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blacklab

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Everything posted by blacklab

  1. I've been to cota several times, never 3 times in one weekend.
  2. Random thoughts from this weekend My neighbor works at cota and got me 4 tickets on turn 4 and a parking pass to lot D. I had just semi-jokingly made a comment to her husband to see if they had any extra, and only to Sunday but they came through. Friday I got my boys out of school early and we headed over mid afternoon. Looked at the cota site and it said to come in on 812 and turn left on cota blvd to get to lot D. Of course the cops wouldn't let me turn left so I had to drive down a mile and make a U turn. Holy shit was it hot and miserable. Not a cloud in the sky. It was so sunny I had a hard time reading my phone, not that I got any reception anyway, and also had a hard time reading the 32 inch tv on the other side of the track. I couldn't make out the names on the Rolex leader thing either. Would it kill them to get a slightly larger TV and/or put some shade over it to make it easier to read? Could they put a few of those Rolex tower leader boards around the track? We could only see the top 6 or so from our seats. After getting blasted by the volume at UT games we got the exact opposite at the track. Barely audible all of the time, completely drown out by the cars and whenever the helicopter was near by. Dozens of food places along the way to the seats. Nothing anywhere near our seats. I don't understand how they can't have the food a little better spread out. Closest thing was a gyro place with lines 30 deep at all times. The added benefit of this place was the line covered the entire walkway and throttled the crowd down to about 4 foot wide walkway. Can't believe all the port a potties around. How much could it cost for some bathrooms around the place? Probably a lot cheaper that renting thousands of port a potties every year. 6 waters, 2 cokes, 1 dr pepper, one hat and 2 shirts later and my free ticket cost $400. A few years ago I looked at the F1 online store and made sure the prices were about the same for the shirts and hats I bought. This year I didn't figuring they'd be around the same. Fuck me they were way cheaper on line. Oh well, got to wear the shirt on Sunday, kid 1 wore his shirt Saturday and kid 2 wore his hat all weekend. Left the venue at around 5:30 and made it to the westlake football game at house park against Austin high by 7:15. Kid 2 had a soccer game so me and Kid 1 and 2 of his friends went on Saturday. We were joined at the track by another friend who had his own ticket. My kid is usually ok on his own, but get four 14 year old boys together and they are guaranteed to act like jackasses. Came from the north this time and it was pretty easy to get to the lot. Waze didn't seem to thing I could go on cota blvd to get to lot D so it was no help. Having learned my lesson from Friday I wore my aussie golf hat to keep the sun off my neck and the side of my face for Saturday. It ends up being cloudy and it was annoying wearing that stupid thing all day and after the sun went down. What was great was seeing all the people on friday with backpacks and coolers so I went to academy Saturday morning and got a back pack cooler. At $59 it was less than I spent on drinks on Friday. Filled it up with water, coke and Gatorade. Damn it was nice sitting in the stands and just reaching down for a drink rather than fighting the crowds. Me and my kid didn't really want to see Queen but 2 of his friends really really wanted to see them. So after the race we head over to the stage and get a nice place on the very nice golf course like grass of the Germania Amphitheater as per the cota website. Boys wandered off to cause trouble and I sat in the grass. At 6:40 after sitting there for an hour they put up a message that the show is at the other stage. There's a stampede out of there and of course the boys are no where to be found and my son isn't answering texts. Finally find them and head over to the other stage but by the time we get there it's overrun. Absolutely terribly designed venue. The stage is on the other side of the track so it's a long way away. They have stands set up in the front and if you're in the wrong place you can't see the stage. It was dark when we got to the place we ended up sitting down at and the stage was dark. It appeared we could see the stage but as it turned out we couldn't. Ground was rocky with some weeds, so much worse than the other place. Boys wandered off, I told them to meet at the car when they were done. They listened to about 5 songs and were done. I knew all the songs but they complained they only played one they knew. Fat bottom girls apparently not popular with 14 year old boys on spotify. Luckily traffic had completely died off at that point and it was smooth sailing to get to the Whataburger at the airport. Sunday took the wife at kiddo #2. #1 had enough after Friday and Saturday. Decided to come from the north again. Drove past the exit for Ross road thinking there would be an exit for Kellum road. Nope. Contemplate going off road to get to Kellum but just decide to go to the next road which ends up being Wolf road 3 miles down. Smooth sailing all the way to the intersection of Kellum and Elroy. Cops manning the intersection let Elroy go for about 5 minutes, then would let Kellum go for about 20 seconds, then back to Elroy for 5 minutes. Several minutes of no traffic on Elroy while we sat with our thumb up our asses. Fuck that was annoying. Cloudy when we parked so I chose a baseball cap over the aussie hat. That was a major fuckup as the sun came out and was a bitch all afternoon. Left side of my face is red, right side is white. Race was great. Kid and I were into it, timing separation of cars and watching Hamilton get close and calculating if he could catch. No internet whatsoever, and with the sun shining impossible to read the times/positions on the TV and Rolex tower. Race was over at 3:30, we noticed people going on the track so we followed and walked around the S's for a bit. Then headed to Germania and plopped down on the grass for a bit. Kid was grumpy so against my better judgement we headed to the car. I would have liked to sit there for another hour or so to let traffic die down. Get to the car in lot D at 4:30, 30 minutes to Lot A, 30 more minutes to the 812/130 intersection and we were free. No idea why the fuck they can't make 812 one way westbound after the race. People coming from 812 westbound into the left most lane, 2 lanes from cota blvd turning onto the two right lanes. Left lane to go south on 130, right lane north on 130 and center lane go strait on 812. Where the fuck were the people going east from 130 on 812 going? They were dead stopped the entire time we were heading west, wherever they were going they should be going a different way. This concludes my 2023 USGP Ted talk.
  3. how bad did he fuck you over?
  4. It was many beers ago that I read about the piers. Did not remember the exact context but I thought that was the way to prevent the track from moving around. I don't remember the details above, thanks for the information.
  5. I wonder if they had built it the right way with piers going into the ground they would have spent less money doing that then all the repairs they made over the years. I ended up missing my turn and went a long way around to get to the north side of the venue Sunday and was laughing to myself as we hit all the bumps in the road. In multiple places sections of the road were sliding off into the ditch. I can't imagine one person driving to the track site and seeing that and not thinking they need to make sure the track doesn't do that.
  6. Took an hour from Lot D to 812/130
  7. Got to car in lot D at 4:30 Haven’t made it to lot A yet
  8. What a Fucking shit show this place is
  9. Pretty nice day. Not too hot and I went and bought a backpack cooler this morning and it was great drinking 25 cent bottles of water instead of $9 ones. what a boring race, what 2 passes in the top 10? sitting here waiting for queen and it’s about perfect temperature
  10. They are terrible. Westlake usually has 2nd stringers in before the half. Around 30-40 kids on the sideline, a few dozen fans in the stands.
  11. Overall still had fun. sat in the bleachers at turn 4. Absolutely nuts to see the cars take the “S”s. The Mercedes, Red Bulls and Ferraris look they are on rails. Such a nice brr brr zoom when they hit it right.
  12. It’s hot as fuck fucking cota website says for lot d come in on 812 and turn left. Get to the turn and police tell me I can’t turn, have to go a mile and make a u turn
  13. I went to school, and got the big D. What’s the best route to lot D?
  14. "one eyed jack" had to get a card reference in there didn't you
  15. Depends on the company. Some companies have a consulting/customization arm and with some customers will have them on a special version or won't upgrade them due to the upgrade breaking the custom code. Other companies may have built their software for customers to install on their hardware, then moved to a hosted model, but install a separate instance for each customer so they may have many versions running at the same time.
  16. The ip addresses go back to this company https://www.psychz.net/ which is a hosting provider which means they could be anything. The root of the server just shows an error message so unless you get a port or path to go with the IP address you won't be able to figure out what it is.
  17. I just had some 3 day tickets fall in my lap. Not sure which days/times I will be able to go, may have some extra. PM me if interested.
  18. Yes, the political aspect of reasons for this conflict and resolutions of should go to CR. The thread in DT should be for news about current events
  19. Holy shit. What a game
  20. I just saw one and it was a clickbait headline with a story that didn't match, it was not the WSJ.
  21. I think at most of these types of events they set up a bunch of tables and leave an empty seat at each one and the celebs play a bit at each table.
  22. @Buzzrock because it was clickbait and the title didn't match the story
  23. Yeah, 2 guys unblocked into backfield every play
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