All of these photos were taken at-home, by either Sheila (the earlier ones) or Tim Wheatley (the later ones).

You may click any photo below to be taken to those weekly photos.

One week.

Two weeks.

Three weeks. These are our Wedding bands.

Four weeks.

Five weeks.

Six weeks.

Seven weeks.

Eight weeks. This was one of my fish tanks.

Nine weeks.

Ten weeks.

Eleven weeks.

Twelve weeks. Football season.

Thirteen weeks.

Fourteen weeks.

Fifteen weeks. We entered the month of October.

Sixteen weeks.

Seventeen weeks.

Eighteen weeks.

Nineteen weeks.

Twenty weeks.

Twenty-one weeks.

Twenty-two weeks.

Twenty-three weeks. Approaching Christmas.

Twenty-four weeks.

Twenty-five weeks.

Twenty-six weeks.

I announced it by saying: "So it's official. My frank and beans are capable of making hot dogs and chili. 6 months to go."

The pregnancy itself was a good one. Sheila only really suffered with nausea during the first trimester, and after that was able to live life with relative normality until the end of the pregnancy. Obviously it’s physically very demanding for the woman to be pregnant and emotionally, too. But I haven’t yet covered the emotional journey that is being ‘the husband’…

It’s hard. We both had dreams about miscarriages, I kept my dream from Sheila for a while, but eventually told her. We both focussed on praying that everything would be fine until specific weeks of the pregnancy, doing this because particular weeks were important in development. It felt a lot better when we reached points where the chances of survival grew, and reaching the point where the lungs should be developed was a big relief. Basically we were worrying the whole pregnancy about reaching the weeks where the baby should survive if born prematurely.

So how was that difficult for me? Well, Sheila could feel how she felt, and once the baby started moving, she could feel that, too. I could feel nothing except what Sheila told me. Every morning the first thing that would often come out of my mouth was “Is the baby awake yet?”

I should note that Sheila didn’t work at all during her pregnancy and I didn’t want her to. I was perfectly happy for us to struggle a bit financially so that she could just take care of herself. I didn’t let her carry anything heavy once, and got annoyed with her a couple of times for picking up her nephew. I tried really hard to make sure that she was able to relax and make our baby. While this was what I wanted, it also put a fair bit of pressure on me as the only source of income we had…

I also hadn’t seen my family in a long time when Sheila became pregnant, so on the advice of our doctor I left her here when I went to see my family over Christmas. This was hard also because I went to every single appointment with the doctors throughout the pregnancy except one: The one where Sheila found out the sex of the baby.

Our baby girl at 16 weeks, 2 days.

Sheila immediately started calling the baby “her” and “Suzie” but I think male minds work differently. I didn’t refer to her as “her” until very late in the pregnancy and, even though we had decided on a name very early for both a boy and girl, I refused to call her by her name…

Everything in my mind was positioned in a way to try to soften the blow, if something bad happened.

We both sort of expected her to come early, even though the predicted date was June 15th. Sheila’s belly was pretty large and we figured our baby might want to make an appearance in May, but no… Obviously the baby was quite happy in there!

Very happy... Even smiling before she was born...

Those last couple of weeks were hard, and apart from the nausea of the first trimester, were among the most difficult for Sheila. Apart from feeling ‘huge’ and being ‘done’ with feeling that way, the psychological need to ‘get this over with’ takes over.

We went in for our final doctors appointment and the doctor (without prompting), scheduled Sheila to be induced on the evening of the 20th of June, hoping to then deliver on the 21st (6 days late). The 21st happened to be my birthday, and we both thought it would be extremely cool if the baby came on that day.

Then came the day, 17th June. Sheila was complaining of not feeling right. She had a few symptoms of high blood pressure and she hadn’t felt the baby moving as well as it usually did. This is where my terror-meter went off the chart, but where I knew I had to hide every single emotion I had to try to keep Sheila calm. We called a doctor and was told to head to the hospital…

We’d had the bags we needed, ready to go, for weeks. We’d already made a false alarm visit previously, so we knew the drill and I drove us to the hospital. We made the choice to get something to eat on the way, we knew that if Sheila went into delivery, she wouldn’t be allowed to eat for a long time.

After waiting for a little bit, we started to feel like we may have made a false alarm run again. Nobody seemed too worried on the staff. It occurs to me now that they were probably just doing the same thing I was… Hiding their emotions. But eventually we were having a scan done and I saw the doctor measuring things that I had not seen them do before, and then they told us that the amniotic fluids were very low. We really didn’t know what that meant, but the doctor told us that they couldn’t let us leave. So, this was going to be the night, right?

Well, no. They didn’t do anything much until the following day (Saturday). I’m glad we ate.

We were moved into a delivery room, co-incidentally the exact same room one of Sheila’s best friends had given birth in a year earlier. This was also the same hospital Sheila herself had been born in. Sheila was hooked up to a drip, given an epidural and eventually given a drug which induces labor. They also broke her waters, which wasn’t as gross as I’d expected it to be.

They also hooked up a monitor which allowed us to hear the heartbeat. This helped us to relax. And finally, I was able to know the baby was OK without having to ask Sheila.

Now, we had to wait…

And wait…

And wait…

Every-so-often someone would come in and check whether Sheila was ready for labor, then leave.

We’d wait…

And wait…

And wait…

They gradually increased the dose of the induction drug, checked whether Sheila was ready, then they would leave again. We both tried to get some sleep, Sheila in her nice comfy bed, me on a couch which seems to have been specifically designed to cause back problems…

I began to get quite relaxed at how things were going. I understood the process and Sheila looked quite relaxed. It was now deep into Saturday and we were joined by Sheila’s mother and sister, who were both hoping to be there during the delivery.

We were talking, laughing, joking. Sheila was sitting in the position she had been told she could safely sit in and things seemed to be going as expected. Then suddenly, a team of doctors burst through the door telling Sheila she needed to turn on her side. They said that the baby was in stress.

Sheila immediately started to cry. She was completely numb and couldn’t move. A nurse and I had to lift and turn her on her side. I glanced at the machine controlling the flow rate of the induction drug and saw it was at least ten times higher than I had seen it previously. Sheila was put on oxygen and the staff just waited to see if the baby calmed down. I don’t think they realized that Sheila was sitting in a position she had been told was OK, I don’t know if someone had given her an unsafe dose of the induction drug, but something happened – and it was terrifying to experience. I hid my emotions again and just concentrated on trying to calm Sheila down. She was upset and scared for the baby, but also angry at being told to turn on her side when she was unable to move her lower body and had told them that.

After the commotion was over, the induction drug was flowing at a lower rate, similar to what I had seen previously. The nurse said that she had been contracting non-stop and this had put the baby into stress in conjunction with the fact Sheila wasn’t laid on her side. This scary experience stayed with us for days, even after Suzie was born. We managed to calm ourselves as much as we could. We were both really shaken and Sheila’s mother had to leave the room.

I eventually had to release a bit of the stress. I sent text messages to one of Sheila’s friends who works in the medical field talking about what had happened. This process allowed me to contain myself enough to be able to keep going and keep calm.

We returned to the previous pattern. They would come in and check Sheila, then leave.

We would wait…

And wait…

And wait…

Then it was Sunday. It was June 19th, and it was Father’s Day. Sheila hadn’t eaten since Friday and I’d only had some snack foods (I can’t order from most restaurants, as I risk them using dairy which doesn’t agree with me!) We were both extremely tired and weary, still reeling from the scary experience the night before.

They came in and checked. Nope, not yet… Sheila was really beginning to get irritated and had they not come in again a little while later to say they were going to start, she probably would have tried to bite their heads off. So this was it… If everything went to plan, my daughter was going to be born on Father’s Day…

The process began slowly. Sheila had to learn how to push in an effective way. Sometimes early on she would push using a lot of effort and nothing would happen, while other times she pushed slightly differently and I’d see movement. The monitor attached to the head of the baby gave me a good indication of movement, and eventually I was able to see the babies head instead. I was holding her left leg and helping to give her something to push against for most of the labor.

Sheila pushed for two hours, non-stop. Every single contraction, she pushed, breathed, pushed, breathed, pushed. Neither of us had taken classes, but we both figured it all out pretty quickly… It feels pretty much like Sheila took to it naturally.

My main job during the process was to let Sheila know that I could see progress, to spur her on. I think if she hadn’t felt like she was making a difference it would have been very easy for her to give up. To make matters more intense, it was at this point that Sheila got feeling back as the epidural ran out. The sheer exhaustion I could tell she was facing, having not eaten for two days too, was difficult to comprehend… It is, infact, the most impressive athletic achievement I’ll probably ever see. A marathon runner trains to run marathons, Sheila worked in a way that I still cannot believe, for hours, and didn’t give up or miss a single contraction. Sometimes the progress was minimal, I would see the head moving tiny amounts, but it was progress. It was amazing. Where did those energy reserves come from?

One thing that really surprised me was how much the babies head became cone-shaped. The top of the cone was actually what I thought was the entire head at first, so for a while I thought we were further on with the delivery. Once the delivery got closer, a nurse took over holding Sheila’s left leg and I moved up to her head to talk to her. It seems that as soon as the head was out, the rest of the body came straight out, very quickly. Both Sheila and I immediately and uncontrollably welled up with tears while trying to take it in…

Honestly, I can’t put into words how amazing the entire labor process was to watch. I can’t believe women do that. It is an amazing, amazing experience and the appreciation and respect I have for Sheila for keeping going is enormous.

Suzie recovering from swallowing liquid during labor.

In the final push, Suzie took a gulp of liquid as she was born, so they took her to a nearby table and cleaned her up, attempting to suck some of the liquid out. Sheila didn’t immediately know if Suzie was OK as it sounded like she was gargling, but a reassurance from me and the nurse helped with that. They weren’t able to get it all out, so they quickly let Sheila hold her, then they took her down to the nursery.

Sheila holds Suzie for the first time.

While this was going on, we were having blood taken from the umbilical cord which we were donating. And then Sheila had to push again for the Placenta. The placenta is one of the weirdest things I have ever seen… It looked like a black brain, covered in a clear but white coating. Alien!

We were all then left to try to take in what we had seen… We’d both seen or done nothing like that before. Sheila’s mother had c-sections with all her children, as did Sheila’s sister, so it was a first for them, too.

Sheila’s sister is disabled and although her life is as normal as possible, there are things she will never get to do… I’m really happy that she was able to see and be a part of something so amazing, something many people never will. They both left soon after the delivery to let Sheila rest.

Once Sheila had recovered a little bit, I went down to the nursery to see Suzie. She was the only baby with her eyes open and I recognized her immediately. I talked to her and stroked her hand and felt an amazing and immediate bond.

Suzie had to have an IV on both arms during most of her hospital stay.

During the labor Sheila’s temperature had risen significantly and when born Suzie had a high white blood cell count, and raised bilirubin levels. They kept her down in the nursery for significant amounts of time due to these things and did a bunch of tests. They would release her to our recovery room in-between.

Finally with us in the recovery room.

They eventually were able to accept that her raised bilirubin could be related to a condition that I have and she likely also has. Completely non-life threatening, but shows in liver tests. We got to keep Suzie in our room for one night before they released her to us – and let us go home – on Tuesday 21st June.

We left the hospital not realizing that we were in a tornado watch… The winds were intense and I watched the clouds and skies very closely. We made it safely home, on my Birthday… Happy Birthday to me! What a gift…

About to jump in the car and head home...

The biggest thing I learned during the birthing was that being supportive is extremely important. I’d never want a woman to have to go through that alone. I knew what Sheila needed to hear at certain points and I made damn sure to let her hear them, whether it was telling her I love her, telling her she was doing great with the pushing or that Suzie was fine after she gulped the liquid during the birth.

This support needs to continue after the birth, too. I’m the one with the baby experience from my younger brothers, while Sheila was completely new to it. I took care of most of the early care of both Sheila and Suzie, the one major shock for me being the amount of Bleeding (for weeks). How does something lose that much blood and not die?!

Nothing felt gross during the entire birth or afterwards, and it’s probably important not to be openly grossed out by something, even if you are. It’s important to give support of all kinds, remain calm and find a way to bury your negative emotions and fear where she can’t see it during the labor.

I still cannot believe the roller coaster ride of emotions I felt. Going from a mixture of fear and exhaustion to absolute elation within a second. Amazing, amazing, amazing.

In five days Suzie will be six months old. In the past six months Sheila has fought off an infection contracted in the hospital, dealt with a numb foot caused by the pressure put on it during the labor, coped with the back pain she had before she was pregnant, gone back to work at a new job and continued her schooling, still holding a 4.0 GPA after getting A’s solidly since July, 2009… As if giving birth wasn’t impressive enough.

We’ve taken photos of Suzie every week and at other times, too… I’m looking forward to being an old man and being able to look back to all those photos and videos we’ve taken, even the ones with our iPhones, because I’ll tell you right now… I’m so glad we have them. I don’t remember the last six months at all, it’s been a blur…

Suzannah Wheatley.

It seems strange that I decide to post about blogging dying as my first real blog post in forever, right?

I guess I’ll catch you up on what’s going on with me: I have worked for Image Space Inc. for almost a year now. I’ve seen the development of rFactor 2 really start to ramp up and I’m actually having more fun driving it than I’ve had doing anything gaming/sim racing related in about ten years. I not only have become used to and able to drive the physics of the new software but I really like the content, too.

I cut my teeth, so to speak, racing Grand Prix Legends and really I prefer a lot of those lower downforce cars as content over today’s racing machines and tracks. The devs at ISI have managed to get a great experience of driving into rF2 and it really is sooo much fun. The tracks (yes, trackS) from that era are so vastly different, yet so much fun in such different ways that I just love it. Love it!

During my time with ISI I’ve also been able to try to license some content and of course I’ve gone after things which interest me and those like me. One of the cars I managed to license is just amazing, I can’t believe I got it and it’s just a legendary vehicle. Another one is also legendary to me, and to those who are fans of the modern era, I’m just so excited about those two and I’m not done trying to chase licensing yet.

On a personal level I have to say that the last year has been quite an eye opener! I basically haven’t blogged since I was with iRacing so it’s worth saying that I’m not an active member there anymore if anybody had been trying to contact me. During the last year I’ve obviously transitioned with work but also have become a father.

I’ll try to backdate some posts with photos of Suzie when I have the time, the motivation and most importantly have had a good nights sleep. The experience of this last year while watching my wife growing our baby and giving birth was absolutely amazing – indescribable, infact. Suzie is a gorgeous baby and it’s wonderful seeing her change day by day now…

“You want my honest opinion? No, don’t go. With the cabin pressure, potential exposure to illnesses within the cabin and the poor air quality, it is simply not worth the risk. My own family just cancelled a trip for the same reason.”

So that was that. Although many people do it and fly while pregnant I’ve found evidence online that airlines may refuse you to fly anyway if they want to. We’d also have felt horrible if anything had happened to our baby after we had not followed the advice of our doctor.

The weather in England had been bad for a few days. Well, when I say bad, I mean it had been about the same weather as we’d had in Chicago and while the Chicago area continued to function, England fell to pieces and had planes literally frozen to the tarmac in Heathrow. Frankly, as a Brit, I found it embarrassing. I showed up for my flight on the 19th and didn’t get to leave the airport until the 22nd. The airline had offered to fly me to Phoenix and then onto London (which would allow me to arrive a day earlier), but frankly that just sounded like a great way to make me stranded in Phoenix rather than to be able to go home each day from the airport in Chicago, so I declined.

My flight was a little late leaving on the 22nd and was one of three flights from Chicago to London on that day. Two flights were still cancelled. I arrived in Heathrow and was going to wait overnight then take a train to my parents, but couldn’t stay there. People were still stranded in the Airport after days and I just wanted to get out. I called Enterprise car rental and was told by the operator that they were closed. I decided to go for a walk and outside came across the Enterprise shuttle bus and the driver offered to take me there, see if I could get a rental and if not he would bring me back to the terminal.

I arrived at Enterprise and found that because everyone had been renting cars in an attempt to get to where they were going before Christmas they only had cars with manual gears available. I hadn’t driven manual gears since I was maybe 18-19 years old, but took the car anyway. I’m really grateful to Enterprise because by the time I left with my car it was almost 1am and the office was supposed to close at 10:30pm.

Considering the roads were supposed to be difficult to drive on (just like I was told last year) according to the British TV news, I didn’t see any problems whatsoever on the 208-mile journey to my parents and I was able to get there in about 3.5 hours. The temperature gauge on the dash had said -3°c most of the way, but nearing my parents (and the river Trent) it did drop significantly and was -6°c upon arrival. When I got there I called my wife in the U.S. and asked her to call my parents and ask them to open the front door.

I left instructions on how to feed the fish/tortoise and Sheila noted the dates she had done each thing. I thought this was pretty funny!

Fixing my dads computer was a worthy project.

Closer view of the Memphis Belle markings on the Sally B. Flying Aircraft gallery.

Our baby (girl, apparently), at 16 weeks, 2 days.

The New Year started in a fantastic way as I got a great work-related surprise on January 1st. Perfect way to start what is going to be a really fantastic year for everything I think! I actually had to wait for hours and wake my wife up in the early morning (her time) just to tell her.

The rest of my time in England was spent relaxing. On the 7th January we celebrated my brothers 18th Birthday (early, so we could be there). Then that night I went to bed but only got one hour of sleep before I had to get up at 12:30am and finish packing.

I left just after 1am and arrived back at the Enterprise in Heathrow by about 5am. It was a little bit annoying though as my GPS was unable to find the place so I had to drive around a little bit to find it… I eventually managed to and amusingly have to say that by the time I parked my clutch control and use of manual gears had improved greatly. I think that the concentration of driving helps to keep me awake though because the instant I stopped driving it really hit me how tired I was. Every blink was long…

Four hours to wait while feeling very sleepy....

Note: Click any photo to go to my photo gallery, which will give you access to more photos of the same location and/or type.

Sunday (22nd August, 2010) – Day One.
We packed and started driving west on I-80, eventually moving onto I-90. During the trip Sheila was entertaining herself (and Facebook) by posting photos of Mr. Potatohead going across state lines and in various poses. On this first day we drove out of Illinois and into Iowa, north into Minnesota and west into South Dakota. We stayed at a hotel in a town called Mitchell.

Mr. Potatohead strapped in and ready to go!

Rolling hills in South Dakota. Photo taken from the car.

One of the many road-side ads for Wall Drug. Photo taken from the car.

Our first glimpse of the incredible rock formations. Taken from the car.

Volcanic ash, ancient sea beds and a Prairie grass mix - The Badlands.

This panoramic shows many, many miles of scenery.

Any company willing to advertise the way they did deserves a visit. It turns out we were not the only ones lured in by their signs, the store was FILLED with tourists!

The Black Hills were another beautiful location to drive through. Taken from the car.

George Washington profile view.

Mount Rushmore with the faces in shadow.

At the end of the presentation the sun had completely set and the monument had begun to fade into the darkness, but after lowering the flag they turned on spotlights which illuminated the faces again. After taking some photos of the monument we returned to our hotel in Hill City.

The Mount Rushmore National Memorial at night.

View Day Two photos from:
I-90-W, The Badlands, Mt. Rushmore in profile, shadow and at night.

Tuesday – Day Three.
Rising early we drove straight back to Mount Rushmore so that we could take advantage of the early morning sun. Before heading up to the monument, however, I took some time to take a few photos of the surrounding scenery.

The Black Hills are stunning, absolutely stunning.

Mount Rushmore bathed in sunshine.

This is a stitch of multiple single photos. I love this angle!

A photo stitch of five single photos. This huge panoramic photo shows the entire mountain.

Priaire grass in the foreground and the edge of the Black Hills in the background.

When you see the view in the distance you wonder if the world is just going to fall away from you... Taken from the car.

Totally different rock formations over every hill! Taken from the car.

The Rocky Mountains rise out from the plains. Taken from the car.

The red rocks of Colorado.

These are small mountains compared to the rest of The Rockies, but they looked pretty large to me!

We pulled off the road to get a quick shot of the moon.

View Day Three/Four photos from:
Black Hills, Mount Rushmore in sunshine, panoramics and the walkway angles. Wyoming’s 85-S. Colorado’s 85-S. I-25-S. The Rockies. I-80-E (from day three and four).

Wednesday – Day Four.
On day four we simply drove back from Nebraska to Illinois.

Don’t forget to click the gallery links, click the photos embedded here and of course to visit the photo gallery main page. Lastly, don’t forget about Mr. Potatohead!

Should he be the 5th?

Here is a map of the route taken. Further explanations of each segment can be found beneath.

Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa back to Illinois. About 2500 miles. ©2010 Google.

Day 1: 660 miles from Tinley Park, IL to Mitchell, SD. ©2010 Google.

Day 2: 300+ miles from Mitchell, SD to Hill City, SD. ©2010 Google.

Day 2: 50 miles off of I-90-W where we viewed The Badlands. ©2010 Google.

Day 2: A short 15-miles from Hill City to Keystone to view Mt. Rushmore.

Day 3: From South Dakota into Wyoming, then south into Colorado. Then east to Nebraska! 622 miles. ©2010 Google.

Day 4: From Nebraska all the way home to Illinois. 736 miles. ©2010 Google.

Some of the background on my new company:

ISI began with production of military simulators. They have worked on many different types of software but focused most of their development time over the years on racing games/simulators. Examples of older titles produced by the company include Sportscar GT and many F1 titles including F1 Challenge ’99-’02 – all produced for Electronic Arts.

Sportscar GT

F1 Challenge 99-02

Their software is currently used by other simulation developers and many real-world racing teams, these customers license a version of the software from ISI and modify it for their own needs. Examples of those using this software are RedBull F1 and SIMBIN Development Team.

The 2007 Sauber BMW F1 car which ships with rFactor 1.

rFactor was released in 2005 and has been updated a few times over the years. rFactor 2 is the next major update from ISI and from what I saw during my interview with the company in Ann Arbor, Michigan, it is something I am very excited to be involved in.

A 1960's era open-wheel car on a very familiar looking race track - rFactor 2.

Rain-Dry and Night-Day (see above) transitional racing for rFactor 2.

Dirt (above), Oval, Karts, Point to Point (eg: rally) and Road racing for rFactor 2.

Anyway, the first night I had the camera obviously I didn’t want to go out and what better subject than pets? A full gallery is here, but below you can see a selection of the photos I took while learning this fantastic camera – and yes, there were a LOT of total rejects on the memory card!

Cropped and toned. Close-up photo of our cat, Chewbacca Junior Esquire.

Toned. Another close-up of Chewie.

Cropped and toned. This photo is of our other cat, Alaska.

You can view the rest of the photos, all are unedited and most are high quality shots, here in the gallery.

As it turned out, the roads to the airport had been ploughed and cleared perfectly, so at 12 noon (6pm UK) Friday, we were at the airport. Our flight was supposed to leave at 6:50pm.

By 4pm we were told our flight would be delayed until 8:15pm due to delays in Ireland.

We boarded and left Chicago (who had had bad weather, but had no delays of its own doing) at 8:15pm (2:15am UK).

After 6-7 hours of our seven and a half hour flight we were told by the Captain that Dublin was closed and we were being re-routed. Initially he said he was trying to get somewhere else in Ireland but then managed to get us into Glasgow (which was fine for us, we could take a train south). Unfortunately, after flying towards Glasgow for a little while we were diverted from Glasgow and landed at Prestwick (near Glasgow, Scotland) on a runway covered in snow. We sat on that runway, in the plane, for two hours!

Eventually the Captain said that they were being re-fuelled and were going to try making it to Dublin. He said that Dublin was currently closed, but we’d either try to land there, or land in Shannon (near Dublin) as that had opened. We took off from a snowy Prestwick and managed to land in Dublin (it had opened while we were in the air).

When we got to Dublin we realized just what a mess the UK and Ireland were in. We were about 5 hours late for our flight to Manchester, England and it had been canceled – as had every other flight to Manchester.

After getting through Immigration (which granted us access to both Ireland and the UK), we lined up in a queue which was 400ft long in the baggage area for about 20mins before we were told this was not going to be the right line. We went up to departures and found the right desk for Aer Lingus, talked to someone who got us a flight to London, UK at 6:30pm UK (12:30pm Chicago time on Saturday).

The line for that desk was 300ft long also. They were managing the line with staff to stop queue jumping and I have to say I’m really impressed with how Aer Lingus were dealing with things. A major thing which was done for us is that when we checked-in for our flight to London the agent actually had to leave and go back through customs so he could manually find and tag our bags (which had originally been checked-in through to a closed Manchester Airport).

While we were waiting for our plane in Dublin, I booked a rental car in London (we originally had one booked in Manchester). Our flight was supposed to leave at 6:30pm, but because of a late arriving plane we eventually left at 8:15pm… While getting on the plane we heard a Stewardess from another airline saying that they were not sending any more flights after ours to London! We got on the plane and after they de-iced the wings we were sat warming the engines and the heavens opened… The snow started falling very much like a blizzard.

For the first time I saw a pilot do things to prepare for something going wrong. He was obviously totally blind as when I looked out of the window I could hardly see anything. The runway looked to have quite a thick layer of snow and I saw the pilot maneuver the plane so he was going to be able to use every inch of available runway. He also held the brake as he wound the engine up near full power (normally it seems like they’ll wind the engine up to full power while rolling along) before he released them. It felt like the pilot was struggling with the rudder quite a bit in the strong wind… Certainly wasn’t nice conditions out there, but we made it.

We landed at London, England at about 10pm UK (4pm Chicago) and made our way to the car rental. We got a great deal (better than we did from Manchester) and arranged things so we can drop the car at Manchester when we left the country. We left London at about 11pm and arrived at my parents at about 2am UK (8pm Chicago).

So 32 hours of travel in these conditions? That’s pretty good. The most embarrassing thing though is that Chicago weather was worse than England or Ireland. We were delayed leaving Chicago because of Ireland, not Chicago. How can the United States cope just fine with this type of thing? How am I able to drive up and down roads in the Chicago area just fine? How was I able to come to England and drive for 3 hours from the south all the way up-north without any issues whatsoever while the News stations are saying nobody can move? The British Media strikes once again, I think. Things are no way near as bad as the media are saying they are and I wonder if some people just wanted some time off work!

Honestly though, it is a little embarrassing. I know the UK and Ireland are not used to getting a proper Winter (well actually, we always used to get proper ones, just not recently), but considering what I see every day in an area like I live in the USA, I’m pretty ashamed at how a nation can fall apart.

I have the feeling this will be a pivotal year. Just lately I’ve had a really hard time with the fact that we had to move away from Massachusetts and back to Illinois, but I am starting to feel better. I felt bad because I felt like I was giving up the first thing I truly loved and (by extension) my job. I worked in Mass at the iRacing.com office, that office contained people like Dave Kaemmer who wrote Indy 500, the game I played at Kieron Ashley-Smith’s house (on his PC) when I was 16 between our end-of-school exams (when I should have been revising). I played those racing games and simulations religiously, for years, and even developed a successful Web site (which I since left, and which has since I left shut down); The same Web site John Henry (the Boston Red Sox owner) discovered me from and hired me to work with iRacing. Simracing in some form has essentially been my life for 20 years, or more.

I still work with iRacing.com, but not being in the office is a pretty big blow. It really means I can never advance in my career and it can be pretty lonely and demoralizing at times working from home (bring on the cabin-fever!) I also risk the fact that it could easily be ‘too difficult’ to work with someone out of the office and I guess my only real solace there is that I really am kind of my own department! There’s things I do that if I wasn’t there would probably stop unless someone could figure out how to automate them and there’s things I do that I don’t really feel any other single person could do all of… There’s probably even a few regular duties (things I have to do every day) which I doubt nobody even knows about, and the amount of Private Messages, emails to my personal addresses and even messages on Facebook that I get which are purely about iRacing means I am fairly well entwined with the company – in the eyes of our customers. Saying that, I can’t help but feel like it’ll end at some point and I’ll have to find something else (hence the bulk of the sadness about the move). On-top of that, I got to know a couple of people in the office that I really, really like as friends and I miss them quite a bit. There were obviously a lot of guys around and it was a typical male atmosphere with the typical laughs and jokes we all enjoy.

Sheila has been talking a lot about having children just lately, too, and while I want to have children with her I am worried about her schooling. I think that with a child, she’ll give up school. I know she doesn’t think that, but I think it’ll be too much for her to look after a child, work and study. She is a straight-A student at the moment with a 4.0 GPA and I don’t want her to lose what she wants, she’ll probably regret it.

A really positive thing just lately is that as of April, 2009 I have been establishing credit! I got a Social Security card when I became a legal resident here in the United States and it took a year for me to be able to get going… I think as an adult it’s incredibly difficult to get that first rung, especially in such a deep economic downturn. Back in 2008 I attempted to get a secured Credit Card – and was denied. I was denied because the idiot at Bank of America put the card for $400 when I asked for a $300 one. I kept $300 in my savings account for them to use and guess what? They couldn’t find the $400 they were looking for… We then moved to Massachusetts and of course that screwed everything up: Everything I tried to get my Credit Rating building failed because they couldn’t establish that I was me! I tried to use Bank of America’s Privacy Assist, only to find that the bumbling idiot on the phone didn’t know how to do his job either and couldn’t let me access my own credit file…

I ended up opening a Eufora Pre-paid Card, which said that it reported to credit. They take a monthly payment of $6.65, so I just loaded the account up with enough money for a year and forgot about it! When we moved back to Illinois at the end of 2009 I contacted Privacy Assist, spoke to a woman with brains who confirmed my identity and found that both Eufora and another credit line I had been attached to had both been reporting – and my credit rating was no longer ZERO! Woohoo!

That is actually pretty big for me… It was nice to see great gains on my rating within a year. This means that going for a house of some sort doesn’t have to be too far in our future…

So, kids, houses and the job thing… I told you it was going to be pivotal.

Ok, so it has been a while since I made any kind of blog post whatsoever. There are a myriad of reasons for that, not least because I got into using Facebook to express myself rather than my blog. I think I’ll probably get more into this again though and also try to find my interest in photography again, too.

So, what have I been up to?

Well, Sheila and I decided we’re moving back to Chicago at the end of October. She misses her family and friends a lot and of course, my marriage comes before my work. We (well, I) drove to Chicago in August and have found a great apartment which we’ll rent until we’re stable enough to buy a place.

I’ve also bought firstly a 10 gallon fish tank (in July), soon after progressing to a 55 gallon fish tank. I’m getting pretty addicted and learning so much about the whole process of keeping fish. I’m keeping Tropical Freshwater fish (most breeds come from Amazon River fish, but some come from Asian rivers). Really enjoying this and if you follow me on Facebook at all, you’ve probably seen photos of my fish on the Wall.

My 55 gallon fish tank, complete with the dead guy's skull.

I’ve been involved with the setup of the new inRacing News Web site, which is a great site mixing iRacing news and real-world racing news from many different series.

I took over and then have been managing the companies Facebook page. I regularly post news items, screenshots – all the good stuff – there for people to share with their friends. It’s a way for iRacing members to keep in-touch, for ex/prospective-subscribers to see if iRacing now has that item they’ve been waiting for and also, it’s great viral marketing.

We sponsored Marcos Ambrose (one of my personal heroes as I have been watching him race since he raced in England, then followed him racing Aussie V8′s – a series I love) at Pocono. I got to go and now I’m probably ruined for attending a NASCAR race ever again. Why? Because I got to sit next to the crew chief on the pitbox and watch the race from there… It was an awesome experience and the level of interaction and access I had was just awesome. I shot and produced a quick testimonial from Marcos about the software and you can see that on the companies Youtube channel (which I’ve also been busy running)!

We also recently announced IndyCar will be coming to iRacing in the Fall of 2009. This is a huge deal for me personally and I’m extremely excited. During my school exams (when I was 16) my friend Kieron and I went back to his house (he had a PC, I didn’t) to play on my copy of (I owned it, he didn’t) Indy 500 – The Simulation. I had no idea who produced the sim, infact in those days I don’t think I knew there was any difference between a developer and a publisher. It’s now 20 years after that software was released and it’s incredible that I’m now working in the same office, just a few doors down from the man responsible. I had quite a part in the announcement (which took place at Infineon Raceway), as I was tasked with providing the first ever footage of the Dallara IndyCar in the simulation at nowhere other than Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I drove some laps in the very early version of the car available to me and put together a comparative video (meant for amusement and an indication of how far we have come) to be used in the press conference… Everybody seemed to find it almost as much fun as I did!

After the press conference, I was tasked with the duty of editing the press conference just like I had for the NASCAR press conference. I think I did a pretty good job with it and you can see the IndyCar edited footage here.

It was also pretty cool interacting with some people from IndyCar (and actually being recognized by someone from IndyCar by name who said they remembered me from RSC) while getting them the footage they needed to produce their own edit of the press conference. You can view that on their Youtube channel here.

Anyway, that’s pretty much what I have been up to recently. Now onto the thing I am up to now…

I’ve been trying to get a suitable ‘demo’ trial of iRacing put together for new members for a while and I finally managed to get it done. Until now, the only way to try iRacing without paying was either illegal and out-of-date by a long way, or provided you with two pieces of content that you would not be able to race in anger against others during your trial period. The Radical Sportscars promotion gave you your first month of iRacing membership, Silverstone Circuit, the Radical SR8 sportscar along with the basic content you normally get with a 1-month subscription, but as I said, the Radical is Class B – it takes longer than the trial period to be able to race that.

So what have I setup? Two new-member trials.

The first, aimed primarily at Papyrus simulation users who are still running Grand Prix Legends, includes a free first month, the Skip Barber Formula 2000, Virginia International Raceway and of course, the basic content normally included with a 1-month subscription (Pontiac Solstice, Legends Ford ’34 Coupe, SCCA Spec Racer Ford, Lanier National Speedway, Lime Rock Park, Oxford Plains Speedway, Summit Point Raceway, South Boston Speedway, Lowe’s Motor Speedway and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca).

So, why did I choose the Skip Barber Formula 2000? Because it’s a lot of fun and out of all the iRacing cars it drives the most like a car from Grand Prix Legends. You can also reach a Rookie 4.0 license within a few hours of membership and this will allow you to drive this car in official races.

Why did I choose Virginia International Raceway? This track is like a cross between Spa-Francorchamps and the Nurburgring in Grand Prix Legends. This track needs to be tamed and it can give you that sense of exhilaration and achievement which you until now believed could only be gotten after lapping the ‘ring. It’s also a very important track for your career within iRacing (it is used all the way up the ladder) and comes with seven (yes, seven) track configurations.

Any Tips? Yes. The SB2000 is a school car, it is supposed to be driven in a technically correct manner. You need to either be on the throttle or brake at all times to keep it stable; If you lift off the throttle completely in the middle of a turn, it will likely spin out on you for example. Think about where the weight of the car is moving to, be smooth and try to keep even a little bit of throttle down in each turn to keep weight in the rear.

To claim your free first month new account ‘SB2000+VIR’ version, go here, use promo code: REMOVED DUE TO ABUSE

The second promo code allows Papyrus simulation users who are still running any of the NASCAR Racing simulations a free first month, the Chevy Monte-Carlo SS late model, Martinsville Speedway and of course, the basic content normally included with a 1-month subscription (Pontiac Solstice, Legends Ford ’34 Coupe, SCCA Spec Racer Ford, Lanier National Speedway, Lime Rock Park, Oxford Plains Speedway, Summit Point Raceway, South Boston Speedway, Lowe’s Motor Speedway and Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca).

So, why did I choose the Chevy Monte-Carlo SS? Because it’s a lot of fun. Secondly, because it’s a lot of fun (and I do know I said it twice). This is my favorite stock car. It doesn’t require you to be so precise and you can drive this car the way you want to drive it – and it rewards you every way. I drive this car with what I call ‘happy hands’, as I am constantly working the wheel and the feel the car gives is just superb. This car will show you just how far things have come since NASCAR Racing 2003 Season. You can also reach a Rookie 4.0 license within a few hours of membership and this will allow you to drive this car in official races.

Why did I choose Martinsville Speedway? because who could say no to this paperclip-shaped beauty? It produces close side-by-side and bumper to nose racing every time. This track is one of the few tracks on the late model schedule in iRacing that isn’t already given to you with the basic subscription, and although my favorite track on the schedule is Concord (a three-turn oval) I thought it better to give you Martinsville Speedway, which is used later in your iRacing career all the way up the ladder.

Any Tips? The late model, as I said before, is very driveable. The best way to drive it technically will be as smooth as possible, but the car easily accepts being sideways and has enough feeling to allow you time to recover it. Many say the late model series in iRacing provides the best quality racing available…

To claim your free first month new account ‘LM+Marty’ version, go here, use promo code: REMOVED DUE TO ABUSE

How the subscription works/things you need to know:

The promotion code creates a new account. Therefore, this cannot be used to add content to an existing account in any way.

A credit/debit card or Paypal account is required and will be needed to access the trial.

This is a free first month. You can cancel payment for the second (and onwards) months at any time. When logged into the members Web site, go to the My Account link, click cancel and cancel again. Regular monthly billing is $19 per month.

Some credit/debit cards (especially European banks) will not accept a $0 transaction. To get around this, we sometimes request $1 – which will show as pending, but this $1 will drop back into your account and will not be taken.

You can switch your trial to a 3-month, 6-month or 1-year subscription at any time. Go to the My Account link on the members Web site and renew the account. Any amount of time you purchase will be added to the time remaining on your trial.

If you buy any additional content on the trial account, but do not wish to continue the trial after the first month, the additional content will be waiting for you to re-subscribe at a later date along with all your racing stats and license.

At the moment there is no end-date for this promotion. But one is set in the system for 31st December, 2009.

If you have any questions about the trial, feel free to contact me by email or facebook.

Feel free to share this iRacing trial information on any other Web site or forum.