WHAT A WEEKEND!!! (Austin & Dallas meet recaps)
Wow, what a weekend.
Leddy, I know I wasn't transmitting to WIMGPS, but it's only because I was on call, and had to have the phone available. As it was I had to respond to a client on teh way down to Austin yesterday. Sorry about that.
Also, I don't have any photos. The digital camera had dead batteries and I was too lazy to get more.
AUSTIN, TX - JUNE 3, 2006
Five hardcore junkies showed: Myself, JimmyFitz, Das, TheLandYa and a new person, Pierce, whose handle I don't remember.
We had a great time until we decided to have dinner at Dave & Busters. Our waiter needs to hurry up and finish his degree so he can get out of the food service industry.
I learned a lot about the thermal capacity of my setup. The tiny Shuttle case has some issues on hot days when there's no A/C in the truck. I was getting CPU temp alarms at 140f and at one point the CPU was over 150f. That's not good. I already have a plan in place to address this, as I was prepared for the issues. Time to fire up the Dremel again. ;)
TheLandYa has a completely sick setup. It's overpowered. It's in a huge-assed box. There are too many HDDs and LCD screens.
It's amazingly friggin' cool! The HTML interface he has for his passengers is very, very trick. Kudos!
JimmyFitz has a super-clean setup. I'm only sorry that I didn't get to hear the sound quality of the FM modulator you're using. You say it sounds really good, and I'm curious about the sound quality... Next time.
Das has a mighty fine start on the fabrication for his dash. When it's done, it will look very clean. Now you just need the rest of the hardware! ;)
Pierce is a newbie. Stick around. You'll learn a lot.
Additional notes:
- There are four god damned Motel 6's near the airport, all identified as "Motel 6 - Austin Airport". WTF? I should have known not to second-guess my nav software and stop at the second one, though.
- The skank-to-hottie ratio of the Republic Of Texas biker rally wasn't as bad as Red predicted.
- The guy from the Circuit City never showed. Pussy.
- We need a better meeting place next time, preferrably someplace with some shade. The awning was a great idea, Jim!
DALLAS, TX - JUNE 4, 2006
Three of us showed up in Dallas: Myself, Red GTi VR6 and another newbie whose name escapes me (damn those two Shiner Bocks! ;)) Red's husband was there as well. Nice guy.
The Dallas meet was OK. The new guy has a laptop that he wants to use and we discussed some possibilities for powering it and doing startup/shutdown and the like. He's got a VW Golf as well, and Red was very generous with pointers about audio, mounting, wiring and such.
I have to say that Red is uber-helpful all the way around. She's helped me immensely with the car audio side of things and wiring things up the most efficient way possible.
There was another car show happening at Hooter's while we were there, as well. There was a sweet '55 Chevy pickup and '67 Stingray and some other nice rides as well, both new and old. I debated whether I should ask Red to crank up the VW and drown out the studios this car show was using for some oldies, but I decided against it. No sense in ****ing off other car guys.
All in all it was a great weekend. I've got some other notes about my setup and some questions, but they are for other subforums.
Everyone agreed that we need to have somewhat regular meets to help drum up interest and give more opportunities for people to get to a meet, see setups, meet people, ask questions and so on.
I think quarterly meets in big cites, and possibly a big statewide meet once a year or something.
