KeriBlog

I Consider This Cooking

Jul 13 2012

This is my first official post for BloggingAboutFood.com.

That’s a good and straight-forward URL there.

I have eating-out-on-the-go down to a science, no seriously you have no idea, science.

But in the last 4 months I changed a bit, and what you see here is a lot for me. That this came from my fridge. And there is a vegetable there, wait twooooo vegetables.

I wish though, that there was a pill I could take each morning. Think about how much time you’d save, like a full-time-job’s worth of time.

Anyway, Blogging About Food, it’s gonna be great!

The 2012 Honda Indy in Toronto Canada

Jul 11 2012

Honda Indy Toronto kindly sent me tickets again this year (click here and here for last years posts).

The Thursdasy before the race I was invited to

the first-ever Backstage Indy Tour.

First, the press conference.

I got to thinking, these racers, sure they’re all very good behind the wheel, but they have to be equally as good in front of a camera, because it seems much of their job is presenting well.

Like racer Simon Pagenaud.

This was inside Honda’s paddock, where I was as close to an Indy car as you can get.

They asked us not to take photos of the engine, knowing their competition would be zooming in on our photos looking, searching – corporate espionage.

Official Indy car tools.

On the tour we were able to visit the pits, come ON.

That’s where I met Arie Lyendyk, 2 time winner of the Indianapolis 500.

If there’s anyone who should be made into an animated gif, it’s Arie. Bet he’d be fun to have a drink with, you could tell it would be jokes.

HONDA INDY FACTS

– each car is $1 million, and it costs $4 million to play this game

– they’re going 200 MPH

– it’s difficult to pass here, most passing is done in Turn 3

– it takes 6 guys 6.5 seconds to re-fuel the car. Changing the tires is faster

– because this is a street course, they are in constant attack mode

– there are 400+ volunteers

– ticket sales this year were higher than ever

– Toronto is one of the racers’ favourite stops, because we fans are so awesome

I attended the race both days.

I will never, ever tire of the sound of the engines. Maybe the best part.

And while on this topic: to all the hippies who put down the Indy… guys, where do you think the technology comes from for your green, eco-friendly vehicles?

Here guys, it comes from races like this; they test technology on the track, which filters down into cars for normal people.

The other best part.

(I’m talking about the Honda Civic Si HFPs, watch me drive one on a track here)

Oh guys, you need to obscure your WiFi names next time.

One of the strangest thing was the absence of a checkered flag. Except for the official guy waving one, they are nowhere to be found.

I put out a serious effort, too. All I found was this scrappy piece wrapped around the base of a sunglasses-for-sale stand.

I think I’ve uncovered a little mystery here!

I wonder if I’ll be emailed, “please remove that checkered flag image”. We’re going to find out, because above is the new header for KeriOnCars.com.

The race concluded with a crash.

Thanks for a great time, Honda, and congratulations on your best-selling Indy in years!

Widgets and Night Walks

Jul 11 2012

As a blogger, the most common question I’m asked is: what do you blog about? If my answer takes longer than 3 seconds, their eyes glaze over.

Now look right at my sidebar and scroll down to see “Categories”. Say that in 3 seconds.

Click here: remember this? The start of my network? It was too much, WAY too much. Managing one site is enough, and I couldn’t pull off 8. My interests remain the same, but publishing and maintaining them proved impossible.

So now what?

I sat down quietly with a pen and paper, and narrowed it down to 5 topics / categories:

3/5 of those topics have companies who see the value in social media, and invest real money, not gift cards or swagg. Good.

So I’ve been hunched over my laptop, re-designing the backend of KeriBlog.

This is a big deal. Above are my Widgets, what you know as my sidebar, look right. There is no easy method to move them from one site to another. What you see on the side is hours of build time. Manage 8 sidebars? OMFG.

If I do this correctly, I will be able to use the same one across all the sub-sites, and that’s huge. I did not do this correctly when testing on KeriOnCars though, see, sidebar vanished.

I’m trying to be better at remembering to push away from my computer regularly, not to sit there in the shape of a C for hours on end. So easy to do, isn’t it.