Summary of the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600

Today is Memorial Day in the United States so we are all honoring our armed forces. Memorial Day weekend is also special in this country for two prestigious auto races, the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR's Coca-Cola 600 in Concord, North Carolina, near Charlotte. There is also a third race in Europe, the Monaco Grand Prix.

One of the biggest stories yesterday was NASCAR driver Kurt Busch making his open-wheel racing debut at Indianapolis yesterday, and attempting to complete all 1,100 miles of racing in Indianapolis and Charlotte. Busch finished sixth in the Indy 500, but blew his engine with less than 200 miles remaining in the Coke 600, leaving him with just over 900 miles completed.

The Indy 500 went green for the first 149 laps before a series of late-race crashes. After the last crash, which happened right after a caution for debris, the race was red-flagged in an attempt to ensure a green-flag finish. The race did end under green, with Ryan Hunter-Reay holding off three-time winner Helio Castroneves to win.

About three hours later, the Coke 600 started. Danica Patrick was a favorite after qualifying fourth, but she quickly fell back and eventually suffered from a blown engine, like teammate Kurt Busch. Polesitter Jimmie Johnson went on to claim his first win of the season after passing Matt Kenseth with less than ten laps left. Most of the cautions in this race were for debris.

In conclusion, there was some great racing action yesterday, ending with some very happy drivers.

Storms + more hours at work

Yesterday, there were storms in my area that might have produced a couple of tornadoes. The possible tornadoes were in Pennsylvania and Delaware. At about 3:30, a severe thunderstorm missed my house by about 10 miles. All we got was a bit of rain. There were storm clouds for a few hours.

Also, just today I found out that I have a couple of 8-hour shifts at work coming up. I've never worked that long before; my previous longest shift was 7 hours. So I hope it goes well.

I turned 19 today

Today was my 19th birthday and I got presents and ate cake and all of that stuff. I've gotten some happy birthday wishes today, more than last year for sure! Also, this morning I discovered that Google provides you with a special "Google Doodle" on your birthday if you have a Google+ account, so that was a pleasant surprise.

 seal of a birthday card w/money check

Decorations along a window

$50 Best Buy gift card, one of my presents

My day today was actually normal for the most part, but it did have some fun moments as well. So that's it for this post.

I might be addicted to 2048

2048 is a game for the Apple iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad that came out a couple of months ago and has quickly become popular. I downloaded it and it is now one of my favorite iOS games. I can not stop playing it. Funny how a few months ago I was addicted to Fruit Ninja.

Mother's Day suddenly became legit

In previous years, the only special thing I've done on Mother's Day is given my mom a little gift or two. This low-key method of celebrating Mother's Day suddenly changed today.

Last night I learned we were making a turkey with sides, almost like a Thanksgiving or Easter meal. I'm used to just eating a normal dinner even on this day. Then I was at work this morning at ShopRite and people were doing last-minute shopping. A lot of people were buying bouquets of flowers like it was Valentine's Day. I also noticed that those little boxes of assorted chocolates (which I bought one of for my mom) had special Mother's Day packaging.

What I'm saying is that this was the first time I've even seen Mother's Day be taken this seriously. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's just that I'm not used to celebrating it at that level. Still, I hope everyone had a good day today. And I guess I'll be expecting the same kind of thing on Father's Day next month.

About the NASCAR weekend at Talladega

This weekend, the NASCAR Nationwide and Sprint Cup series raced in Talladega, Alabama. They were both typical races for the track, with close racing and big crashes. The Nationwide race was won by former Cup driver Elliott Sadler, and the Cup race by Denny Hamlin, both Joe Gibbs Racing drivers. Some of the best drivers like Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski and Jeff Gordon got caught up in crashes.

The Nationwide Series is off next week; they return on May 18 at Iowa Speedway. The Cup series and Camping World Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway next weekend, in the very first night events at the track.

May

It is now May and 2014 is one-third over. This is the month of my birthday, and also Memorial Day weekend, which I look forward to because of the auto racing held on that weekend.

We had a lot of rain yesterday and that caused flooding. I took a couple of pictures of it.

 There was water ponding under a pine tree by the front of my house.

This was our deck in the evening.

After about 30 hours it finally stopped raining right around midnight. A lot of roads in the area were flooded. Aside from that, everything has been normal lately. So that's it for my beginning of May post.