Atlanta, Video Cocaine, and Half-Eaten Toast

I can't even begin to tell you how exhausted I am right now. I spent last week in Atlanta, GA filming Furniture Decorating's first big story, a furniture show called AmericasMart.

As I expected, I was able to meet some awesome people. Barry Dixon, Mike Howarth, Kathi Cunningham, and Steve Papevies are all gurus in their respective niches, and wonderful people to talk to. They remind me why I dabbled in interior design to begin with.

As I didn't expect, being in front of a camera, interviewing people, and trying to absorb as much content on possible while on your feet for 10 hours can be quite draining. I totally understand why you always see CNN journalists wearing comfy hiking boots. I wonder if the experience is as taxing for the show-goers who can choose to be a wall flower and silently observe their surroundings, instead of trying to find the best angle to film from and the appropriate questions and emotions to capture on tape. Being a journalist is a lot less romantic than you'd think. Especially in a hotel room with two other dudes.

Drifting has been pretty scarce. As you might now, I still have a failed O2 sensor and my dreaded pre-cats just waiting to grenade. I'm trying to find the $650 I need to do a full exhaust replacement, but my current (exciting) business endeavors are claiming what reserves I have.

Speaking of business endeavors, the guys at RaceDrive are implementing some of the concepts of the race-life project. They are even using a font I considered (Sonofachrome). Their design tenets are far away from what I had in mind, and I have a much less gritty scope in mind, so I don't think we will step on each other's toes too much. I had a meeting with Armanix today regarding her contributions to the Race-Life project, which I am pretty excited about. I got an awesome amount of work done tonight, including a finalized logo and some top-notch community architecture. With some hard work, it should be fit for human eyes this month.

Part of being in Atlanta meant that I basically missed Dakar and the opening days of NAIAS. When I lived in Michigan, I used to go to NAIAS with Dave Brown, who- at the time- I understood was a pretty important guy in their organization. I haven't spoken with him since I lived there, and I wonder how the auto industry is affecting him personally. I've been searching the net for "condensed" versions of both events, so that I don't have to sift through the dribble that is YouTube. So far, either the clips are far too long for someone busy like me, or are dubbed over with Linkin Park. I'm looking for a 2 minute highlight reel, like the crack cocaine version of the event. Oh shit, did I just discover the next race-life feature?

If you don't follow me on Twitter, I doubt you heard about the terrifying dream I had about trading my MR-S in for an S13. If you did hear about my dream, please stop hiding in my closet at night. In my dream the S13 barley ran, was four colors, and was filled with half eaten toast, fried eggs, and french fries. It eventually died and wouldn't start because of faulty electrics. The moral of the story is: even if your MR-S is a bitch to drift, you won't have to push it home if you stall it out. Stop being a pussy and start drifting from 3rd.

And that's all I have to say about that.