Month: November 2003

I Forgot My Anniversary

My 14th anniversary was last Friday. I didn’t buy any gifts, I didn’t even acknowledge it at all. I hope I can be forgiven.

On Tuesday, November 7th, 1989 I drove home in a Miata for the first time. 1990 Mariner Blue with the A Package, A/C and mats. Paid list price (around $15,500 total) when others were being charged premiums.

Kept that car for 6 years before trading it in on the 1995 Laguna Blue in December 1995. I guess that is why I got away with forgetting, Friday was my anniversary of being a Miata owner not the owner of this car.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $2611.67
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 273

Christmas In November

On this morning’s errands I tired of constant classical music from my MP# player, so I ventured onto the radio dial. One of the local stations was having a continuous Christmas music weekend. There are almost 3 weeks until Thanksgiving already! It was only a matter of time I suppose, we are now used to seeing Christmas merchandise make limited appearances on store shelves along side the Halloween decorations. There is already a “holiday movie” playing at theaters near you, Elf.

Making matters worse is that today I compiled and burned a Christmas Music CD for a swap…

Bagel Run

I requested bagels for breakfast, so Donna requested I go get them. After I got home from Best Bagels & Deli, she said, “I forgot to tell you we are out of cream cheese.” Back out I went to Bi-Lo. Both trips I had the window down for only part of it as wintertime arrived today. fortunately it is only for today as by Monday it will be back in the 70s again. Good thing too, driving around in the cold with the top up I can hear the dash rattle in two different spots at two different RPMs.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $2611.67
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 272

Weeklong Day

Let us tell today’s story by recapping all the posts this week so far by making some corrections and/or observations.

Friday, November 07, 2003 – Lunchtime Fun
At lunch today Bob Smyth was the last person to get his salad delivered to the table. This led to him recounting a meal out with friends in the past where he never actually got his meal. This led to, you guessed it, he didn’t get his hamburger today.

Thursday, November 06, 2003 – Hey That’s Wet
The interior of the car got soaked today. Read about it here and then come back.

Wednesday, November 05, 2003 – OCM Phobia
While watching the Weather Channel to get the forecast for today I realized that I was wrong about the name of the On-Camera Meterologist. It is Hillary Andrews not Alexandra Steele. Hillary is so new she doesn’t have a bio page over on their site yet, so I can’t link a picture. While watching Hillary do the forecast for the northeast Donna came in and changed the channel to a local station saying that their weather would be more accurate.

Tuesday, November 04, 2003 – Maybe I Need To Write This One First
True to form, I wrote the Diaries story first tonight and now I’m resorting to this cheap trick to generate a post.

Monday, November 03, 2003 – This May Be It
There was a TV in Salsa’s, our lunchtime restaurant, today. To be fair it was aimed at the bar and not the regular seating area.

It’s Funny Now

Today was the Miata Club’s Photo Scavenger Hunt. We only had 4 cars show up to play, the absolute minimum needed. Those who played had fun and listening to their stories over lunch was worth putting it on for us.

When we gave the teams their instruction sheets, Donna and I headed off to do the prize shopping. As is our usual practice we parked far out in the shopping center lot. This has two benefits, first we get a nice walk in and second there is less chance of door dings. Because it was cloudy with a chance of sprinkles we put on the cockpit cover. Boy did that turn out to be a good idea. We went into we went into 5 separate stores hunting just the right prizes. We wanted to get something nice, but not too expensive. Store number 6 was the winner, Michael’s had picture frames on half price sale. We snagged 8 nice wood picture frames for $30. Four 4×6 for second place and four 5×7 for first. When we got back to the car parked near the edge of the lot, we noticed that the sprinkler was on and was spraying all over the car. The cockpit cover had done its job as the interior of the car was dry, until I uncovered it in an attempt to put the top up. Donna didn’t want to get wet, so she refused to help. I managed to get the cover off without spilling too much of the pooled water into the interior. I timed it right and raised the top real fast. Unfortunately the spray was coming in the lowered passenger side window. It made two sweeps into my face as I fumbled to raise the power windows. It made two more passes before I got my key out of my pocket and turned the ignition to ON and could actually get the window up. I got the roll of paper towels out of the trunk and wiped up as good as I could. I spent the rest of the morning with wet jeans.

It is funny now that I look back on it and if anyone was watching I bet they got a good laugh. And now that I have had a while to look at the problem, I probably could have avoided getting wet at all by getting Donna to come up from behind the sprinkler head (it was only sweeping 180 degrees) and just hold it in one spot away from the car.

Purchased Today: $14.00 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $2611.67
Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 272

Lunchtime Fun

I haven’t ranted about Popeye’s for a while (almost 2 years) so either I have gotten used to the crappy service or I’ve stop going and just don’t remember. Today we went for lunch there and there were only two people in front of us. Didn’t think it would take too long, but boy was I wrong. Customer #1 finished up in a jiffy, but No.2 was a little old lady. She couldn’t hear to well and probably wished for a translator as the counter person spoke mostly blacklish. If I hadn’t lived in the south so long, I would probably also had trouble understanding her. After waiting on those two people, the counter person went over to help dish out food. Donna and I stood at the register for the next 5 minutes watching her fill orders for these people and the drive-up ones too. All the while she never looked back to even acknowledge us. Finally we just turned and left. I guess maybe she was waiting for a longer line to form so as to make it worth her while to come over there.

We went up the street a hundred yards to Burger King. tired of getting burgers that have been sitting in the rack too long, we have a plan. When we order we always tell them to hold the mayo, this ensures that we get a freshly made sandwich. It has worked pretty good up until today. The sandwich was freshly made, but it was made with a patty that had been sitting around, it was just barely hot enough. Not only that, along with holding the mayo they skimped on the catsup making for a very dry meal. The only thing that remotely saved our lunch was that we had to wait a bit and got fries right out of the bubbling hot oil – mmmm.

Still Leaking

Last night I looked in on the hot water heater that for reasons unknown had started to drip at drain outlet and just as mysteriously as it started, it stopped. Tonight, hoping that that same magic might have worked on my leaking differential, I didn’t pull into the garage, but got out and checked the floor. Still leaking. Maybe I’ll get some regular oil and start adding it a bit at a time until the leak stops.

Yeah, I know, don’t be so cheap, drain the $10 a quart synthetic and fill it back up with dino, already.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $2597.67
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 267