Marathon Sunday

Today was Honolulu Marathon. Once again my wife and I got up at 2:30 A.M. to help. We are members of the clock team. Our job is to start all of the clocks along the route. I manned the one mile clock, partnered with a newbie named Nick, and my wife had the two kilometer clock. About a dozen team members meet at Fort DeRussey in Waikiki at 3:30 for a final time check and last minute instructions, then we all ride our bikes to our station and wait for the 5:00 start. My wife and I ride all the way from home, and after watching the first few hundred runners go by head off in search of breakfast. Well, today it rained. Hard. By the time we got to Big City Diner in Kaimuki we were soaked to the bone, so we road on home, got cleaned up, and went back. After a leisurely breakfast we went home, and on the way we could still see runners headed out. The magnitude of these events never fails to amaze me.

A lack of sleep was not the only thing that interfered with working on the E9 today. Since Friday I have been struggling with a bout of vertigo. On Saturday I doubted I could ride a bike Sunday, but with the help of Dramamine I managed. I had Nick go up the ladder to start the clock, while I called out the time. The two things that trigger a dizzy spell are looking up and, even more so, looking down. Needless to say, working on the E9 was a challenge.

The first thing to do was to smooth out the putty I applied at the end of last week's session. I started with my pneumatic grinder, then switched to a sanding block. The tricky part was to sculpt the indentation where the panel changes height. I ended up with one low spot. After the next patch is welded in place I can add enough filler to even out the surface. I think I have reached the point where I need to sand down more of the rear end, so see why there is so much bondo.

When I got the sculpting as far as I wanted to take it I still had enough time to cut out the next patch. Next week will begin with grinding it down to fit, and preparing the opening.