Good night Paws

Paws Nuxoll
April 1, 1997 - November 2, 2007


Today was a very sad day for me...

After a long struggle, my cat Paws finally passed away tonight. She was suffering from renal (kidney) failure, which was a complication of her recovery from a coyote attack several months ago. She bounced back pretty well from that - but life was a lot tougher over the last few months as I had to give her sub-Q (IV) fluids and a couple of pills every day, a few shots a week, and special vitamin supplements daily.


I had her since she was only a tiny baby - just a few weeks old rescued from under a friend's house in Santa Cruz. She has been one of my best friends for the last 10 years. She always cheered me up, no matter how bad I was feeling before she walked up and sat next to me. She followed me around the house and always stayed nearby. She was extremely affectionate to me - though scared of most everyone else except the few she got to know well.


She is survived by her 10 children - all of whom ended up in good homes during her breeding years, one of which still lives with me. Her son Gus and I will miss her very much, as will all of my close friends that met her over these last 10 years.

Good night, Paws. If you are somewhere else now, I hope there's a lot of greenie snacks, hardwood floors, and ping pong balls to play with.

- Joe

Henry Coe State Park

I got out an took some pictures this weekend, which was a wonderful escape... Henry Coe State Park is a *huge* park just Southeast of my house which recently suffered a very bad forest fire. I drove up to get some pictures of scarred landscape, and was pleasantly surprised by the fact that I didn't see a single bit of burn scar. I guess the fires were deep in the park where I wasn't about to lug my 2000 pounds of camera equipment.

Go check a few of them out on my flickr page.

Thunderhill Reverse Dry Session (2 of 2)

Track day at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA. The day alternated between very wet sessions and a few mostly-dry sessions. This is a portion of a mostly dry session. It had stopped raining, and the course pretty much was dry by the end. We're running the course in reverse direction, which is awesome if you've never tried it. This is my helmet camera - driver's eye view.

Thunderhill Reverse Dry Session (1 of 2)

Track day at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA. The day alternated between very wet sessions and a few mostly-dry sessions. This is a portion of a mostly dry session. It had stopped raining, and the course pretty much was dry by the end. We're running the course in reverse direction, which is awesome if you've never tried it. This is my helmet camera - driver's eye view.

Thunderhill Reverse - Wet/Dry Conditions

Track day at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA. The day alternated between very wet sessions and a few mostly-dry sessions. This is a portion of a drying session. It had stopped raining, but the course was not dry quite yet - which makes for some hairy high-speed sections. We're running the course in reverse direction, which is awesome if you've never tried it. This is my helmet camera - driver's eye view.

Thunderhill Reverse Wet (2 of 2)

Track day at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA. The day alternated between very wet sessions and a few mostly-dry sessions. This is the first part of a very very wet session. We're running the course in reverse direction, which is awesome if you've never tried it. This is my helmet camera - driver's eye view.

Thunderhill Reverse Wet (1 of 2)

Track day at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA. The day alternated between very wet sessions and a few mostly-dry sessions. This is the first part of a very very wet session. We're running the course in reverse direction, which is awesome if you've never tried it. This is my helmet camera - driver's eye view.

Laguna Seca Radical SR3

This video has been digitized for years (since long before YouTube) - but I never bothered to put it online. Silly me!

Track day at Laguna Seca in Monterey, CA. This is most of a session (advanced/instructor group) with me driving a Radical SR3. I was doing a test day in the car thanks to Radicals West, because I was considering one for purchase. I ended up with the Lotus Exige S. The Radical is still one of my favorite!

The Lotus at Infineon

Here are a few laps at Infineon Raceway recently. This camera is mounted on my helmet, so sorry about the leaning.

Long time, no blog

Hello Earth.

It has been a very long time since I wrote a blog entry. I have been a *very* busy bee in all aspects of my life. I was traveling for most of the month of March, and am now finally home and chillin' out. I am still at Apple and still participating in the Java Posse podcast. I have been to a few track (racing) days lately, and am trying to ramp-up back into racing a lot more than I have been in the last year (since I bought my house). I will be getting a Lotus Exige S as soon as possible (after property and federal/state tax day).

Anyway. I am still alive, and plan on getting back into this bloggery.