My name is Craig Watson and I live in Central Florida. I have a rather wide selection of interests: cars, computers, golf, music and audio, pool, scuba diving, and reading (especially science fiction).

The cars have mostly been Buicks. At one time there were four 1987 Buick Grand Nationals around here. They have turbocharged V6 motors so it kind of seems natural to play with this kind of stuff. I have really enjoyed these cars and making friends in the Buick world. The background picture on the car link page is one of my cars doing a burnout at the Buick Nationals in 1997. Now, I drive a Corvette Z06 but I still have a lot of fond memories of the Buicks.

I modeled the Buick performance using a spreadsheet for a couple of years and it seemed like good practice to make it into a web page. The airflow form was my first Javascript application. The turbo output temperature stuff is based upon some empirical measurements from studies back in the 1920's. This was a major stumbling block in my analysis until I mentioned it to my father who happens to be a mechanical engineer. (I'm an electrical engineer. This is really out of my area of expertise.) He had a engineering book about compressors and intercoolers. Of course, the last intercooler he designed was for a 8000 horsepower application (not a car). The relationships seem to work well at predicting my cars' performance. My model was not very accurate until I adjusted the horsepower by subtracting the power required to compress the air charge. All that back pressure does affect the performance. It isn't "free horsepower." If you don't like doing this, read up on Mean Effective Pressure (MEP) and the PLAN approach to engine analysis.

Here in Central Florida I know over a dozen other Turbo Regal owners many of whom I have checked my numbers against. A couple of them swear by these ET and MPH calculations. I laugh at them. At the same time, the ET usually comes out within 2 tenths of a second using the above approach. You do have to use reasonable numbers though. For at least six cars I am familiar with, this stuff works pretty well. Enjoy.

Computers are too nerdy to say much here. I understand most people don't like to talk about things like that much. I'll just say I had a TRS-80 and a Timex Sinclair. My first PC was a home built PC clone. A real home built. I soldered the chips on the motherboard myself. Did I mention I am an electrical engineer? No? Well, there you have it. That may explain other things too. I've been playing around with Linux for close to 20 years. It sure has changed in that time. BTW, this web page comes to you from my own server located in my house and administered by me. More about nerd stuff here.

I don't have too much to say about golf. I started playing again after giving it up due to knee injuries over 20 years and three operations ago. Currently I am a duffer who struggles to shoot below 100 but I have backed off the past few years. My handicap is/was 29.

I have been playing a lot of pool the past few years. I even got a wood lathe for cue repairs and have made some of my own cue shafts. Last August my pool team got to go to Las Vegas for a week to compete in the APA 9-Ball National Team Championship.

In the distant past I played classical guitar, flute, and piano; never performance quality; just something to pass the time. I have never wanted to be on stage. For me a dream about that would be a nightmare. I did travel for two and a half years (1978-80) with a Jazz-Rock band as the sound man. Most of that time was in Europe. I do have a PA system and have worked with several local bands just for fun.

In personality type testing I test out as a IxTP. Usually it works out as INTP but sometimes as ISTP. DDLI calls this a IXTP. Personality typing is interesting and probably not real scientific. A link to info about this is below:

Kiersey

My resume in Adobe pdf.
My resume short in Adobe pdf.
My resume long in HTML.
Email:Craig