Click here to view the embedded video.

http://blog.nerdery.com/2010/06/5-men-4-women-and-an-animal-create-free-website-for-nonprofit/

The Nerdery, a web/marketing firm in Minnesota, has for the 3rd year, put on a great event called “The Overnight Website Challenge“.  The idea is to pair up non-profit companies with teams of local volunteer teams of developers, designers, and business people to create professional web sites for the non-profits, all in a single 24 hour period.  It’s a really great program if you consider the importance of a web site to a small cash-strapped organization.  With the right web site and suite of related online applications, a business can literally save thousands of precious dollars and man-hours.  Of course, professional web services are not cheap, so many organizations rely on the sometimes not-so-efficient web sites that are created by friends, family, or other inexperienced but well-intended individuals.

I helped assemble a team of people to join in on the fun from my company, Dolan Media Co.  We arrived yesterday morning at the venue at around 8AM for setup.  We did not know who our non-profit was until 9AM, thereby all but eliminating the preparation we could really do prior to the event.  We were then given 24 hours to vet out business rules, site structure, identify problem areas, come up with a scope of work, make a design, and then develop the site’s code.  Even in theory, this was a big mountain to climb.  I like to think our team, including our non-profit, Kinship of Greater Minnesota, did a great job.  We will proudly be launching a new site for them tomorrow (due to hosting company problems – they are not working over the weekend).

I won’t go into the details of the project itself, but the night was quite an interesting time.  I’m glad we have a good group of co-workers, or we might not have made the full 24 hours together.  But we did, with many laughs and hardly any casualties.

I’m off to take my nap now, since I have been awake for over 30 hours.  I would like to thank my personal sponsors, Red Bull (drank about 9-10 of them) and 5 Hour Energy Shots (2 drank).  This probably will make no sense when I wake up, due to my slappiness, but I wanted to get it out anyway.  A couple of random shots of me and other co-workers during the ordeal – see more at my co-worker’s Picasa page – he took pictures every hour:

Me hard at work - 3AMish?

In the "wire pit" - not sure how we didn't short out the entire building.

Nice photo-bomb by me. About 1AM, our boss brought by some snacks. I guess I wanted to profess my love of Bugles. (They are AWESOME)

Surprise! Stretching it out and opening yet another Red Bull. So glad that they were sponsors.

Kristin and I at around 4-5AM. I may have been a little hopped up on caffeine. Maybe?

Co-workers Brent and Dave toasting the Red Bulls. Note the ominous countdown on the screen behind them. This would have put us at around 3:30AM.

The DMC team posing for the obligatory zombie pic with 1:27:39 to go. Aren't we a chipper bunch?

Red Bull! 5AM!!! Exclamation Points!!!!!!

Looking out the window, I am particularly amused to see the throngs of people wandering around the neighborhood.  Pasty-white moms and dads taking the kids/dog/cat for a walk (yes, I saw a cat).  They’re all shuffling down the streets, wide smiles, occasionally staring up at the big shiny ball in the sky, wondering exactly what it is and where it suddenly came from.  On a walk with my own dog, I wondered if our collective pasty-white skin would be in danger of burning.  Hell, my Somali neighbor was starting to look a little pale.  That’s how long it’s been since we have been able to enjoy the outside world in a T-shirt!

I know that this is old news for those in NYC, but it takes a while for fashion news to make it to us here in the Midwest.  Luckily, I have been preparing for this trend for a while now.  All my hard work paid off – I am going to be a GOD among men.  Or, at least the skinny/fit ones.  What a bunch of suckers, putting in all that hard work and not drinking tasty beer, unlike me.  I have never been at the forefront of fashion until today.

Ok, enough writing for me.  I need to go find me a nice big steak and a pitcher of beer.  One at a time, ladies, one at a time!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Me: “See, Huckabee has already been president!  Watch this documentary proving it.”

Wacko: “But I know I would have remembered this”

Me: “I think you were on a secret mission from God during that time, and He erased all memory of it”

Wacko: “ohhhh….” [puzzled look]

Which is which? YOU DON'T KNOW!

Two posts in a row that mention urinals. Maybe I have some kind of unhealthy obsession with them? Do I mention the 5 or 6 inch long pubic hair that I saw on one last week that is still haunting me? Ooops, looks like I just did. Maybe more on that later…

!!!

Case in point: the bathroom at my office.  We occupy a fairly large space, and therefore have a bathroom that is fairly generous in size: three urinals and two stalls.  My beef is with the urinals in particular.  They are lined up against one wall, two that are normal height, and one that is a “shorty”, the latter I guess being for the children that we hire to slave away in one of our many sweatshops. (Note: a joke, in case any of our HR people are reading this)  The shorty is positioned at the left end of the wall, followed by the two normal ones.  Most of the time, this is not an issue, since rarely is there more than one person using them at a time.  But when there happens to be that occasion when there are two, the second person is put in a predicament: a) take the regular height one, breaking the man law that you always keep at least one urinal between you and your neighbor or b) take the shorty and risk making a mess, or feeling ridiculous for using what can be described as the “kiddie table” of the bathroom world.  Sadly, the only real option here is choice “b”, since choice “a” is only allowed in very few situations, most notably concerts and sports venues.

Why is the shorty not positioned in the middle?  If I were designing bathrooms, this would be a no-brainer.  Yet I have seen this layout more often than not in countless bathrooms everywhere. If I ruled the world…

For those creepy guys mentioned earlier, do us all a favor and read up on men’s bathroom etiquitte (note #11 in particular).

Anyway, today, after 34 years of being an auto racing fan, following everything from F1 to WRC, I attended my first NHRA drag racing event.  Lori was away for the weekend, and the Lucas Oil Nationals were being held in Brainerd, MN, only a 2 hour drive from here.  As an added bonus, Lori got me tickets through her job, so the only thing I had to spend on it was gas money.  For about 30 bucks, this was a no-brainer for me.

I have been saying for years that I needed to get over to one of these, but never went, even when I had a venue in my backyard in NH.  And I am SO glad I did.  It’s hard to put into words what being at the event is like.  Tuning in on TV doesn’t do it any justice.  That is mostly true for any racing venue, but this is extra-true for NHRA.

I got to the track early, since Lori’s tickets included a pit pass and VIP tickets to the Fram/U.S. Army tent, and I wanted to soak it all in before actually watching some racing.  A few random thoughts and observations from the day:

• NHRA does a GREAT job giving the fans the opportunity to really get full-access to the total experience.  I stepped onto pit road and was immediately surprised to see that spectators are allowed to go just about anywhere.  From watching the crews work on the cars, to the listening to the roar of engine-testing right up close, to the drivers and crew wandering the pits and signing autographs, there is virtually nothing that you aren’t allowed to see or do.
• The wrench-head in me loves a good, loud, horsepower-laden motor.  A few feet into the pits, a crew fired one up and started revving it.  I am not going to lie when I say that it was so loud it scared the beejesus out of me.  There’s loud, then there’s 8000 horsepower loud.  Like nothing I have ever heard before, and probably never ever will again.  It’s pretty scary, and this was only a little “vroom-vroom”.  Little did I know at the time, this was nothing compared to what the on-track experience is like.
• A tip for anyone that ever goes to a race: when wandering the pit lane, if you see a bunch of crew members start up an engine, then don full-face gas masks, don’t stand anywhere near the exhaust.  These cars burn nitrous for fuel, and when it comes out the pipes, it’s a little, um, caustic.  I quickly realized that I couldn’t breathe due to the intense burning in my mouth, nose, and throat.  Trying to quickly leave an area is pretty difficult too when your eyes are burning and watering so bad you cannot see.  Oddly enough, I was more excited about this than I should have been.  When I’m 85, and I wonder why I am not going to live to see 86, I will look back to this day and wonder.
• It has been super-dry in Minnesota this summer, with only a couple of inches of rain in like 3 months.  Of course, since I decided to do something today where rain cripples all activities, it poured all morning.  This was the perfect time to check out the VIP tent, I figured.  Once in the tent, I was pleasantly surprised to see that on either side I was flanked by two actual racecars, to the right was Cory Mac’s Top Fuel dragster, to the left was 6-time world champ (1999,2004,2005,2006,2007,2008) Tony Schmacher’s.  Topping it off, the crews were assembling a bunch of parts on them, and I was allowed to watch from about 4 feet away.  I was channeling Tim Allen in my head with the man-grunts.
• At 11, it was clear they were not going to start the racing anytime soon.  So, they brought out the two drivers to talk to the small crowd of about 20 people that had VIP tickets.  We all got to ask them questions, shoot the bull, etc.  Unfettered access to world-class drivers is truly the best medicine for a rain delay.  And as everyone who has talked to any driver from any racing class knows, they really are the best story-tellers.  I mean, who else can tell you “this one time when I flipped my dragster at 330MPH, I got hit by the other car, breaking my car into 20 pieces, broke both my legs, then got into the helicopter, which came 10 feet from crashing into power lines when we took off…” and then laugh their asses off?
• Come 12PM, it was time for lunch.  The menu?  Filet Mignon with all the fixins.  And I mean *good* filet, not that rubbery crap you’d expect.  And to top it all off, Tony Schumacher himself joined our table for lunch.  Everyone gets to talk to him, ask more questions, whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t involve autograph requests or pictures.  I asked about the first time he drove an 8000 HP car at 330+.  He basically said he was “scared shitless”.  This was another in a line of awesome, awe-inspiring things I got to see today.  Not every day you get to lunch with the guy who has won 6 world championships in the past ten years, and on track to win the 7th.
• Finally, belly full, my PGA fix satisfied (there were two 60 inch plasmas broadcasting the Hazeltine event in the tent), it was time to race.  I was somewhat disappointed in the seating.  We were about 50 yards or so from the start line.  I thought, based on everything else I saw, we’d be truly trackside.  After I saw the first top-fuel run, I saw that I was PLENTY close.  And even thought we were maybe too close.
• I’ll try to explain an entire run.  First, the cars fire up (they are pushed/pulled to the line powerless).  That is loud.  Then they drive over some water sprayed down to get the tires wet for the burnout.  Then they go about half throttle and “burn” the tires to get them nice and hot and sticky for the run.  That is extremely loud, prompting me to reach for the free earplugs (something I have never used at a racing event).  It hurt my eardrums – literally.  They then back up and “stage”, meaning they pull up as close to the line as possible.  Then the really good stuff happens.  To call the launch off the starting line “explosive” is not doing it any justice whatsoever.  I read somewhere the description of a top fuel run as “feeling as though the entire drag strip is being bombed”.  That’s probably the best description.  There is lots of fire, a shit-ton of noise (120DB, louder than a Boeing 747 jet airliner at take-off power), and the cars leave the line so fast they are quite literally a vibrating blur.  It’s almost surreal.  The aluminum stands vibrate like an earthquake, your insides vibrate, and your eyeballs struggle to focus on what you are seeing – 16,000+ horsepower being unleashed all at once.  And then, in under 4 seconds, it’s all over.  The adrenaline rush is just insane.  You cannot wait for the next pair to start it all over again.
• I wondered why no one was trying to take pictures after I picked my jaw up from under the stands.  I pulled out my fancy new camera, figuring I could get a shot or two of them launching off the start.  Talk about your exercise in futility.  Every shot I got was too early or too late.  My reaction time was no match for these guys.

All in all, this was an eye-opening experience that I am so glad to have been a part of.  I highly encourage anyone who has the opportunity to go and check it out. Even if you are not a fan of racing, it’s just something that you need to do at least once.  I have boatloads more respect to every one of those drivers who I used to laugh at for “just driving in a straight line”.  To my New England friends, get a ticket to the Epping Dragway the next time these guys come around.  Send me the bill if you are disappointed.

I wonder when exactly the point was when I got old enough that enjoy this sport so much?  I used to make fun of people who watched and followed the PGA.  Watching golf was something that I never understood – I thought it was boring, slow-paced, and annoying.  Now, I can’t get enough.  Go figure.

Couple that with my new habit of waking up at 4:45AM, going for a long walk with the dog, and getting to work at 6:30.  There was a time when 4:45 was a time I was finishing the last beer of the night and going to bed. No one, including myself, could have predicted this behavior.

And I kind of enjoy it…