Stan's mid season report

In may of 2009 the gotomn.com website logged 16,689 unique visitors. Unique visitors means that 16,689 persons visited my website at least once during the month of May. During that same period the website welcomed 25,605 total visits. That means of the 16,689 who visited MDTR at least one time during the month 8,916 returned to visit the site more than once.

Here are screen prints of my website statistics verifying the May 2009 totals.







As I type this on Saturday morning June 27 gotomn.com is on pace to hit over 15,000 uniques and exceed 25,000 total visits. To put those numbers in perspective imagine a track hosting a race with that kind of attendance and you can begin to see how impressive those numbers are. There are many sponsored racing websites that don't receive even close to that many visits per month. Unfortunately it's difficult for an individual like myself to make this clear to potential advertisers who tend to overlook gotomn as a hobby site not worthy of their support. I tried selling ad banners but had problems with advertisers requesting that I change their banners in the middle of the season (the price was too low for me to have to drop everything and redo their banner) and others who felt their $50 gave them the right to dictate how I ran my website. Consequently, I decided to discontinue the banner program because I wanted to be able to call my own shots and didn't have time to redo their banners half way through the year.

Here are the June statistics as of 10am Saturday morning June 27. As you can see, the uniques are currently 14,729 and total visits are up to 23,397. I'm confident that we'll see over 15,000 uniques and 25,000 hits this month:





Photo sales so far this season have been very slow for me. There is no question that my work is of good quality. My photos have appeared in The Midwest Racing Connection, Hawkeye Racing News, the Sprint Car magazine Flat Out Illustrated, Dirt Late Model, All The Dirt, National Speed Sport News, The Cedar Lake Speedway, Kopellah Speedway, RACEMN.COM, DIRTCAST.COM, The Upper Midwest Sprint Car Series website, and my personal website at gotomn.com as well as various other tracks and media sources too numerous to list.

I have had several inquiries for photo cards (aka hero cards) that the drivers pass out after the races. I know how to do those and don't do a half bad job at the artwork. Unfortunately now that I'm doing internet interviews I no longer have time to do the art and must defer those requests to others. The only thing I have time for this season will be standard 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10. I don't have a low cost processor for larger sizes so I have to mail order those which makes my turn around time slow.

My photography skills are not the problem. I get plenty of my photos in the racing papers and magazines and get excellent feedback on the quality. There are several reasons that I'm not having my usual success (I was doing great at this time last year). First, as I already mentioned I had to sacrifice doing the artwork due to the time spent on the interviews so I had to defer my Hero Card business to others. Another reason is that after every race I rush home to meet the photo deadlines for racing papers and press releases. While I'm at home tending to that many of the other photographers are still at the track hanging around and having a few cold ones with the racers. Who are they going to remember when they want a photo, the guy they shared a beer with or the one that left as soon as the races ended? Yet another reason is my timing getting my work online. Only after filling the needs of the publications, writing my column for MRC, answering last minute email requests for the tracks and papers do I finally find time to upload the previous night's photos to my gallery. I commented earlier this season that I would not be posting on the message boards when my photos are uploaded to my website. The reason for that was that by the time I got around to uploading photos the other photographers that were at those events have already posted.

After giving the matter some thought I decided to "throw out all the stops" and continue to announce when my photos are posted. In addition to announcing my photos I am also including a list of the media sources I contribute to. There are some photographers using the press credentials of the publications to get in and I have heard of cases where they did not send any photos to the publisher that setup their credentials or call to thank the publisher that set them up after the race. You probably guessed what I'm getting at by now. In my mind photographers that do that are like vultures out to make a buck of the racers, tracks and publications without giving anything back to the sport. Fortunately there are just as many guys out there working hard and giving their all to the sport. I'm not saying that the salesmen don't do a good job because many have the best photography equipment money can buy and are very good at what they do. I'm just pointing out that they have a different approach that I personally find distasteful. It takes all kinds to make the world go round so the vultures are here to stay. Unfortunately those squeaky vulture wheels get the grease or in this case the photo sales. In my case I'm not shooting for the moon but it would be nice to be able to recoup a portion of my expenses so I can make it to the end of the season.

My racing budget suffered two major setbacks this past week so that's going to make things even more difficult for me going forward. First, the 1993 Ford Ranger pickup I have been driving since 2003 has terminal rust problems and was deemed unsafe by my brother-in-law/mechanic. I was driving down Hwy 61 near the Blacksmith and the front driver side leaf spring bracket broke dropping the rear end four inches and ramming the loose spring into the bottom of the bed. When they got it up on the hoist they found multiple problems that would have been too costly to repair considering the truck's age and general condition. Secondly, my daughter lost her job a couple of days ago and will be moving back in with her daughter. Without going into a lot of details about my personal finances either of these things alone would have been a major hit but both happening together at the mid point of the season are like the "perfect storm" for me financially. To add to the mess my wife is still rehabbing from her shoulder surgery so I'm having to make insurance co-pays every week for her physical therapy.


My son Les opening a cold one in front of the Ranger at the 2003 Jerry Richert Memorial

I've got a borrowed minivan for the weekend and will be buying an 89 Merc Marquee with a 302 V8 from my brother-in-law. It's 20 years old but he says it's solid, runs good and everything still works. This will be a "one payment" car and admittedly will be a bit of a gamble because the only driving it's seen has been a shop loaner for customers. We'll find out how the mileage is (the Ranger got 23 on the highway and I expect this to be close) and how well it runs next weekend when I drive it up to North Central Speedway. Some of you are probably laughing and calling me a cheap SOB because I won't go out and buy something newer. Again without getting too much into my personal finances the wife doesn't work and I maintain a '98 Olds that she drives. That along with helping out family made it come down to a choice between spending my money on racing or taking out a loan and making car payments. I chose the old car and racing over the new car payments and sitting home on weekends tending a garden.

This has been the best and the worst of seasons. The best in that I'm having fun and seeing some great racing, yet one of the worst financially. Hopefully giving 110% in support of racing will pay off somehow and allow me to continue at the level I'm doing now. Nobody owes me anything, I try to do a good job and give something of value back to the racing community in terms of media coverage and some nice photos. Prior to the start of the season I evaluate my budget and try to match my media commitments to my budget as best I can so that I can fulfill those commitments. Unfortunately circumstance doesn't appreciate my media commitments and sometimes deals up mountain like obstacles in the middle of the season.

All I can do is keep plugging away and do my best which is what I plan to do. Thank you for reading this mid season update.

Exhausted on a Monday night

The weekend finally caught up with me and I am exhausted tonight. The races got over at a fairly reasonable hour both nights but I had to do several hours of work when I got home from the races both nights and four more hours Sunday morning. I did manage to get outside yesterday afternoon for a few hours and cut the lawn for the first time. I was thinking about going out there with the bag on the mower to pick up some mulch left over from last fall but I ran out of steam thinking about it.

I'm going to take the night off tonight and get busy with interviews and getting the camera ready for the weekend starting tomorrow night. I have to check my camera sensor to see if it needs cleaning and I should get my solution out and clean all of the lenses. I've got a sensor scope kit with a lighted magnifying scope and some special swabs and solution for sensor cleaning. The kit comes with a little battery or USB operated mini vacuum that works great for cleaning the dust out of the little impossible to reach places. So far it has been a dusty season which makes cleaning on a regular basis very important.

I'm going to comment on some of the feedback I have been getting recently.

Email: "Is it really true that you haven't sold any pictures this season? I don't get it, your pictures are awesome."

Stan: Yes, it is true, I haven't sold anything. I had three requests for drivers cards that I deferred to another photographer because I don't have time to do the artwork. I had one inquiry about an 8x10 and another about a couple 4x6's and a 5x7. 8x10's cost me $3 each for processing and the going rate is $10 so I make $7 each so I might make $7 this weekend for my first sale. I say "might" because sometimes people ask me to have pics made up and never hear back from them so I don't count any sales in advance. The person that inquired about the 4x6's and 5x7 never replied back to me so they must have gone to somebody else. So the answer to your question is that I haven't made a cent this year but I might make $7. One photo is hardly worth the trouble of having to drive over and pick it up. At this time last season I was already getting multiple orders so I am not doing well at all. Matter of fact, every photographer I have talked to is doing well so far this spring so I don't know what has gone wrong. The publications have been contacting me and requesting more of my photos each week, they love my work and are keeping me very busy after the races.

I have a theory on my lack of sales. The other photographers that put their emphasis on selling take mostly single car standard shots whereas I do a lot of multi car stuff at a variety of non-standard angles specifically intended for the publications. That and the fact that I decided to forgo the post race celebrating and get online as soon as possible after the races to send to a rapidly growing distribution list. Whatever the reason for my lack of success at sales it is what it is so I had to make some adjustments. I convened an emergency MDTR chairman of the board meeting and made some budget cuts just like the big companies have had to do. I cut out the motel and all but possibly one of the camping weekends and will be coming home after all the events to save on expenses. Of course I will hang onto the old truck for another year and I shuffled things around to free up some more money out of my savings. I'm not complaining but just telling it like it is and saying that money appears to be tight for everyone compared to last year. Bottom line, the racers need to spend every last cent on their cars and I can understand what it's like to have to do that. No complaints here, we'll keep plugging away and do our best.

Here's a few samples from Saturday night.









Someone else asked this question:

Email: Why do you only do your interviews at ##### #### and how come you don't interview at some of the ####### tracks?

Answer: See above, it takes gas money to travel around to other tracks that are a further distance from home. Also, I don't have one of those ####### passes so I can't get into most of their tracks. The interviews take time and preparation during the week to do properly. I do my best to give back to the sport and make a contribution but I'm maxed out in both time and budget so I'm forced to stay close to home most of the time. Also, as I mentioned above, I can't afford motel rooms and even if I could the wife is attached to her laptop computer and has all her work on it so I can't take it with me to do my work in the motel after the races even if I could afford to travel. I'm giving 110% of what I have back to the sport but it's never enough for some people. If they don't like what I'm doing and think they can do a better job by all means go ahead. This kind of feedback is discouraging but I have to pick my chin up and let it roll off my back.

On the up side I have been getting some positive feedback from the interviews that I have done. That is encouraging and makes it worth while to take on this new task. I'm doing it to give the racers around our local area some exposure and not for my own personal interests. It's time consuming and nerve wracking to do the cold calls and approach people about this so it's a work in progress for me. I'll just keep going by the feedback and I do accept constructive criticism but I won't take a beating for things that I am not able to do.

I hope this helps to answer these two most asked questions.

Well, that's going to about do it for tonight.

Later!

I am kinda wore out for no apparent reason other than that it's Tuesday...

I was thinking about doing an interview tonight but I kinda' hit my wall and lost my ambition about an hour after dinner. I'll have to double up tomorrow night and see if I can do a couple of them. I'm still getting used to the more intense routine and have been brushing up on speech training, writing notes and gathering information. Been doing quite a bit of photo editing and working on the next MRC column so this has been an intense first few weeks of the season. I'm sure that when it warms up and I don't have to fight this lousy weather I'll have more energy because the cold takes some of the wind out of my sails. I should have asked Doug Wolfgang how he deals with the aches and pains after his injuries but I think I already know the answer to that. Anybody that followed his career knows that he was always into conditioning probably more than most of the other Outlaw drivers. I think he still gets out and does as much as he can to this day but I didn't get an opportunity to talk to him about it. My window of opportunity for keeping myself in that kind of condition have probably passed but I'm getting out and walking and trying to eat better so that helps. Some guys like Doug had enough insight to do that when they were younger and that sure has to help a lot. Anyways, I see where Saturday will be another 60/40 (around 60 for a high and a low of 40)so it's kind of hangin' in there just a little cooler than I'd like to see it.

I got a call tonight about my photos and that made me feel pretty good. I already knew that my work is good and that I'm doing some unique stuff but I don't try to compete for sales and I don't post an announcement on the message boards everytime I upload photos. You can pretty much count on me uploading anywhere from 1-3 galleries every week, usually the day after the race.



I don't think there's a need to announce that I posted to my gallery. People know where it is, they know my work and they'll let me know if they like something.

My typical race weekend goes something like this. Go to work all day Friday, stop home and pickup my camera bag, change shoes, grab a hat and sweatshirt and head to the track. I go around talking to people, maybe take a few portraits in the pit area and whatever other special assignment I've got. Take photos all night until the final Feature has been run and get out of the track and on the road as soon as possible. When I get home I'll upload the photos to my computer, go through them and pick out the victory lane shots. Send the victory lane and maybe a couple action shots to several publications and the tracks, burn two CD's, one for myself and one for the track. By the time this is done it's usually 2am and I'm ready for bed. I'll get up in the morning, finish up any photo work for the publications that I was too tired to do the upload to my gallery. Then I'll go out and try to do a few hours of yard work until around 2 or 3 on Saturday. take a shower, organize the camera bag, load up the batteries and head out to the track. The Friday routine is repeated again on Saturday night except if the Features are done early enough I'll stop at one of the convenience stores in Osceola and get a 12 pack. Go home, repeat the photo routine (if it's early enough I'll down a couple beers) and go to bed.

Sunday I get up, repeat that same routine of uploading the gallery and finishing up any photo work. Burn CD's and put one in the truck for the track, do laundry, clean out the litter box, grille for the wife or go out to dinner and DVR the NASCAR race if I remember. If I'm done early enough I'll buzz through the race on fast forward to see who won so I can give the wife the TV before her Sunday night shows start. Maybe I'll hang on the computer for a little while checking out results, load up my MP3 player with fresh podcasts and take a break. If the deadline for my column falls on that weekend then I'll put the photo work off and finish/send my column.

This season I'm doing the interviews so I'm getting into the routine of organizing my materials and writing an outline during lunch and breaks at work and doing the actual interviews Tuesday thought Thursdays. That piece is kind of flexible but I'm trying to do two per week to start and will add more as I get used to the routine and doing the actual interviewing. You wouldn't think that it would be very intense to sit and talk to somebody on the phone but there's a certain protocol to follow and in spite of reciting the introduction and conclusion whenever I'm driving anywhere I still can't rattle it off. I have been listening to some public speaking podcasts and practicing so that come around. I get the same panic feeling at the start of an interview that I used to get when I'd speak in front of a couple hundred people. That feeling eventually subsided before public speaking as I'm sure it will with a little more podcasting experience. I think that trying to direct the conversation with another person involved is what makes it more intense because you never know what they're going to say. You can't stay too close to your notes or you're going to panic when the subject of your interview goes in a different direction than you expect. It's structured to some degree but in another sense it's very much by the seat of my pants because I have to adjust. For example, if my notes so to ask a certain question and the interview subject volunteers that information before I get around to asking the question I have to strike that question on the fly. In some cases they may only partially cover the subject so then I might still revisit it later in the interview with a slightly different twist.

And, uh, ummm, I'm uh, ya know, I'm uh, still working on eliminating those bad patterns that we all fall into in our everyday conversation without even knowing that we did it. That is a big challenge for me, ya know? LOL

It has been busy lately and I'm still trying to figure out how to break it to the wife that she's going to have to take over the yard work. On second thought it would probably be better for my health and well being to continue to do that myself. ;-)

Woke up on the wrong side of the bed...I know my work is good

My work is outstanding and that is evident by the number of photos I get published in papers and magazines on a regular basis. Actually the problem is that I'm not a very good salesman. It doesn't come natural for me. I'm very busy this year so in addition to being a lousy salesman I'll never have time to improve in that area as long as I'm so busy.

I'll just have to hope that some manna falls out of the sky by the middle of the summer.... ;-)

What's wrong with my work?

photo was randomly selected to illustrate my work and not meant as criticism of those pictured

What's wrong with my work this season? I'm having beyond a miserable year supplementing my gas and hot dog budget. So far a big fat $0 (compared to the other photographers I know who all report that they have done well so far). I'm not sure what the solution is or even if there is one but I'm funded for a couple more months so I hope things improve.

Isn't the sharpness clear enough?

Is there a problem with composition?

Does the color balance look off?

Your feedback is encouraged, please send to: mndirt@hotmail.com

As always my work is done primarily in support of the racing publications and tracks.

I'm afraid we're gonna' get hammered this weekend

I'm afraid that the rain is going to be the big winner this weekend. It's so darned dry that for sure we need the rain but the timing could be better, not just for racing fans but for everyone who enjoys the outdoors.

If we go get a race in this weekend I'd say the best chance is going to be on Friday. I'm hearing terms such as isolated and scattered in regards to Friday night with showers continuing until at least 1pm Saturday and temps struggling to reach 50. You can pretty much bet that a race is not going to happen under those conditions. I see that Cedar Lake has a rain date for the Billy Anderson Memorial this year and I am thankful for that.

A good weekend right out of the box...

I took the camera out of the cabinet for the first time in six months this past weekend. Everything looked good right out of the box and the new lens produces some great images. I'm extremely happy with the results. Here is a small scale sample:

Writing about my weekend so far, but wait, there's more to come...

Good Friday is one of our holidays so that makes it's a GREAT FRIDAY, but for those of you who worked it was good because Friday is always good. Finally it sounds like we're going to get a decent weekend but not before Red Cedar and Cedar Lake were forced to cancel their scheduled opening nights. Hecklers will say "they could have raced" but reasonable people will take into account the frost covering their windshields every morning this week and understand that sufficient drying did not take place and post sundown weather was not warm enough to attract a crowd. Those diehards who would have showed up in their snowmobile suits will protest with the aforementioned complaint but reasonable people with little kids in tow outnumber them and promoters know that the families go a lot further making the bottom line work than a couple dozen diehards. Complaints aside, next weekend's preliminary forecast is calling for more spring-like conditions though still not warm after sunset by any means but jittery promoters with one eye on the economy and remembering the six lost weeks of early 2008 will oblige die hards. In other words, I predict that we will race next week come hell or high water. A fitting expression in the upper Midwest because you never know which one you're going to get in the early spring, hell like temps or high water.

You probably noticed that my blog has been silent lately. That's because I have been brushing up on 25 years of public speech training. My public speaking experience includes addressing large audiences and I am a past member of the Toastmasters club. No matter how long you have been a Toastmaster you're always learning. The Toastmasters has a thing they call "table topics" that goes something like this:

The Table Topics portion of a Toastmasters meeting takes place before or after the formal “prepared speeches” segment and usually lasts 20 or 30 minutes. The Topicsmaster announces a topic or question and calls on several members, one at a time, who give impromptu one- to-two-minute responses to that topic.

When you’re called (or volunteer) to speak during Table Topics, you’ll do well if you keep your remarks brief and to the point. (This is often easier said than done, however!) Try to present sensible, worthwhile ideas that add to the knowledge of others and organize your thoughts into a mini-speech. You’re encouraged to refute or elaborate on ideas and information already presented by other participants.

The challenging thing about Toastmasters was that I was required to speak extemperaniously (on the spot with no warning). That didn't bother me, I could deal with that but sometimes they would come up with some off the wall subjects that I couldn't relate to which forced me to learn to wing it. I left the Toastmasters because I didn't have time to prepare speeches during the racing season when spare time is always at a minimum. I can barely get the grass cut, the projects done and fulfill family obligations as it is without having to write and practice speeches. Toastmaser's is a great organization but it's a big commitment of time that was starting to cut into racing. Anyways, I'm shaking the dust off my speaking skills and will soon be putting them back to work.

Back in 1987 the Traffic Department was eliminated by Northrup King in favor of decentralization and out sourcing. Consequently, I found myself out on the street for four months. I had a severance package and a room full of music and recording equipment that saved me from going nuts worrying about finding a job. Equipment included a multi track recorder, a keyboard with beat tracks, a borrowed bass guitar and my own electric six string guitar. Even though I can't sing worth a damn and am not the best guitar player I spent the summer writing and recording songs to keep my mind off being out of work. It was fun working with a multi track recorder, laying down all the tracks and pinging from one track to the next. I tried to keep the total number of tracks around eight to maintain the integrity of the sound. Back around that same time I was traveling around with a friend's band and helping with the sound. I played guitar at their practices and even stood in on the bass guitar for one of their gigs. I learned a lot about recording but that was before home computers became popular so it was all done with audio tape. Today's recording technology is way better and it has been easy for me to pick up due to my recording experience.

I installed a gig of memory and a 1tb second hard drive in my computer yesterday with no problem. Unfortunately I made a bad decision and tried to install Ubuntu on a partition on the new drive and that set my productivity back about six hours. Grub boot loader comes bundled with Ubuntu so I thought, why not setup a dual boot system because I had used Linux on my wife's computer for a year and would like to master using it on a daily basis. Problem is that when I got it installed and tried to reboot the Grub boot loader locked up and showed an error #21.

I spent an hour trying suggestions posted on the Linux forums like changing the boot order and several other things that didn't work. I narrowed it down to a drive controller conflict on some systems and I saw where people who experienced this problem had posted screen shots of the error code and the Ubuntu team would evaluate the problem and respond. When I saw that I knew I was in trouble because I can't afford to lose a week this time of year so I had to do an XP recovery. Besides insufficient printer support another one of the drawbacks of Ubuntu is time consuming hardware compatibility issues like this one. I would still like to run a dual boot system with Linux but that's going to have to wait until after the racing season. Even the off season only offers a narrow window of time between the pre holiday photo rush, the GRP contest and ramping up for the coming season. I'm putting Linux on the back burner but I intend to try it again in the future. Anyways, the system restore went well and the only thing left to do is enter an occasional password and download a few browser plugins. I'm doing a long format of the new drive partitions then I'll set one up for file sharing so I can put our growing collection of family photos on it. The other partition, about 500 gigs, will be for my racing photos. That's the reason I got the large drive, so I could copy a decade of scans and CD's to one easy access location. I'm sick of digging through shoe boxes of CD's every time I need to go into my archives.

I got rid of my Qwest DSL and phone service and went to cable internet and saved about $50 per month. I purchased a Skype account and got a USB headset with a microphone so I can make calls anywhere in the US free of charge. We got a USB adapter to connect our cordless phone to Skype so it can double as a home phone system. The USB adapter directions and Skype directions were cryptic and I couldn't figure out the call sequence to make outgoing calls with the cordless. I could call my cordless on the Skype number with a cell phone and received the incoming call but I couldn't call out. Seeing as it worked fine using the headset and I could receive calls with the cordless I knew there had to be a setting or dialing sequence that I wasn't seeing. I posted the question on the Skype forum and one of the moderators replied with the answer. You have to use the country code, (area code-phone number) and an * after the number. That solved the problem but I'm thinking to myself "here I am building and maintaining computers and I can't figure out a USB phone adapter"...what's wrong with that picture? I can do almost anything with technology as long as there are good directions and I'm wearing my reading glasses. LMFAO Seriously, that is one of my pet peeves, electronic devices with incomplete directions and poor help sections on their websites.

So that's what I have been up to lately. My goal now is to apply my speaking, recording and tech knowledge to racing.

Today is going to be a nice day so as soon as I get the last load of laundry in the washer I'm going to run to the store and buy a gas grille. So far this morning I got up, fed the cats, made the coffee, have one load in the washer and one in the dryer, took out the trash and straightened up the kitchen. The wife finally got to take the sling off her arm after six weeks and started physical therapy. Talk about a kick in the *ss, the copay is $35 per visit and she's got to a couple times a week. On top of that she's got another unrelated procedure that has to be done next Tuesday so I might have to take a day of vacation unless she feels comfortable driving herself there. She did get in the car and went shopping yesterday after six weeks of not driving. I hope that she finds a ride or feels comfortable driving there herself because I have already used too many vacation days and racing hasn't even started yet.

If you have a family some years are going to be like this where other things have to come before racing. Some years it has been my medical problems, a few years we had a daughter and granddaughter living with us and this year we're dealing with my wife's health problems. I suppose I could have been like some of the racing fans and stayed single but I love the family connection and racing is just one aspect of my life. I think you can kind of see that, especially early in the season when all these rabid fans are running all over h*ll looking to attend their first race. I stay home and try to get some early outside work done, clean the garage, get organized for the season and wait for the racing to start at my local track. As far as I'm concerned I can drive a half hour to see weekly classes at two tracks so I'm not going to travel long distances and incur motel expenses or do a redeye for a weekly show. I'm a specials events snob when it comes to traveling, it's got to be something pretty big for me to travel that far. I only have a limited amount of money to spend on racing and with my wife not working and going through physical therapy I have to plan my schedule out carefully. Hopefully I'll sell a few pics early in the season but I'm not counting on it because that's so competitive early in the season that I never sell much this time of the year. There are several photographers that make a living selling pics and they go after the hero card business very aggressively early in the season. Consequently, guys like me who take photos mostly for the publications and don't canvass the pit area selling photos like they do kind of get shoved aside until a little later in the year. I have so many things going that I don't have time to do a lot of the custom artwork anyways and don't have a competitive low cost bulk printing source so I just step aside and let them knock themselves out. My bread and butter as far as photos is selling enough of the 5x7's and 8x10's to supplement travel expenses. This year is going to get off to a tough start so I hope the wife heals up quickly and I don't have to start cutting the planned travel out of my schedule.

The vacation roster has been tough this year too. Usually when one gets older and gets more seniority scheduling improves in their favor but in my case our staff is being reduced by retirements making single day vacation scheduling more difficult. Thursday and Friday vacation for some of the events I have taken for granted like the Masters and USA Nationals may be difficult to get this year. I decided to quit camping out at multi day shows because there aren't any electrical hookups so I can't charge batteries and send to the publications from my camper. The partying and lack of sleep was getting old anyways, the way I look at it now is that I can only do one or the other, not both. Often I'm up until 3am after the races photo editing and getting organized for the next day. Try doing that with a hangover in a 100 degree tent trailer with no electrical hookup or internet access sometime. I've got a couple of single day events that I'll camp out at but that's going to be the extent of it. The Firecracker/WoO weekend and Jerry Richert Memorial will be my two camping excursions this season. I don't know if I'll be able to afford the motel for the Deer Creek WoO and Jackson Nationals weekend but I can guarantee that I won't be doing those with a camper. If I can get the days off and I can't afford to stay in a motel with high speed internet I'll probably just do the WoO after work on Wednesday night then head for home. There's always plenty of work around the house and nearby weekly shows to attend. I love the Jackson shows but the way it's getting anymore for me 210 miles feels more like 2010 financially and vacation wise.

Later.