(Note: these are deliberately out of order. Deal with it.)


We arrived in Las Vegas having driven 1200 miles in two days. At almost 10pm. The day before we had been in San Francisco and, to be honest, I thought it was shit. Things had started off badly when we discovered that our hotel was directly opposite an establishment called "The Stud Bar". They only got worse from there. Finding a place to drink that wasn't a gay bar was surprisingly difficult, and I really don't care how bad that sounds. After having been on the road for the best part of 10 hours, all I wanted was to reach for a cold beer not a reach-around.

San Fran also smelled terrible. And it wasn't just the seals.

We did find somewhere to drink, and there is probably a story there but this post is about Vegas. So we arrived quite late, which in Vegas is irrelevant but we were very nearly ruined at this stage. We had decided on booking hotels as "rounds". After the San Francisco debacle, we wanted something a bit more upmarket. Unfortunately, due to an issue with having two browser windows open simultaneously and a possibly drunk computer operator, the hotel we booked was, well, worse.

You see Vegas isn't just brightly lit Casinos, coked-up strippers and Elvis impersonating wedding celebrants. You might have seen an episode of CSI, perhaps. We were pretty much staying in one.

To be fair the hotel wasn't terrible, sure the WiFi required you to sit by the door to get a solid connection, and the experience created by the pulsing of the hot water in the shower was about as close to menopause as I ever want to get, but other than that it was comfortable. Unfortunately the area it was in, well it was not really Vegas you might expect. For example, we arrived at the hotel apparently just a few minutes after the police did. Flashing red and blues, not quite the big lights and floor show you want to see at the place you are spending the next couple of nights.

The problem with the hotel was that it wasn't on the Strip. The second you step off the Strip in Vegas, you step into one of the most depressing places I've ever been too. We were just a few blocks from it, but the place had an overwhelming sense of despair about it. The morning after we arrived, I went for a walk to the Walgreen's (on the strip itself) to buy some shampoo. The second I left the hotel I was asked if I had any change (another good sign), I passed some bloke talking to his bail bondsman on his mobile (we just got out apparently), and then got asked another two times for spare change.

The two hundred in cash I had in my wallet felt like a bit of a liability at this point. The best part was I had to walk back that way carrying my new purchase in hand. But that was the morning after the night before, and the night before is a better tale.

As I said, we arrived rather late. We didn't even leave the hotel until after midnight, caught some bus for people who gambled away their cars and rolled up at the first Casino that we had heard of, which happened to be The Mirage. I was dying for a Bourbon at this stage, having probably gone 20 hours without a drink, so I made a beeline to the nearest bar. Casinos generally will comp your drinks if you are actively gambling, even if its playing a 1c slot machine. I take my drinking more seriously than I do my gambling, so I wasn't going to wait around for 20 minutes pressing buttons to get a free drink. We walked and drank through a few of the clubs, before finally settling on a little bar not far from the floor that was fairly quiet by that stage of the night. Or at least it was quiet until the Australian's turned up.

And it was us either. From out of nowhere pounced two Australian girls doing the country proud and getting absolutely written off in the process. Immediately recognisable before the accents were even heard was the Australian swagger (stagger). They were pissed.

The older of the two worked at < a major international law firm >, and the other I never found out what she did because she immediately, and inexplicably, hated me. Her friend, however, was friendly enough for the two of them and at some point broke out into an impromptu strip tease. A Canadian guy who was doing his best to deny he was with the two girls looked on disappointingly. Apparently he had a flight early in the morning, and from what we could gather he wouldn't be shedding a tear on leaving Vegas far behind. He probably was with one of them, or at least thought he was 10 drinks ago, I never found out.

Not long after the Aussies left us, the bar closed (yeah, bars do close in Vegas) and we headed back out onto the casino floor. Being the worst tourists ever, we didn't really gamble much. The way I saw it, the biggest gamble I was prepared to take in Las Vegas was leaving our hotel after dark.

We were all starting to feel the long drive by this stage, and after we stopped drinking and started post-Bourbon crashing, we decided to head back to the hotel. We headed to the front door to find a taxi, that was a challenge in itself. They don't exactly advertise exits in Vegas casinos, if you can find one you its more than likely that you were actually looking for the rest rooms. At the taxi rank we once again completely missed the queue and hoped in a cab further down the queue. The driver this time wasn't going to put up with that sort of flagrant rule breaking and kicked us out. We rejoined the queue (which consisted of one other group ahead of us), and two minutes later we hopped back in the same cab. Rules is rules.

In all too familiar fashion the cab driver had absolutely no idea where we wanted to go. Regardless, he took off out of the rank at neck-snapping speed and joined the traffic on the Strip. He didn't have a GPS, and when we started rattling off landmarks to help him he told us he had only become a taxi driver that week. His car control suggested it might have also been the same time he became a driver. His English, that it was about the same time his plane landed. At this point, I was starting to wonder if there was a grave already dug for us in the desert, or if we might have to dig them ourselves. He eventually stopped at a set of lights and turned to the driver in the taxi next to him and asked him how to get to our hotel.

The other driver, not surprisingly, had no idea either. So he pulled out his refidex. The lights went green. Then red. Then green. You might be thinking that Vegas was a difficult city to navigate. It isn't. There is one road, and everything is either to the left or the right of it. That's it. And on that road you either head north or south. We were no longer on it, and in his week as a taxi driver he hadn't learnt which part of the city was north and which was south.

Thankfully, he was able to get a grasp of where our destination might be and we took off again. I'm fairly sure the light was red when we drove through it, but at this point I was just happy to be heading in what I hoped was the right direction.

Against all odds we arrived to the hotel. Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. After arriving at the hotel and pointing this out to him, he decided to keep driving.

"This one here, the white one."
"Just stop here."
"Here!"
"STOP!"

We gave him exact change, obviously no tip. And walked off to the hotel. Naturally, bums were waiting and asking for spare change. I gave one of them a dollar, because at least he knew where our hotel was.

So the American road trip ended a bit over two weeks ago. There simply was no way I could update this blog on the run, and I've been putting off posting anything since I got back because I had no idea where to start. So, instead I'll try for something a bit different. I might just post up a bunch of random anecdotes from the trip in no particular order as I remember them. Facts may be exaggerated, or censored to protect the guilty.

I watched Zombieland the other day, which was actually pretty awesome. It's pretty much your standard jewish kid in a zombie apocalypse slash romantic comedy slash buddy film. You know the type. However, having traversed the continental United States, it got me thinking. If you had a choice of which country to be in when the influenza zombie apocalypse comes, it'd have to be the States.

Obviously, health care might be an issue at least in the initial outbreak. Without access to any health care, there are obviously going to be a disproportionate number of Mexican illegal immigrant zombies. So, you'd probably want to avoid San Diego. Actually, most of SoCal.

On the plus side, would be the availability of ridiculously large vehicles and weaponry. This is really where the States leads the world in zombie apocalypse preparedness. Just about every car is a few bars of box steel and some welding away from the ultimate zombie horde fighting vehicle. Seriously, an F250 is a medium sized car in the States. Weld up a zombie plow, maybe some sort of cage to protect the occupants from zombie Miquels and Enriques. Though in all honesty, roll your average Toyota Tundra off the show room floor and no undead will stand a chance. I feel for the Prius drivers, because they will be the first to die. And die horribly at that. Actually, no I don't feel for them at all.

Then compare that to Australian vehicles. You're pretty much going to be stuck with mid-90s Hyundai Excel. Possibly the twin cam if you are lucky. Regardless, you are going to get fucked on the first time you encounter the walking dead.

Then there are the weapons. In the states your average Walmart is going to be stocking AR15s and pump-action shotguns and all the ammunition you can possibly fit into the tray of your (as previously noted, enourmous) pick-up. Might as well get a chainsaw, hedge trimmer, one of those autohammers, not for any real reason, just because they are awesome. You aren't just going to be safe, you're going to have a blast. It'll almost be unfair to the undead.

Back here in Australia though, you're going to be lucky to find a butter knife to defend yourself with. If you are in a nightclub, you are in even more trouble. You'll have nothing but a plastic cup and some colourful language with which to defend yourself. That 2am lockout isn't going to stop the horde from getting in, either.

Really, as an Australian, you might as well just forget the flu shots and join the horde as soon as possible. It'll just be easier that way.

Anyway, enough of that nonsense. The road trip.

The very first day was also the very longest. Our flight left Brisbane at 11am Friday, 13 hours later it touched down in Los Angeles. At 7am Friday. That's kinda disorientating in itself, but in addition none of us got any sleep at all on the flight. They schedule the flights so as to make them as conducive to getting in sync with the time at your destination. They serve dinner just a few hours into the flight, and turn off all the lights at what would be 8pm Brisbane time. It doesn't really work, though. Not even Charlie and Boots could put me to sleep. So we landed at LAX, navigated customs and immigration surprisingly easily and found ourselves in a taxi. Immediately we were in trouble, as the taxi driver had apparently been in the country less time that we had, and hadn't the faintest grasp of what we were calling English. It'd didn't help that we walked straight by the sign that said to wait for the taxi attendant to find you a taxi, and found ourselves one.

This confused the taxi driver, and despite his taxi being the only one large enough for all our luggage, he wouldn't accept our destination until we lied that we had been told to get in his cab by the attendant. Giving directions was even more of a problem because even though we only had to drive less than a mile, and the destination was literally just around the corner, he couldn't do so without satellite navigation. The incompetence of our taxi driver was a refreshing dose of familiarity.

Surprisingly, we managed to get to the car rental place even though he had taken us the wrong way, and I paid him (a tip even) and walked off quickly pretending I didn't understand his questions about taxi attendants. Maybe the taxi attendant had a friend in immigration or something.

So we picked up the Dodge Charger (and thoughtfully a GPS) and headed off to find the hotel. Given it was peakhour and LA is (supposedly) notorious for its traffic we were there before we knew it. In fact regarding traffic, Brisbane is worse. In fact, during the whole trip "Brisbane is worse" became a bit of a catchphrase when encountering things that cities were apparently known for.

After updating Facebook statuses (13 hours in the air is plenty of time to come up with something witty), crashing out for a few hours and getting Chinese for dinner (our hotel was bang in the middle of Chinatown, maybe 2 miles from the centre of downtown LA), we decided to find something local to drink at.

We went with what googlemaps recommended. The bar was just down the road, maybe a quarter mile in fact. Oddly, for Chinatown, it was a reggae club. Even more oddly, for a reggae club, in California, there wasn't even a hint of ganja in the air. The place was packed. And it was the night before Halloween so EVERYONE was in costume, except of course, the group of Aussies.

Regardless, we got into some serious drinking.

"Jim Beam and Coke, thanks."
*sip*
*pause*
*involuntary shake of the head*
"Oh, Jesus. This is strong..."

In the States, they don't measure drinks, they free-pours spirits. And generally quite generously.

We did a couple of rounds each, and on my third the bartender pulled me aside. She was dressed as Chun Li, half-asian and wearing librarian glasses. For someone, somewhere, every check-box on their fetish request list was ticked. (The other waitress at this bar was dressed as Cammy, or rather as undressed as Cammy. Essentially she was in just a leotard and boots. I think there might have been a beret, I didn't really notice. Her head, I mean.)

"Why aren't you guys tipping tonight?"
"Uhh... Ohhhhhhh, yeaah. Tips..."
"Is there something wrong with your drinks?"
"Yeah, no sorry. We totally forgot we had to."

So, I explained that we had only been in the country for about 15 hours at that stage and hadn't actually got the hang of tipping yet. I threw her some cash to make up for all the tips we had missed. When the next round arrived, I kinda regretted that I had, because the drinks were even stronger. A couple of tipped rounds later and things were starting to get a bit crazy. Amongst doing the worst and most offensive sell of Queensland tourism since the "Yo, way to go" ads (in fact, I just rubbished the country in general), I started talking to a girl dressed as Lady Gaga.

Anyway, with probably 18 hours of getting up to speed with this new culture, I figured I'd go classy.

"So how complete is your Lady Gaga costume?"
"I don't know, I've got leggings, the sunglasses, the wig..."
"Oh I can see that, but are you packing?"
"I'm sorry?"
"I mean it's a Lady Gaga costume... have you gone the whole... package?"
"I don't understand what you are talking about, where are you from?"
"Oh I'm Australian, but you know Lady Gaga, right... she's apparently carrying a bit more in her tights than most Ladies..."

At around this point, I've noticed a very unamused pair of eyes staring me down from the bar. I gave a half-wave, half-salute to him, and he came over to "introduce" himself. Incidentally, he was her fiancee. So, not prepared to let a good joke go to waste I tried to explain it to him. It didn't really go down so well with him either, so I quickly steered the conversation elsewhere. The frisking I received at the door was reassuring me at this point, but I deftly moved onto other topics than his wife-to-be's penis, such as clubs they might recommend in Los Angeles and drink-tipping etiquette.

Other classic conversations I had during the night included a conversation at the urinals with a Mexican bloke about the height of said urinals (they were about 3 inches off the ground). The joke in that case being the bar used to be a Chinese restaurant (so he said) and that Asians tend to be short (so I said). We did rounds of tequila with Chun Li. Later after closing time (outside the bar) we struck up a conversation with an apparently part-time pot dealer which mostly discussed how difficult it would be for him to procure weed if he were to travel to Australia for a holiday. For the first time, we actually had something good to say about Queensland to an American. Anna Bligh would have been proud.

The rest of the night went like this. Someone getting thrown into the hedges of a Bank of America branch (write your own puns there), a servo run for hotdogs with that hilarious liquid cheese in a bottle and the painting of the toilet with said hotdogs. Almost a standard night out back home, really.

So anyway... that was day one.

So I've finally put the Skyline back together. And holy shit, it's a monstrosity.

Never really one to do things the easy way, I decided to not buy an off the shelf intercooler with piping kit as most of them are heaps of shit and involve cutting a hole underneath the battery tray. The original intercooler, was shagged, it still held air, but hardly any of the fins were straight (and those that were had gravel embedded in them). That isn't all that surprising given how hard it punched the gravel. The pipe work was kinda ruined, mostly because the intercooler crushed it.

So I decided I'd ghetto up something with a new slightly larger intercooler, reuse as much of the original pipework (that wasn't busted), and make it so it fit behind the front bar, rather than requiring a whole lot of hacking from it.

The original setup had the return loop behind the intercooler, and that was what went straight through the original radiator. It also had to sit that far forward because of the vertical support for the bonnet latch. When the intercooler got punched through the radiator it crushed that vertical support with it and broke the spot welds holding it to the latch. Kinda a pain in the arse as I don't have a welder, but it meant I could fit the intercooler flush up against the radiator cross-member which made the whole thing neater and easier.

So with a plan formed (which went something like this), I went and bought a Chinese™ intercooler from the internet and a front bar also from the internet. I chose the least obnoxious one I could, which happened to be the exact same one I had before. Only this one was whole. And for some reason, matte black, rather that the expected gel coat stuff. I guess it was cheap though, and it gives me an excuse to not respray it in any hurry.

After a bit of a test fit (which against all odds worked), I hacked up a few bits of pipe that weren't crumpled, bought a few off the shelf IC pieces and put all the bends in the right places like it was a shitty Popcap game. It didn't quite work right, so one or two joins are under a bit of tension, but it all connected the way it should. Unfortunately, it required a shit load of 80mm hose clamps, and so in the process I emptied the inventories of the two nearest Supercheap stores, along with a Repco and an Autobarn.

I wired up a relay and a toggle switch on the dash for the thermo fan. I'd forgotten how loud those things are. Once that was sorted and the pipework was all back together I fired it up (and I was surprised to find the battery wasn't flat) and it idled fine, and a quick couple of blasts of the throttle and nothing exploded, always a good sign.

I hadn't put headlights or indicators back in, or fitted number plates, and knowing my luck a blocky would have ended badly, so I didn't take it for a spin.

I also had to work out some issues on the Disco. I'm getting some annoying clutch drag, which I'm presuming is because the clutch is out of alignment or one of the cylinders is dying. It's kind of embarrassing to grind while selecting reverse in a busy car park. It sounds horrific. Second does it a bit as well, although that might be synchros as well. I've heard gearboxes in these early Discos are weak as shit, but I think that refers mostly to the autos, and at this stage there's no noise at all when its in gear, so it doesn't exactly worry me at this stage.

Speaking of terrible noises, I finally caught up with Transformers 2 the other day. It was like 90 minutes of explosions punctuated with some typically cringe-worthy love story between that tool and Megan Fox. And maybe I was a bit drunk, but I was having some difficulty telling the robots apart when there was shit flying everywhere. Or, I don't know, maybe they all look the same. I didn't really care for it though.

And, I don't know about anyone else, but whats the story with Megan Fox. I mean shes hot as hell, but something about that shit just isn't right. I mean sure she runs in slow motion with the best of them, but there's just some odd vibe from her. It could be the permanent hooker make-up, I don't know. But I get the feeling if you fucked her you wouldn't be able to brag to your mates, because there's a good chance if one your mates was at the same party she would have gone there too. And if you did mention it, you'd have some terribly awkward moments while you worked out who was there first and if that's kinda gay or not. And it kinda would be.

For the second weekend in a row I was in NSW, this time for the WRC Rally Australia. And to be honest, the whole thing was massively underwhelming. I'd never been to a rally event before, certainly not a WRC one, and it might have been partly my fault for watching Group B videos, but I was really expecting to actually see some rally cars.

In reality, they only had 5 or so events with spectator areas (out of something like 35 stages), and those were mostly so far from the action, and behind barricades and temporary fences, that you could barely identify who's car it was let alone cop a Citroen in the face, Group B style.

The only people to get a decent view, besides the officials, were the farmers who setup deckchairs or a couch by their front gate, or in a paddock. They also wouldn't have gotten hassled for drinking beers. Honestly, drinking and motorsport have been going hand in hand since the very start, you nancys.

Really the only time you could see a WRC car up close was during the Super Special Stages through the centre of Murwillumbah. Other than that the best view was on the road sections between stages where they'd stop for roadside repairs or join the queue of traffic to the next stage.

And generally that was the most interesting part of the whole rally from a spectator point of view. Driving between stages, I mean. A gravel road was pretty much an excuse for to make up for the lack of action we'd seen from the rally, with a bit of handbrake entry to a corner. Or mid corner. Or on a straight. Or paddock. Whatever, its always a laugh.

The other thing that kept us amused on the long drives between stages were the anti-rally protesters. I couldn't quite get the gist of what they were protesting, presumably something about the risks to people, wildlife and global warming as a result of cars driving very fast on dirt roads. The Nimbin-based protesters were seemingly unaware of the irony of them driving hundreds of kilometres from their communes, starting fires, spraying painting 30 kilometres of Kyogle Rd with slogans "No Rally", and doing the same to signs, trees and (probably) animals. They also put boulders on the road, threw rocks at cars and apparently tried rolling roadblocks. We never saw it, in fact the hippies we saw looked fairly docile, probably because it was after bong o'clock.

And regarding the nature of the protests, I'd like to claim the moral high ground, but considering the fun I had hurling insults from the car at the "green-loving folk", it might be overstepping it a bit. That said, if the rally was anti-democratic (which is clearly true, because nobody would have voted for the frenchy Loeb), than the drive-by abuse was just part of the democratic process they were trying to establish. Free speech and all that, right?

Besides, the majority of the environmental damage done during the weekend wasn't caused by the rally cars. It was, in fact, caused by us on our way to the local pub from the farm house we were staying at. You see, there was a long and windy road from the farm that looped around the properties in the area and eventually to center town with the pub, or there was a few kilometres of scrub and a few cows if you took a more direct route. The drive was a fair bit slower, and we had to stop a few times to drag trees out of the way, or wait for animals to move. The beers however, were more than worth the effort. It was a typical country pub scene, a lonely drunk bloke at the bar slurred a question in our direction as we entered. I'm not sure what the question was, but if it had been "what time is it?", the answer would have been "about 10:30 in the morning". Yeah.

Not so in with the country pub feel were the fifteen or so hot (and surprisingly sophisticated) girls in black dresses complete with hats and fascinators who walked in 5 minutes later. Though, not surprisingly, they weren't dressed like that for the pub. The town, I should point out, I can't even remember, let alone spell. The fact that there was route for drunks to drive home without driving on gazetted roads I think is brilliant.

Other than the awesome pub, I came home a bit disappointed. I wanted to see more WRC action, but I think I would have enjoyed seeing more of the classics. The Mk1 Ford Escorts, XT Falcons and so forth might not have been the fastest, but they were easily the coolest, though I have no idea why someone would want to drive them at speed on gravel unless they had a death wish. Unfortunately, we had spent too much time at the said pub to see them on the gravel stages (they reversed the order). If I go next time, I'm bringing a couch and a TV and watching from some paddock (near a pub). And I'll use a Koala as a foot stool.

UPDATE:
Apparently my sister was one of the dirty hippies protesting the rally. I think I'll disown her.

I didn't bother with the Skyline all week. I hate having ghettoed fingers at work, and the particular type of grease that seems to cover the engine bay of the car is particularly persistent. It's also as I'm mindful of my neighbours, not that the sound of it running might upset them or anything. Mostly its that they might take it as an opportunity to strike up a conversation.

When Friday rolled around I pulled the battery off the charger, hooked up the terminals, topped up fluids and turned the key. It came to life in that symphony of tappets that tells the story of a car that's not been started in a month. After about 5 seconds there was a crack and the sound of grinding.

I figured the worst, but as it turns out all that had happened was that I had forgotten to put the nuts back on after I removed the engine fan which meant that the fan belt pulley (which also drives the alternator) had come off and had dragged on the water pump housing for a bit. Whoops.

With the hard work done, I went off and had a well deserved Friday afternoon beer.

The next morning I got a sms from Thompson who was attempting to replace his exhaust manifold gasket. He mentioned free beers, and in the spirit of sharing his beers I headed over. As it turns out Nissan had sold him the wrong studs, they looked like the outer studs in the manifold (to hold the turbo on) rather than the head studs. As he worked and I drank, we discussed what we thought of Internet People the first time we met them. The whole thing seemed to boil down to "I thought he was a knob online, then I met him in Real Life and he was an alright bloke, then I got to know him and it turns out he is a knob."

Eventually Thompson managed to get his turbo and exhaust manifold off (in 7 less blog posts than Matty D to boot), but it wasn't all smooth sailing. Half of the head studs were loose, and when they came out so did half the thread. Some had been cross-threaded, or possibly they were the wrong thread pitch. Either way, it wasn't going to be a fun job to fix. I suggested he tap out an oversized thread and use bigger studs, although heli-coils might do the job. I've never used them myself, though, I've seen them used for spark plug threads before on old engines with softened alloy heads. A bigger stud would reduce the chance of them snapping in the future, maybe. I don't know. Whoever reinstalled the head previously did a shitty job of it that's for sure. Forget mechanics, I'd rather blame myself for dodgy work than pay someone to do it. With that and with Thompson in tears at the thought of having to spend the next week or two riding a bus, I went home.

The next day I reattached the water pump pulley, and was going to take the car out of the garage for a few photos. Annoying the clutch pedal went to the floor, but it does that just about every time I don't drive it for more than a couple of weeks. It came good after a few pumps, but there's no fluid being lost anywhere, so its a mystery to me why its doing it. Another problem was that in the process of removing the A/C radiator I had to disconnect a whole bunch of lines. I figured they were all related to the A/C, but stupidly one was the part of the power-steering. So when I started the car it shot ATF across the garage in a comical spasmodic ejection. It made such a mess. As it turns out, I disconnected two lines that form a pointless loop in the power-steering system. Well I say pointless, I presume its supposed to be a simple heat exchanger, but it doesn't look like it'd do much. I probably should have paid a touch more attention when I was ripping things out.

I ended up throwing on a piece of clear PVC pipe I had laying around. It actually looked kinda cool with the oil flowing through it, but I'm pretty sure would fail under any kind of pressure. I'm thinking I'll hook up one of those transmission coolers instead, as I think the old man has one laying around somewhere. It'll serve no purpose at all, but it'll look like it does and radiators do serve a as a handy crumple zone.