B.G. Willers

11.22.13

The List: One Simulation Game

No, I haven’t completely forgotten about this feature!  Sorry that it’s been so long!

This is not the beefiest genre in my collection.  I like Sim games.  But usually I get hooked on them for a few months, I’m hopelessly consumed by them and nothing else, then for whatever reason, I quit playing them for ages until I get the urge to start over.  So I guess you could say I’m not much for the endgame in Sim games, but like the initial experience of creating something.

So here’s the list for the one Sim game I’m taking with me:

One of the most amazing games in the list above is Orbiter.  There is SO much in that game that I completely don’t understand.  But one thing that is pretty cool is that not only can you fly spacecraft around, but you can traverse the entire solar system which is set to scale.  For instance, I’ve taken off from earth and flown to Jupiter.  But that trip took about an hour at 10,000x Simulation speed.  And parking yourself into orbits takes at least a rudimentary knowledge of physics, so it’s super geeky.

Sim City 2000 is still incredibly fun.  It’s hard to believe it’s about to be 20 years old next year.  You gotta love re-naming all your buildings.  Taxing the ever loving hell out of your citizens.  And the gratuitous use of llamas in the news paper are all very satisfying.  The music is iconic… if you ever played Sim City 2000, you will remember those tunes until the day you die.  It’s not without it’s flaws though.  I can’t even have an airport in my city because of the weekly plane crashes which cause fires and destroy neighborhoods.  It has difficulty being completely compatible on modern operating systems so some of the sound effects and animations are a bit off.

Sim City 4 doesn’t have the same nostalgia factor, but if takes the joy of “playing god” to the next level.  That game is so granular, it’s amazing.  You can fine tune your cities finances, utilities, services, etc.  It’s a micro manager’s dream come true.  You can enjoy the building and laying out your city like always, but it’s the tweaking that makes magic for me in this game.

I put Gran Turismo 5 on this list because I do feel that it’s a pretty darn good driving simulator.  If you are used to racing games where the brake button is just because they had an extra button left over on the control mapping, then Gran Turismo games are a bitter dish.  But if you can appreciate taking a machine and finding out what it’s limits are, then this game really starts to open up before your eyes.  It’s a challenge of driver skill to see how much you can get out of your car.  And what I love is that you aren’t always racing super cars, you can drive anything from a PT Cruiser, to a Dodge Viper, to an all out race car.  All the while you are shackled by the realities of momentum, gravity and friction.

The Sims 3 is another game from Maxis, the makers of Sim City.  I actually remember this game being somewhat controversial when it came out the first time around.  There was some questions about the ethics of taking these human characters and subjecting them to the cruelties of things like… building a house without a bathroom in it…   But let’s face it, things like that are the best part of this game.  I only owned up to the Sims 3.  And while it’s often assumed that the demographic for this game skews female, I still love it.  I love that I can build my dream house.  I love that I can roleplay good or evil.  And I love that I can get all my pets to get jobs to support me financially.

I guess probably the oddest inclusion in this list is Flight Simulator 98.  It was one of the first “3-D” games I really remember playing.  And this was on our old 200MHZ PC back in the day.  Yes, it chugged.  But I took a lot of pride in taking off and even landing (sometimes).  I’m actually a bit saddened that the airfield in Chicago which was always the default airport for the game Meigs Field has been razed and turned into a park.  Even though I’ve never actually been there in real life.  Another amazing feature I remember was being able to actually build your own aircraft.  Plugging in values for the wings size and position.  Then I’d take off an see how absolutely horrible it would fly!  Ahh, it was the golden age of PC games for me, and a lot of virtual adventuring was had.

And the decision is….

I’m not ashamed to admit it.  I love The Sims.  Epicly huge houses, and putting your sims in ludicrous situations.  I get the most gratification from playing “legit”.  No money cheats.  I play honest… and by that I mean getting six cats and dogs and getting all of them jobs so my Sim can sit around watching TV and maxing out his happiness meter!  I could play this game through generations and generations of Sims!

11.19.13

Phones

I think it made #1 in my list of Top Ten Most Annoying Technological Advances… the Cell Phone.  I cringe every time it rings or I get a text for fear that I’m getting called into work… But most of all it has fundamentally changed how we interact with each other and not for the better.

This past weekend we went to Andrea’s sister’s house.  It’s about a 2 hour drive to get there.  At one point in the evening we are lounging around in the living room the TV is on and I’m vaguely paying attention what is on… when I stop and realize that nobody is talking.  There we sat, Andrea, her sister and her niece… all on their phones.  We’d traveled all the way down to see each other… and none of them were even looking at each other.  Sure they were aware of each others’ presence… but each in their own little bubble.  I was as alone in that room as if I were literally alone…

Now, I’m sure I’m guilty of it at times too… so I don’t want to say I’m holier than thou…  in fact, I partake in it with all the mundane crap I post on Twitter.   But I think there’s definitely a huge issue when we’re missing what’s really happening right in front of us, because we have our noses buried in an LCD screens.

Since that moment, this is another thing that I’ve grown to appreciate about Luke.  He is EVERYTHING about what’s happening right now in the real world.  And if there isn’t anything happening… he whips up something in his imagination… or just screams to let you know he wants to go play and DO something.

We should all be screaming though.  I can’t believe we allow ourselves to be pacified by these short little bursts of “intestingness”.  Yeah, I made that word up.  But really, you check to see if there’s anything new…  What’s interesting?  A quick smash and grab emotional fix.  But the gratification burns out as quickly as it was consumed.  So you come back for more quick hits, again and again.

What are the long term consequences of this behavior?  At best, we’ve just wasted hours and days of our lives on something that has absolutely no lasting value.  How many things can you remember that you read on Facebook today?  Yesterday?  A week ago?  A year ago?  How much time have you spent using social media in those same time frames?  At worst I think we are robbing ourselves of true life experiences.  The kind of experiences that shape us as a person, give us our personality, and make a richer and more meaningful existence.

Maybe I’m just being over dramatic.  But I struggle daily with trying to find the time to not only be a responsible adult, parent, husband, co-worker and friend… but also to do the things I truly want to do.  I place a high value on my own time.  To think of that time gone, lost forever, never to have back… bothers me a bit.   The fact that others have such disregard for what their own time is worth… frightens me.  I don’t want to be 85 and wish that I’d taken the time to write a story, or build a project car, or whatever it is you’ve always thought about doing.  Because someday for you… for me… for every one of us… it WILL be too late.

Please don’t settle for being pacified.  Be amazing.  Be awesome.  Be happy, justified by your own measure and expectations, and not by what others have “pinned’ or how many “likes” you’ve received.  Start something today.  Because if you don’t, you’ll blink and wish you had a decade ago.

11.18.13

Getting the Car

For those out of the loop, this ’79 Caprice is my first car.  Not a lot like my first car… this IS my first car that my Dad is letting me keep for a while… I say that because I still say it’s his that he can have back whenever he says the word.  Until then… Hells Yeah.

I have a lot of respect for those who can proudly proclaim they bought and paid for their first car.  I’m not one of those people.  My parents 100% bought and paid for my first car.  I remember seeing the car sitting with a For Sale sign on the west edge of Cimarron, KS.  At the time I thought it was a Monte Carlo.  It had the same curved back glass I’d seen on many Monte Carlos before, and it just looked too darn sporty to be a regular old Caprice.  Cruising through town in the back seat as Mom karted us around, I remember thinking that would be a cool first car.  But I never really thought it would happen.

A week or two later, Dad said we were going to go look at a car for me.  We pulled up next to that exact car.  I remember thinking “THIS might be MY car!  Hells Yeah!” Dad was busy talking to the owner, a guy we had actually met before as he ran a limo service that we had used a couple time for birthday parties or whatnot.  They were negotiating, but I was circling the car and daydreaming.  Eventually the deal was done.  For $1,000 I had my first car.

So I didn’t buy it.  I STILL have never paid for that car!  My responsibilities were everything that came after that.  Gas, insurance, parts, you name it.  It was my job to keep it running.  The first couple weeks, the car was literally on blocks in our driveway.  Dad took me too the parts store, he told the guy everything we needed and I paid for it.  Not knowing what the heck to do with brake cylinders, spring kits or calipers, I spent a lot of time holding flash lights and just trying to figure out what the heck Dad was doing, why he was doing it, and wondering, how the hell he knew how to do all this stuff!

Once the brakes were fixed, we could finally actually drive it.  I remember taking the car out south of Ingalls and going around some of the curves on the county roads.  The shocks were so bad it felt like you were on water more than you were on solid ground.  So that was obviously the next task.  That was one of those nights I remember Dad staying up probably much later than he wanted to.  I remember he ran into some problem replacing, I think the rear shocks and it took a lot longer than he expected it to.  But he got it done.

The exhaust was shot on it, but instead of taking it to a shop to get it all re-done, Dad and I took it to the shop at the feedyard and took some old fence pipe and welded up some pipes with some “cherry bomb” mufflers.  It definitely had a unique sound, and you could see the bright red mufflers sitting under the floorboards from a distance.

The radio either didn’t work at all, or barely worked.  It was the original cassette deck and I know the tape deck didn’t work at all.  For either Christmas or my Birthday I got a Pioneer CD player and some Pioneer 6×9 speakers to go with it.  One thing I did understand fairly well was how to hook up a stereo, I’d been playing with that stuff for years already in my room in the basement.  So we got that hooked up and from that point forward, it was the car I really remember.

I seem to remember some confusion early on about whether it was an Impala, or a Caprice.  Despite saying Caprice Classic on the dashboard, the insurance and a lot of the other documentation said Impala.  But it certainly was a Caprice.  I’m sure the confusion was mine alone.

As I look at it now, there’s a lot of stuff that’s broken, missing, or not working… I don’t really ever even remember giving it a second thought back then.  It was a cool ride, that was loud, and got me where I wanted to go.  That’s all I ever really wanted.  And I suppose it shouldn’t bug me now.  There’s a lot of things I want to do, like replace the carpet and put bucket seats in there.  Stuff that I’m sure I talked about at some point when I was younger too.  And now that I have the means, I’m sure I’ll get around to it.  But for now… I’m going to keep enjoying it, and driving the heck out of it just like I did back then… only this time with some bite to back up the bark!

11.18.13

Behind the Glass

Andrea and I had some fun Saturday night.  She bought two tickets behind the glass at the Wichita Thunder hockey game.  They’re just a minor league team.  Probably minor minor league but it was still fun.  We’ve both been getting into hockey over the last season or so, and she bought these tickets as a surprise.

We’ve been to a couple Thunder games before, and they’ve always been fun.  But we’ve always talked about how it would be exciting to sit up close right behind the glass.  It’s one of those things that is probably kinda like Nascar.  You get up close to some of the action, but the best view is most likely higher up.  There were times at the far end of the ice, it was difficult to see what was going on.

But it was pretty cool being able to feel the puck smacking the wall right in front of us, and seeing the fights right there.  There was one occasion where I went to go grab another beer, and Andrea said a fight started right in front of her.  She said she was on the big screen with her mouth just hanging open as the two dudes were dukeing it out.

The game started out with Wichita getting its butt kicked.  They were down 0-2 at the end of the 1st.  But came back to tie it up with 0.3 seconds left in the 2nd period.  The game ultimately went to overtime and Wichita lost.  Still a good game though.

Luke stayed with Grandma while we went out, but by the time he’s 3 years old or so, I could see him really enjoying a game like this.  He gets excited when we watch hockey at home, and with the mascot there throwing out prizes into the seats and the “Chuck-A-Puck” contest during the 2nd intermission, he’d probably have a blast there.  There were a lot of other kids there and it was just neat to see all of them yelling and having fun.

I could totally see myself getting season tickets to something like this if it were closer.  We had a lot of fun, and had about the best seats you could get and it wasn’t terribly expensive.  I certainly spent more in beer than we spent on the seats.

11.10.13

No Sense

Here I am, sitting in a room literally surrounded by all of my favorite games, and yet, I can’t decide what I want to play.

I’m not sure if it’s that I’m overwhelmed by all the choices… I could play Super Mario Bros. 2 on NES, or I could play Final Fantasy X on PS2.  How about Mario Kart 64?  That’s always a solid choice.  Or I could play F-Zero GX on Gamecube for some fast and futuristic racing.

But I don’t feel overwhelmed.  I look at all these games and I see the memories I had from playing them.  And it’s that feeling that is stronger than my will to pick it up and either start again, or pick up from where I left off.  I’m sitting here in this retro room and surrounded by all these artifacts of my childhood.  It’s as moving to think about it all as it is to play it all.

For instance, I was looking at the Gamecube, and I couldn’t help but recall the time I was most royally ripped off in my life.  I had deeply desired a Panasonic Q, which was a flashy Gamecube/DVD player from Japan.  I completely over extended myself in my quest to get one.  It was right at the time that Super Mario Sunshine was coming out.  The first 3D Mario game since Super Mario 64.  I was consumed by previews, and a daily stream of information on the game for weeks before its release.  The game first came out in Japan.  I even went as far as to import a Japanese copy of the game.  Only, my Gamecube wouldn’t play Japanese games.

What better Japanese gamecube to get than the Panasonic Q!?  Unfortunately they sold for about $450.  Ouch.   But lo and behold.  I found one on eBay for $250!  What a deal!  I purchased it straight away.  I was giddy with excitement.  Soon I’d have the flashiest Gamecube anyone had seen, I’d have the new Mario game before anyone else, and I would be in Nintendo nirvana!  I even went as far as to look up the eBay seller on AOL messenger and tell them how thankful I was they were selling it and how happy they’d made me.

I didn’t have the cash for it.  I put it on my credit card.  It would be okay, I told myself… I was going to sell the Gamecube I had for $150 and then all I’d really have to pay for was $100, which wouldn’t be a problem by the time my next paycheck came in.  And I did sell my Gamecube too.  After all, the Q would be here in just a matter of days.

Those days came, and went.  Each one more excruciatingly long than the last.  After two weeks had gone by, it was clear… my Panasonic Q wasn’t coming.  I tried doing my own detective work, I called the police department from the city the seller supposedly lived in, but the address they used was the address of a gay exercise club… I had gone from great joy, to complete desperation.  I had been ripped off for $250 bucks, and on top of that, I didn’t even have a Gamecube anymore since I’d sold mine to pay for the Q.

How I came to own the actual Gamecube I own today and sits in this room, is just as ridiculous of a story.  Of course I didn’t have the money to go buy another Gamecube, but sometime after the eBay fiasco, I was involved in a traffic accident.  I was coming up on a stop sign, not quite paying attention, and noticed the car stopped in front of me.  I slammed on the brakes!  I stopped just short of the car in front of me, but there was an S10 truck behind me that didn’t stop in time to avoid my sudden maneuver.  We got out and he asked why I stopped so quick, and I asked him why he was following so close!  Long story, short… he left after I got his license plate and insurance number and I waited for the police to come so they could make a report.  Turns out the guy had a suspended license.

After the accident, I then received a check from the other person’s insurance company.  Instead of fixing the car… I bought my replacement Gamecube.

I’m not particularly proud of that story.  It was a time in my life where I was just plain stupid.  I’d let my desires for what I had lusted over drive me past the breaking point.  I would skate so close to the edge that any little tiny bump in the road that wasn’t expected could completely throw me off course.  And they did.  Time and time again, to the point I felt I was so far from where I wanted to be, that I would never get to that place.  I started to stop even caring, and tried not to think about any of it.  The whole time, games were my escape.  They were as dangerous to me as any drug could have been.

Not every memory in this room is as somber as those (just the Gamecube ones really, haha).  Most of the memories in this room are quite cheerful, actually.  But I think there lies my problem when it comes to actually sitting down and playing these games.  I find myself here in the midst of it all, reminiscing about the good times and the bad.  To the point where playing the game might just serve to distract me from those thoughts.

Maybe I just need more time.  Enough time to sit and conjure those thoughts up, but then time still to sit and enjoy the games, because if I skip all the existential crap, these are all some amazing games that were made to be played.  I feel like too often I approach what I’m going to play in such a methodical way that playing anything else besides what fits into my system is like I’m cheating. I miss the days where I would just sift through the games until I just decided to play one… or even more than that, I miss spending the whole day anticipating being home so I could play the one game I’d been thinking about all day.  That’s the biggest part of me “as a gamer” that is missing today.

11.3.13

Halloween 2013

Sorry for the delay getting the pictures up, and just a general lack of writing as of late.  Been super busy at work and I’ve been going to bed about the same time as Luke the past few days, so that didn’t leave much time for anything else!

But here ya go. Luke was a Train Conductor!  We just stayed here in Albert.  The night started out kinda slow, but we walked all over town (which doesn’t take too long here) and Luke did pretty good!

10.21.13

Somebody’s Birthday

[youtube=http://youtu.be/MurCBHWbRIM]

On his second birthday, Luke was terrified of candles.  Since then, he wishes every day was somebody’s birthday so he can blow out the candles!

10.14.13

Growing Up

Anybody who’s been around Luke for any amount of time, knows that he is just the happiest little guy around.  He just loves to have fun.  Loves to play.  Non stop.  He’s a chatterbox, and a goof-nugget!

I absolutely love hanging out with him, of course because of all the things I just mentioned, but also because it reminds me so much about growing up myself.  And how fun and carefree it all was.  I mean yeah, Luke will have the occasional breakdown when he really wants something, but has to put his toys away first.  But he rebounds quicker than you can flip a pancake.  I had some extra time to spend at home this weekend and just about every minute was spent with this little guy.

He wouldn’t be such a happy kid though, if Andrea weren’t such a great mommy.  I know it can be tough on her sometimes.  I can imagine going all day without any kind of adult interaction can be draining, and probably a bit lonesome.  But when you’re around Luke, you know how awesome she is at what she does!  I try to help after work and on the weekends like this, just to give her a little break.  I’m sure she could always use more though!

But basically what inspired this post was just all the things I’ve been able to share with him.  And that he totally latches onto.  We do a lot of things together that I did when I was a kid.  We play with Hot Wheels cars, we race around on the carpet, we watch cartoons.  We’ve been watching the Super Mario Bros cartoons from the 90’s, the Care Bears from the 80’s, and we see a lot of Mr. Rogers too.

It’s fun watching him get excited about things like the Care Bears.  To us, they’re retro and dated, they’re brand new to him.  And to be honest, it’s fun for me to watch them with him and see certain things and think to myself, “I THINK I remember that…”  Mostly it’s not really specifics, but like the voices of a lot of the characters just feel super familiar, and this after not even thinking about the Care Bears for at least 20 years.  Funny how our minds work.

Part of me feels a little guilty that I’m subjecting him to something that’s 3 decades old, compared to what his peers are probably being exposed to.  He’ll go off to school and his friends will have whatever the hot new lunchbox is, and he’ll have no idea who the characters are on the cover.  It’s not going to derail him socially, but still it’s a consequence of a choice I made, that he didn’t even know existed.

The other part of me thinks… you know my parents would have done the same thing as me… if they had the option to.  We don’t have cable.  We watch all this old stuff on places like Hulu and Youtube.  It’s amazing how much is out there.  More than I ever saw as a kid of these shows.  When I was growing up, what was on TV is all that I could be exposed to.  I suppose if my parents had the ability to keep me in a bubble of the media that they knew, trusted, and felt comfortable with, they would have done it too.  They just had to keep an eye on what we watched and make sure it wasn’t too “out there”.

It does make you wonder though, if this is all he knew, what would Luke share with his children?  Will kids still be watching really bad Mario & Luigi skits between animated mushroom adventures from 1991 in the year 2033?  I’m sure as he gets older and starts interacting with other kids and being exposed to more, he’ll develop his own memories.  Stuff that I just won’t understand.  It will happen eventually.  But until it does, I’m going to soak up our awesome Saturday mornings eating pancakes, watching cartoons, and pretending I’m growing up all over again too.

10.10.13

The List: One Party Game

As an adult gamer, by far the thing I miss the most is gaming with my friends.  Online gaming is okay.  But it’s nothing compared to sharing the couch and laying the smack down on my friends, and the shouts of joy and agony that fill the room.  Amazing come from behind victories, impossible shots, hilarious screw ups, all reminisced over the entire evening over endless beverages and snacks.

All my friends may have moved on, just like I have with my own family and career.  But there are still some amazing party games out there, and some old ones that are always worth going back to.  Even if it’s just some family coming over, we can still fire up some great games and have a blast well past bedtime.

Now, as a reminder, the games on my lists are only games from my personal collection.  So yes, there are great games left out.  But the point of this is mostly just a thought experiment to pare down what are the best games I’ve ever played.  So if I could take one party game with me to that wonderful desert island where no one ever bothers me again and I get to do nothing but play games… what would it be?

The List

I’ll be honest.  Most of the categories so far, I’ve known going in which game was going to win.  This one though, even as I write this, I’m still not sure what to choose.

GoldenEye is a very strong possibility.  Having hosted eight GoldenEye Fests, and countless nights with friends playing until literally the sun came up, it might be hard to deny this one.  BUT… if I choose it as the best party game.  It won’t be able to compete in the First Person Shooter category… which wouldn’t feel right at all.

StarFox 64 is one game that I wish I would have had the opportunity to play with more people.  The ability to loop around, lock on to your friends and play with them like a cat plays with a mouse before going in for the kill is ridiculously satisfying.  Being able to choose between the tank and arwing is a neat feature, though it seems like the tanks were always at a disadvantage.  But usually games like Mario Kart or GoldenEye took the spotlight away from this great game on party nights.

Nintendo Land is one of my biggest surprises in recent memory.  I didn’t really expect to give much regard to the the game.  But one night Andrea’s family was over.  We had 4 people with Wiimotes and one on the gamepad playing Mario Chase… I haven’t had so much fun playing with other people in a long, long time.

Mario Kart: Wii is one of the Mario Karts I’ve been least impressed with, but it really is the best living room Mario Kart experience with family and friends.  Some people love playing with the Wii Wheel.  That’s fine, I’ll kick their butt every time.  I have to use the controller myself.  But the thing about Mario Kart, is that no matter how good you are, no win is guaranteed.  So even people that have never played before, still have a chance to win.  And honestly that’s what I love about it.  I mean I’d love to win every game, but eventually people don’t want to play with me any more.  So Mario Kart in general strikes that perfect balance of skill, random craziness, and just plain fun.

RockBand and Guitar Hero were legendary in my family for a while.  I remember playing it at my sister-in-law’s house and on our way home, we had to pick one up for ourselves.  Until my Guild Wars 2 CE, it was the most I’d ever spent on one single game.  Rhythm games seem like the butt of a lot of jokes these days, but honestly, I still enjoy busting out the plastic guitar, cranking up the surround sound and rockin, right the hell out.  Add in the full band and someone’s terrible singing (usually enhanced by alcohol) it’s a good time that’s hard to beat.

Wii Sports is great because it’s a game that absolutely everyone can play.  Even people who would ordinarily never play videogames, will still play Wii Sports.  And still get highly invested in it.  I remember waiting patiently for my turn to play, and the satisfaction that came with winning a matchup in whichever sport the challenger chose, because winners were allowed to keep playing.  The games were usually short and worked perfectly for passing around the controller with a group of friends.

Ice Hockey and Dr. Mario may only be 2 player games, and they may be the oldest games on this list, but to this day, I’ve yet to see any other game that has people that are more passionate and competitive about them.  My neighbor across the street is a dedicated Dr. Mario player.  And my brother-in-law takes great pride in his Ice Hockey skills.  Both of them (if you beat them) will become physically perturbed. They are also games that are pretty much universally loved and anybody will join in for the next round.

Of course Super Smash Bros: Melee IS a highly competitive game.  There are still organized contests to this day.  I am not any good at this game at all, but I even love losing in this game.  I love, love, love, love, love playing as Peach and smacking unsuspecting people with a frying pan.  I never really had any friends that were into this game, but I did attend a couple parties where I got my ass handed to me.  I’d actually play this game forever, even if I knew I’d never win.

And finally, New Super Mario Bros: Wii.  I picked this over the new NSMB:U just because I have more experience with it.  Even the little kids can come over and play.  When we get to a tough spot, we just tell them to “bubble!” and it’s an awesome way to get the whole family involved and playing.  It’s fun to work together, but also if the action starts to lul, you can start messing with your teammates by swallowing them up with Yoshi and spitting them down a hole, just to be a douche and get some laughs.

And the winner is:

So… GoldenEye will live to fight another day.  And I REALLY went back and forth between this and Nintendo Land.  Nintendo Land is SUCH a great game.  Literally the most fun I’ve had in years.  BUT… Rockband or Guitar Hero was infectious.  People I knew would play it, then next thing I know, they had one too.  It hasn’t gotten much love lately, but a couple years ago, it was pretty much expected that this is what we did at family get-togethers.  It’s so satisfying to nail a tricky solo.  And even getting through certain songs on the highest difficulty were grounds for bragging eternally.

But seriously.  If anyone wants to come over and play some games, I have a couple.  It would be fun. You can probably even beat me! Honest!

10.8.13

Bucket List Checkmark

This weekend was a whirlwind to be sure.  It was Andrea’s birthday, she’s 29!  And we went up to the NASCAR race to celebrate her and Duane’s birthdays together.  It was a lot of fun.

I’ve seen a lot of NASCAR in my days.  I’m not as huge a fan as I once was.  I was probably most into it back in the early 2000’s.  Bobby Labonte was driving the #18 car back then and was pretty darn good.  I remember one season (after his championship) where he finished in the Top 10 like 26 times.  He was a lot of fun to cheer for.  After that he switched teams a couple times and just never was as competitive.  And since then it seems like all they focus on is the drama.  As far as I’m concerned, you can save the drama for your llama.

Having never been to an actual race I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.  Honestly I anticipated it to be not as good as watching it on TV.  What I found was it was completely different than a TV experience.  You don’t get the benefit of replays.  I mean they have a big screen down by the pits that show stuff, but it’s not like TV.  But you really get a broader picture of the whole race.  I’ve been to lots of little dirt track races over the years.  And maybe it was all the caution flags, but this really felt more similar to that than I expected it to.  Each restart seemed like a new “heat”, but there was an added strategy of pitting and tires, etc.  It was just really cool to watch it all unfold on a broad scale.

We paid attention to Mark Martin for a good part of the race, a person I’m sure they weren’t talking about much on TV.  But we had the little headsets where we could listen in to his radio.  We could listen to the race officials, the cleanup crews.  It was really cool.  Kinda felt like behind the scenes.

But there were times where I just took the headphones off and just soaked up the experience.  I loved the noise.  It has been on my bucket list to hear the “Drivers start your engines!”.  Check.  And just listening to the cars go flying by.  It was totally awesome to be there.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in one place with that many people before.  I’m not sure what the capacity is, but I bet it was over 150,000 people.  Looking at them from our seats high in the air, they all just looked like gnats.  It probably took us 45 minutes just to get in and parked.  But only took us 10 minutes or so to get out.

I’d definitely be up to do it again, which going into it, I figured I’d go to one just to say I’ve been.  But I can definitely see how people get hooked on it.  I’d love to take a camper out to the infield and just hang out, drink beer and party for 5 days on a race weekend.  That may be a little hard to accomplish anytime soon though!

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