Greg's Horrible Waste of Internet Bandwidth

Go see it. Whether you're a fan or not, you'll enjoy it (and if you're not a fan now, you will be). I walked out of that movie speechless with a big lump in my throat; all I could say to those that went with me was, "I need a beer". Hair up on the neck during the Brazil GP win, heart pounding when they splashed "Imola 1994" on the screen, head in hands when "it" happened. Go see it.

Remember the "video store"? You should, it's not been that long since you had two or three just around the corner. The VHS revolution started out as a simple time-shifting device along with replacing your 16mm camera for family stuff, then companies figured out you'd love stopping by on the way home from work to grab a VHS movie for watching that night. Didn't take too long for DVDs to supplant VHS tapes; probably the only reason you have a VHS player in your house right now is to transfer family stuff from VHS to DVD. Well, paradigms are a shiftin' again. Home "media centers" (or whatever the current marketing term is) are quickly replacing DVDs; I put together a system using a Western Digital Live Plus that combines access to a hard drive and to NetFlix. To get rid of all those DVDs on the shelf in the family room I "ripped" all the DVDs to that hard drive and now watch them through the WDTV device (I keep the physical DVDs as backups

So, of the Nürburgring; or more accurately for this discussion, the Nordschleife ("Northern Loop"). Those of you that know it, need no further info; that of you that don't, well...it's hard to describe. You can "google" it to get the basic info, which really comes down to "...it's an old race track in Germany, very long, many turns (most blind) and it winds through the Eifel mountains. It was built in the 1920's as a testing and race facility to showcase German engineering, and is itself a feat of civil engineering. It is such a difficult track to learn and drive well - and in the end, so unsafe by today's standards - that even Formula One chose to stop racing there after 1976. World-famous F1 driver Jackie Stewart dubbed it "The Green Hell"." But that's all facts and figures. Why would a race track in nowhere Germany deserve such fascination within the automotive world? Why are not other tracks as heralded a the 'R

So, I'm taking a trip to the Nürburgring late March. For those that don't recognize this name, "The Ring" is a race track in Germany, northwest of Frankfurt; mention this name to an automotive enthusiast and their eyes are sure to widen. To an enthusiast, it's automotive mecca...but more on The 'Ring later... I created this blog on the suggestion of my wife, Thea. Since she won't be accompanying with me on this trip (I'm going with some racer buddies) she thought it might be interesting for me to create a blog about his trip, to keep track of thoughts and experiences. And, I suspect, since she kinda wanted to go with me, with a blog she could be there vicariously (and it doesn't hurt to keep track of me, either ;)...) She also probably remembers that during our last trip to Germany and the 'Ring (January '99) I was consistently on my laptop writing down thoughts and observations (like the one time we were at a museum cafe and I wrote for

"Some say" I tend to be wordy. I'll make my first post ironically brief...