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MB Madaera
Lost 31.7 lbs fat
Built 11.7 lbs muscle
Chris Madaera
Built 9 lbs muscle
Keelan Parham
Lost 30 lbs fat
Built 4 lbs muscle
Bob Marchesello
Lost 23.55 lbs fat
Built 8.55 lbs muscle
Jeff Turner
Lost 25.5 lbs fat
Jeanenne Darden
Lost 26 lbs fat
Built 3 lbs muscle
Ted Tucker
Lost 41 lbs fat
Built 4 lbs muscle
Determine the Length of Your Workouts
Evaluate Your Progress
Keep Warm-Up in Perspective
"Doing more exercise with less intensity,"
Arthur Jones believes, "has all but
destroyed the actual great value
of weight training. Something
must be done . . . and quickly."
The New Bodybuilding for
Old-School Results supplies
MUCH of that "something."
This is one of 93 photos of Andy McCutcheon that are used in The New High-Intensity Training to illustrate the recommended exercises.
To find out more about McCutcheon and his training, click here.
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Ellington Darden, Ph.D.
The Truth About Fast-Twitch and Slow-Twitch Muscle Fibers: An Interview with John P. Kalas, M.D.
The following excerpts are from 1976 discussions I had with Dr. John Kalas, who was Chief of the Department of Pathology, West Volusia County Hospital, DeLand, Florida. A subsequent article was published in Athletic Journal (January 1977) as a rebuttal against the popular practices of coaches and athletes to "train fast to be fast." The concepts explored within these answers are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago.
by Ellington Darden, Ph.D.
Ellington Darden: John, tell us about your interest in strength training and muscle physiology?
John Kalas: I was involved in weight training in high school and played several sports. As a teenager, I had an ongoing curiosity about my muscles, what made them stronger, and how growth occurred at the cellular level.
That interest was carried through college, medical school, a three-year residency in internal medicine, a year research fellowship in physiology, and finally a four-year residency in pathology. During my residency in pathology, I had considerable exposure to muscle physiology at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. My background includes a full 10-year period at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and 50 published research studies.
It's unfortunate that people with my experiences, or similar experiences, cannot have personal associations with coaches, who are attempting to combine the disciplines of muscle physiology and athletics. This is a common situation that exists in most areas.
The laboratory scientists communicate with each other, but rarely with physicians in the field of disease rehabilitation. These physicians have knowledge that is easily interchangeable with coaches. Unfortunately our society keeps most of us (laboratory scientists, physicians, and coaches) so busy that we are unable to communicate in a productive manner with each other.
This massive amount of information, thus, remains disjointedly scattered throughout the literature without the basic information ever reaching the athletes who need it the most.
ED: You're certainly on target with your assessment. Was there a specific topic that repeatedly caught your attention?
JK: One particular aspect of muscle physiology seems to be a recurring subject of discussion in almost every sports or fitness publication that I've recently read. Although this topic is very complex, it's usually referred to as the concept of fast-twitch, slow-twitch muscle fibers.
As usual, attempts to simplify complicated subject matter frequently lead to misunderstanding. This has certainly been the case in the fast-twitch, slow-twitch area.
Muscular Contraction
ED: Before we get into a discussion of fast and slow fibers, can you briefly describe how a muscle contracts?
JK: The answer is theoretical and complicated. There are however, three areas that can be discussed with relative certainty.
The first way a muscle contracts is through a conscious command from the brain. The second way is through what is called a reflex arc. The third method is through a conditioned reflex, as demonstrated initially by Ivan Pavlov and his dogs. Athletes use all three of these ways constantly in their practices and competitions.
Even more complex is the mode by which the muscle itself contracts. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the famous Hungarian biochemist, demonstrated that the chemicals, actin and myosin, contract in the presence of adenosine triphosophate (ATP).
Later it was determined that this contraction is modified by some 70 or more enzymes and/or chemicals. This applies whether the muscle is called slow, fast, red, or white. Furthermore, this underscores the complexity of the problem of muscle contraction when it is considered along with the influences of the nervous system.
Fast and Slow Confusion
ED: How do the concepts of fast-twitch, slow-twitch muscle fibers relate to athletics?
JK: Classically, the fast-twitch fibers are white and the slow-twitch fibers are red. (The colors are determined by muscle samples, appropriate stains, and microscopic examinations.) Many coaches contend that fast-twitch, white fiber development is necessary for fast athletic activity and that slow-twitch, red fibers are necessary of slow athletic activity.
Unfortunately, it's demonstrated in nature that the non-flying domesticated animals, such as chickens, have white breast muscles and red leg muscles. The fast flying wild fowls, such as ducks, have red breast muscles but white leg muscles.
Furthermore, most authorities believe that there are fast and slow red fibers and fast and slow white fibers in animals. In humans, however, these authorities believe that the differences between the two are less than in animals.
In truth, no one knows very much about the various fiber distributions in humans. In addition, it is believed that at least eight (and probably more) fiber types are prevalent in animals.
Humans Are Different
ED: So, you're saying that the muscle fiber types in humans are different from those found in animals, right?
JK: I'll answer that with probably. The muscle fiber types in humans have not been well defined. It's believed that as one progresses up the phylogenetic scale, the differences in muscle fiber types diminish. Only a few muscle biopsy specimens have supplied the data that have resulted in the sweeping conclusions drawn by many coaches and athletes.
Muscle Biopsy
ED: What exactly is a muscle biopsy?
JK: A muscle biopsy consists of cutting through the skin and taking a small strip of muscle, usually for diagnosis of disease states by chemical and microscopic techniques. It can also be performed with a large bore needle. A biopsy is usually taken from the surface of a muscle.
For accurate determination of muscle types, however, entire cross sections of muscle with corresponding physiological studies would be necessary. This is not practical in humans.
To make some inroads in this area, without securing complete cross sections of muscle, would mean taking at least three levels of biopsies from one muscle. And at each level, several hundreds of biopsies would be necessary for statistically significant muscle counts to be made. Such research has not been attempted.
ED: I guess it should be fairly obvious that NO athlete (or human) is going to allow scientists to take multiple biopsies from the same muscle at three different levels. "Hey Doc, please take three plugs from my biceps and another three plugs from my triceps. And here, do the other arm too." That entire process could injure the involved muscles, right?
JK: (Laughing . . . ) Correct. With animals, it's been done, but it hasn't been accomplished with humans – for obvious reasons (still smiling). As a result, very little is known about white and red muscle distributions in humans – especially among highly skilled athletes.
Note: One of highlights of being friends with Dr. John Kalas was the time he invited me to his laboratory to watch him perform an autopsy on a person who had problems with the heart, liver, and upper arms. John provided me with a close look at the liver and heart, as well as the fatty deposits surrounding the gut. Plus, he also collected multiple biopsies from the biceps and triceps. What a meaningful experience that was to me.
Fast Exercise for Fast Muscles: Be Cautious
ED: Okay, so translate your experience and beliefs concerning muscle fibers to strength training – does doing an exercise fast make you faster?
JK: It is impossible to simplify muscle fibers into white fast and red slow. It is equally impossible to simplify muscular contraction into fast exercise for faster movement and slow exercise for slow movement.
Coaches, therefore, should be very cautious about having their athletes perform fast exercise for fast muscles. There is little basis in science for such a recommendation.
Also, coaches need to be aware that performing fast repetitions is dangerous.
The Danger of Training Fast
ED: What's wrong with performing fast repetitions?
JK: So there is no misunderstanding, I want to define what I mean by "fast." When a barbell, dumbbell, or machine repetition exceeds the muscle's ability to contract, or the tool is thrown rather than lifted, then that is too fast.
As an example, let's examine a barbell overhead press being performed by a subject standing on a force plate connected to a recorder. (A force plate is a delicate measuring device that is used to measure changes in force.) If the subject presses and lowers the barbell in a slow, smooth manner, a steady force is recorded throughout the entire movement. On the other hand, a fast movement applies force to only a small portion (usually at the start and at the end) of the repetition.
After the start of a fast repetition, the barbell is actually lifting the subject's arms (due to momentum). The force applied during the start of the fast movement can often amount to several times the weight of the barbell (a 100-pound barbell for an instant could weigh from 200 to 300 pounds).
Yanking muscles, and that is exactly what is happening, does not build strength. Instead, it exposes the joints, muscles, and connective tissues to danger. Force causes injury, and throwing a weight certainly increases the force.
For the best results from strength training, athletes should perform slow, deliberate repetitions. They should raise the weight smoothly (with minimum acceleration) and lower the weight slowly under full control.
Returning to the example of a barbell overhead press, while standing on a force plate, if you move at a faster pace than approximately 3 seconds on the positive and 3 seconds on the negative, then the bleep running across the scope begins to flutter significantly – which is an indication of too much changing force.
Thus, 3-seconds lifting and 3-seconds lowering seems like a reasonable guideline to follow on each repetition, which is relatively slow when compared to the fast styles that most coaches and athletes utilize.
Skill Training
ED: At Florida State University, I studied extensively about the need for strength training to be general and skill training to be specific. Since most skills are best performed quickly, motor learning experts recommended that skill practice be done at full speed. What has your neuromuscular study and experience shown you about skill learning?
JK: I agree with the motor learning experts. The neuromuscular pathways for the development of various sports skill must be mechanized through repeated, competition-like practices. Strength training needs to be based on the general functions of the major muscle groups. Skill is specific and strength is general.
Perhaps most importantly: Do not try to simulate in the weight room what happens on the athletic field. Many coaches fail to grasp this principle and instead, jump aboard the misleading philosophy based on power cleans and explosive bench presses.
Once again, coaches who recommend fast lifts are doing a disservice to their athletes. Such lifting so can lead to neuromuscular confusion and possible injuries.
Coaches would do well to remember the following: Skill train fast; strength train slow.
Five Basic Guidelines
ED: Thanks, John, for your astute answers. Do you have any final thoughts?
JK: Since we've been kicking around this topic (the talks took place over several days), I phoned an old friend from my Walter Reed Hospital days, Dr. Harold M. Price, former Chief of Muscle Branch, Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.
Dr. Price emphatically stated that I should be as strong as possible in my conclusions about fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers. He said that absolutely no one can draw conclusions about human muscle fiber distributions, or tell athletes how to train, from the animal experiments and the few biopsies performed in humans to date.
From my personal study and experience, I offer the following guidelines:
Research Update
In the last 30 years, has new research shed light on any of Dr. John Kalas's conclusions about fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers?
No and yes.
I would not change any of his five bulleted points. They are all excellent guidelines to apply in strength training for sports and bodybuilding.
Unfortunately, coaches and athletes in their strength exercise – perhaps more than ever – are still training fast to be faster.
Again, there is almost no valid research to show that fast-speed repetitions are productive. Large-scale muscle biopsies, at three different levels, on multiple muscles are still not practical with humans.
But there has been some relevant findings concerning human muscle fibers. Douglas Brooks, in his book, Effective Strength Training, does a fine job of summarizing the latest on muscle fibers and the order in which each classification contributes to repetitive contractions during a resistance exercise.
Most authorities today organize slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscle fibers into three categories:
Human muscle, according to Brooks's review, is governed by a ramp-like recruitment pattern.
Ramp-Like Muscle-Fiber Recruitment
In any strength-training exercise, performed in a high-intensity manner (for example, 12 repetitions to failure), the ST fibers are involved initially. To continue after 4 repetitions, the ST fibers also require the intermediate FTIIa fibers, which assist with repetitions 5, 6, 7, and 8. Then, with ramp-like progression, the strongest FTIIb fibers – which have been held in reserve – are finally called into action and help to complete repetitions 9, 10, 11, and 12.
Important: It's the intensity of the exercise, not the speed of movement, which determines the muscle-fiber involvement. Light resistances, or low-intensity efforts, involve mostly the ST fibers and perhaps some of the FTIIa fibers. Heavy-resistance exercises, carried to momentary muscular failure, involve all three fiber types: ST, FTIIa, and FTIIb.
There is no way to involve only the FTIIb fibers. Muscle fiber ramping or ordering prevents this from being possible. The bottom of the ramp (ST) is always used first.
Maximum, single-attempt lifts require all three fiber types. Explosive repetitions do the same. And don't forget, both maximum lifts and explosive repetitions are infused with high acceleration and excessive momentum – which increase the probability of injury.
Say NO to . . . Train Fast to Be Fast
Dr. John Kalas's 1976 guidelines concerning fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscle fibers still hold true today.
The valid research reported in the last three decades reinforces his beliefs.
It's prudent, therefore, to disregard the popular practice of . . . train fast to be fast. It deserved only minor attention among coaches and athletes in the 1970s.
It merits even less today.
Ellington Darden
JJ McClinton
chris mason
Virginia, USA
Drew Baye
Florida, USA


text: Dozens of cameras circle Earth to document the planet in detail, but few ever afford whole views of our world. The handful of rare glimpses have demonstrated that "Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena," wrote the late Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space. Robotic probes take most photos of Earth and the moon while en route to planets, asteroids, comets and even other star systems. But the practice of taking planetary self-portraits is almost never artistically motivated. "We generally do it to calibrate instruments and check a spacecraft's trajectory. If you point where you think the Earth is and see it, then you're probably where you think you are," said planetary scientist Mark Sykes of the Planetary Science Institute. "But now, as we continue to find other planets, these general views help us look at the Earth in new ways," Sykes said. "They help us ask, 'What does a habitable planet look like? What indicates a civilization is there?'" In this gallery we cover some of the most iconic images of our pale blue dot taken by both robots and humans. Above: Rosetta The European Space Agency launched the Rosetta spacecraft in 2004 to land a probe on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in November 2014. When it swung by Earth for its third and final gravity boost on Nov. 12, 2009, Rosetta took a series of photos of the Earth. The outline of Antarctica is visible in the bottom portion of the planet. Image: ESA/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA [high-resolution version]Lunar Orbiter 1 This first-ever view of the Earth from around the moon was taken by the United States' first Lunar Orbiter spacecraft on Aug. 23, 1966. Four more spacecraft followed suit to help Apollo mission managers map 99 percent of the lunar surface and select potential landing sites for future manned excursions. Decades later in 2008, the Lunar Orbiter Image Recovery Project began releasing dramatically restored versions of the images (below). Images: 1) NASA [high-resolution version] 2) NASA/LOIRP [high-resolution version]Apollo Missions Apollo 8 was the first manned mission to reach and orbit the moon. As Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders read passages from the Bible during a live broadcast on Dec. 24, 1968, NASA aired the first "earthrise" photo to the public. The iconic "blue marble" image below — now a mainstay on iPhone home screens — was taken on Dec. 7, 1972 as Apollo 17 astronauts sped toward the moon. Images: NASA 1) [high-resolution version] 2) [high-resolution version]Mariner 10 and Galileo About 12 hours after Mariner 10 launched from Earth on Nov. 3, 1973, mission managers turned on its cameras and aimed them homeward. Although the moon appears close to Earth in the above photo, it is an illusion of alignment and distance. (Our lunar satellite orbits from about 239,000 miles away.) The Galileo spacecraft, launched in 1989, took a similar photo of Earth from 3.9 million miles away as it sped toward Jupiter and that planet's moons. Images: 1) NASA/JPL/Northwestern University [high-resolution version] 2) NASA [high-resolution version]Voyager 1 NASA launched the Voyager 1 spacecraft on Aug. 20, 1977 to document the planets Jupiter and Saturn, but not before it took the image above of Earth and the moon on Sept. 18, 1977. The portrait was not its last. Some 4 billion miles from Earth on Feb. 14, 1990 the spacecraft took the image below, showing the planet as a tiny speck. (The colored bands are scattered sunlight.) Voyager 1 and its twin Voyager 2 are still operational today at the edge of the solar system. Images: NASA 1) [high-resolution version] 2) [high-resolution version]Clementine As NASA's Clementine spacecraft orbited the moon in 1997, it took this image of the Earth over the lunar north pole. Image: U.S. Geological Survey/NASA [high-resolution version]NEAR To reach asteroid 433 Eros, NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous Spacecraft, or NEAR, had to swing by our home planet on Jan. 23, 1998. The south poles of the Earth and moon are visible in this shot. Image: NASA [high-resolution version]Juno It doesn't look like much, but this view of the Earth (left) and the moon (right) clearly show the respectable distance between the two bodies. NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft took the image on Aug. 26, 2011 from 6 million miles away. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech [high-resolution version]Spirit Mars Exploration Rover and Mars Global Surveyor NASA's Spirit Mars Exploration Rover took the above twilight shot of the Earth from the surface of Mars in 2004. Below, the Mars Global Surveyor offers a view of Earth and the moon from Martian orbit on May 8, 2003. Images: 1) NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/Texas A&M [high-resolution version] 2) NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems [high-resolution version]Cassini The Cassini spacecraft recorded this sun-facing shot from behind Saturn. The Earth appears as a small speck through the gas giant's rings. Image: NASA/CICLOPS [high-resolution version]See Also:Earth as Art: Stunning New Images From SpaceChanneling Earth: Rivers Seen From SpacePhoto: Looking Back at the Space Station From EarthErupting Volcanoes on Earth as Seen From SpaceSuper Space: Royal Observatory's Astronomy Photo WinnersA Day To Remember Carl Sagan

subset: commoncrawl


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Military, Products, Services
By Staff Writer | July 18, 2012
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Sikorsky Aerospace Services (SAS) has increased its in-country maintenance support contract involving the Colombian Army's fleet of Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks. SAS plans to double its support team, including additional technicians for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. The 42 technicians will oversee phase maintenance inspections and 120-hour inspections out of the Tolemaida Aviation Maintenance Base. Related: Maintenance News


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Remember when I told you yesterday that I baked cupcakes for a coworkers birthday? Well, they came out fucking awesome. I won't lie though, I was shitting bricks on my way into work today with them. I know I am a very capable baker but I haven't brought in baked goods to share with my office in the whole 9 months I have been here. Like I mentioned, I am super lucky to have another vegan and two vegetarians in the office so we always have each others backs. Everyone else is really veg-friendly(though the occasional teasing occurs, but its all in good nature) but I was nervous about how the omnis would react to a vegan cream cheese frosting. The nervousness started last night while I was making the frosting. I eat Trader Joe's "This is not a tub of cream cheese" with my bagels but I've never used it for frosting, I usually stick with Tofutti or Galaxy(the best of the best). I wasn't loving how it was coming out so I added a bunch more vanilla and sugar then I tossed in some cinnamon. After fussing with it for awhile, I was pleased with the results. Almost. At this point, it was a perfectly spreadable frosting but not thick enough that it would hold up to piping it. I was exhausted so I decided to just spread it on and be done with it. The frosting still tastes awesome but isn't as pretty as I would have like. Oh well.
I had my guy taste test the cupcakes the night before because I know he will tell me what he really thinks. He loves vegan cream cheese but I don't think I told him there was any in it until after. I was also worried about them having too much cinnamon, my tastebuds were starting to go a little numb from all the frosting I had to try. His reaction was that the frosting was awesome and went perfectly with the cupcake.
The reaction through the office was the same as well. I'm definitely going to bake more for work now! I love vegan baking success!
The recipe I used is the one I got from Vegan Good Eats, which originally came from Jody of jodycakes. Here is the recipe below, without my frosting modifications (those were done to taste without measuring)
Pumpkin Spice Vegan Cupcakes
- 1/4 cup soy milk
- 1 teaspoon. vinegar, preferably apple cider
- 1 cup all purpose flour, preferably unbleached
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/3 cup each vegan sugar and packed brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon each ginger, nutmeg and salt
- 1/8 teaspoon cardamom (optional)
- Dash of ground cloves and allspice
- 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
- 1/4 cup unsweetened apple sauce
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350 and line 12 count muffin tin with cupcake papers.
- In large measuring cup, combine milk & vinegar to create soy "buttermilk. Allow to sit and curdle while preparing all the other ingredients.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine sugars and whisk until smooth. Sift together all additional dry ingredients, including the spices and salt into the sugars. Whisk to combine.
- In small bowl, stir together pumpkin, applesauce, oil and vanilla.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry, adding soy "buttermilk" last. Combine all ingredients until smooth and pour into the prepared pan, filling cups about halfway.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes or until the tops spring back to a light touch.
Vegan Cream Cheese Frosting
- 6 tablespoons Vegan Cream Cheese, such as Tofutti brand
- 2 tablespoons Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Sticks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
- 2-4 tablespoons soy milk (as needed)
Cream together the cream cheese and butter and add vanilla. Add the sugar one cup at a time. If frosting is too thick, you may slowly add soy milk to loosen up to reach the desired consistency.


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The Village of Kettle Valley, named 'Best Community in Canada' by the Canadian Home Builders Association, is a community unlike any other - a village specifically designed to foster a unique, experience rich lifestyle. Our unwavering commitment to enhancing the lives of our residents is evident in the planning of each home, park, and neighbourhood. Stunning streetscapes, expansive parks and wildlife spaces, breathtaking views, a state of the art elementary school, and a beautiful full service Village Centre reflect a standard of excellence rarely found in today's residential developments. Everything you want... within walking distance. (www.kettlevalley.com)
The capital of Canada is Ottawa, in the province of Ontario. There are offically ten provinces and three territories in Canada, which is the second largest country in the world in terms of land area.While politically and legally an independant nation, the titular head of state for Canada is still Queen Elizabeth.On the east end of Canada, you have Montreal as the bastion of activity. Montreal is famous for two things, VICE magazine and the Montreal Jazz Festival. One is the bible of hipster life (disposable, of course) and the other is a world-famous event that draws more than two million people every summer. Quebec is a French speaking province that has almost seceded from Canada on several occasions, by the way..When you think of Canada, you think of . . . snow, right?But not on the West Coast. In Vancouver, it rains. And you'll find more of the population speaking Mandarin than French (but also Punjabi, Tagalog, Korean, Farsi, German, and much more).Like the other big cities in Canada, Vancouver is vividly multicultural and Vancouverites are very, very serious about their coffee.Your standard Vancouverite can be found attired head-to-toe in Lululemon gear, mainlining Cafe Artigiano Americanos (spot the irony for ten points).But here's a Vancouver secret only the coolest kids know: the best sandwiches in the city aren't found downtown. Actually, they're hidden in Edgemont Village at the foot of Grouse Mountain on the North Shore."It's actually worth coming to Canada for these sandwiches alone." -- Michelle Superle, VancouverText by Steve Smith.


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Tagged: Marcus Hanel
Photo Day at the Phillies (6/1/2013)
On June 1, 2013, we continued our quest to have Kellan see all 30 MLB teams play a game live. The Brewers were on the "must see" list and they were in Philadelphia, and so were we.
For some reason, we were running a bit late getting to the ballpark. We arrived before the gates opened, but there was already a healthy-sized crowd there before we arrived:
The reason for the big crowd: it was Photo Day!
The Phillies' website said fans could get photos of their favorite Phillies on field starting at 2:30. I didn't know exactly what that meant for the pregame schedule. The stadium was going to open at 1:30. Would there be an hour of BP before moving on to the Photo Day festivities? No.
As we reached the seating bowl, the field was already set up for Photo Day. I wish I would have taken a picture of it from the concourse, but I just wanted us to get down there onto the field. Several gates to the field were open along the front row of the foul territory seats on both sides of the diamond. Fans could walk around pretty much the whole field (with limited exceptions, like in front of the Phillies dugout). In the outfield, there were two catwalk'esque runways put together on each side – two in LF and two in RF. The runways ran about half way out into the outfield grass from the warning track and fans could stand out in the OF waiting for the Phils to arrive.
At the beginning, we hung out down the 3B line…
…and in front of the Brewers dugout.
A bunch of Phillies ballgirls started circling the field…
…signing autographs for the kids (or, I guess, adults, too). Each ballgirl has her own baseball card and they personalize all of their autographs. Two of the 7 ballgirls we met up with *loved* the name "Kellan."
Interestingly, while the fans were blocked from going in front of the Phillies dugout, there were no similar restrictions in front of the Brewers dugout. If a Brewer wanted to come out to the field to run, stretch or throw, he had to walk through the crowd. It was pretty awesome. (By the way, this was the exact same situation that they had at Photo Day at Fenway Park in April).
I bought Tim that cheesehead Kellan is wearing in the photo above while I was on a business trip to Milwaukee in 2012. I figured it would be funny to wear at a Brewers game, and this was our first opportunity. Guess what? Everyone loves a fan wearing a cheesehead. We could hear people commenting on it all around us while the boys were passing it back and forth.
The Brewers liked it too. Like Tom Gorzelanny who stopped to get this photo with the boys on his way back to the dugout:
By the way, we were hanging out right here because half of the warning track was blocked off for fans in wheelchairs, but there were none at the time so it was a totally unblocked view of the field.
Brewers coach, Lee Tunnell, liked the cheesehead too…
…he tossed a baseball to us after playing catch with several Brewers.
We hung out by the dugout a bunch because it was fun watching what was going on in there. Tim touched (and made me touch) this…
…burning hot TV camera. After touching it, I was surprised it hadn't spontaneously combusted. It was firey hot from the sun, which was beating down hard on us.
I wanted to find Yuniesky Betancourt. I was hoping to get my picture with him because (1) he's a ex-Mariner, (2) he's always been very nice to us, and (3) I was wearing my Jose Lopez jersey (who was Yuni's doubleplay partner and buddy while in Seattle). But Yuni was nowhere to be found during pre-game festivities.
With no Yuni in sight, Tim posed for a photo by the bullpen with Michael Gonzalez getting interviewed in the background:
When it seemed apparent that we wouldn't find Yuni, we headed toward the outfield. Kellan was content sitting on my shoulders and didn't want to get down for any photos. Tim got a photo in LF with the foul pole behind him:
Check out his sweet shirt in that photo – "Cheesehead Cowpants." I got him that gem while on a different business trip to Milwaukee…actually, to Racine, Wisc. Pairing the Cheesehead Cowpants shirt with Tim's banana shorts is one of my favorite non-Mariners gameday outfits. It's pretty hilarious, no?
Here's a random photo in LF:
We headed over to the RCF warning track below the pizza wedge…
…so we could see the players-point-of-view when we're usually looking down at them from the pizza wedge.
Check out how easy it would be to pick off a homer in CF:
No jumping required.
While we were out in CF, several Brewers were in the upper (visitors') bullpen. The last two to leave were coaches, including Marcus Hanel. As Hanel walked by…
…we said hi to him and he handed us a spare baseball, he had two in his glove and he took the other back to the dugout with him.
Of course, we had to check in with the Mariners on the out of town scoreboard:
Finally, Phillies players started making the rounds. The "rule" was you weren't supposed to get individual posed pictures with the players, you know, because they didn't have time to pose for a picture with everyone. I think that's always the rule at all of the ballparks. Anyway, some of the Phils just walked around saying hi and shaking hands. Some walked a bit and then randomly stopped to take a photo with one or two fans (Chase Utley). Others posed for photos with every single fan who wanted a picture. That's how it oughta be!
We ran all over from RCF to LF and out the LF catwalk trying to get a bunch of player photos and looking for certain guys. We missed a lot of guys while looking for other player or because the guy didn't want to stop for a photo. Here's who we met:
First up, right in CF, we met Joe Savery…
…and Jonathan Pettibone.
Right after we got their photos, I saw Carlos "Chooch" Ruiz coming our way from LCF. We missed some guys (like Antonio Bastardo) trying to make sure we didn't miss Chooch. And, happily, we did not miss chooch…
…or Charlie Manuel. If you ask me, both Charlie and Tim have hilarious faces in that picture, and eerily similar at that. If you couldn't tell, we were out on a walkway in LF when we ran into Charlie. We stayed out there most of the time and we kept going back because it was less crowded than the warning track.
If you ever go to Photo Day on a blazing hot day, I highly recommend taking squirt bottles. The players love squirt bottles, and so do other fans, for the most part. When we asked Justin DeFratus for a picture, he took off his hat and said, "First, you have to squirt me in the face."
After DeFratus posed for a picture with Tim, he remarked at what a good deal he and Tim had made. It was a pretty good deal too. Tim's a lucky boy. Not many people can say they've squirted a uniformed major leaguer in the face with a squirt bottle!
While Cole Hamels passed by behind, Ryan Howard posed for a picture from afar as Tim squirted his bottle in the air…
…and Ben Revere sported shiny glasses and one of the straightest bills in the league.
We had a nice Mariners-based chat with both Larry Anderson (a former Mariner)…
…and Gary "Sarge" Mathews, Sr. (who likes to wear fancy hats like Mariners announcer Dave Sims). L.A. was really very nice. He chatted with us a minute or two about the Mariners and the beautiful Kingdome. Sarge claimed that he was wearing hats before Dave Sims. On twitter, Dave later told me he and Sarge both started wearing hats in 2007.
How about a couple Washingtonians? Mount Vernon, WA's Kyle Kendrick…
…and Spokane, WA's Ryne "HOF" Sandberg. I asked Kendrick how his family was enjoying the detour around the collapsed bridge in his home town. Not surprisingly, they were not big fans of it.
Several years ago, three future Major Leaguers playing for the AA Reading Phillies (now the Reading Fightin Phils or the "Fightins") came to my Reading-Berk Business Softball League game against the R-Phils front office and they heckled us mercilessly. Those players were Kyle Drabek, Mike Zagursky, and current Phillies reliefer Michael Stutes…
…who totally remembered it when I mentioned the softball game to him. Next to Stutes and Tim, that's Tim "Spray Man" Cook and 2007 N.L. MVP Jimmy Rollins. Rollins was riding around on that utility truck behind him in the photo. He would ride a little bit and then hop up for a few pictures. We had to chase him all the way down one of the runways before filing meeting up with him on the warning track. When he saw Tim, he said, "Come on, Spray Man!" and then he squirted Tim three times in the face while I took this photo. Great memory!
After getting that pic with J-Roll, we wandered around trying to find the best N.L. bullpen catcher, Jesus Tiamo, but to no avail. So, we headed off to grab some ice cream:
Ice cream in the shady on a hot day is good stuff.
While we ate ice cream we watched the grounds crew take up the four white runways in the outfield. Soon, it was time for the pitchers to warm up. When Jesus Tiamo headed out to the bullpen, we wandered down into the pizza wedge and he promptly tossed a ball to Tim…
…and another to Kellan.
Thanks, Jesus!
I asked Jesus if he was out on the field for the photo session, but he said he was not. That's too bad. It would have been great to get a photo with him.
Before the game got started, we went to the play area…
…and then we played some games:
We were happy to see that Santa Claus…
…was spending his vacation in Philadelphia, and apparently roots for the Phils.
We played enough games to get 20 stamps…
…the exact number you need to win one of these Citizens Bank Park mini-bats. When the guy realized I had two boys, he through in an extra bonus bat!
Thanks, guy!
The game had just started by this point. We decided to head to the upper deck to grab some food and sit in the shade. On our way across Ashburn Alley in CF, Tyler Cloyd induced Ryan Braun…
…to fly out to Ben Revere in CF to end the top of the first with no score.
Within thirty seconds of taking that last photo, I found a $5 bill on the ground in Ashburn Alley:
After circling around to the concourse in LF foul territory we spotted the Phillie Phanatic…
…riding his ATV down the switch back ramp. That was kind of amazing because we never see the Phanatic out and about in the stadium. He's usually just on the field or on top of the dugouts at the end of the game.
On the upper deck concourse, Tim and Kellan did some fake hitting and base running before we grabbed some food:
Speaking of food, after buying our hot dogs, I found another $5 bill on the ground! That raised the my found-money-at-a-ballpark grand total up to $30, all at Citizens Bank Park.
We sat here…
…in section 421 while we ate our lunch:
So, by the way, there was some scoring by this point that I haven't mentioned. In the top of the second inning, the Brewers scored two runs on a single to RF and a throwing error by Delmon Young. That made it 2-0 Brewers.
In the bottom of the fourth, the Phillies got on the board when Brewers' second baseman Jeff Bianchi couldn't handle a bases loaded knock by Kevin Frandsen. The Brewers got out of the jam without giving up any more runs. 2-1 Brewers after four.
The Brewers got that run back pretty quick. In the top of the fifth, Aoki hit a single followed by a triple by Jean Segura. 3-1 Brewers after five innings.
The Phils got one more run in the bottom of the sixth on a single by Erik Kratz. Back to a 1-run game, 3-2 Brewers after six.
We were just relaxing. And having fun with squirt bottles:
We were right up at the top of the upper deck seats. Check out what we could see behind us:
That's the Lincoln Financial Field parking lot. I'm not sure when they put in the covered parking. I'd never noticed it before…but then again, we never park over there.
We decided to hit up the kids' play area one more time before it closed. One our walk down to the concourse, I got this shot…
…of the stairs. I love how there is one solitary row right about the tunnel. That's be a sweet place to sit someday.
Visiting the kids' play area turned out not to be a great idea. The kids' play area is pretty big and parents can only see one side of it at a time from the area below. The kids went up to play and I sat on the ground in front of the play area taking some notes in my notebook and putting baseballs in baggies. Tim and Kellan came running by a couple times after going down the big twisty slide.
But then I didn't see them for a while. A couple times I heard some crazy kid screams from inside the play area. They were spaced out over a minute or two. I grew concerned that it was Kellan and he was stuck inside the play area up top somewhere. I started walking around the play area and I found this scene on the back side:
Actually, this wasn't right when I got there. There is a steering wheel type toy up there. When Kellan tried to play with it, a kid a little shorter than Kellan with a mohawk started hitting Kellan and pushing him into the walls (I missed all of that). He apparently also bit Kellan's finger (I also missed that).
When I found Kellan, Tim was trying to push Kellan and the other kid apart. Kellan was screaming and crying. The mohawk kid ran off to the right.
I had no clue what was going on at this point. I just knew that Kellan was going ballistic crying. I asked a Phillies employee (the lady shown in the picture above) if I could go up and get him because he wouldn't come down. She said parents couldn't go up after kids. A minute later, I saw her up there. I still had no clue what was happening – if Kellan and that kid were just fighting (i.e., both being bad) or what. Then I saw that lady up there. My first thought was that she was going to kick Kellan out for fighting with that kid. But she was up there to find the kid with the Mohawk. The other kids told her where he went in the play area and she went and kicked him out of there.
She then came back to see if Kellan was okay. While she was away, two moms came up to me and told me what happened with the kid with the mohawk. They were both super mad and they mentioned that the mohawk kid's dad was standing below laughing as he tussled with Kellan. One said that she wanted to run up there and kick that kid out herself.
Anyway, I was calling up to Kellan and asking him to come down. He was just standing up there crying and wouldn't move. That lady up there couldn't really get him to move, but she point out to me that he could walk to the right and take the slide down. I finally got him to walk over there and slide down to me. He was still crying and screaming when he reached me. I picked him up and popped him onto my shoulders and the three of us got out of there right away.
As we walked toward home plate through the concourse, Tim told me all about what happened up in the play area and Kellan instantly fell asleep (it was a tiring altercation with the little mohawk kid).
We had a goal of getting some mathematical photos for the MyGameBalls.com photo scavenger hunt, we headed to the RF foul corner, but we were too far away. So we headed to the SRO area behind the Brewers dugout.
In the top of the eighth inning, Jonathan Lucroy hit a solo homerun that put the Brewers up 4-2.
I'm happy to report that we were able to get both math photos that we needed:
And we got to see our Yuni Betancourt (unfortunately) not hit a homerun:
When Kellan woke up, he started spraying his bottle and eventually hit this cameraman:
I told Kellan not to do that, but the cameraman turned around and said, "no, please do!"
In the ninth inning, we ended up heading down into section 129:
Freddy Galvis led off the ninth inning with a solo homerun:
The crowd was excited for a Phillies comeback. Kellan was most excited about how thoroughly he had doused his face with his spray bottle:
Jimmy Rollins followed with a pinch hit single. Interestingly, Kyle Kendrick pinch ran for Rollins. Ben Revere sacrifice bunted Kendrick to second. Cesar Hernandez followed Revere. During his at bat, the Brewers picked Kendrick off second base for the second out of the inning. And, wouldn't you know it, Hernandez then hit a double off the RCF wall. Had Kendrick not been picked off, Hernandez's double would have tied the game.
With a one run lead still intact, Francisco "K-Rod" Rodriguez intentionally walked Dominic Brown and then got Michael Martinez to ground out to end the game.
Brewers win 4-3.
Following the final out, it was super easy to get into the corner spot at the home plate end of the Brewers dugout. We got home plate umpire Tom Hallion's attention and he bounce-passed a baseball to Tim off of the top of the dugout.
Tim hammed it up when someone took a shot of us…
…before heading to the gates.
The game ended at just about 7:00 p.m. and we ended up playing catch…
…in the parking lot for half an hour before hopping in the car or the ride home.
It was another great day at the ballpark!
2013 C&S Fan Stats
|12 Games
|17 Teams – Mariners, Royals, Phillies, Red Sox, Rays, Orioles, Yankees, Dodgers, Reds, Nationals, Marlins, Pirates, Blue Jays, Twins, Tigers, Mets, Brewers
|22 Ice Cream Helmets – Phillies (jumbo) 2, Phillies (normal) 2, Red Sox 2, Yankees 2, Orioles 2, Nationals 2, Pirates 2, Blue Jays 2, Tigers 4, Mets 2
|55 Baseballs – Mariners 6, Royals 4, Phillies 11, Rays 2, Orioles 5, Dodgers 1, Umpires 4, Reds 4, Nationals 1, Marlins 4, Pirates 1, Blue Jays 2, Twins 3, Tigers 1, Mets 3, Yankees 2, Brewers 2
|9 Stadiums – Citizens Bank Park 2, Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium, Camden Yards, Nationals Park, PNC Park, Rogers Centre, Comerica Park, Citi Field
|30 Player+ Photos – Oliver Perez, Lucas Luetge, Hisashi Iwakuma, Carter Capps, Daniel Nava, Alex Wilson, Andrew Bailey, Pedro Ciriaco, Mike Carp, Koji Uehara, Will Middlebrooks, Joel Hanrahan, Jonny Gomes, Alfredo Aceves, Clayton Mortensen, Rick Anderson, Tom Gorzelanny, Joe Savery, Jonathan Pettibone, Carlos Ruiz, Charlie Manuel, Justin DeFratus, Ryan Howard, Ben Revere, Larry Anderson, Gary "Sarge" Matthews Sr., Kyle Kendrick, Ryne "HOF 2005" Sandberg, Michael Stutes, Jimmy Rollins
|5 Autograph – Hisashi Iwakuma 2 (English & Japanese), Carter Capps, Ryan Hanigan, Jesus Tiamo
Let's Play Two, Again: Brewers at Nats (4/17/2011)
After starting out our 2011 season with an outstanding doubleheader in Baltimore (Tim's first doubleheader), our second game was slated to be the Marlins at Phillies on Saturday, April 16, 2011. Unfortunately, rain wiped out most of the games in the NE region of the United States that day, including our game in Philadelphia.
The Phillies rescheduled the game for June 15th, thus freeing us up to travel to the Nation's capital on April 17, 2011 for our second consecutive single-admission doubleheader, featuring the Milwaukee Brewers and the Washington Nationals.
The action was slated to start at 1:10 p.m. I was confident there would be BP, so we arrived 2.5 hours early. The Nats and Brewers did not disappoint. There was full batting practice by both teams.
After a 30-second stop in the LF seats, we headed over to RCF – section 143 – which was practically empty. A few minutes later, a Nationals batter hit a ball onto the warning track in deep CF. Nationals bullpen coach came walking out toward CF with his fungo bat in hand…
…I waived to get his attention, then pointed to the baseball on the warning track and then to Tim. He nodded and started walking toward the ball. He had a long walk. At the same time, a groundskeeper behind the CF wall saw the ball and walked out to get it. I yelled down toward him, "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!"
Luckily, he grabbed the ball and tossed it to Coach Lett. Lett turned and, true to his nod, fired the baseball to my waiting Rawlings glove.
Thanks, Jim Lett!
By the way, it was one of the ultra-soft leather "Training" baseballs that the Nationals like to use for BP.
A few minutes later, we relocated to the seats next to the Nationals bullpen at section 139. There was a group of Nats in RF. They tossed a few baseballs to Nats fans.
Finally, this happened…
…an unidentified Nationals player wearing a firstbasemens glove sauntered back to the warning track to fetch a stray "Training" baseball and tossed it up to me an Tim.
Thanks, unidentified dude!
All the while, a 45'ish year old dad of two 10-12'ish year old boys was yucking it up in the first row of section 140 because his boys had been the recipients of several toss ups. He was quite happy…until one of his boneheaded boys dropped his baseball down into the gap between the seats and the RF wall. Doh!
The guy was perplexed. What to do!? The groundskeepers in the bullpen said they couldn't do anything about it. Even if they could, it would require accessing a gate and walking between the wall and the stands. They had no reason to go out of their way to do it to help the dad of the newly baseball-less boy.
Tim and I were down in the first row looking at the boy's baseball. Then we started watching the groundskeepers spray painting the pitching rubbers bright white…
…I looked back toward my right and witnessed something absurd. The Dad of the baseball-less boy climbed down into the gap – a good 10-15 feet down – and grabbed the dropped baseball, and another BP homer that found the gap.
As he was climbing up, I could see security running from multiple directions with rage-filled faces, ready to sink their verbal teeth into this apparently clueless dad.
I was amazed later to learn that they didn't eject him from the stadium. But they did remove him for the outfield seats for the remainder of BP. The truly amazing thing was that the Dad was bold enough to yell at the security people (really just retired guys working as ushers) that he only did it because no one would go get his baseball.
UNSOLICITED ADVICE: If you (or your kid) get a baseball, put it in your pocket or backpack. If you don't, and you eventually drop it into a 10-15 gap behind the outfield wall, DON'T CLIMB DOWN THERE TO GET IT!!! Just live with your boneheaded move.
Next, we relocated to the middle of section 141 where this was our panoramic view of Nationals Park:
Tim sat and munched on some crackers while I incompetently watched a BP homerun land two rows directly in front of me. Had I climbed over even just one row of seats, it would have been an easy on-the-fly grab. Oh, well.
When the Brewers came to bat, we relocated to the second deck in search of a Monster Prince Fielders Bomb. I'm a fairly nervous father of an extremely-high-energy-low-attention-to-danger son. So I told Tim he had to stand behind this glass barrier if he was going to stand in the front row:
Here was the view of Nationals Park from the third row in section 241:
Fielder did, in fact, several (maybe 4) homeruns into the second deck. One of them landed about 3 rows above me and bounced directly over my head (too high and out of reach) and back down onto the field.
That was the only one that was anywhere near us. Another was 3 sections toward CF and I started to run for it before totally biting it trying to jump a row a seats. Tim thought it was pretty comical. He described it to his mommy by saying that my "neck hooked onto one row of seats and his feet hooked onto another row of seats and his body just hung in the air!"
At another point, a Brewers pitcher spotted us all alone in section 241 (literally no one within 100 feet of us) and fired a baseball to us. Well, he meant to throw it to us, but he launched it about 8 rows above us. I didn't even see it land. I ran up a couple rows, walked row-to-row and could not find it anywhere. Meanwhile, a 12'ish year old kid ran from two sections over. He saw the ball, grabbed it and then laughed at me for missing out on the baseball clearly meant for me and Tim. I went back over to Tim and he said, "That boy stole our baseball!!!" It was pretty funny. I explained to him that I couldn't find it (it blended in was nudged under the back of a seat and blended in with the white pavement) and he had a right to grabbed it if he could find it.
Still, the next day, Tim told his mommy how the boy "stole our baseball." Yep, it was pretty funny.
Anyway, after Prince Fielder finished hitting, I told Tim we could go to the kids play area for a bit. But first, we walked toward RF foul territory and got this picture with the Nationals Park sign in the background:
Tim had loads of fun, as always, in the kids play area:
In addition to the normal play fort-thingy, the Nats put in an inflatable batting station. And it was a really nice one with an excellent red plastic bat (that fit time perfectly). It was a long line to bat and we made our way slowly to the front. A little girl who had no clue how to hit was directly in front of Tim in line. On her first swing, she completely missed the ball, and then took a ferocious backswing and unintentionally drilled a perfect line drive directly into Tim's nose.
Tim was not pleased.
And he shed some big time water works.
Once he calmed down, he took it out on the whiffleball:
He was trying to hit a Popfly over the hitting station like he had done at Spring Training in Peoria.
As the game was set to start, we bought some expensive, but quite tasty, chili nachos (more just "meaty" nachos)…
…which, despite initially not wanting the "chili," Tim loved.
We had seats in section 105, but we started the game in section 104. Here was our panoramic view of Nationals Park from our temporary seats in section 104:
I was happy to have a former-Mariner…
…Michael Morse patrolling LF for the Nats.
After an inning or two, it started to fill up in LF so I figured we should go get some ice cream and return to our actual ticketed seats.
On the way to get ice cream, Tim managed to destroy this water fountain:
Actually, he was just filling his water bottle and it went haywire all on its own.
On the way back to our seats, Tim struck a pose with his fancy (and too expensive ($8) M&M's vanilla ice cream helmet):
Just like last season when we saw the Brewers at Nationals, they did an elaborate Sausages vs. Presidents race…
…ending in some serious sausage carnage and a Presidents (but not Teddy) win.
In our real seats in section 105, we sat next to a nice Nats fan who Tim chatted up like nobody's business. The Brewers took an early 2-0 lead on RBI singles by Casey McGehee in the first and pitcher Yovani Gallardo in the fourth. Faced with the deficit, the Nats fan put on a rally hat, which prompted Tim to do the same:
Speaking of our real seats, here was our view of Nationals Park from section 105, row M, seat 16:
The rally hats started to work. In the bottom of the fourth, Mike Morse got the Nats on the board with an RBI single off of Gallardo.
Hard hitting Danny Espinosa followed in the bottom of the fifth with a 3-run homerun. Here he about to score the fourth Nats run of the game:
At this point, just for the heck of it, I snapped this picture of Tim:
As we approached DC by car, Tim saw a big battle ship in the Anacostia River. I knew you could see the ship from the concourse in RF foul territory. Eventually, we decided to head over there to look at the ship.
On the way, we walked through the 200 level "Conference Center" concourse. For some reason, we'd never been on this level before. We got this panoramic view of Nationals Park from the concourse behind section 203…
…and this panoramic view of Nationals Park from the concourse behind-and-between sections 205 and 206:
While we were on the 200-level, a bunch of mascots (on hand for Screech's birthday), did a little tug-o-war with some Nats field workers: The workers and Screen won:
Note the bulldog in the middle of the rope on the mascots' side. That is Jake the Georgetown Hoya. We'll see him again.
Before leaving this spot, we got a nice picture of Adam LaRoche grounding out to Prince Fielder…
…and a shot of the "Conference Center" sign above the concourse behind section 205:
Next, we decided to continue on toward RF to see the battle ship. The only issue is that the suite level indoor concourse was in our way – and we couldn't access it. So we took an elevator up to the top deck. Check out who was in our elevator:
It was Jake the Hoya. Tim charged into the elevator when it opened and was totally freaked out when he saw Jake standing there. He was too scared to get a picture with Jake. Even as we exited the elevator, he was hustling to get away from big, bad Jake.
On the final portion of our walk toward the RF concourse where we would be able to see the battleship, Ivan Rodriguez hit the 310th homerun of his Hall of Fame-to-be career.
That made the score 7-2 Nationals.
Finally, we made it to the spot – and there was the ship!
Tim was so happy to see the ship that he decided to spit seeds off of the top of the stadium.
Before heading down the concourse ramps, Tim pointed out the Capitol Building:
One level down, I took this interesting view of the field from the ramp:
When we reached the 200-level, we stopped to watch Rick Ankiel bat…
…before we continued on toward CF, and the kids play area.
Tim wanted to hit again. But he was scared of a repeat nose-bashing. So he hid behind me as we made our way through the line:
Once he reached the front of the line, he put a hurtin' on the ball:
By the ninth inning, the Nats were winning 8-2. We watched the ninth from half way down the aisle in section 118:
RBI basehits by Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder were too little too late. After this final homerun by Ian Desmond…
…the Nationals won game one 8-4.
We hustled down toward the front of the section at the last out, but we were too late and missed out on getting a baseball from the home plate umpire. So, we stood around, chatted with a fan from Seattle, and got our picture taken above the visitors' dugout:
As we shuffled around in the fancy seats between games, I kept an eye open for discarded tickets on the ground. I figured a lot of Nats "fans" wouldn't be up for two games. I was right. We ended up finding 4 really nice tickets.
There was a 30 minute break between games. Among the first Brewers to come out to warm up for game two was former-Mariner Yuniesky Betancourt:
I always liked Yuni. I like him even more now that he toss us his warm up baseball:
Before the second game started, we got a great picture of Tim and Teddy Roosevelt:
We spent most of the game in or around section 114. One of the tickets we found was in section1 114, row L. But we started the game toward the back of section 114. Here was our view:
We moved up to a totally empty row L:
…in time to get a great view of Yuniesky Betancourt's RBI single in the fourth inning:
We had an even better ticket than the section1 114, row L seat. But I wanted to wait to make sure they were empty.
We decided to go to the kids play area one more time. On the way to the play area, I took a picture of what would become "our" ticketed seats for the rest of the game:
And Tim wanted a picture with the blossoming trees behind section 106:
After some playing, we reported to our section new section. I showed the usher our ticket for seat no. 3, but asked if it was okay if we sat in the empty seats in the middle of the section – I think it was no 25'ish. He told us it was no problem.
So, here is a picture of Tim standing in front of my seat:
And here he is watching the game from his seats…
Our seats were in an exclusive handicap accessible seating area. It also had special access points where people like Teddy and Abe…
…would use to access the field. They would come from a hallway running under the seats and then they would enter the field at a gate directly next to my seat:
I was really hoping a foul ball would roll our way because I could easily reach over and scoop it directly off of the warning track. But this Alex Cora foul was as close as we got to a foul:
Game two was a good one. It was tied 1-1 for a long time. The decisive blow came in the bottom of the seventh when Danny Espinosa hit a bases clearing 3-run triple to put the Nats up 4-1. T he Nats would eventually win 5-1.
Toward the end of the game, Tim got on the (really) big screen for flashing some fancy dance moves:
When they put him up on the board, everyone in the two sections behind us gave him a big cheer. It was really cool. Later, he could be overheard telling people in our section how, "I was on TV dancing!"
We stayed in our seats until the end of the game. When the final two people made their way in from the Brewers bullpen, we were still hanging out and Marcus Hanel rewarded us with this baseball:
And that was it. Our second doubleheader of the season was in the books.
Before heading out, we had a Nats employee take our picture:
As we headed to the exit and took a couple more panoramas on our way…section 107…
…and section 105 under the lights:
As we hit the sidewalk, Tim had me take a picture of some cool looking, big silver baseballs hanging from the side of the stadium (or a parking garage attached to the stadium):
That's it. Another long and excellent day of baseball for a father and son. Next time, I fear we will only get to see ONE game!
2011 C&S Fan Stats
4/0 Games (Tim/Kellan)
4/0 Teams [Tim – Orioles, Rangers, Brewers, Nationals; Kellan – none]
2 Ice Cream Helmet(s) (Orioles, Nationals)
9 Baseballs (3 Rangers, 1 Orioles, 1 Umpire, 2 Nationals, 2 Brewers)
2/0 Stadiums [Tim – Camden Yards, Nationals Park; Kellan – none]
10/6 Player Photos* [Tim – Felix Hernandez, Adam Moore, Garrett Olson, Chris Seddon, David Aarsdma, Michael Pineda, Miguel Olivo, Ryan Langerhans, Greg Zuan, Mark Lowe ; Kellan – Luke French, Milton Bradley, Franklin Gutierrez, Justin Smoak, Matt Tuiasosopo, Ryan Langerhans]
3/1 Management Photos* [Tim – Howard Lincoln, Jack Zduriencik, Eric Wedge; Kellan – Jack Zduriencik]
1 Autograph(s) (Mark Lowe)
1 Bat* (Milton Bradley)
2/1 Mascot Photos* [Tim – Mariner Moose, Teddy Roosevelt; Kellan – Mariner Moose]
*includes Spring Training


text:
NORTON SHORES, Mich. – Surveillance video from a Norton Shores bar could help in the abduction case of a missing west Michigan mother.
In the video, the vehicle that wizzes past the bar is the gray minivan police are searching for in connection with the case of 25-year-old Jessica Heeringa. Heeringa, a clerk, was working at an Exxon Mobil gas station late Friday night when she apparently was abducted.
Watch: Surveillance video from bar of silver van
It wasn't until after she was gone that someone realized something was wrong.
A gas station customer called 911.
Listen: Driver finds gas station unattended, calls 911
"There's nobody here," the caller said. "It wouldn't allow me to pump gas. I just walked inside, there's no one. There's a car here."
Heeringa's purse and car were left behind. The cash register was untouched.
"It's very suspicious, why there's nobody here," the 911 caller said.
Worried family and friends spent Monday passing out flyers. Police have ruled out several suspects in Heeringa's apparent abduction. Right now, identifying the driver of the gray or silver minivan, which could be a Chrysler Town & Country, is key.
"When I see so many people come here and say, 'Oh, I knew Jessica,' or even knew her just from work, take the time to come over and ask for help, I think it's a sign or what a unique young lady she was," said Diane Homrich, Heeringa's grandmother.
Police believe Heeringa may have known her abductor because there is no sign of a struggle. A task force has been formed to find her.


text:
Writer/director Paul Haggis has confirmed two of the stars for his upcoming film Third Person. Though the Crash director certainly has his plate full with scripting gigs at the moment, he's been busy penning another ensemble piece that he plans to direct. The film will take place in three different cities centering on three different couples, and the director confirmed that one of the couples will be played by resident bad ass Liam Neeson and the lovely Olivia Wilde. Hit the jump for more on the project.
Speaking with Vulture, Haggis describes the story thusly:
"It's about three story lines, three love stories, three relationships in three different cities that combine in a very odd way: New York, Paris, Rome."
Wilde will be playing a party reporter, but the Million Dollar Baby scribe was remiss to reveal any details regarding Neeson's character. He hopes to start shooting Third Person in August, but he won't be lacking for work in the meantime. Last summer he signed on to write an adaptation based on Daniel Silva's spy series character Gabriel Allon, and most recently he was tapped to rewrite the conspiracy drama Umbra for director Martin Campbell. Furthermore, he's been working on the contemporary thriller Gold with Michael Mann.
Though I haven't been the biggest fan of his recent material, I quite liked Haggis work on Million Dollar Baby and Casino Royale. The vignette style is certainly a different take for the director, but it'll be interesting to see how he fares outside of his comfort zone. Neeson recently signed on to topline the airplane thriller Non-Stop and will be seen this summer in Battleship. Wilde just wrapped her role in Ron Howard's period F1 racing drama Rush and will be seen in the dramedy People Like Us this June.


text:
Over the past three years, I have taken on the role of health club consultant, which I find rewarding and at times frustrating. I get a great sense of accomplishment helping someone help themselves and fulfill their dream of club ownership or management. It is thrilling to see someone listen, understand your advice and follow through to better their business. However, the road to helping people is not always easy. Sometimes, gym owners do not know that a better way exists to conduct their business. Sometimes, they know a better way exists, but they do not reach out for help. Other times, they realize they need help, bring someone in to help them and then resist their help.
I often see new owners entering the health club business with successful non-fitness-related business track records. They may feel that the health club business is easy and that they are going to reinvent the wheel and blow all the existing club operators away. They may purchase franchises and not follow their standard operating procedures. Though there are many valuable tried and true business philosophies that may apply to every business, what may work in another industry does not always apply to the health club industry
New club owners will discover challenges on their own, but when things get too hard, they can reach out to a resource that will help them. If you are faced with some of the following issues, it may be time to hire a consultant:
- You do not have policies or procedures in place or do not have them thoroughly documented.
- Poor management, poor leadership skills and lack of attention to detail.
- You have little sales, marketing, advertising, social networking and public relations experience.
- You are losing more members than signing up new ones.
- A new competitor has entered your market.
- You have no business experience.
- You feel that you have tried everything and nothing seems to work.
Choosing the right consultant requires time, and it requires you to know what you want the consultant to do. Consultants can help in many areas of your business, including sales, advertising, marketing, public relations, social media marketing, club operations, hiring and training, employee compensation, job descriptions, personal training, group fitness, human resources, financial planning, raising capital, strategic financing and competitive threats.
The consultant you hire should be a full-time health club industry consultant. You do not want to waste time or money getting a consultant up to speed on our industry. Expect to pay $100-$350 per hour on short-term projects. Most consultants require payment before service is rendered. The best arrangement is a blend of hourly work and an incentive-based compensation. Expect to pay for travel time, material, gas, tolls, etc.
Find a consultant with expertise in your area of concern. Success as a player and now as a coach is important, but these do not always correlate with their number of years of experience. The number of years using the "consultant's tool box" is relevant only when that tool box works. Beware of consultants who use dated materials. Consumers and employees have changed. Make sure that your consultant's tool box has all the tried and true tools as well as progressive and timely strategies and procedures.
Always interview potential consultants before hiring them. Use well-thought-out questions during the interview process. Ask the same questions of each prospective consultant and measure the responses. Check their references.
Develop a detailed plan with your consultant that includes your opinions and expectations. With the help of your attorney, put together a legal and binding contract and have the consultant sign it.
You should manage the relationship with the consultant rather than letting the consultant manage the relationship. Designate who the consultant should report to and which employees he or she will interface with. Communicate with your staff. Explain why a consultant has been hired and what they can expect.
Meet with your consultant as often as possible or as often as you spell out in your agreement. By communicating and staying on the plan, you ensure that you get the most from your relationship. Although phone calls, emails and Skype have their benefits and reduce costs, onsite hands-on consulting works best.
Lastly, your consultant must agree to supply detailed daily time/work sheets. Hold them accountable for time billed and work accomplished. Keep your contract handy and measure their performance against your agreement.
Hiring a consultant or advisor is essential at any stage of your club's development. It certainly makes the most sense when starting out, but you can always use an outside opinion about your club operations and business plan. Not all businesses are alike, nor are all gyms alike.
Tony Santomauro is owner and president of The Santomauro Group, a health, fitness, martial arts and sports consulting and management company. Santomauro, a 35-year health and fitness veteran, was co-founder and former president of Can Do Fitness Clubs in New Jersey for 12 years. He has extensive direct/corporate sales and marketing experience as well as expertise in advertising, public relations, martial arts and kids programming, equipment layout and design, class and fitness programming, and all operational aspects in the field. He is an internationally certified Kukkiwon black belt. He can be contacted at [email protected] or 973-396-2100.


text:
A Car Show Like No Other
Rusty, Crusty, Clean, and Straight--St. Ignace Has It All
The straits off Macinac Island connect Lake Huron with Lake Michigan and separate Michigans somewhat more remote and less-populated upper peninsula from the lower part of the state. This northern waterway was a major avenue for fur traders and explorers in the U.S. and Canada for 200 years. In recent times, St. Ignace, Michigan (located on the Interstate 75 business loop), has become the site of one of the most unique car shows in this country. Theres a little bit of everything, automotively speaking, and a whole lot of hospitality that brings famous faces and personalities together for a joyous vintage car and truck celebration.
This years guest of honor was Keith Crain, chairman of Crain Communications. Mr. Crain was just one of the many famous names that made up a list of whos who in our industry. There were many well-known custom-car builders, aftermarket industry personalities, and plenty of auto industry design and marketing executives. Plenty of awards were also presented to those well-known names and faces who attended a special brunch hosted by Nostalgia Productions. More about that in a minute.
Arriving in St. Ignace on Thursday evening put us an invitation or two behind the rest of the crowd, as organizer Ed Reavie had already rolled out the red carpet by inviting guests to his homewhich is often mistaken for an automotive memorabilia museum. There was also an evening ferryboat ride for those whove always wondered what the underside of the Mackinac Bridge looks like. One nearby attraction visitors to St. Ignace should not overlook is a trip to Mackinac Island, where motorized cars aregasp!not allowed. The architecture alone is entertaining enough to make the laid-back island one of the most popular vacation attractions in the Midwest. The charm of strolling through the dockside shops and the accessible walkways is a most enjoyable slow-motion contrast to our typically hectic lifestyles.
Back at the car show on Friday, a steady stream of special-interest cars and trucks started rolling into town. As soon as hotel accommodations were secured, lawn chairs were parked alongside State Street (the one major artery through town), to allow front-row seating for viewing the constant parade of neat vintage iron.
When youre Ed Reavies guest, you have to work to buy a meal. Nostalgia Productions hospitality is legendaryas are the names of the recipients of the prestigious awards. Among others, here are some of the awards presented: the North Hall of Fame, the Media Hall of Fame, the Race Car Hall of Fame, the Concours d Elegance, the Governors Award, the Kress Reavie Memorial Award, the Sam Barris Memorial Award, and the Media Hall of Fame (Corporate). Theres also a six-pack of specially crafted awards created by the talented Ridler Award-winning builder Dan Webb.
What is so special about this gathering is the opportunity to put faces to the names youve read about for years. Names like Mike and Larry Alexander, Joe Bailon, Gene Winfield, Wally Parks, Norm Grabowski, Bill Cushenbery, Linda Vaughn, Ken Posies Fenical, Roger Lindamood, Chuck Miller, Frank Livingston, Jack Walker, Troy Trepanier, Don Big Daddy Garlits, and more. Among these living legends are also the talented and dedicated men and women who have carved their names onto the auto industrys list of movers and shakers. Among those in attendance were Executive Vice President Tom Gale of Daimler/Chrysler, Executive Director of Design Jerry Palmer of General Motors Design Center, and Angelo Giampetroni of Ford Motorsports.
Gray Baskerville was honored with a multitude of awards, including the outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award. Yours truly was honored with a Hall of Fame North award and a Dan Webb Artist of the Year awardwhich may partially explain the popularity of this event! While many warm and fuzzy feelings were being shared by guests and hosts alike at the Guest of Honor brunch, outside the parade of rolling iron was starting to clog State Street and spill over onto the side streets. The little town of about 4,000 people swells to about 100,000 guests and spectators, all intent on seeing as much of the action as possible. This event is, after all, in the backyard of auto-oriented cities such as Detroit, Pontiac, Flint, and Warren. The auto-holics are gathering, hungry for their high-octane taste, and for a fill of vintage tin.


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Posted: Oct 31 2004, 02:13 PM
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All information was posted by VrFd, so thanks goes to him on this one.
Posted: Nov 1 2004, 11:23 AM
you never had me. you never had your car.
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just too add, something i ran across today and just read over. Subaru centric specifics but very solid basics.
Posted: Jun 28 2005, 02:26 PM
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Yeah. That all may be true on engines that are just for racing and nothing else. IN reality, the engines that are designed for regular cars, that are EFI, require some ammount of back pressure. The reason is that the timing on most cars overlap some. When the exhust valve opens hte piston isn't at BDC(Bottom Dead Center) it is only about half way down when the exhust valve opens. If you have no backpressure on that all the gasses that are still expanding go out and no more force on the piston to make you go.
So, thus, you do need some back pressure. It is true that on most enginest that have a carb setup, instead of EFI, almost zero back pressure is good. ust not on fuel injected engines.
I'd suggest for a street racing car, to use a high flow cat and a flow-thru muffler. The cat gives you just enough back pressure, so does the piping, and the muffler will make it all legal.
Posted: Jun 28 2005, 02:51 PM
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Wouldn't some backpressure be OK for specific engines, such as small engines (Physically with displacement or cylinder count) that are naturally aspirated? I heard that anything from a dramatic decrease to no backpressure in such engines could seriously reduce torque outputs...
Posted: Jun 28 2005, 04:25 PM
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Back pressure can help with low end torque, reason is pretty simple. As mentioned before cars have valve overlap, ie both intake and exhaust valves are open at the same time. In the lower rpms the actual amount of time both are open is longer compared to what youd find at the higher rpms- for more than obvious reasons.
Thing is this amount of time, while both valves are open- can let the incoming air/fuel mixture enter, and leave the cylidner- without even being burned (in the cylinder at least). Back pressure will help keep the new air/fuel mixture in the cylinders, also means you can keep some mixture thats already burned in there, which will be burned again (good for emissions). Also means the engine has to waste a little of its power "pushing" the exhaust out, takes power to gain power thing.
At higher rpms (this is what VR was talking about- drag was never on our minds i dont believe, apologies for that) the mixture doesnt have enough physical time to enter, and leave the cylidner with the valve overlap. So back pressure is far from needed, and a vacuum in the exhaust can actually help (as pointed out before) pull the exhaust out of the cylinder, and bring in the new mixture- freeing up power that wouldve been used otherwise to move exhaust gases out, putting more power to the wheels.
(Doesnt matter how much your engine makes at the fly- its all about whats going to wheels. Something to keep in mind- Your engine can make 100 hp, but it might take some hp spinning a clutch powered fan, and may take some hp spinning an ac pump, and pushing the exhaust gases, power steering pump, drivetrain- you can end up with less then 80 at the wheels.)
Posted: Jun 29 2005, 10:37 AM
you never had me. you never had your car.
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2nd try, accidentally lost the 1st. possibly numerous formatting errors as i rewrote in msw3rd.---
the first, biggest problem that jumps to mind with running a smaller exhaust to make back pressure, is that (duh) back pressure is RPM dependent.
what most people think of as back pressure creating "performance" exhausts, don't make any back pressure in the low rev range. it's not till you start revving the engine high that it starts pumping enough air per second to be clogged by the exhaust.
so if you are running an exhaust that chokes the engine on the low end, so that you wont bleed off your combustion cycle while you run a cam that is way too big, you will be seriously be strangling the engine higher in the rev range. where that big duration cam is supposed to be paying off.
low power economy cars don't get that way efficiently (economically) by running massive cams and tiny exhausts. they run small cams with exhausts designed to promote velocity in that cams sweet spot, the low end, not choke
it off with back pressure, because of point 2.
point 2, back pressure means that the engine needs to pump harder to get the gas to flow. this is pumping loss, and this costs power. the smaller exhaust on the economy car will tend to choke the engine off (costing HP)... but only higher in the rev range. where it's small cam just isn't made to flow, because the engine isn't made to rev up there anyway.
point 3 is that the exhaust valve opens early for the point of bleeding off gas before the piston has to push it out. it cuts into your combustion stroke of course, but it helps a lot on the exhaust stroke. so the effect is positive as long as you aren't opening too early for your engine speed. if the valves could just instantly open and shut, you'd see a lot less of this.
well, you are confusing a few things. this first is just a pet peeve of mine: torque does not mean low end. you mean to say low end. i know, it's just a stick up my ass because of all the HPvsTQ shit. people confuse them as different parts of the same thing(high/low), which they aren't...
the second is the big lie you've been lead to believe by people who don't fully grasp exhaust systems. that's why i originally posted what i did.
the lie is mainly that back pressure equals low end power. and it's confusing two things: back pressure and optimum flow. back pressure, as i stated earlier in the post, is bad. optimum flow (velocity) is good. and while optimum low end flow typically means high end back pressure, the entire reason that it isn't optimum on the high end is because it makes too much back pressure up there. it chokes the engine.
as long as the exhaust gas maintains velocity, the engine doesn't need to pump it out as hard, and the gas will help to suck out the next combustions gas.
take a big diameter exhaust and the exhaust wont have enough air pumped through it to be perfectly officiant on the low end. but back pressure wont help, it never does. take your huge diameter race exhaust and plug up the end down to half it's diameter, it won't flow any better on the low end, and therefor wont make any more power, because the inner diameter is too big to maintain the velocity the gas has leaving the combustion chamber.
Posted: Apr 24 2006, 05:55 AM
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so in order to have turbo...you need a turbo based' exhaust?
Posted: Apr 24 2006, 07:20 AM
you never had me. you never had your car.
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well, the turbo sits in the exhaust path, so naturally you are going to run a turbo manifold. but turbos naturally provide annoying back pressure, they aren't as free a lunch as some people would have you think. the smaller the turbo's exhaust turbine/housing (for early spooling), the more back pressure it'll give you as you rev up. but if you run too big of a "hot side" (turbine/housing) for your application, you will have trouble spooling it at all (but you'll have no back pressure ).
turbo exhaust systems can be broken up into 2 parts. pre-turbo (the manifold), and post turbo (the turbo-back exhaust).
-pre-turbo has 2 considerations that i can think of right away. the first is the obvious, inner pipe diameter. this will affect how much exhaust velocity you can feed your turbo, and how early you can meet this velocity. and whether or not it will choke off the exhaust flow at higher rpm's/boost levels. the second is turbo placement. that is, how much room you have to mount the turbo. this affects how smooth your pipe intersections will be, which has an obvious affect on velocity/back pressure, just like a normal header.
i guess it's a lot like the factors that go into building a nice header for an NA car, but the big difference is how fast the exhaust gas volume will go up when the boost hits.
-post turbo, well, shit, i guess it's a lot like what happens behind a NA header. you basically want to get the exhaust away from the turbo as fast and as smooth (they tend to go together) as possible. you do not want ANY back pressure post turbo, as this will cut into how much boost you can run into the higher rpm range, which will have a big effect on power. but of course, if you're running a small turbo, it might not be able to keep up your peak boost into the high rpms anyway (it would be over spinning and burning up, bad for reliability).
i guess it's all basically the same. just using a different scale for the escalation in back pressure due to the boost.
typically though, if you are going for big power, you'll be running a turbo back that is much bigger than what you'd need if you were NA, because of the boost. that's basically the biggest distinction.
Posted: Feb 10 2007, 04:59 PM
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You know, even in auto class exhaust was always a bit tough to understand for me.. Just when I think I'm getting it I read something or see something that just completely makes me confused again.
Back pressure is bad, but good for low end torque, got it, but how?
Particularly I was looking at exhaust systems on 3SX.com(for a 3000GT) specifically for a twin turbo car with dual exhaust, what I don't get is what a dual exhaust actually is because most I see are coming from teh same point at one point, and then I see two intakes to that pipe.
What I'm not getting is what a TRUE dual exhaust exactly is, and when is it better in tersm of power, but mostly efficiency to convert that to a single exhaust? If it's coming from one pipe what motive do you have to make it two? releasing back pressure?
For example under an FC, what would something like that look like? and is that second intake to the pipe on anything? I just really never touched on exhaust guys, help finally understanding this would be awesome.
Posted: Feb 10 2007, 05:15 PM
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as far as i know is can help due to the overlap of cams, at low engine speeds with ovr lap (both valves open) the fresh air/fuel on a free flowing exhaust will get pulled right out before it has a chance to actually fire- some back pressure will help keep the air/fuel in, so it can be ignited. Problem is at higher engine speeds the actual time of overlap is so small it wont get pulled through, so with the backpressure an engine has to "push" the exhaust out, where as with a free flowing (and once again to my knowledge race exhaust actually use the exhasut pulses to create some vacuum to help suck the next pulse along) exhaust its not a problem
Posted: Feb 12 2007, 11:06 PM
you never had me. you never had your car.
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if i never had to talk about exhaust again, it would be too soon.
1. no. reread my posts.
2. i have never gotten to ask an OEM engineer why they would rejoin exhaust paths on a multi turbo car after the turbo's. but there are several possible reasons:
-share a cat
-packaging regarding going under the seats
-sound engineering
why have them THEN seperate after being joined?
-packaging regarding pipe size doing by the rear axles
-sound engineering
-looks, honestly. (s2000 anyone? etc)
3. true dual exhaust is generally fully devided exhaust paths. could be better on multi-turbo cars after the turbos. could be weaker on most NA cars because you lose the ability to tune a cross bank scavaging effect.
4. on an FC, it would look just like the stock setup, accept there would be 2, seperate pipes, one fed by each rotor, they would never join in the "downpipe" area.
Posted: May 6 2007, 02:18 PM
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I have a nice comment to add to this, but alas, it is for rotary however the same theory works for all cars, and should be very helpful
Posted: Jun 22 2007, 05:28 AM
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I'm going to complicate things:
1) You simply cannot think of an exhaust system as something that is static. Just as in an intake system, RPMs, atmospheric pressure, temperature, gas composition, leftover combustion, ect. all affect an exhaust system.
2) Think of an exhaust system like you would an intake system with one difference: With the exception of bypass gates, you can't currently tune an exhaust system dynamically.
3) So, what's so hard? Isn't an engine just an air pump? Yes. It is, but I'll make things simpler and then harder.
4) Let's say you have a 1 cylinder engine and we want it to make the most HP at 1000 RPM. Simple, right?
5) Actually not.
6) Let's say we get rid of "all backpressure" by not having an exhaust manifold? Let's let the cylinder dump exhaust gas straight into the ambient air! Shouldn't this be the "highest horsepower?"
7) Why wouldn't this work?
Posted: Jan 26 2008, 07:05 AM
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It will work....question is can you stand that noise??
Posted: Mar 20 2008, 03:36 PM
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off topic...just wondering... if i am going to have a turbo kit with antilag... it's best to remove the cat... and have flow through everything, the turbocharger should be enough back pressure...
EDIT: i think that back pressure with the twisting and bending of the exhaust is for the sake of muffling the sound(street use). but i am a young hooligan and i don't want to use my horn, i am just going to say my exhaust note is sufficiant for a siren(i am going to have an antilagged turbo)
This post has been edited by atlantian on Mar 20 2008, 03:42 PM
Posted: May 28 2008, 11:13 AM
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It was once explained to me that:
An NA engine requires an amount of backpressure in order to maintain engine vacuum. So probably an ideal performance setup (depending on the car) would be a pipe diameter about half an inch wider than stock and a single catalytic converter in the secondary location (along the midpipe).
A super/turbocharged engine has air being forced into it, so it's important to have appropriately high exhaust velocity to produce smooth acceleration. My own turbo car has a 3 inch exhaust and no cats, and it runs like a dream.
Posted: May 28 2008, 12:49 PM
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pretty sure having no cat is illegal
Posted: May 28 2008, 01:10 PM
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Have fun with your dead turbo after a month or so.
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Posted: Jun 11 2008, 10:39 PM
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I can see why you might think it would cause damage because freeing up the exhaust means letting the turbo spool easier and boost higher. Say a FC TII converts to a 3inch downpipe/resonator/cat-back, the turbo will be able to boost past the stock 8PSI limit. A fuel-cut defender would fix this problem letting the turbo boost past that limit, but there is also other factors to worry about(overboosting, running to lean, etc). Overboosting can easily be solved by a boost controller. But if you own a turbo car, you would probably know what you're doing before you start messing with your car.
I don't see why people make such a big deal about cars running without cats. Before the accident, my FC ran a racingbeat headers->presilencer->catback setup. Yah it's illegal not to have a catalytic converter, but so is ANY modification to the emissions system in a car in California. I'm not telling people to break laws here, but if you have a cone style intake or an aftermarket catback system, you're on the same boat as us.(for Californians of course) I'm just trying to make a point that it's not black/white, especially when it comes to tuning older sports cars. I understand that the matter of emissions is a very touchy subject, but this IS the technical discussion, so TECHNICALLY, running a freer flowing exhaust (no cat) is better than running an exhaust with a cat.
ah, I forgot the address the issue with sound levels. A cat isn't the only way to muffle sound, that's what "mufflers" are for. I mentioned that I replaced my cat with a racingbeat resonator that was packed with wool. I had the same exact setup with a high-flow cat and the resonator and the sound difference was barely noticeable in the low end.
This post has been edited by rockyz on Jun 11 2008, 10:42 PM
Posted: Jun 11 2008, 11:05 PM
Were you expecting something else?
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^I believe Tesso was referring to atlantian's desire to install an ALS on his turbo.
You know, that thing that completely gets rid of turbo lag, makes bang-bang noises, is absolutely useless in normal everyday driving and shortens the life of the turbo.
Posted: Jun 12 2008, 05:34 AM
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ALS = you need a new turbo sonny. *cry* again? LOL wondering about a true E-charger placed infron of a turbo though oops exhast section. sorry i leave now.
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Posted: Jun 12 2008, 12:18 PM
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I think they already got that it whoever puts ALS onto a car will need a turbo soon after... Reading comprehension is your friend?
Posted: Jun 13 2008, 03:31 PM
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Having an ALS is meaningless anyway, all you have to do is shift high and you won't fall into the lag. Having a foreign system force your turbo to spin when it shouldn't instead of just pushing on the gas a little harder is definitely not how to win teh driftrace.
Posted: Jun 13 2008, 04:56 PM
Willing to throw 5's on the blunt your smoking.
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ya'll need to run a full 3 inch pipe from the headers to the last muffler no cat , resinator or nothing +5 hp MaD JdM TiTe Y0!
Posted: Aug 18 2012, 08:30 AM
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Sorry for posting in a very "dead" thread, though seeing as it is a sticky, I think it is okay.
First, backpressure is bad. 100% Bad. Is it "necessary" for an engine to perform? Not at all. Will every engine have backpressure periods? Yes.
Let me explain; I will then give a PDF that gives examples and studies to support.
Firstly, what is backpressure?
It is pressure that impedes 100% efficient flow through the exhaust system. This can be cause one of two ways, and both ways happen EVERY single time you rev your engine through the RPM range (given that your exhaust pipe is not 1/25" thick or not 25" thick... Exaggeration, but you get the point.) What exactly is are the causes?
Overpressurizing and underpressurizing. The first one is easier to understand and explain, so I will go over that first.
Overpressurizing is pressurizing a gas (or liquid) beyond the container's ability to dispose of the gas (or liquid). Want to test this? Get a small straw, then get some chocolate milk (or any other tasty beverage!), try to suck in the liquid as fast as possible. At some point, the rate of the liquid's acceleration will stop, and it will go into a steady speed into your mouth; the force that is preventing the liquid from going any faster is called "overpressurizing". To put this to a car; your mouth (the sucking power of your mouth, specifically) is the car's engine, the straw is the exhaust, and the chocolate milk (or other tasty beverage) is the exhaust gasses. Overpressurizing prevents the acceleration of gasses through a chamber.
Now, the second type of backpressure is one that is harder to understand. Underpressurizing. This is simply the resistance that the gasses put up to being pushed through a chamber (the exhaust system) due to it's properties. Let's look at it chemically; when a gas slows down, it expands and cools. If the gasses get a chance to slow down and cool (due to not being enough pressure in the exhaust system), it will create resistance (colder air is dense; and therefore heavier-- therefore harder to accelerate!). Want another example? Sure!
Go fill up your chocolate milk glass again, and go get a garden hose... Or an obsenely thick straw... Or something that has a far bigger diameter than the previous straw. Now try to suck in the chocolate milk slowly. Hard eh? That's because the amount of pressure put on the milk is very low, therefore it is putting a lot of resistance up and it requires more power to suck in. Why is this? Simple. You already know it. Pressure. The bigger a chamber is, the more power is required to pressurize the chamber to the same psi (or bar) of a smaller chamber with the same amount of liquid (or gas). Less pressure = less velocity = power is lost !
So, if revving your engine too high creates overpressurization, and revving the engine too low causes under pressurization, isnt backpressure always present no matter what I try to do?
No. It's called balance. On a teeter-totter, there are two ends. Let's say the left side is "underpressurization" and the right side is "overpressurization". The further you rev the engine, the further the load is placed on the right. The lower you rev it, the more left the load is placed. But what if the load (your butt.) is placed right directly in the middle of the teeter-totter over the fulcrum? The teeter-totter doesnt move. It is balanced. It is not over, nor under pressurized. Exhaust gasses and pressure works the same way; try to find the "sweet spot" where your exhaust system dispenses of your exhaust gasses 100% efficiently. The bigger you go, the higher the RPM will be where that "sweet spot" is, the smaller you go?The lower in the RPM range the sweet spot is. Though remember, RPM is NOT the only factor; throttle position is also a major contributor to the volume of flow that will create 100% efficiency at a certain RPM and % Throttle.
Want proof? Here you are (it is in .pdf format, make sure you can open it): http://www.mediafire.com/view/?lf7bm4n5f6n4y8b
There is also another term called "scavenging" in there that is important to exhaust flow. I can explain that also if requested.
Also, I hate when people refer to "low end" as "torque". That is not correct. I can also post a VERY thorough explanation I wrote up awhile ago that explains the exact differences between HP and Torque. Let me know if it's okay to post it.
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