Year: 2005

26,000

What started out as a Saturday day trip turned into a Friday & Saturday overnighter on basically a whim. Donna and I had sort of planned an impromptu trip up to Deal’s Gap for Saturday. It is the weekend of annual Miatas at the Gap, an unofficial (inter)national meeting of Miatas in the western mountains of NC.

Earlier in the week we decided to get a hotel room in Anderson, SC for Saturday night so we wouldn’t have to go there and back in one day.

About 7:30 Friday night Donna’s mom said, “I thought you we leaving tonight?” A seed was planted. We checked the radar and it didn’t look good, all green between here and Anderson. So we just packed our bag as if we were leaving in the morning. About 8:15 we looked at the radar again and the green was dissipating. Hmmm, called the hotel, they had a room. Threw some more clothes in the bag. Checked the radar as we were leaving and there was hardly any green showing. We did manage to make it all the way to Anderson with the top down. Had to drive through a few sprinkley patches, but we stayed dry.

The Emperor passed the 26,000 mile mark about 10 miles out of Aiken.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 242

All I Want For Christmas Is…

…a subscription to People Magazine. Caught a blurb about this while channel surfing the other day and in this morning’s paper there was a small article about it too. Brittany Murphy will be the new Jordache jeans girl. It was said and written with almost breathless excitement, so I know that Brittney Murphy is a famous person, I just don’t know what she is famous for. Singer? Actress? Reality TV Show Star?

I feel so left out.

Rear Spoiler?

The Newer Miatas, 1999 and up, have this kind of bump in the middle of the trunk and it would be one feature I’d like to change back to the nice flat shape of the original. You could cover the bump up with a rear lip spoiler, but the OEM unit looked too tacked on for me to consider it. I was resigned to learn to live with this slight blemish, think Cindy Crawford’s beauty mark, until today.

Someone on the Miata.net Forums is selling his car and posted a question about how much it might be worth. I wasn’t interested in the car, but I was interested in his rear lip spoiler. When I asked him where he got it, he said off of ebay from SpoilerDepot. He said as a matter of fact there is an auction for one now and gave me the link.

When I went to the auction the spoiler shown does not look like the one he has. His lays more horizontal and there is no cutout for the 3rd brake light.

Auction link: http://tinyurl.com/8qwyv
Forum post with his pictures link: http://tinyurl.com/7a953
I really like the one he has more than the one shown on ebay. Did he buy his from you? Was there a redesign?

Above is pretty much verbatim what I emailed to customer service at SpoilerDepot. Here is the answer I got:

WE HAVE TWO SPOILERS AVAILABLE FOR THE MIATA PLEASE VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT SPOILERDEPOT.COM TO SEE BOTH OF THE PICTURES

Just with that reply I am tempted to forget the whole thing. Did they really read my email? I said lip spoiler. I referenced their auction for a lip spoiler. Their other design is a wing spoiler. AN ANSWER IN ALL CAPS? I may call their 800 number tomorrow and see if I can talk to a person.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 241

Bad Bulb

I’m not so sure how long it has been out, but someone told on my way out of the work parking lot tonight that one of the fog lights was unlit. I thought I was pretty conscious about checking to see if I could see two lights reflected in some surface of the car in front of me, but I guess I took it for granted that both lights were working in recent times.

The fog light bulb are standard 55 watt H1 bulbs, but for some reason the first two places I checked (Advanced Auto & Walmart) didn’t have them. Oh, they had the expensive Sylvania Silverstar bulbs for $18-20 each, but I wanted no part of them. Not only have they gotten a slightly bad rap on Miata.net, but if I bought just one the light from the fogs would be different from one another. I just wanted 1 plain ol’ halogen bulb for around $5, not 2 hoity-toity bulbs for $40.

Store number three, Autozone, was the answer. They had one left on the self for $5.99. They only fly in that ointment was the counter help was overwhelmed with customers and no one could break free to check me out. After several minutes a clerk asked if she could help me, but when I said I needed to check out, she said, “Oh, I can’t use the register.” About this time I was tempted to walk out, but considering what I went through to find this bulb, maybe the last one in town, I stuck it out a while longer. Cooling my heels I even considered tossing a ten spot on the counter and walking out, but before I could do anything rash, a certified register professional appeared as if by magic from the back and rang me up.

It took about 45 minutes to replace the bulb because you have to jack up the car, remove the front wheel and unfasten a half dozen screw and bolts to peel back a plastic wheel well liner to allow access to the bulb. If they had 2 bulbs I would bought both of them and changed out the passenger side as well. In my experience they usually go in pairs because they each are on for the same amount of time. Plus because I use the fogs as daytime running lights they are on whenever the car is on during the day, so they get quite a bit of use.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 239

What Car Is She Driving?

I just got my hand-me-down copy of the 50th Anniversary Edition of Car and Driver Magazine and boy is there a lot to read in there. Guess that explains why I got got it and it has been out for around a month now. There is a fold out of a 50 year respective of covers from the magazine that is very interesting. I printed a tall one 4′ long on the plotter at work and stuck it to the side of a cabinet in my cubical. The August 1976 cover is of particular interest.

What Car Is She Driving?
1. Alfa Romeo Spider
2. Cadillac Eldorado
3. Fiat 124 Spider
4. Jensen-Healy
5. Jensen Interceptor
6. Mercedes-Benz 450SL
7. MGB
8. MG Midget
9. Rolls-Royce Corniche
10. Triumph TR-6
11. Volkswagen
Click on the thumbnail for a big ol’ version

So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish

There is a big hole in the cycling world now. Lance Armstrong has hung up his professional bike for good. It is going to be strange when next July rolls around and it won’t be, “Will he do it again?”, but who is the heir apparent. I certainly hope for Americans it is another fellow countryman. Not because I’m jingoistic, but more because it raises some awareness in Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public that cyclists are human and you shouldn’t try and run them off the road for sport.

During one of the “Chasing Lance” shows on the Discovery Channel last night, at one point Lance show us a gym bag with some of the Tour de France’s Yellow Jerseys he’s won in it and he calls them Mellow Johnnies. A play on the French term for them, maillot jaune. In honor of Mr. Armstrong’s accomplishment of seven in a row, I have created a special T-shirt: Seven Mellow Johnnies. Buy one and I’ll donate the $1 mark-up to the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 239

Like A Pheonix Rising From The Ashes

I got a PM from someone on the Miata.net Forums asking about some Barndoor Fan Club stickers. I sold the last of them just before closing shop on the BDFC so he was out of luck.

Then as I thought about it, I still have all the images I used on the CafePress store, I can upload the logo and put it on one of their 3×5 stickers. Then all he had to do would be cut the 2 circles out and for a little less than the cost of the originals, he would be in business. While I was at it I made up a couple of different T-shirts. So if you missed out the first time get your very own Barndoor Fan Club memorabilia before it is gone for good (really.)

Life of Brian Store Annex

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 239