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Floods, Fires, Fear of Covid!!

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Bill Pemberton

0ld Ford Automotive Racing Terror
8,421
8,346
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Blair, Nebraska
Unreal that Lake Charles is going to get hammered again , along with many areas of the Gulf still trying to recover, and yet the same can be said of the Fires in California. Add to what appears to be a second spike in Covid and the economic disaster for so many is incomprehensible. With 90% of the Performance Vehicles , trucks and SUVs I sold going all over the US ( heh, we only have 1.9 million folks in Nebraska ) I am saddened by the trials and tribulations so many of my friends and customers are going through. There is a huge amount of TMO members in California, quite a few down South, and Covid is everywhere, so consider dropping a note in the Forum occasionally to let your friends here know you are alright. With a couple of good friends closing their businesses due to Covid , others having gotten flooded out from the Hurricanes and a couple more who lost homes/businesses in the Fires ( one in Colorado ) it would be great to hear from those of you that are doing okay? 2020 sucks and the sad part is we are not caught up in one disaster but many. I will have to add that things have been pretty good for the Nebraska members , no Tornadoes this year and lower Covid Infection rates than in many areas, but the effects on the economy from all this stuff is impacting here too.

Chime in if you are okay and keep in touch with your friends and fellow track rats here at TMO.
 

Ludachris

Chris
Staff member
Moderator
1,658
1,962
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
5-10 Years
Newcastle, CA
We've been extremely fortunate through everything that's going on. We've had to endure the heavy smoke most of the summer here in the Sacramento area, but that's nothing compared to what a lot of people are going through right now. Hopefully everyone here has made it through unscathed for the most part.
 

Bill Pemberton

0ld Ford Automotive Racing Terror
8,421
8,346
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Blair, Nebraska
Wondered about a new member in Dothan , Georgia after Laura since it appeared the winds and rain hammered that area? Was worried about TMS while he was working down in Mississippi , but they seemed to miss the weather the last time through in his part of the State. Had a friend in Cali lose his business ( not a Mustang or TMO member ) from the fires.
 

xr7

TMO Addict?
706
821
Exp. Type
Autocross
Exp. Level
10-20 Years
Minnesota
I have friends that live on the beach front in Galveston Texas, no direct hit but they have had to leave three times this year and do some clean up. Brother in law lives on North Carolina coastal island, decided to sell and move to higher ground on the island. Surviving in Minnesota means not freezing to death or being eaten by mosquitoes.
I have two autocross events these weekend to wrap up the year. Just trying to avoid covid crap and a little unrest in the area. Starting to prep for winter and decide if we stay home or sneak down south for some warm weather again. Hope all others are coping as best as they can.
 

TMSBOSS

Spending my pension on car parts and track fees.
7,529
5,242
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
10-20 Years
Illinois
Yea......
The roundup or Covid. Which one won?? For a couple weeks it was not the roundup. Sucks.
Our company donated product to the folks in Lake Charles. I rolled the car out and loaded my trailer with product. When I drove into town.......disaster.
We have since helped out other folks on the coast, Laura, and two towns in the south with West Nile out breaks. We as individuals donate our time and equipment. Our boss pays out of pocket expenses while donating a Lot of product. We produce mosquito control products. Its always good to help folks who need the help.
Was/is 2020 a disaster?? You bet. Looking forward to a better 2021 with more time spent with friends.
 
You can't do much about Wild Fires and Mother Nature .But following covid protocols is something WE All can do to help slow the infection rate of this monster!!! College students are especially lax when it comes to this. One college here in CT suspended over 100 students and expelled a dozen more for hosting /or attending parties with attendance much more than allowed and no masks or distancing.....A lot of folks are sick and tired of all this, but we can't let our guard down now, especially with a second wave coming as it gets colder....Add the upcoming Flu season on the doorstep and it don't look good....I wear my mask when I go to stores, but not when i'm driving my Boss!!!!
 

TymeSlayer

Tramps like us, Baby we were born to run...
3,787
2,740
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
Brighton, Colorado
The fires here in Colorado are out of control. Ash is falling everywhere and the redish/orangey skies just plain depress you. Just got back from camping and every freaking days the air was bad. I don't think I've ever prayed so hard for snow to help settle things down. I have no proof whatsoever but can't help but think the Anarchists are starting these things to disrupt things here out west. I got the trailer home yesterday and after cleaning it out, I felt like I had smoked ten packs of cigarettes. Even worse is that the shop I have Sweet Lorraine in, has shut down to a covid breakout. I can't catch a break and still no resolution on the heating issues with the Boss. I'm starting to think hibernation would be a good thing for me right about now.
 
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Bill Pemberton

0ld Ford Automotive Racing Terror
8,421
8,346
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Blair, Nebraska
Really glad to hear you are okay , but the fires are just insane in Colorado, California and the West. Crazy when we get air quality warnings in Nebraska and we are around 8+ hours from the Denver Metro. Heck, we had California smoke causing health warnings just a few weeks back The cold is coming so hoping for snow in the Rockies to help you out Kirk!

Stay safe!
 
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6,360
8,180
Well, recently I've been at Road Atlanta, 2 weeks later the doubleheader at Mid Ohio, 2 days later the Runoffs for a week in Wisconsin, the 19 hours later back at Road Atlanta, in about 5 days I'm heading to Laguna Seca...we are required to wear masks at the airports, on the planes, at the races and I swear I pick up more sinus infections from breathing my own funk 12 hours a day than I would without the mask. I love getting back to Florida where I can ditch the masks.
One thing I'd like to point out about this Covid deal, now that it's been totally politicized (and I'm not taking sides here) the stats are totally bogus without some type of qualifier, as an example, instead of saying "there is a record new cases of Covid in Schmukville, Idaho" they should be saying we currently have "X" amount of cases per 100K, or 500K, or whatever without the qualifier it's meaningless, kind of like pressures without a temperature reference. This would cut out the hype and give solid numbers.
 
531
364
sfo
I swear I pick up more sinus infections from breathing my own funk 12 hours a day than I would without the mask. I love getting back to Florida where I can ditch the masks.
One thing I'd like to point out about this Covid deal, now that it's been totally politicized

I'm a climate change denier and appreciate originalist justices on the SCOTUS. If you take offense at that you aren't going to like the rest so stop reading.

For everyone else, the climate might be changing negatively due to man or it might a natural variation. I have seen both sides of the issue and even with a science backround, the concept is too political to figure out the truth. My research is inconclusive on that one but I do not think the fires are because of climate change. There are too many other factors at work. We have to be careful with our sample sizes of 1. For the member who got bad air quality in nebraska from Cali fires I say really? I live in Socal and my air has been great all summer! For the bay area member seeing dark days I was there in August racing at Laguna Seca. I almost did not go because of the fire burning across the street from laguna an evacuation center. I figured the SCCA would cancel if the fires got bad and I felt uneasy about being in the way on vacation racing when locals were evacuating. What happened is the race went on and locals were happy to have out of town cashflow injection. I even made friends with a new fishing guide hiring him to learn flyfishing off the beach. Business has been crushed there because of media fear mongering that isn't reality for the majority. I smelled no smoke the whole weekend! Yes people got burned out but there are 40 million people in Cali. How many people got burned out? 500? 1000? 20,000?

Covid is bad potentially deadly and positive cases are rising yet the deaths are decreasing and the disease is less nasty on average. I'm seeing family members testing positive without symptoms or light symptoms being around the rest of the family who never test positive or get sick. The Flu OTOH makes you feel like cr@p 100% of the time. Covid might kill you or just make you a little sick or have no symptoms at all...strange disease. I'm a dentist seeing about 50-60 patients a week semi-retired. This is just what I see in SoCal. Media keeps saying we are dying. I don't see that. The only thing that prevents me from returning to 100% precovid life are closed restaurants, freaked out business like bank branches closed, fake shortages, and dumb stuff like that. Today you got 4 things on a list for Home depot and you can't fill your order without going to another Lowes too or another HD across town. This problem is occurring for every hobby making fake shortages forcing you to buy online sometimes. OK you want to destroy bricks and mortar this is the way to do it. All I can say is vote with your feet. For example my primary bank is not acting like a bank. I'm the customer. If you don't kiss my a$$ I'm going to use my secondary bank as my new primary...see ya! We all need to stop letting people and business use covid as an excuse to inconvenience your life. OK wear a mask but I'm not wearing one walking by you on the other side of the street! Where there is disaster and hardship there is opportunity.

In the height of April covid we all where shut down to 2 months. Most hunker down and go in defensive mode. The government fearful of halting production and causing a depression injected huge liquidity into the entire economy from wallstreet to mainstreet. Instead of tightening my belt I reinvested into my business. That's the opportunity part. I'm so busy now I'm turning clients away. Covid is a big disrupter. Too many are waiting to get back to normal. Why wait to get back to normal? I say surf this wave or get crushed by it. Life is good when you have 1st world problems.
 

xr7

TMO Addict?
706
821
Exp. Type
Autocross
Exp. Level
10-20 Years
Minnesota
The fires here in Colorado are out of control. Ash is falling everywhere and the redish/orangey skies just plain depress you. Just got back from camping and every freaking days the air was bad. I don't think I've ever prayed so hard for snow to help settle things down. I have no proof whatsoever but can't help but think the Anarchists are starting these things to disrupt things here out west. I got the trailer home yesterday and after cleaning it out, I felt like I had smoked ten packs of cigarettes. Even worse is that the shop I have Sweet Lorraine in, has shut down to a covid breakout. I can't catch a break and still no resolution on the heating issues with the Boss. I'm starting to think hibernation would be a good thing for me right about now.
I wish you would have gotten the 9" wet cement snow I got the other day. I hope the snow comes soon to snuff out those fires. Stay safe. I've fired up the garage heater and getting ready to pull the covers over my head.
 

Ludachris

Chris
Staff member
Moderator
1,658
1,962
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
5-10 Years
Newcastle, CA
Having gone through this multiple times now here in northern CA, I feel for you guys out in CO. And I know fire danger there is extremely high too due to the arid climate and the lightning that comes through in the summer thunderstorms.

Hopefully that snow comes in and puts it out.
 
Boy, Those are some scary looking skies to an otherwise beautiful scenic view......It's been dank and drab all week here with the dew pt and temp dancing around in the low 60's. I wanted to take the Boss out today but the roads are still wet as I type.....maybe by Sunday we'll get a nice day. .......Tyme Sweet Lorraine goes into hibernation..You gotta get that Christmas display going pretty soon!!!!....Santa will be ok by then.............I hope....Hide the eggnog!!!!!
 

Mad Hatter

Gotta go Faster
5,237
4,227
Santiago, Chile
High of 38 today and snow coming on Saturday night into Monday. That should help. Here's a picture from the campsite we were at a while back.
View attachment 59077
What a scary and impressive pic!

As a geologist I get angry at the greens and the climate deniers for their practically religious views on climate. We are in an inter-glacial period and have been for the last 18,000 years. In our earth’s history we forget that Antarctica was a covered in a thick forest only some 30 million years ago. We have had a Bipolar world (as in ice caps, not mental health… though it has gone out of whack as well) for only the last 3 million years. We go through warming and cooling periods for a variety of reasons from orbital changes to massive volcanoes or even asteroids.

But it’s got to the point that saying any of the above would bar you from a teaching position in most Universities. How can this be…. Facts matter, regardless if they fit your preferences or not.

All said and done, yes , of course we should try to limit greenhouse gases etc and looks like we are heading down the road of solar, wind power and geothermal energy anyways because it just makes sense.

As a miner, I get screeched at by some guy in a Tesla for ruining the planet …heck, where are you going to get the metals for our new green world.

Looks like the biggest problem we have is a lack of a good basic education for all.



Sorry for the rant….. just want to race my Boss!
 
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Bill Pemberton

0ld Ford Automotive Racing Terror
8,421
8,346
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Blair, Nebraska
Have a couple of friends/customers ( one with a business in Estes ) and things are crazy and tough for folks to leave town and have to worry about home or home/business.
 

Fabman

Dances with Racecars
6,518
8,154
Exp. Type
W2W Racing
Exp. Level
20+ Years
Pleasanton: 1/2 way between Sonoma and Laguna Seca
Unreal that Lake Charles is going to get hammered again , along with many areas of the Gulf still trying to recover, and yet the same can be said of the Fires in California. Add to what appears to be a second spike in Covid and the economic disaster for so many is incomprehensible. With 90% of the Performance Vehicles , trucks and SUVs I sold going all over the US ( heh, we only have 1.9 million folks in Nebraska ) I am saddened by the trials and tribulations so many of my friends and customers are going through. There is a huge amount of TMO members in California, quite a few down South, and Covid is everywhere, so consider dropping a note in the Forum occasionally to let your friends here know you are alright. With a couple of good friends closing their businesses due to Covid , others having gotten flooded out from the Hurricanes and a couple more who lost homes/businesses in the Fires ( one in Colorado ) it would be great to hear from those of you that are doing okay? 2020 sucks and the sad part is we are not caught up in one disaster but many. I will have to add that things have been pretty good for the Nebraska members , no Tornadoes this year and lower Covid Infection rates than in many areas, but the effects on the economy from all this stuff is impacting here too.

Chime in if you are okay and keep in touch with your friends and fellow track rats here at TMO.
All good here in the SF Bay area. My business took a huge hit when Covid showed up and everything closed down but as a guy who design/builds the machines that test/produce/package things like disinfectants and Clorox wipes etc. I've been busy as a one legged man in a butt kicking contest ever since. I can honestly say that Covid paid for my race car though its not finished yet, but then, nether is Covid.
 

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