Month: April 2003

Boy Was My Butt Sore

Good news is that today was as nice a day as yesterday, bad news is that the pine pollen is not finished. Man the car looks spiffy as heck with it’s new wax job, but there is a small layer of yellow dust all over it. Didn’t get the interior done because my wife talked me into going for a bicycle ride. First time I’ve been on a bike since sometime last fall and after 20 miles, boy was my butt sore. Doesn’t feel too bad now, but I’m sure if I went back out and sat on the seat again the agony would return full force.

On a whim we decided to replace the area rug in the dining room. Off we went to our favorite rug store, Lowes. We have hard wood floors and they really need refinishing, but we just cover them up with cheap $100 8 x 10 rugs. All the others are just plain tan/beige things, but this time we went with a pattern that has most of all the colors in the wallpaper and curtains. Fortunately today was sunny so we could get this rolled up rug home in the family pick-up truck, the Miata. On the way home we had to stop in a mini-mart for a quick item. Donna ran in and left me in the car guarding the rug (like anyone would steal a 9′ long, 12″ diameter roll.) While lolling around waiting I noticed the tag on the rug, underneath the plastic wrapper, it said, “Contents: 100% undetermined fibers.” Soda bottles? Tires? Mattress stuffing? Barbershop floor clippings? I think I’ll keep my socks on.

Purchased Today: zero
Money spent since 03/03/03: $81.38
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 54

Zone Alarm

Though I was going to have to reformat the PC this evening. I rebooted and when it came back up everything was really slow and whenever I tried to open an explorer window or the control panel, nothing would happen, then it would lock up. Rebooted in safe mode and even that seemed to take forever. When it finally did come up I copied all my files to the 2nd hard drive incase something bad was happening. I exported the run tree of the registry and then deleted all the keys pertaining to programs. I cleaned out the start up folder and rebooted regular. Tried to open an explorer window and it was still crapola. I then realized that Zone Alarm was running. It must have been started somewhere that I missed. As soon as I shut it down the explorer window popped up. I got on the net unprotected and went to TrendMicro and ran their free online virus scan just to be sure it wasn’t something besides ZoneAlarm. They gave me a clean bill of health. Next I uninstalled ZA and then reinstalled it. Same thing. So I uninstalled it again and pruned the registry of anything with Zone Alarm or Zone Labs in it. Downloaded and installed Sygate Personal Firewall.

Revoking Your Convertible Ownership Rights

Rollerbladed for 3 miles this morning before doing chores. As promised the car got the star treatment today. Saved the interior clean up for tomorrow, so there was enough time to go for a hike in the woods with Donna. Afterwards we took the long way home to enjoy the open air motoring experience. If you live anywhere near central SC or GA and didn’t go for a top down drive today, you better go tomorrow, or I’m coming over and revoking your convertible ownership rights, man it was gorgeous.

Purchased Today: $7.63 in oil
Money spent since 03/03/03: $81.38
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 54

Damn This Is Daunting

I’ve been using AutoCAD in my work since 1987. I am comfortable doing stuff in it, matter of fact, before we got networked and Microsoft Office I used to do a lot of stuff in ACAD that it really wasn’t designed to do. I am by no means an all around expert, 3D is a foreign language to me, but when anyone at work has a question, I’m the go to guy. Well now I know how they feel when they face with the myriad commands of AutoCAD and overall complexity of the program, I just installed Adobe Illustrator. I need to redo the Barndoor Fan Club logo and design something new for some T-shirts and it helps the screen printer (and saves me money) if I can give him an Illustrator file.

I’ve bought a 3 inch thick book on using the program, but boy howdy, it’s got a lot of commands with strange names and nothing works like I think it should. I imported an AutoCAD drawing and the text stuff came through OK, but I need to fill something and it won’t cooperate. I have figured out the object is a compound path, but I need to turn it into a plain path to fill it. Back to the book.

Tickets To The Masters

Tickets to the 4 day Masters tournament are handed down from generation to generation. They have closed the waiting list to get on the waiting list. That is not say they are impossible to get. For a price nearly anything can be had.

My wife and I don’t golf and are not really into following it as fans. We used to go to one of the practice rounds each year in the early 90s, because it was like $5 to get in and you just walked up to the gates on the day and in you went. It would be like living in Indianapolis and never going to the 500, so we went. The course is better looking in person than it is on TV and during practice the golfers are loose and having fun, you could take pictures and get autographs. Always thinking how cool it would be to go to the actual tournament.

Somewhere around 1995 they made a decision to limit even the practice round tickets. Can’t blame them the place was getting too crowded and the crowd was getting boisterous and the traffic jams outside the gates were getting really troublesome. The first couple of years after they instituted the lottery we got tickets, but since then we have been shut out. It seems like the tickets are going to all out-of-towners that come to Augusta and spend big bucks on hotels and meals. Of course the officials claim that it is a fair lottery, but too many of the locals who used to go are getting shut out too. Urban legends have cropped up of getting distant relations to apply for the practice round tickets and then pass along to the locals so they can go.

Tonight my across the street neighbor called and asked if we wanted a couple of tickets to go see the Masters tomorrow. We turned him down. We have nearly all our vacation for the year either taken or scheduled. Plus it is going to be raining and low 50s. If the weather was going to be sunny and 75 we might have burned one of the last two free vacation days we have left free. I wonder if our neighbor will think of us next year or was this our one and only shot at this.

MX-5 Passion Stickers

Way back in October of last year the folks that run the MX-5 Passion site, a Miata Net like site for Italy, discovered the Barndoor Fan Club and emails were traded, pictures shared, etc. Then one fellow asked me to send him 6 of the BDFC stickers and he would mail me the same amount of their site’s stickers once they had them made up. I mailed them off and everyone of their team put a sticker on their car, even the M2s. I hadn’t heard about the stickers in so long I forgot all about them, until yesterday. Ben emailed me to let me know that a half dozen MX-5 Passion stickers were on the way. wOOt!

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $73.75
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 51

Amelie

Looks like a rainy week, at this rate it is going to be over a month since the car has needed to be washed, but hasn’t. Which means it has probably been a couple months since the last wash. Maybe this weekend. The oil needs changing as well, the lifters are clacking with more frequency on startup.

Watched the best movie I have seen since Amelie, back in February, tonight. It had drama, sex, tension, pathos and a cast of like 2. Go rent The Business of Strangers if you can find it. And if you don’t like it, email me and tell me why and I’ll paypal you your rental fee.

Purchased Today: zippo
Money spent since 03/03/03: $73.75
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 51