car of the year 2008

"it's a lean, mean muscle machine"
jeremy clarkson, times online

zumindest für jeremy clarkson, seines zeichens schreiber in der "fahrzeugsparte" der londoner sunday times, ist die zr1 das auto des jahres. das kommt für uns fans ein wenig überraschend, für ihn übrigens auch. und wenn er auch an all' den anderen corvette-modellen kein gutes verbales haar lässt, ist er für den neuesten coup unseres lieblingssportwagenherstellers doch des lobes voll: die zr1 sehe unheimlich gut aus und wäre dabei wahnsinnig schnell - klar hört der fan das gerne.
aber... unheimlich gutaussehend und unheimlich schnell, das sind doch alle vetten, oder?

...für alle, die selbst nachlesen wollen: click

calendar girls

dejan sei dank - das neue jahr kann kommen!


jetzt muss ich nur noch meinen jahres-end-mir-fehlt-meine-vette-ich-werde-älter-das-wetter-ist-scheiße-der-urlaub-fast-vorbei-depri loswerden, und alles ist wieder gut...
;-)

halluzinationen

seit mein baby überwintert, habe ich schon eine schwarze c6 und eine silberne c5 in den straßen gesehen, direkt bei mir "umme ecke". seltsam, da sich doch den ganzen sommer über keine einzige corvette blicken ließ... habe ich jetzt schon halluzinationen, oder tauchen die nur auf wegen meinen "entzugserscheinungen"?
und - soll ich das jetzt unter der kategorie "trostversuch" einstufen, oder passt es doch besser in die sparte "ätsch...!"?

cup (more non-vette-stuff)

with my blue beemer (318 TI compact), i made the 22nd place in the main-kinzig slalom cup racing series...
so all the slalom driving on all those sundays wasn't in vain. at least not totally ;-)

essen motor show

this is the place to be, at least for the next few days: > click <. i've never been there and really would like to see this fair, but wether i can go and have a look is still uncertain. we'll see...

if you click this link, beware - the instant the page is building up, it starts bawling its advertising slogans (in german) very loudly, it's a real nuisance. the bawling can't be cut off unless you push the "off"-button of your speakers. well... just ignore it.

solace

...no, no, no - i'm not talking about that bond movie. i didn't watch it either. since craig is to impersonate the "gentleman spy", i prefer to stop watching "james bonds" although i grew up with these movies. well, craig... he surely may be a good actor, but in my eyes he looks like a left-over KGB butcher who hasn't been "removed" as the cold war was over, if you understand what i mean. connery and moore perfectly resembled this "gentleman" type of agent, the idol i looked up to as a kid - bond was educated, refined, with good manners and the ability to move within every kind of society. even remington steele, ahm, pierce brosnan fit into this image. but craig...
well, let's leave it as it is. the solace i'm talking of is of another kind. in the meantime, it has become so bitterly cold and wet in germany that nobody, unless he's a hopeless case or a witless brute, would make his corvette leave the warmth and cosyness of its garage.
that fact that all the others keep their vettes indoors, too, really doesn't make me feel better, but at least it provides a little bit of solace. and the weather forecast for the next days isn't that good.
i said, "a little bit", folks.
no quantum.

p.s. which spy would drive a corvette? surely not bond. but maybe jerry cotten ;-)

vette-tv

DSF (german sports tv) will show a report on the z06 - but beware, it's nothing new, they're just repeating an "old" programme. nevertheless, it is worth watching, since the outcome of this assessment is more than positive - quite unusual for german car testers who normally seem to be biased towards our local brands (foreign brands rarely got top marks in whatever kinds of tests perfomed, except maybe ferrari). especially us cars were seen as "low quality" over the last years, and corvettes were even regarded as "procurer's" cars. maybe the c6 / z06 model series can brush up this image, since people come to realize that a corvette is a worthy opponent to all fancy european sports car brands...

date of broadcasting: wednesday 26th, 20.15 h local time

the dark season

...again, it's the time of the year when lots of vette drivers simply go mad without their cars.
aaaargh - i could cry!!!

so i'm left with no other option than counting days...

missed

last sunday, i unfortunately missed this event > click here <.
for defense, i can at least produce a very good excuse, since i've been here > click here <, and by jove i wasn't only watching - i was participating.

well, at least the slalom season is over soon, so that i can spend more time again with my baby...

vette photo game

somewhere on these two photographs, a vette is hidden.
can you find it?



(hint: the vette is red!)
location: ferry from ruedesheim to bingen
date: 30th august, 2008
time: 16:23 CET

since the weather was so fine, i spent a charming afternoon cruising in the rheingau... now that this obnoxious music festival is over at least, this area has become a place to where you can go again - the floods of festival tourists are ebbing away slowly, thus leaving the beautiful spots and sights to the locals and "normal" visitors.

fahrlegastheniker

heute war ich bei meinem alten herrn zu besuch. die abfahrt (oder auffahrt, je nachdem, von wo aus es man betrachtet) zu der tiefgarage, in der ich parkte, war lang und vor allem eng. im der garage zugewandten teil war eine kurve, der der straße zugewandte war eine gerade strecke.
nachdem ich das tor geöffnet hatte, wollte ich ja eigentlich hinaus, fand mich aber auf halber höhe der ausfahrt (also nach der kurve) mit einem porsche konfrontiert.
der porsche hupte.
ich hupte zuück.
dann stieg die beifahrerin, eine blonde tussi, aus.
also ließ ich das fenster herunter und sagte ihr, dass ich hinauswollte, weil ich gerade das tor geöffnet hätte und man das rote warnlicht ja wohl nicht übersehen könnte.
die tussi piepste, dass das licht kaputt sei (das war natürlich gelogen, wie ich mich dann ein paar sekunden später selbst überzeugen könnte, aber es gibt ja leute, denen rein gar nichts zu peinlich ist), und dass ihr typ leider nicht rückwärts 'rausfahren könnte, das könne er nämlich nicht (autsch, noch mehr peinlichkeit. ob das an dem offenbacher kennzeichen lag?).
meine antwort: "wie - er beherrscht das auto nicht? das ist aber schade..."

und weil ich ein netter mensch bin, bewegte ich die vette - die breiter, länger und unübersichtlicher ist als so ein porsche, rückwärts um die kurve herum wieder in die garage hinein und in die nächste parklücke, damit der fahrlegastheniker mit seinem flachkäfer einfahren konnte.

armer porsche. ich gehe jetzt einfach mal davon aus, dass die meisten anderen porschefahrer (hoffentlich) rückwärts fahren können...
und vielleicht sollte ich diesem fahrer mal die adresse der nächsten fahrschule unter den scheibenwischer klemmen...?

in da hood (2)

another scanned-in photograph...

not a very good one - well, it's been a 1600 asa film with a best-before date of 2005, so no wonder the colors are not very bright and clear... maybe i try again with the digital camera. i've become so used to it.

da roof thing (4)

btw, the roof paint thing has been settled now.
uhhh...

if you look very, very closely, you still can see where the paint had been warping off, but for anyone who doesn't know of it, this little spot is nearly invisible. and i hope now that this particular story has - at least - come to an end.
let's hope there will be no other damages...

aftermath

there has been some stormy weather here, in the middle of july - not quite the type of weather you're expecting in summer. but then again, i couldn't resist this magnificent "after-glow"...

proof

yeah, i know i'm neglecting this blog a little bit.
just to prove that my baby is still alive and kickin'...


btw, the roof repair will probably be done next week. and i hope this time it's o.k.!

more roof damage

this time it's not my baby, this time it's me...!

an ill-tempered, or, should i say, incompetent, hairdresser has deprived me of my mane. the girl was chattering about her italian origin in connection with her somewhat fantastic cooking abilities, and i was listening to her, charmed by her story, so that i didn't notice the harm being done. aahhh...

no, i'm not bald, but you might as well say, "sheared"... with a very, very, short haircut as a result.
darn.

expert's talk, or "strange encounters, the 2nd"

about an hour ago, i drove to my favourite gas station, equipped with a bucket full of cleaners, sponges, wipes and dry cloth, in order to clean my baby. i just had rinsed the vette's red hull with water and now was drying it with the soft cloth, when an old guy with grey hair, grandpa style, approached me slowly and asked what kind of car this would be.
"this is a corvette," i answered.
the old chap slowly scratched his chin. "hmmm... it looks really good - much better than the ferrari over there." he pointed towards the black ferrari convertible parked some 20 metres away. "is it very expensive?"
i couldn't help smiling. "well," i said, "it's even less then half the price of the ferrari, and it's much faster."
brows knotted in deep thought, he walked away, while i focused again on my baby.

a few minutes later, the old guy came back again, his face turning into a wide grin, and tapped me onto the shoulder. "let me give you some good advice, lad - take good care of that car of yours. it's not only much better, but also much more trustworthy than any girlfriend can be."

it's unbelievable - i didn't ever think that vettes would be good for "strange encounters" of the funny or heart-warming kind...

the roof recall thing (3)

so much for german quality repair... this seems to become a neverending story. and a story i definitely don't like!


after two weeks of "not driving", i found this damaged spot as i freed my baby from the confines of its parking garage. obviously, the paint job on the replaced roof has been done sloppily, because otherwise, the paint itself wouldn't have formed this kind of warped shape...
aaaargh...!

that's real customer service

by end of last year, i switched over to another car insurance company with both contracts starting on january 1st, 2008.
today, half a year later, they finally managed to send me the service vouchers.

that's what i call real service - fast and efficient. ugh.

well, you gotta remember you're in germany.
welcome to "customer service hell"...

"welcome to the show..."

sorry, non-vette stuff again...

but finally, i managed to lure rainier, my old buddy in sin and frolic, into the automobile fun business, he he... and now he's developped a taste for oldtimer rallyes (the touristic ones, not the sportive sort of). therefore he dug out his dad's old mercedes and participated in yesterday's 2008 adac oldtimer tour towards the little town of homberg (efze).


this benz is 31 years old (in germany, cars have to be at least 30 years old to be officially defined as "oldtimers", cars 20 years old and up to 29 years are called "youngtimers"). technical data will follow.

mad, mad world

one day i complain about losing my sundays on slalom, and on the next one about not losing them... isn't that crazy?
well, some of my colleagues have spread again flu viruses, and now my biological firewall is trying to fight these viral intruders. this is why i decided to skip the race tomorrow and stay at home, because i can't afford reporting sick for the second time in my new job.

so i'm sitting here indoors while the sun is shining (and my club comrades most probably going for another victory), trapped, feeling weak, nay, exhausted, hoping to get better until monday.
it's a mad, mad world.
or just another f***ed-up vette-less weekend.
sh*t.

slalom and the lack of time

well, the headline says it all - slalom driving is eating up my sundays and bank holidays.
sad but true - it's getting even difficult for me to spare some time for vette driving...!

to be honest, i can't complain. i knew that when i started the slalom "business", and i had hoped that i could cope somehow with the increasing lack of time. now the season has begun, and i need lots of practise, which means i better participate in all events planned and don't skip any.
aaargh....!

vette photo project

some years ago, i was really good at black & white photography, especially when it came to architecture. but one by one i stopped taking pictures, since my job life didn't leave me much time for that, and when i got my digital sony later, my old "mechanical" cameras had already been stowed away for quite some time.
well, this could change now, since i'm thinking of a self-made vette calendar, portraying my baby for 2009 or 2010 for myself and maybe also for friends and family, which means, for all that suffer from my stupid vette-mania...

don't know whether i'll succeed in making really good vette pictures - i haven't practised for a long long time and "shooting" buildings in b&w is much easier than making good (color) pictures of cars. and of course, there a thousands of good vette pics...

well, let's see... it's a project, it's just for fun. but nevertheless, i already digged out my old non-automatic cameras, a nikon EF (1972) and a practica (the gdr version of the west-german "leica" camera, 1951). since the practica doesn't work (the shutter has jammed) and the repair shop i used to ask in such cases has closed down, i'm gonna use the nikon only. and if i get any good results, i promise i'm gonna publish at least some pictures here on this blog.

the roof recall thing (2)

you could call it a kind of resignation, but i'm really tired of dealing with that garage.
after asking several corvette "colleagues" (i. e. fellow drivers) who all assured me that if there's a color difference at all, then it is only a very slight difference (because they nearly didn't notice), i decided to leave the replacement roof as it is.
maybe i was paranoid. and then, maybe not...
well, the decision is made. alea iacta est.

i've attached the "stickers" stickers again.
now my baby is "complete" again...

beemer slalom

sorry, non-vette stuff again.



well, that wasn't exactly "floating like a cadillac" nor "stinging like a beemer"...
unfortunately there was only one race in fulda, but in its second run i was able to close up to the other participant's timing. yet still a long way to go (drive)...

"PEP CARS" us cars meeting

1st may, 2008, bergen-enkheim (at the outskirts of frankfurt)

of course, these vehicles weren't the only ones worth looking at. this is just a small selection of fine cars presented at the meeting, and there were lots more...!


first panel: a black c6 (model year 2006?) and my baby (2005), followed by a pair of c3s
second panel: a rare "split windows" (1963) and a silver c5 (1997) followed by a pair of mustangs

short update

today is a bank holiday, and i'm gonna check on my roof again.
this was originally planned for yesterday, but yesterday after work it was raining and became dark very early, so i left my baby indoors...

i only hope the roof color is right. i'm sick of having trouble with this garage.

today there's also a us car meeting in bergen-enkheim, one of the outer parts of frankfurt. let's see whether i can get there - or better, how, i can get there, because the roads will be closed for the henninger race, a bike race around the so-called "henninger steeple".

i also gotta check on my beemer.
btw, last sunday i came in 7th (out of 10) and was able to improve my timing again for about 4 seconds.

slainte mhath

first caipirinha of the year!
(i've run out of single malt)

and remember, ye hearties: don't drink & drive...

the roof recall thing

in march, my gm garage told me that my baby should have its targa roof replaced. don't know whether this roof recall thing was referring to a specifically european "vette malady", or whether this problem was affecting covettes worldwide.
well, they told me that the roof already had been orderd and then would be painted - at least, they knew the color code.

yesterday, the roof got replaced. not only that the "stickers" sticker is missing now, on driving home i noticed that, compared to the other parts of the bodyshell, the roof's paint got a strange yellowish tint. you can't imagine how frustrated i was!

today, i went to my gas station in order to clean my baby. and in the sunlight, i noticed this yellowish shade also on other painted areas. big relief, at least for now...
nevertheless, i'm still not convinced. in the past, i had enough reason not to trust this garage, not mentioning their uncanny ability to always spoil the interior (dark stains on the light parts and light stains on the dark parts). i'm gonna check on this again. i wanna be 100% sure they got the right color.

yeah!

yeah - they're gonna make a sequel!

click

for those who don't know what i'm talking about: the release of "cars 2" is planned for 2012.

i only hope that they don't mess up with it...

in the language of the indians...

...my name probably would be "dances with cones".
well, you can't do "cone-dancing" with a vette. for slalom driving you would need a much lighter and smaller car!


btw, i came in last. ahm, yes... *lookingembarassed*

done

i'm totally done - i've caught a flu, one of the nasty sort, where you got fever and feel as if you've been run over by a monster truck, just getting crunched underneath its tires.
and this happens to me with the weekend approaching and the first slalom of the season!!!
this race will be run without me... *whimper*
no chance, so much is for sure.
*sob*

goose bumps

just watched a cars scene at breakfast - the one in which doc hudson has his little all-alone-race around willy's butte, and for better sound, i switched on my stereo.

what i like most about this scene is the moment when doc starts and revves up his engine... i love the deep, rich motor sound.
gives me goose bumps.

it's a pity that the german TÜV doesn't authorize borla stinger exhausts.

strange noise, resolved

...just a simple screw!
i guess its purpose is to fasten the vette butt hull-piece to the frame, if i'm not mistaken.

took the chance for a little night ride.
the noise is gone, everything seems to be o.k. now.
oomph.

strange noise

on driving today, i noticed a strange rattling noise at the rear end. something seems to vibrate there. and when i tapped with my fingers against the lower part of the hull, just about where the grey strip is located, something clanked inside.


hmmm, i'll have to check on that...

this is crazy...

http://www.motorauthority.com/news/supercars/coachbuilt-karvajal-designs-zx-1-c6-corvette/

the matte/glossy paint effects are interesting. looks pretty cool.
but the rest...

to be honest, i don't like the hood design. and as for the rest of the chassis - well, that might be everything, but hardly a vette anymore.

maybe i just dislike it because it's a convertible.
never understood the craze about having one.
i prefer cars with proper roofs ;-)

problems of the underpowered

a question to all of you who are lucky to have 400 horsepower and more: do you ever experience small cars tailgating, following you over quite some distance and coming so close that they might crash into your trunk?
it's annoying, but normally i tend to ignore them...
how do you react?

okay, corvettes are still somewhat "exotic" in germany. but if you are driving one of the well-known brands, i. e. lotuses, lambos or ferraris - do you experience the same?

easter chocolate frenzy

instead of chocolate easter bunnies, i've got easter cars (what else?!).

on the other hand, bunnies, without easter and chocolate, ain't bad, too.
maybe i should rethink the whole thing... ;-)

unfortunately they didn't have chocolate corvettes. and if you take a closer look, you will notice that the ferrari fraction within this batch is strongest, closely followed by the beemer fraction...

gloomy monday

well, surely i shouldn't complain... i'm still alive & kicking, and still got my baby.
just got the feeling that life sucks at the moment.
maybe i should get more social - should go out and meet people instead of sitting at home, think about "now" and not about the future.
and then again, maybe that's it.

no, wheather is still bad. rainstorms announced for the weekend, which means "no driving".
my so-called one week of "holidays" - gone before i could say "corvette c6", wasted on dreary stuff which was necessary but not nice.
my creativity got stuck, haven't written a single line for a long time. even translating becomes hard at the moment. no input, no ideas, no mood to draw up the slightest scribblings.
my slalom car having a broken catalyzer and trouble with the TÜV. boy, that was expensive. and the slalom suspensions not yet ready. bit by bit i'm running out of time, slalom season starts in april.
still need new tires.

yuck.
just let me whimper for a while.

ah yes... the garage...

forgot to mention that i paid a short visit to the frankfurt corvette garage last week.
since the battery failure, the windows didn't close properly when closing the doors. additionally, i wanted to get rid of that obscure alert called "service column lock" which isn't mentioned in the german user's manual and surely had been triggered by the battery blackout. and third, it was time for the yearly inspection.
well, so far, so good...

to be honest, there really was some improvement compared to my previous visits:

• the passenger compartment wasn't dirty this time
• they also knew the correct amount of motor oil
• they'll get me a new targa roof (oops, i gotta order a new "stickers" sticker - the other one is on my helmet now)
• my baby got a car wash
• they got new staff which obviously did a better job than the people i met last year

nevertheless, i'll be watching them. too many things went wrong last year. i don't trust them - yet.
let's see.

thanks!

...he he... this is what happens when people know you're a cars enthusiast.


;-) thanks, rainier!

v-day, or "size matters!"

did you ever break into your own car?
with a battery as dead as a doornail, you'll have to... or at least the procedure for getting access is pretty weird and comes very close to "breakin' into..."

the c6's doors don't have a keyhole. the doors are opened and locked electronically, but without any electricity, it's just bad luck, the doors remain shut.
that means: open the trunk - manually, with the physical key, because this is the only compartment accessible with a key - and try to climb through the trunk into the passenger compartment, where you'll have to open the hood.
for the first time, i was glad that nature had built me somewhat short - i'm only 1.70 m; a guy of 1.90 m surely would have had more problems... so much for "size matters"! (what struck me excactly in this moment, was the fact that if someone would be nasty enough to close the trunk again, then you're locked inside your car. that ain't funny.)

in my case, my old buddy v6-rainier had come to the rescue with his eta beemer and provided the electricity necessary for the restart. so we connected both cars as described in the vette handbook, and then the engine started without hesitation.

i drove for nearly 1 1/2 hours to reload the battery.
that's been my v-day...

v-day?

today is supposed to be v-day - it's march now, i'm allowed to drive again.
but the wheather didn't take that into consideration. we've got heavy rainstorms, things keep on falling down on the tiny balcony which is attached to my appartment, and warnings have been given on the radio that driving might be dangerous (because of "flying objects").
so i've got to tell you about my slalom car again...

now i got one - not quite a bargain, but also not expensive.
it's a 318 bmw ti compact, with 140 (european) hp and a complete m-package (which is only for the looks and not for the perfomance), in dark blue metallic.
it's a used car, 10 years old such as my red one, for the only reason that until model year 9/1998 you can install a power lock differential to the rear axle (i'll do that later). but first i've got to take it to the bmw garage - it didn't pass the TÜV test because somewhere under the hood, a little bit of oil is leaking, and the german street safety guys are crazy about that, and also the catalytic converter is in the dubs.
next comes a visit at the chassis specialist, because this baby will get a specially customized slalom suspension.

and at the moment, i'm keeping my fingers crossed that the garage doesn't show up with more bad news (my funds are badly limited, i'm quite short on cash at the moment!)... before buying, i'd been scrutinizing the beemer from top to tires, peeping into every corner and poking around under the hood, but i neither detected the oil leak nor the catalyzer problem.
shame on me...

and in the meantime i'll get my jumper cables, just in case my vette doesn't want to say "hello" to me as soon as it gets dry again.

piss'd

1. car buying is a nasty business. with every car you look at, you'll be told a new bunch of lies, be it the number of previous owners, the stuff replaced already or just pretended to be replaced, the reasons why, possible accidents, and so on...
   
   
2. i just realised that when slalom driving (and this most likely will be every 2nd weekend from april to october), i have less time for my vette. f***in' hell.
   
   
3. the little time left (on the weekends, after subtracting vette-driving and slalom-driving) is the time i can spend with friends, family, etc.. that's not much.
   

to say i'm pissed at the moment would be only half the truth...

still haven't come any further...

today, my old beemer had to climb onto a performance test rig to check its engine. not that there was something wrong - but since i'm still looking for a proper slalom vehicle, i wanted to know the exact "power output".
the result was 106.05 european hp, whereas there's a clear "102" in the papers.

this is why i like bmw: buy 102, get 106.
but this still is not enough. the compact version of the beemer 3er series is too heavy in comparison with the seat leons, renault clios and citroen saxos of this world. i've mentioned that before.

ooomph.
i'm still not sure what to do...

and now a rant...

if you're a kid and interested in motor sports - welcome to an abundant offer of support and development programmes for the so-called "young talents". doors will be opened for you, you will be literally picked up and, step-by-step, introduced to the world of this fascinating sport.

but if you're a grown-up that only by chance got in contact with the racing business lately and never has done such a thing before, well, then you're just another idiot with a weird hobby. end of story.

sorry, i was a bit frustrated...

so if you're a newbie like me, go look for a club, they'll be the only ones willing to help you.
without my club, i'd be nothing.

bargain

my latest acquisition - a reference book on american cars from 1920 to 1980, with lots of black-and-white pictures, covering every single brand and model (!) put on the market in the respective period.
yehaaa....!

just a short remark

it's good i don't have any psII, x-box or wii.
if so, i'd spend one half of my life on playing games such as "resident evil", "grand theft auto", "need for speed", and the rest with cars (and CARS).
i'd not only be a cars (and a CARS) addict, i'd also be a videogame addict.

ever read about "better than life" (a game described in the novel "red dwarf" by grant naylor*)? it's not the question whether you like this story or not, it's that weird scenario that comes so close to reality. or let's say "would come close to reality", at least in my case.
it's a little bit frightening.

thanx god it's just a story.
;-)

*"grant naylor" is a collective pseudonym made up of the two writers rob grant and doug naylor

can't wait for the summer

in the "chrome and flames" magazine, i found the following dates for us-car (and bike) meetings and cruises in the rhein-main area:

• at the "harley garage" in hofheim/wallau, every monday and friday, starting at 19.00 hrs,
  
  
• at "wal mart"/"pizza hut" in darmstadt, every friday starting at 20.30 hrs,
  
  
• at the v8 drivers' club home in flörsheim-weilbach (industriestr. 19), every monday and friday, starting at 19.00 hrs,
  
  
• at werner-von-siemens-street in hofheim/wallau, every first sunday a month from may to september, starting at 12.00 hrs,
  
  
• and, not to forget, the "corvette forum meeting" in flörsheim ("boat house" restaurant) on every first friday a month, starting at 19.00 hrs.

plenty of ideas...
and it's still january...
*sigh*

my favourite...

...tv trash - more non-vette stuff.
sorry!
it's a german scifi series called "spaceship orion", broadcasted in 1965 (one year before star trek). and since i can't drive my baby at the moment, i have to take such desperate measures ;-)

normally, this tv show is in black-and-white, but i didn't find any decent version of the original tv trailer on youtube, only this badly coloured one.
well, so watch and despair...

yehaaa - slalom time!

yeah, you're right. this is no vette ;-)
this is me in my old beemer, on the 2007 solms slalom. i got this picture last week, and since it is good, i'd like to show it to you folks...

pic was taken by sm-sport-promotion, wettenstein

welcome 2008

happy new year, folks! hope you all had a wonderful start into the brand new year 2008...

as for me... well, things weren't the way i expected them to be, starting with the fact that i caught a really nasty cold during xmas and had to stay in bed with fever and that kind of stuff, feeling as if i had been hit by a truck. but that leaves much room for improvement.
examples...:

• i didn't do much writing during my holidays. dunno why - just wasn't in the right mood. so, with severals chapters still to be written and translated, there is much left to do for me.
• also didn't succeed in finding a slalom vehicle. until now, i found nothing. nada. my club urged me to look for a front-wheel driven one - much to my dismay, but, to be honest, they are right, because in case of rain, front-wheel traction is better than everything else. at least i payed the fees for my license today, hoping that everything will be o.k. and settled on that side.
• since i still can't drive, i'm counting days as i look on my corvette calendar made by one of the forum members, longing to shoot pictures of my own. half-time! at least my baby seems to be quite well, and i look after him as often as i can.

there is other stuff i need to get done, including some private trouble to be settled, since things are becoming more and more unpleasant. well... shit happens.
so this is the beginning.
nevetheless, i hope that it's gonna be a good year. if you feel the urge to stand up and fight, if you feel the necessity to move your ass and do something, then this normally is a good sign.
welcome, 2008!
welcome, corvette year.