I have always been afraid of cones in autocross. Not really afraid to hit them or to scratch my car with them. It's navigating through the course that intimidated me. I always was intimidated watching my friends race, always concluding that I wouldn't be able to navigate through that mess, and that my priority would always be trying to find where to turn rather than to be competitive.

Well, last weekend I dared to try it myself. Contrary to all my fears, somehow I found my way around and was pushing, despite that I was thrown to be the second card of the day to start. I didn't even have time to set up my camera, that's how quickly everything went by.

As can be seen on time report below, I did very poorly, but I did find some time on the last lap. In short, I need to (1) slow down, (2) brake sooner, speed out of the corner due to a lot of understeering, (3) study track more before the race.

Overall, I was very happy I did it, and surely will do it again.

In 2010, I used foursquare backdoor to leak my latest location to my website menu area. It appears now that I cannot fetch page in my python script. Not sure what is happening, but I am in a hurry to spend too much time on this.

No problem though, with the help of awesome service Yahoo Pipes, I introduce a proxy to this picture:

Updated my script accordingly.

UPDATE: backdoor is closed after all. Foursquare doesn't publish latest location in search results any more, but rather declared user's hometown.

This is a little overview of the second and final step of reducing noise project in my STi. Thus, after covering my hatch area with brownbread material, time has come to complete everything with a layer of Ensolite wherever possible:

"So what is the result?" — some may ask. On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rate this result as probably 5. The deep base did not diminished significantly, but did to a point where I can live with it and don't need to install OEM catback back. However, in the future I do see a quieter exhaust, something similar to MadDad Whisper.

As reported before, sound of GR SPT catback exhaust had been driving me crazy. So I decided to start doing something about it before replacing it with something else.

So first step was acquiring Brownbread material to install it all over hatch area.

Preparing hatch area:

Finished work:

Next step is covering some areas with Ensolite IUO Peel and Stick, put hatch back together and test.

I'll miss my big monitor. I shan't miss cold weather!

This weekend I had SPT cat back installed on my '08 STi. It's a third Subaru, where I installed this cat back. Previous were GD chasis.

I have to admit on GR internal drone is a bit too much. So I've started exploring on what to do next to diminish that annoying drone which gives almost a headache. One thing on my mind currently is using Dynamat sound deadening to diminish that internal drone.

Started discussion on nasioc, we'll see where it goes.

It's high time to give some STi update. Since I sold my black STi, I've had very many cars. I've actually bought '08 STi pretty quickly, but I ended up not registering it and having it sitting in the garage most of the summer, mostly because I spent much time in Boston where it's dangerous to park nice cars. Now it is registered and ready to be used daily.

So most of the summer I drove my friend's Legacy, then drove IS300 for a while, then jumped into Expedition as a daily driver. Few times, my new STi was almost sold but today I am actually happy that I was not. I really grew to love it since I registered a bit over a month ago.

I bought STi on autotrader from a guy in his 40s in NY. The car had everything tastefully modified as far as exterior goes. No engine mods. Only suspension and rear sway bar. Well, nice Enkei wheels though oversized for my liking, they're 19". Also he engineered his own mudflaps that do not stick out in an ugly fashion. Front lip and what seemed to be custom made rear spoiler lip. Car looks fantastic, I don't know what I'd change as far as exterior. Maybe just rims, I'd go back to 18" black BBS. That would be perfect.

Today, I guess, is the first mod I did, apart from window tint — I installed front fog yellow overlays and rear reflectors tint overlays that I bought from jdmfanatic on ebay.

Recently, I started driving STi again, that's after it has been parked for half a year or so. Noticed slight vibration on front. Today, got it rebalanced at Town Fair Tire and looks like it fixed the problem. Town Fair guys showed me that inside of fronts are quite worn.

Those shopping for a used car certainly heard of CARFAX. It is a great service, but it is expensive. At least to me, it is strange to see such plan that they offer. They give you only two options — 5 CARFAX Reports for $44.99 or 1 CARFAX Report for $34.99.

I suspect there might be a good reason behind such pricing, maybe not. But this is not a point here.

I discovered an innovative service that saves money to both, those who are are looking to save money as well as those who already wasted money on 5 reports! I used it myself and loved it. It is reportswap.com. As advertised I waited only a couple of hours and got my fax as .PDF file. I did have an issue of PDF quality being bad on one page. Replied back asked for resend and got it within an hour. Couldn't be happier! Hope this is useful to someone else as well.

Finally, after many weeks of dealing with various lowballers and non-serious people I sold STi on the 19th, it's gone to good hands. Interestingly, sale lead came from autotrader.com, so money spent on those ads weren't wasted.

Currently, I got a temporary ride, borrowed from my friend. It isn't bad. Don't know yet what awaits me for a new car. But definitely thinking 08+ STi for now.

Is iPhone 4 worth the hardships it brings with it to those who aren't willing to sign up for the contract? In other words, is it worth wasting time trying to unlock it? I didn't think so at first, that's why I got rid of it when I've had enough. Then, after a number of Android phones, I find myself back with iPhone. This time however hardships of having iPhone on foreign networks has become bigger.

I decided to go with the Gevey SIM unlocking solution. Nothing has worked as easy as it appears on numerous youtube tutorials, but somehow I managed it.

Well, a week or two later I had to reboot the phone and here I am again — need to activate it again. No matter what I did this time, I could not activate it. The only reason for that was because as soon as I hung up the phone, I got "NO SIM INSTALLED" error message, so I did not have a chance to go and toggle Airplane Mode. So off to google I went and stumbled upon one forum post. Digging deeper, I found what [Gevey SIM] fine print was missing: disable Data and 3G from Settings > General > Network . If you don't do this you will be forever stuck between the step of dialing 112 and toggling Airplane Mode.

I've been selling and buying few things on craigslist lately, and believe it or not, scammers are being overshadowed by other idiots these days. One particular kind of them is the one that is insisting they will pay cash immediately, and in full, with exception that they'll pay much less just because of mere fact that they do have money. As if I am normally expecting wire transfer installments. They are insisting "I got cash!", to which one wants to quickly reply "Well good for you buddy, you wouldn't be cruising craigslist trying to buy things had you not had cash, would you?".

I took a picture of an interesting email exchange with a weird low-baller. Enjoy!

I finally have a resolution for P0031 and maybe P2097. Went to Mastro Subaru in Tampa,FL and had them replace O2 front a/f sensor. They ended up being good people, didn't charge me for diagnostic, because I kind of knew already what was wrong. So they threw the car on the lift (for free) and checked O2 sensor. Turned out it [sensor] was indeed junk. So I gave them a go-ahead to replace. It came to $319, but I think it's worth it considering I am more than a thousand miles from home.

Today I stopped by AutoZone to ask them to reset my CHECK ENGINE light, which I thought was old engine error code that I brought to FL from NH. But no, it turned out to be a new one — P0031.

P0031 Oxygen (A/F) Sensor Heater Control Circuit Low (Bank 1 Sensor 1)

A P0031 DTC (diagnostic trouble code) refers to the O2 sensor (oxygen sensor) located on Bank 1 in front of the catalytic converter. There is also an oxygen sensor behind the converter which is Sensor #2. More information.

Looks like this code doesn't just get reset. When reset, it comes back on immediately. This must definitely be O2 censor malfunction.