My senior year of college, I'd guess I was in Fayetteville.
My senior year of college, I'd guess I was in Fayetteville.
I was just shy of a month into my new job (and current one) after leaving my previous employer of 12 years on January 4, 2004. It was kind of a big deal at the time, lol.
I would've been a junior in HS, and I know that winter my vw fox needed a thermostat, a muffler, and rear drum brakes. Lot of damn cold weekends doing what seems like should take an afternoon now.
Also I was working at a place called frontroom pizza as a cook and occasional buss boy, pretty sure I was making $6/hour.
And I was dating a girl named Kit. The fox needed a muffler because she ran over a post in a snowy parking lot when I was teaching her "skid control" and she ripped it off. If you were to ask her today, I bet she's still mad we had to drive everywhere with the windows open and the heat on full blast because the car was slightly overheating with a stuck thermostat. Even in the snow.
So, during the day I was likely snowboarding or fixing my car. Work would have been 4 till 8 or 9, and then hanging out with Kit until 11.
Ahhh the spoiled life of a teenager.
I was at home, playing a video game with my very pregnant wife. Our first child would be born not long afterwards.
That's pre-GRM days for me. At that time I was living in a townhouse in Burke VA (outside DC), where my only parking was a parallel spot out front and my tools, jack, jackstands, etc. had to be lugged up the stairs from the basement. My car was a 2000 Maxima, which was at the time mildly modded (z32 brakes, upgraded suspension stuff) and I autocrossed it (in E Street Prepared!). I had the same job I do now (DoD) and most of my spare cash was spent not on cars but on going skiing all over the world since I had a side gig at a ski shop. I had been married for less than a year with no kids or pets yet. I think the only forum I really hung out on was Maxima.org.
According to my backup photo storage, I took this picture on or about that date:
I drove up to Newnan Georgia to look at a 1998 Tatuus that was for sale.
I had won the SARRC championship in CFC the previous fall. Immediately sold that great Reynard. Wanted to get more serious in a more modern F2000 car.
Bought the Tatuus that day. (it was already painted metallic purple, what can i say?)
I was probably sitting right where I am now.
I checked the Wayback Machine at Archive.org, and they have an archived page from January 25, 2004:
https://web.archive.org/web/20040125035534/http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/
You can click on the message board button and see who was posting what back then.
Working.
I would have been halfway through year 13 of finally getting a bachelor's degree, then at Cal Poly SLO. The morning would have started meeting a friend in Los Osos to motorcycle ride up the PCH. We would cut inland at Carmel and ride the 101 back south just in time for me to get to Cal Poly for 5pm to 10pm Minna No Anime (anime club).
Jan 2004 I was 31, had been married for 7 months, and had worked at my then-current job (cisco systems) for 6.5 years. I've got pictures of my Miata at a Shelby Club track day at Laguna Seca in early February that year. Can't tell from this photo, but I had a lot more hair then too. :)
Living in Bradenton, FL. Our first child was born the previous November. I would have been at work that day until noon (or, at least that's when we closed).
I was working in a small animal practice, and in the beginning stages of a discussion about buying part of the practice. Walked away from that two years later.
I was having fun driving my supercharged Tacoma, I had my Boston whaler 17 for sale and was trying to sort out the POS Cape Horn 19 I bought to treat my twofootitis.
Wish I had started autocross then.
Our dog had started having seizures. Never got those under control.
We were starting our 3rd year of SCCA autocross with the Mississippi Region. By then we were both Solo Safety Stewards and I had chaired a couple of events. January 31st we were still planning our first event of the year in February or March. I was also about a month from finding out the plant where I worked would be shut down. Later that spring I found a new job and moved to the Savannah, GA area where we still live. I'm now in my 6th year as Regional Executive of the Buccaneer Region SCCA. I'm about 2 years out from work retirement and looking for someone to train as my replacement for Region RE.
Getting geared up to deploy to Iraq.
15. Probably practicing guitar. That was the year I started reading Wheel of Time, so that may have been happening too. Actively looking for my first VW. Didn't get one until 17.
In reply to BoostedBrandon :
Ok, now I'm curious. I wanna know about the project!
More than likely I was doing exactly what I am doing right now. Laid back in my recliner watching TV. I would not have been surfing the interwebs on an I-phone though.
SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to BoostedBrandon :
Ok, now I'm curious. I wanna know about the project!
I too am wondering of the dates significance.
Was this the day the Unintended Victim ask the question, "Can we please stop hotlinking pics?"
The internet says that on the following day, Feb 1 2004 it was the Super Bowl. Carolina Panthers loose to NE Patriots 29 to 32. Considered the be a great game. Also famous for Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction.
If it was a Saturday then I was surely working, I was a sales manager at a Toyota Scion dealer in Boston back then.
Personally, I had been married just a couple of days short of 6 months. It also means I was very recently unemployed or about to be (I don't remember the exact date.)
My wife drove a '99 Rav4. I daily drove a '97 240sx (s14) and also had a '90 Miata and a '88 MR2SC. No kids, 2 dogs.
That was the start of a significant year for me, but nothing had started happening at that point. Pretty sure I was DDing the Volvo 740 wagon(5-speed!) at that time & probably still had the Colt rally car.
759NRNG (Forum Partidario) said:Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:I know exactly where I was.
I was at Akbar on Sunset Blvd with my hand on Leah's incredibly wonderful butt. (she put it there) As much as I wanted to move forward with that not-so-subtle hint, my best friend was the bartender AND her ex boyfriend.
Bro code. I politely declined. Oh, if circumstances would have been different. She's squarely in the one-that-got-away category. She's now a successful actress. I keep saying that the butterfly effect might have changed her direction in life if we HAD done the deed and she wouldn't be as successful.
That's what I tell myself.
amazing dream recollection BRO!! ......she still sends you a b'day card???? ......wink
Let's just say her butt was hard to forget.
I remember it was 2004 because I helped decorate the bar that year for NYE
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:759NRNG (Forum Partidario) said:Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:I know exactly where I was.
I was at Akbar on Sunset Blvd with my hand on Leah's incredibly wonderful butt. (she put it there) As much as I wanted to move forward with that not-so-subtle hint, my best friend was the bartender AND her ex boyfriend.
Bro code. I politely declined. Oh, if circumstances would have been different. She's squarely in the one-that-got-away category. She's now a successful actress. I keep saying that the butterfly effect might have changed her direction in life if we HAD done the deed and she wouldn't be as successful.
That's what I tell myself.
amazing dream recollection BRO!! ......she still sends you a b'day card???? ......wink
Let's just say her butt was hard to forget.
I remember it was 2004 because I helped decorate the bar that year for NYE
Pics
I would turn 37 later in 2004, and I was 8 years into my job (still there... 3 years to go). I was most likely off on a Saturday, and was probably working on my track bike, if not out for a ride on my street bike. I had very little interest in cars at the time, I was all about bikes. I was just getting serious about roadracing, and that weekend was smack in the middle between two track days.
January 11th
Febuary 15th
January 11th, 2004 was the last time I rode that track (Arizona Motorsports Park) on a bike, because later that year they were closed down due to noise complaints. It was a bunch of BS driven by developers that didn't want a race track in the area... the track is literally at the end of the runway for Luke AFB. After years of legal battles, the track re-opened with a sound limit, but by then I had 'retired' from motorcycle racing. I did my first track day in our '92 Miata there in 2013.
I certainly wasn't surfing the 'net, 'cause we were on dial-up where we lived in rural AZ, and it was glacial... 
I was 6 months into a new job with work, and 2 months into a new (huge) house. My son was about to turn 3 and my daughter was about to be born.
My internet addiction of choice at the time was likely Yahoo answers (yeah, I know shut up).
My car at the time would have been a Cherokee Sport and the Mrs drove a Grand Caravan.
Wasn't aware of GRM then. Was working as a tech writer/editor for army helicopter maintenance manuals and going to college in the evenings, finished my degree later that year. If it was a Saturday I probably spent the day disassembling my Opel GT, starting the restoration and then waiting up for my youngest daughter that was 16yo to get home from wherever she spent the evening at.
You'll need to log in to post.
