slakin.net | mattsn0w.com

matt: oh so 1 Question related to timing. I know that the value in the base timing table is Degrees before top dead center, which I believe is when the piston crank arm is fully extended and all valves are closed matt: so my question is, why at higher RPM under higher loads do you need to decrease the timing degree BTDC Ed: right. In general you have to run less advance at higher loads to avoid knock matt: I know the ignition is what pushes the piston back down and generates power Ed: yes matt: so if its to avoid knock, why not run lower timing at lower loads? wouldn't that allow for more low end power? Ed: no why would it? oh I think I know what you're missing... Ed: the point of advancing the ignition is to give the flame front time to propogate through the misture Ed: mixture matt: ohhhhhhhhhhhhh Ed: so that by the time the cylinder reaches TDC, you have a full burn and maximum cylinder pressures matt: that makes perfect sense! and you're not wasting fuel Ed: right Ed: if you ignite it too late, you're shooting energy and heat out of the exhaust valves matt: yeah, which is bad Ed: but if you ignite too early you end up burning the mixture before the cylinder hits tdc matt: higher EGTs, and flame hitting the turbo Ed: which results in less power. right, also more heat on the exhaust valves and heads matt: so that is why you want to monitor EGTs Ed: right matt: ok that makes sense Ed: your job as a tuner is to find MBT. maximum best timing. matt: but the only way to tell if you're too late or too early is by monitoring knock and EGT? Ed: that's the maximum timing that still makes power and doesn't knock and power. ;) matt: right. sweet Ed: and remember that other factors will have effect on what timing you can and should run. ie... a/f, boost, external conditions, etc matt: one more little thing of the many things I need to know.

it happened on June 14th 2008. Justine and I finally got hitched! The wedding turned out better than I had hoped and expected. Big thanks to all those that helped out, and everyone that showed up. I absolutely loved our wedding!

All my life when I've thought a wedding should be a celebration of two people willingly committing their lives to each other and to God. I think about the numerous times my mom told me how she and my dad got married at their pastors house in Ben Lomond, how she made her wedding dress and my dad wore a simple brown corduroy suite and tie, then had a small reception. I don't even think my dad's parents were there. But I remember a photo that was taken of my mom and dad standing in front of a large stone fireplace in their pastors house and they looked so happy.
That is what I picture when I think of getting married. A simple gathering of your loved family & friends. I read on a wedding history site while googling for 'weddings on the cheap' that in the olden days there was never food served at weddings, and that people never even sat down! It was not a long drawn out event like they are today.

:sigh:

I want to be happy about getting married. Not stressed out about the day, or drama that people cause even if that is not their intention.
Weddings seem to be more about business these days. Not like people getting married so they get tax breaks. I mean catering, venues, photographers, coordinators. That kind of crap. Every one is out to make money instead of helping people celebrate the joyful day of their life long union.
we'll see how things go today and tomorrow for my little sister's wedding. She is trying to be simple, but still have some modernness to it.

This was the busiest first week at a new job I've had. I really, truely enjoyed it.
The people are great, the product is awesome, and I get to work(and play) with some bad ass hardware!
I did some usual first week stuff like getting to know the network environment, what hosts are there, issue tracking, and sun, sun, sun! I'm not talking about the thing that causes skin cancer and makes summer time hot, I am talking about Sun Microsystems. :)
I worked with my boss on setting up two Thumpers(see Sun X4500) and a x4100. This makes up a DW20. 48TB of RAW data storage in two 4U systems. Incredible!

This coming week we will be working with JET(Jumpstart Enterprise Toolkit) and building up and documenting a system to do all our Solaris imaging. Fun stuff. :)

Next Wednesday is my last day as a System Administrator at SkyPilot Networks. I will miss my colleagues there, and the wonderful work environment. It has been the most challenging job in my career, and also the most fun. There are a few people that don't belong there, but the other 95% of the people there are awesome and I truly hope I get the opportunity to work with them again in the near future. On the 21st I will be starting at Greenplum in San Mateo. The commute is going to suck, but the company has a working product that I am very excited about. I will be a UNIX Systems Engineer wearing many hats. I am ecstatic about this opportunity to be a part of an amazing company.

I found this quick and dirty howto via a google search: http://doc.gwos.org It allows you to setup Active Directory authentication so your windows users can SSH to your Ubuntu server. I set it up in about 20 minutes here at work, and works flawlessly!

I have not blogged in a loooong time, but this I felt was worthy of posting. if you don't know what kill -9, chown -R, chmod does, then don't bother watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fow7iUaKrq4

Looks like the problem was just an old part I neglected to remove from the engine bay. Took it out, no more rattle. yay! :D Installing my 4 point harness tonight to help hold my butt in the seat at the auto cross. This weekend will be a fun one!

soo, friday morning justine walks home from work cause the construction guys blocked her car in. She had a wart removed from the bottom of her foot and is still healing so she asked me to drive her back. I didn't warm up my car, just got in, and slowly drove her over there. I pull over where the sidewalk used to be and let her out. Between me there was a big Mack truck and a temp-o fence. The mack truck started driving toward me, not stopping, about to push me from the drivers side in to the temp-o-fence and water main behind it. So I revved up the motor while cold(had only bee running about 2 minutes)and slip the clutch to get out of there quick. I turn the corner and notice this new clicking noise coming from the passenger side. pull in to my driveway, sit there and slowly rev, and it is consistant with the RPM increase. Pop the hood, it is even more audible now. sounds like it is coming from the turbo / passenger side head. so I let the car cool down, let it warm up before I go to work, sound is gone. then tonight, we go to get some grub and I hear the noise again but quieter. My car had been off for a couple of hours, so it wasn't cold, but the oil was around 120 degrees F. So I am going to get some second opinions, but I think that something is messed up in the head, or maybe just the turbo. Hopefully the later as I have another TD04 turbo here in my living room waiting to be rebuilt.