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New Year's Weekend Meeting (long)

     Happy New Year everyone!

     I enjoyed a great weekend and wanted to share just a brief part of it 
     with you.  See, people that meet "online" do meet in person.  Stanley 
     Phan and I made arrangements to meet at my home on Saturday to share 
     our cars, talk a good storm (I did most of it :D), and maybe go for a 
     quick drive.  First of all, Stanley's car is really clean folks! 
     nice... 

     Secondly, Stanley has come up with a really great MSD location and the 
     installation really looks clean.  I wish I had taken a couple of 
     pictures to send to Eric's 2002 WWW page (Stanley? I'd still like to 
     to take those pictures for the Fahren Affairs if you get a chance...).

     Third, Stanley is a nicer guy in person than he lets on here on the 
     list. I loaned my car to him so he could experience some of the 
     differences and he was much to gentle!  So I gave him a ride back to 
     the house and I think I scared him.  Nevertheless, I am not a gentle 
     driver.  To me it was just another run through one of my favorite 
     canyons, but I'm not sure he was ready for my 7/10ths, all the time, 
     driving! :)

     We topped off my car with gas and I led him to Ortega Highway in San 
     Juan Capistrano, CA.  Ortega is about 27 miles long with both sweeping 
     50MPH turns down to 10MPH sharp corners.  It is a favorite road for 
     all kinds of drivers from motorcycle road rockets to street legal race 
     cars and at the peak is a little roadside stand great for coffee, 
     talk, and watching the hang glider people take off toward Lake 
     Elsinore below.  We had a little adventure on the way up with a Honda 
     Accord that thought law enforcement was her role, but in general a 
     very enjoyable run to the top.  I took some pictures from the lookout 
     for our local magazine and we talked about cars and life while 
     watching a couple of WWII fighter planes do aerobatics and play above 
     the valley below.  My biggest faux pas was to take pictures of the 
     cars and forget to take pictures of us *with our cars* -- oh well, 
     next time.

     The return trip back down the mountain was a little different.  Where, 
     on the way up, I kept my foot off the gas so Stanley could keep me in 
     sight, I said my goodbyes before leaving and said I was going to 
     "enjoy" driving the canyon.  To avoid a blow-by-blow, I "ran" the 
     canyon pretty quickly enjoying the beautiful day and pushing the car 
     deeper on every turn -- waiting at the bottom, Stanley caught up about 
     10 minutes later :).  This was my first full weekend reunited with my 
     02 since September and I believe the cobwebs needed to be blown off 
     both the car and me!  BTW, Ben Thongsai, your right!  This car is 
     going to be very hard to part with... :(

     In conclusion, thanks Stanley for a great day (I need more pictures), 
     and yes people do meet off the list! (and not to rub it in to the snow 
     belt folks with toys in hibernation, but it was a great weekend for 
     driving!).

     Fahr schnell, sei vorsichtig, hab Spass 
     Brian