do what you want. They are getting better, and your unit may have a newer firmware available for download that will help some. The Garmin software will let you check for updates to both the firmware and the Garmin software, so you might check that out in case this happens again.
I'd also point out that most gas stations sell these nifty devices called "maps" that will also help you get on your way.
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Back to the competition:
The PS courses were IMHO the worse we have ever driven, all "S" sweepers with virtually no transitions, not at all technical, your car stuck or it didn't. (to prove my point the spread to qualify for the challenge was miniscule. The time spread in classes was often less than 1 sec. top to bottom. I was DFL in AS yet my time was quicker than Aaron's, Jim F. and GH's, something that wouldn't likely happen on a more technical course.
Correction, you were a couple hundredths slower than GH.
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There was a major timing equipment problem (as usual
) Midday Sat that had SCCA debating on running the second round of the last run group (included L1) on Sun AM due to encroaching darkness.
In other news, the sun will come up tomorrow. *sigh* Damn that equipment.
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They decided to run it anyhow, and the darkness turned out to be due to storm clouds and it poured as L1 was about to run, Most of the ladies decide to call it a day without running since it would be near impossible to improve.
Most ladies had the sense to not run, but a lot of other people didn't. I happened to be working course and got completely soaked while watching idiots like Gary Gadoula almost kill people in his CM car on slicks in the POURING rain. Several people reminded him after that group how stupid he was for doing that. It's one thing to take ONE run that's obviously impossible, but he took ALL FOUR. There was no good reason for it since he had dry runs that morning that were clean, too. Just stupid and DANGEROUS.
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We have had no practice to speak of with sweepers with the new suspension, and with only 4 runs in on Sat, Donna was way too conservative on Sun, and finished well down the order.
I'll post more about the practice and championship later.
The course was ass. They had good intentions, but it should have been relatively obvious that there wasn't really any transition for ANYONE. Adding another cone to each attempted slalom would have done a world of good. I stood on my first two runs of the entire event thanks to the mechanical difficulty and was still only seven tenths out of the trophies. *sigh*
--Donnie
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Lucky me as usual...
