Month: July 2016

Art is life.

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today's ideaRepetitive actions are a necessary part of any art. The ability to do the same thing one more time. As a crafter/artist, I have daily practice and tasks. To do something well, it requires repeating. Athletes do the same when they train. I’m at summer camp right now and tried my hand at needle felting. I had no idea what it was, but I learned. It has everything to do with repetition. Repeating a learned skill over and over until you get the result you want.

There is a lesson here, repeating a learned skill over and over until you get the result you want and then continuing to repeat can be applied to all aspects of life. To life, to love, to work, to business, to art, to relationships. Isn’t that how we approach our worlds? We find what works and do it repeatedly.

Some spend more time on what doesn’t work, and continue to repeat that, that falls in the “Repeatedly doing the same thing and expecting different results” category. If it’s not working, fix it! Go ahead and try it one more time, but tweak it, change it, alter it in some way to avoid the same result.

Life imitates art. Repetitive tasks are what make up art, whether spending time writing, or beaning the bible (long story) or needle felting, or ____________(fill in the blank.)Everything requires repetition of small tasks. The same is true of life, to be successful at business, in relationships, in sports, everything requires repetition of small tasks.

My relationship is successful because I repeatedly do the things that make it so. I do small things for my partner, I tell him I love him, I hold his hand, I listen to him. All small tasks done repeatedly to show how much I care. My business is successful because I do a million small tasks repeatedly. I make posters, I respond to emails, I reach out to competitors, I follow through on every little thing (or try to!). I am a product of repetition. As is art, as is life. Repeat the things that make you a success, remember it is the simple act of doing the things again that move you forward, sometimes just inches at a time, but forward progress is still measurable progress. Celebrate the successes, then get back to work repeating the things that brought you that success.

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Details on Schedule Changes

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Schedule Changes

I love our life and our lifestyle. To bring so many people together on a weekend is an incredible experience. We get to introduce our marketing partners to our drivers; our drivers to our fans; our fans to our marketing partners. It is full circle every event. There are just a few things I don’t love, the biggest right now is working with properties.
Please don’t misunderstand, I love our owners that are invested in their properties, but that doesn’t always mean we get to do what we all want to do. There are civil servants who hold up permits, there are local communities who don’t follow through on their promises, there are just some places that are impossible to get everything rolling, no matter how much time you spend on it.

Here’s what is currently happening in our world. Changes are afoot, pay attention, so we are where you want to be.
Attica, Indiana – July 23 & 24 – this event has been cancelled. The Badlands is an awesome offroad park, we thoroughly enjoy working with Kyle and his crew. But it doesn’t make a lot of sense to go there, financially or otherwise. We took a vote with our teams at the last event in Rausch Creek and it was decided they would all rather save their travel funds for Grand Nationals in Farmington then spend them to get to Indiana. They’ve already had three events on the east this year, so they aren’t missing out on a similar schedule to what they’ve gotten the last few years.
Goldendale, Washington – August 6 & 7 – this is a go. This community and our partners, Mark and Rody Shilling are great. We are excited to be here. The city helps with advertising and it is a fun event, lots of spectators, lots of good times.

Cortez, Colorado – August 13 – the schedule has changed a little, we will only be driving on Saturday – pre-run and racing on the same day. While this is not ideal, it is happening that way for a couple of reasons. The first is that our perpetual permit that we worked so hard to get a few years ago allows for a single event day, and the county has interpreted that to be that pre-running is an “event” day. So to stick to the usual schedule means we have to go before the county commissioners again, and the risk of not getting a permit is there. The second has to do with insurance, but I’ll explain that later. This event will also be the combined final event for the Mountain and Southwest series – see below for why. Double points for those of you playing that game.
Colorado Springs, Colorado – August 20 – cancelled. Damn it. This is a place we love to race. RAM Offroad has been hosting events for years, before us, it was XRRA, always the same weekend, until 2015. In 2015, the county required our partner, Ray Mandell, to file for a new permit. He has spent lots of time, effort and money for engineering studies, to no avail. The county is still not issuing a permit, this is frustrating for both him and those of us who want to play there. C Springs has always had a ton of fans. So Mountain drivers, it is Cortez for your final event, plan accordingly.

Buzzard Canyon, Oklahoma – CHANGED – to Canyons Offroad Park, Fredericksburg, Texas. Our partner at Buzzard decided that the time of year was wrong for an event, so we looked to our friends in Fredericksburg and asked for the opportunity to come back. The course will be different then when we were there in the spring, and it should be dry, which is a definite improvement! Again, we will be doing all the pre-running and racing on a single day, this time it will be so we can participate in a parade in Fredericksburg – this will be fun!

Farmington, New Mexico – WE ROCK Grand Nationals – September 10 & 11. We have been working with BLM for ten months on our return to Chokecherry Canyon, excited to announce we have our permit! This is a big deal and a ton of work for all, but the permit is in hand. We are starting now to recruit assistance for this big event.

Bridgeport, Texas – Dirt Riot National Rampage – September 17 – so, we are a little concerned because the park is underwater. Last year, through a lot of volunteers and Barco Pump, we were able to pump the water out and in to holding ponds, I’m not sure everyone wants to go to that much work again, so we are keeping our options open. The city tells us that the top section where we usually park has sloughed off behind the pavilion. Our goal is to still be here, but we have our sights set on some nearby alternative sites if we are unable to. They are all close in proximity, so plan the same trip for Nationals.

Now a little bit about insurance, last week, our insurance company made a change for the benefit of our drivers. We are pleased to offer medical coverage for all drivers. We have always had liability coverage for the competitors, but medical for an injury to the competitor was always on you. Going forward, there is coverage for an injury. Of course, this comes with a cost, and no choices – like a typical insurance company. Our insurance costs doubled to provide this, but I think it is a positive. No changes in driver’s cost will occur for the balance of 2016, but plan on a separate insurance charge of $25/event in 2017.

Like I said, it’s a lot of work and my least favorite part of what we do – I won’t even whine about some of things we’ve had to do to pull off the events we have already had this year. Just know that we hate changes as much as you do. Hang with us, we’ll keep working hard and providing you with the best events we can, those of you who commit to be there deserve our best effort, and you’re going to get it!

Bacon extracrispy

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A few weeks ago, extracrispy.comextra crispy had an opening for a Bacon Critic, someone to freelance and write about bacon on a daily basis.  Well, hell, who wouldn’t want that job!  Sadly, it appears I didn’t get it.  So I thought I’d share with you, what I shared with them.

Bacon in the morning, bacon in the evening, bacon at suppertime…that’s what my life has become. Each meal is punctuated by bacon in some form. Pure in the morning, crumbled at lunch, wrapped at dinner, to complete the meal, bacon is probably involved. You see, I live with two men, my husband and a man-bear-child who works for us. My role is the feeder, the maker of meals, the one to provide sustenance. If not for me, meals would be delivered in sacks and boxes.
Because I’m so good at making the meals, they defer to me on choosing locations when we go out. There is a cozy little place in the little tourist town of Moab, Utah that I always try to get to. It’s a place we have to hide from our friends because they vocally don’t support our recreational choices, but the bacon is so good, we sneak in anyway. Our Jeep gets parked down the street and around the corner to throw off the suspicions of people who may recognize our ride, and we choose an inside seat instead of the patio so we won’t be seen by those walking by. The Jailhouse is our dirty little secret.

The main course doesn’t matter, order the omelette, the scramble, the ginger pancakes, while good, these are just fillers anyway. The special of the house is the Soul Food Style bacon. It comes on the side only. We ordered three sides of bacon one morning, gorging ourselves on the thick slices fried perfectly, when the waitress returned, we asked her what the secret was.

“Well, it’s made special for us from the most fatty part of the stomach.” She held up her arms and pantomimed slicing her own belly. “It comes from the best part of the cow.” Wait, what?
I smiled, “You mean pig, right?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s what I mean, from the best part of the pig.” And she ambled off, leaving us to wonder and enjoy the last crispy strips.