Wow, got back to jase’s at 6pm yesterday, lay down on the futon, and basically slept straight through.. Not sure how well I’m going to cope with the late nights tonight, and tomorrow night 🙁
Yesterday was a bit of a write off.. Not having a staff lanyard meant every time I tried to go in somewhere to get photos, I’d spend 5 mins arguing with security before I could get in.. Ended up giving up.. Ditch was a bit grumpy about there being hardly any photos from the day, but there’s not a whole lot I can do about that…
Security needs to be reigned in hard. Ditch and Liz got sent through alcohol control coming in yesterday morning, because someone had decided to put *all* cars, no matter whether they’re staff cars or not through there instead of letting them in as usual at the shell servo entrance.. Was supposed to be fixed after a meeting yesterday morning, but considering I just about had to run someone over because they did the same f’ing thing this morning when I arrived, I guess the problem hasn’t been sorted..
*grin* there’s apparently an ‘all points’ out looking for the luxie, as I heard as I walked through the security office coming into my desk this morning.. The security dude on duty looked a little uncomfortable when I chuckled and told him to jump back on the radio and tell them I’m staff, and to go jump.. He suggested I go talk to the event controller about it, but seriously, I’m here to do a job. My payment for said job is unrestricted access to anywhere I wish to go within summernats.. If anyone from security gets in my way, that’s their problem to deal with, not mine. God help them tomorrow morning if they try the same shit.. It’s 9am, I’m exhausted, I already have a headache, and I’m very close to losing control of my temper. God help whoever bears the brunt of that!
Oh, and I don’t think I’ll be coming back next year.. Between simply not having the stamina for the long hours and long walks, and the amount of tension going between management and event control, I’m just not really that interested anymore…

Spent today fairly busy, getting a few setup shots, went over to scrutineering with Liz and got some shots of nice cars.. Though there seems to be a MAJOR lack of ‘decent’ cars here.. – too many VK and VR commodores, and chev’s with big superchargers.. C’mon guys, have some imagination! One of the security guys I spoke to said he’d heard that a lot of the older entrants (who have the more ‘different’ cars) didn’t like the huge amount of security last year, so decided not to come this year…
Seems there ARE staff lanyards, the guy running security just decided that I didn’t need one. Thanks mate, now I can’t get into half the areas I need to…
Hmmm

Arrived at the ‘nats office just after 5, so didn’t make too bad time, considering I left Melbourne just after 9.. Collected passes, seems there’s no lanyards for staff this year, bit of a bummer, but I guess the black armbands are all we need to get in wherever we want… Had trouble getting a car pass for Jase, ended up only being able to get ‘off-site’ (aka the carpark up whoop-whoop) parking permit for him… grrr
Ahh well, caught up with Frank O’Hare and his family for dinner – was good to catch up.. Then headed over to the castle to watch the First ep of Dr.Who Series 3, then back to jase’s to get online for a bit, then head to bed..