Hmmm, where to start...

I'm sitting in front of a Ramada hotel right off of I-8 in San Diego right now. I've been staying next door for almost a week, working 10-12 hour days since I arrived here to install our new system at the Fleet Training Center at the San Diego Naval Station (NAVSTA). It's been a long, painful week, and if you know me, you probably have already heard me complaining, or will hear me soon, about all of the things that have gone wrong. Software bugs, system crashes, video BIOS failures, tracking jitter, poor prediction, drift, slop, bad models, etc. If it's something that can go wrong with an augmented reality system, chances are, it's happened this week.

Sabrina's been wonderful all week... I originally thought that I'd be able to make it home Friday night on a red-eye, and be able to go to the Stammtisch beer festival at the BCA tonight, but, as these things go, I'm still out here in California. Luckily, I left the pair of tickets with her, and she managed to get her friend Mike to go with her on short notice when I told her that I wouldn't be home in time. Apparently it was a good time, if a bit cheesy. It sucks to have missed the bratwurst and bier, but I'm sure we'll have our own little Oktoberfest as the time comes.

This girl... well, let me expound a bit here. I don't know who might be reading this (she probably will =), but I'll just put it this way... Beautiful, brilliant, and ballsy. She's a protein biochemist during the day, a closet car geek on the weekends, a connoiseur of fine cuisine in the evenings, and the best snuggler ever all night long. We're talking orders of magnitude cooler in all dimensions than anyone I've ever known. She loves me for everything that I am, and, well, I love her more than I even knew was possible.

It's funny, but with my particular history with relationships, I never thought I could trust someone with everything... but she's managed to show me what a real relationship is all about, instead of the high-school mind games that I've had endured in the past. Mutual respect is a rush, let me tell you. Sideswiped my reality, and all that jazz.

Anyway, now that I've gotten all publically mushy, I'll move on to the more pragmatic. She's currently car-less (and lives near the T, so it's not a problem), but would really like to restore or build up a Datsun 280Z project car. The main purpose is to make something that looks beautiful (and keeps the classic Z body), moves quickly, handles well enough for a fun autocross car, and is reliable enough to not need serious maintenance after the initial build-up.

If any of you out there in blog-reading-land have any lines on decently priced intact 280Zs (manual, decent body, good motor and gearbox), or cheap rolling chassis (blown moto/gearbox and begging for an LS1 conversion), drop me a line. We're interested.

Aaaaaaaaaanyways, I hope to make it out of San Diego sometime on Monday... I really want my seasons back. And my girl. =) I think we're going to make a trip to HMS Motorsports in the next couple of weeks... I need a fire suit for the Great North Woods Rally towards the end of October, and she's going to need gloves and other gear to work service crew. =P