I’ve gone to update this a few times over the last month but either started and scrapped it or didn’t even get that far.

January has been an interesting month, if pretty busy. On the work side I spent another week in Indianapolis launching one of our flagship customers on their new service. That was a good trip and quite rewarding. When I was last in Indianapolis I had been working for the company a grand total of 6 weeks, 2+ of which were spent in Newfoundland for Targa. This time around I was there to do hands-on work rather than training and things went very well. Issues and problems appeared but they got resolved and by the end of the week the customer was happy. The experience in dealing with our customers in my current role is much more personally rewarding than my previous roles at AOL. Getting to know your actual customers rather than just having a million anonymous accounts flowing through a black box is nice.

On the vehicular front the Audi is being its usual spoiled German bratwurst but we did manage to force one event out of the pig. Our ongoing fuel pump problems are still plaguing us but at this point we at least know the cause. During our fuel system rebuild we pulled out the original 20 year old Audi tank and had it acid washed and steam cleaned. This seemed like a good idea because of the decades old patina of rust on the inside of the tank. Unfortunately this also means that no matter how we’ve rinsed the tank out there’s still grains of rust and debris in the tank, primarily under the windage tray. We’ve already done a thorough flush of the tank once but the longer the car is driven the harder the fuel pump strains, eventually leading to the same bogging we’ve been experiencing. This weekend we’re back to the drawing board for more purging.

Last weekend was BAC Rally Cross Event #4 at Scotia Speed World though and the Audi did its job long enough to run the entire event, so that in itself is a win! By the end of the day our partner drove the car to a solid second place finish on a near solid sheet of ice. Except for a couple of bumps it was as slippery as driving on Jack’s Pond last February. I decided to drive the WRX for this event foolishly thinking it would be more fun. Suffice to say it wasn’t and I didn’t finish out my runs for the day. It did inspire me to finally install the Tokico D-Spec suspension I’ve had waiting to go on the car since August, however.

I’m posting this more or less incomplete because its been sitting in ‘Draft’ for a week. Deal with it.