As I write this, I can hear race cars finishing up the final laps of the Coca-Cola 600, the longest Nascar race, held every year on the night before Memorial Day. You see, about four years ago, we bought a house about a mile away from Charlotte Motor Speedway (which was called Lowe’s Motor Speedway at the time). Let me let Google Maps help you out:

Now, when I tell people I live near the speedway (“Garage Mahal”, as some call it), usually the first question people ask is either “Can you hear the races?” or “How bad is the traffic?”. So I figured I’d provide a nice, canonical answer here on the internets.

First of all, to be clear, I was fully aware when I bought the house that there was a speedway, a dirt-track, and a drag strip about a mile away. I understand that this means I have no right to complain about the noise, any more than if I had bought a house next to the airport. This post isn’t here to complain, just to provide an answer to a question I get a lot.

So, there are three types of events: drag races, dirt track races, and Nascar races. The drag strip was built most recently, amid quite a bit of controversial local politics. A lot of people were concerned about the noise. Dragsters are loud. But here’s the thing: dragsters only run their engines for about a second. Two seconds tops. Then it takes about ten minutes till they are set up for the next race. Of the three types of races, even though the drag race might be the loudest in terms of decibels, it is easily the least disruptive to my life. It’s less annoying than when a Harley drives down the street.

Next, the Nascar races. There are three events each year: the All Star race, the Coca-Cola 600, and the Bank of America 500. These are pretty loud, but it’s not so bad that I can’t tune it out while I’m watching TV or something. And it’s kind of neat being able to see the Goodyear blimp from my backyard twice a year.

So finally, we get to the dirt track. The way I usually describe the sound is that it’s kind of like someone standing in your back yard with a chainsaw. I don’t know why dirt track cars are so much louder than Nascar cars. But they are super loud. When there’s a dirt track race, you basically can’t watch TV in your living room that night. It’s the only time the noise from the races is bothersome.

As for the other question—traffic—it is usually not a big deal because we know when to avoid the races. We’ve even found that going to the nearby mall during the races is really nice, because all the race fans are at the race, and most of the locals who aren’t at the race are afraid to go anywhere near the race. The biggest traffic concern is actually the auto fair that occurs twice a year, where (as far as I can tell) people who collect and build antique cars get together to buy and sell cars and car parts. The traffic is really bad from these events because people are coming and going all weekend long. There’s not one particular event that everyone shows up for. And it’s also not as well-publicized, so there are more people who would steer clear of the area on race weekends that don’t know to do the same on car show weekends.

So there you have it. A long, boring description of life lived near one of the largest sporting venues in the world. Hope you have a great Memorial Day!

You may recall seeing this photo of a 2.5 L Coca-Cola bottle that I took in Mexico about six months ago:

You may even recall my caption: Why don’t they make the two-liter bottles look like this in America?

Well, now they do.  So I can say I CALLED IT!  Cue the balloons and ticker tape!

The big controversy in the local news today is that Concord Mills Mall (which Wikipedia says Charlotte Business Journal says is the state’s largest tourist attraction) has decided not to renew the lease on Free Market Warrior, a kiosk that sold conservative and anti-Obama bumper stickers and t-shirts.  I’ve never actually seen the kiosk in question, since I avoid the mall whenever I can.  But I checked out their website after hearing about it on the radio this morning, with the intention of making a blog post saying something to the effect of “Look, of course you’re going to get kicked out of the mall if you sell this and this and this.”  But I can’t find anything that really seems that bad.  The site has two different lists of items they were told not to sell.  I’m not sure which is canonical.  In either case, I know I’ve seen anti-Bush bumper stickers that were just as bad (though I don’t know if they were ever sold in the mall), and you can find much more offensive (though non-political) stuff at HotTopic.  Maybe the fact that it’s a kiosk and you see it just by walking by, instead of having to go into a store, has something to do with it?  I don’t know, I’m not a mallologist.

Oh well.  I guess all I’m saying is that I don’t think they deserved to be kicked out of the mall, based on the items I see on their website.

I spent last week in Matamoros, Mexico, which is a city across the Río Grande from Brownsville, Texas.  Being in Mexico, particularly near the border, gave some cause to be concerned.  But we made it through mostly without incident (more on that later).  I went with nine other people from my church to visit and help out a missionary we support there.  Jack (the missionary) runs a camp in Matamoros (seen here from outer space) which in the past has been used as a camp for kids and teens.  But he has more recently built some nicer cabins on the camp, and last week they were finally put to use during a retreat for four Mexican pastors and their wives.  Part of the reason we came was to help out with this retreat, with preparing and serving food.  The rest of us (myself included) were just there for physical labor.  But rather than write a super long post that will bore anyone who wasn’t there, I’ll try to condense a few bullet points.

• Texas is big, flat, and empty.  At least the parts that we drove through.

• The first three days, most of our group was working at Jack’s house, which was located in Texas.  This means I crossed the border quite a lot—eight times in all (four times each way).  I learned that:
  

  • The Río Grande is quite a misnomer.  The river is actually rather small.  And we were pretty close to the Gulf Coast, where you’d think the river would be at its largest.

  • Getting into Mexico is much faster and easier than getting into the United States.

  • Only once were we asked to get out of our vehicle while a guard took a look around, and looked in the glove compartment, but didn’t look in the trunk.

• Refried beans are apparently a condiment in Mexico.  At one meal, we had ham sandwiches with refried beans instead of mustard or mayonnaise.  At another, there was toast with refried beans and cheese on it.  I think the best local food I had was the breakfast burritos, which were actually not spicy (in fact, none of the food was very spicy).  I also made crepes one morning, by putting jelly on a tortilla and rolling it up.  Those were pretty good too.

• Our accommodations were not exactly top-of-the-line.  We had to shower in smelly water that was cold not clean enough to drink (even the locals don’t drink it), and we slept in cabins that were open and allowed plenty of mosquitoes in.

• On our next-to-last day, we heard from the pastors who were at the retreat.  It was humbling to think that these accommodations that we found so primitive were like the Hilton to these couples.  I think they all still have jobs in addition to being pastors, because their churches simply can’t afford to pay them enough to live on.

• I was surprised how well I could actually stumble through Spanish, having only taken it in high school about ten years ago.  But I don’t know how well I could have communicated without the help of Josh, who is currently taking Spanish in high school, and got quite a trial-by-fire.  When you’re speaking a subset of the language consisting almost entirely of common verbs and nouns, and not worrying so much about verb conjugation, and the person speaking to you slows down, it’s actually not so bad.

• We went over to the Gulf Coast on our last day, where some of us explored a shrimp boat that had run aground.  This was actually a lot of fun!

• Most of Mexico was very dirty, with litter everywhere.  I’m not quite sure why.  I mean it doesn’t seem like you need to come from a wealthy background to know not to litter.  Maybe garbage collection isn’t as reliable as it is in America, so people don’t have a choice but to throw their trash in the streets?  I don’t know, I’m just speculating.

• We also went to what Jack called “Fishtown”.  This was a very poor fishing village on the coast.  I asked Jack what happens when a hurricane comes through, and he said the city sends buses to pick the people up, and after the storm they go back and salvage what building materials they can to rebuild their shacks.  We visited two pastors that Jack knew in Fishtown, one of which who is trying to start an orphanage.

• After Fishtown, we came back and made lots of sandwiches, then we went to the Matamoros city dump to pass out the sandwiches and fruit and juice.  There are a lot of people that live next to the dump, who make a living salvaging what they can from the dump and selling it.  We passed out the sandwiches, along with fruit and juice.  It was another humbling experience, seeing this level of poverty that only exists in the United States for maybe the bottom 0.01% or something.

• As we were leaving Mexico on our last day, we got pulled over by the police.  The officer claims we ran a red light, but several of us saw the light as we went through it and it only turned yellow as we were going through.  In addition, another car followed us through the light.  I didn’t catch that car’s tags as we pulled over, but I have a hunch that it had Mexican tags.  The officer told us that we would have to go to the office downtown to pay the ticket.  After putting on this show of being super strict for five or ten minutes, he said “O paga thirty-five dollars, ahora”.  (He had a firm grasp on the English language when it came to the phrase “thirty-five dollars”.)  Anyway, we ended up giving him thirty dollars and he let us go along.  We learned later that the fine for running a red light is only about five dollars, and we’re pretty sure none of that thirty dollars will ever make it to the city.  But there wasn’t much we could do.  It was one of the few times we didn’t have a local with us, and it’s not like the officer gave us any paperwork.  And we weren’t going to let him lead us to la oficina, because who knows where he would have actually taken us or what he would have done to us once we got there.  And it’s not like we can report the guy or hire a lawyer or anything.  I mean I know we have corrupt police officers in the United States, but they’re not quite so blatant about it.  I guess it was Mexico’s way of saying “thanks for visiting, and don’t come back!”

Well the bullets were supposed to keep this post from being too long but it has gotten quite large anyway.  And I’ve even left out a lot of stuff!  I guess I’ll end by saying that it was a great experience getting to interact with people in another culture, and very humbling to think about the conditions that most of them live in, compared to the comforts I enjoy in the United States.  I’ve always thought it sounded cliché to hear people say things like that, and maybe that’s what you’re thinking as you read this.  I guess I just think the world would be a better place if more people had the experience of playing soccer with the locals in another country.

I have put up a bunch of photos from the trip.  I may put up more as I get pictures from other people’s cameras, and you may have already seen these photos on my Facebook.

Now that the election is over, I thought I’d share a few thoughts.

One: Stephanie and I went by our polling place at 6:30 PM on election night, just to see what the line was like.  There was literally no line.  We could see inside and there were some booths that weren’t even occupied.  No more waiting in line in the cold for ninety minutes to vote early for me.

Two: As a general rule, I don’t like to hear other people’s opinions of politics.  Especially the opinions of people with extremely strong opinions.  That said, I’ve been surprised and impressed with the mature, sensible way most (but not all) of the extremely conservative people I know have reacted to the results of the election.  Just one example: “My man didn’t win, but I will now support this man as my President.”

No, and I don’t care.

This fall the music game genre is going to be interesting.  Guitar Hero IV: World Tour has announced that it will be like Rock Band: two guitars, drums, and vocals for every song.  The GH4 drum kit, which you can see here, is pretty cool in that it has two cymbal-like pads on there too, instead of having all the drums in a row.  Not that I know the slightest thing about drumming, but I assume this would feel a little more authentic.  The drum pads are also going to sense how hard you are hitting them, and adjust the volume of the drums in-game accordingly.  (Maybe Rock Band already did this?  From what I read it doesn’t sound like it, but I’ve only played it like twice in Best Buy.)  For the guitar parts, they are adding something I have wanted: open notes (as in, strumming without holding any frets).  They’ll represent this on the screen as a solid bar across the fret board (the same way the kick pedal is represented on the drums).  I haven’t heard much about how Rock Band 2 will be improved yet.  Konami, however, is jumping into the genre that they created ten years ago (but failed to bring to America) with Rock Revolution.  The drum kit for that game just looks wacky.

For me, I’ll probably only get GH4 for the Wii this year, since I already have one GH3 Wii guitar controller.  The downside is that there’s no downloadable content for the Wii (at least not yet).  Mainly due to the fact that there is only 512 MB of memory in the Wii.  I am thinking about getting a Playstation 3 (Gaystation 3 to the haters) soon, so I could get any of the games for PS3, but I’d really like to not have too many plastic musical instruments sitting around my living room.  So I’m thinking GH4 for Wii is my more practical option.

This post has been retracted.  It discussed this overreaching Supreme Court ruling by doing precisely what the court ruled a felony: I made a link that claimed to point to the kind of content I don’t want to be associated with this site in search engine indexes, but in fact it pointed to www.google.com.  I guess you had to be there.

I kinda know someone who will be on national TV this weekend.  Stephanie’s sister’s husband’s sister is Miss North Carolina USA.1  She is in Las Vegas right now preparing for the Miss USA pageant, which will air on NBC this Friday, April 11th, at 9:00 PM.

Well, not quite.  But I was mentioned in a post on the Freakonomics site, which is now hosted on NYTimes.com.  I e-mailed them a link last week, which they proceeded to blog about.  But I didn’t expect my full name to show up in bold text or anything.  Kinda cool though I guess.