Month: January 2006

Hell Is A Place Called Hollywood

Hell Is A Place Called HollywoodMark and I made our required visit to the Bass Pro Shop, Concord Mills Mall and Razzoo’s tonight after school.

We shopped BPS first. Mark had a list of things to get and wanted to get. He found the first thing on the list, but it turned out not be any cheaper than Wallyworld, so it wasn’t worth spending for here and lugging back to Aiken. The second item on his list was a certain kind of fishing rod for his father, last trip he lucked onto the lure his dad wanted right away, but this time we had to look at 98% of the 68.7 million different rods for sale there before realizing the best buy was a rod/reel combo. And that was even after tossing out the POS reel… So he wouldn’t have to tote a fishing rod around the mile long loop of the mall we delayed buying anything here until we finished shopping.

To pay Mark back for making me walk all around the Bass Pro Shop looking up at all those fishing rods that I didn’t have a clue about what I was really looking for, I made him watch me try and buy a pair of sneakers. He now knows why Donna hates to shop with me. We went into nearly every one of the dozen shoe places in the Concord Mills Mall where the process went anywhere from a quick pass through to me trying on 4 pairs of shoes (sometimes a left and a right from 2 different pairs) and then leaving. Halfway around we ducked into Frye’s where we shopped for DVDs and Xbox games for Mark’s son. He found a cheap game and a copy of Three Kings and I picked up the classic Test Tube Babies. I found a pair I liked in my size on sale in literally the last place we could have looked in. We then when back into the Bass Pro Shop where mark picked up the stuff he needed and we drove the 1/2 mile across the parking lot to dinner.

After our shopping excess we decided to eat that way too. We had some Rat Toes and Fried Pickle Puckers before we even got around to ordering a main course. We each drank about a liter of ice cold Coke to soothe the raging fires burning in the taste bud forests of our tongues. Mark liked the menu so well he asked our waitress if he could buy one, she just said keep that one. Next time you see him ask him about his escape from the restaurant with his prize. We both did buy legitimate souvenirs too, genuine Razzoo’s Brand T-shirts, ostensibly for our wives, but by coincidence they just happen to be in our sizes. 🙂

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 32

Home Away From Home

Back in Albemarle for training again, this time for 3 days instead of the usual two. I’ve got the same room in the Holiday Inn Express as two weeks ago. Somebody else must have stayed here in the interim though as I found the torn off corner of a Cheetos bag on the floor near the nightstand.

Mark drove up this time. He wanted his pick up truck because tomorrow when we go the Bass Pro Shop he is going to be buying some things that are way too big to fit in the Miata. This is our last trip up here for training, after this we are experts.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 32

Totally %@&#ing Lost

Totally %@&#ing LostToday was a total loss on the outdoor front. The rain started about sun up and didn’t quit until late afternoon. So the planned bike ride or hike in the woods will have to wait until next weekend.

I scanned some more images from the Big Box of Morrison Memories this morning. By show of hands, how many of you have a picture just like this from your childhood? There was no date on the photo, but from the looks of the kids, that’s Donna second from the bottom, she is thinking 1961 or 1962.

After going out for lunch and a stop at the supermarket to pick up a few of the missed items from yesterday’s major shopping expedition, we went somewhere we haven’t been for over 6 years, Blockbuster. They didn’t have what we wanted. So we doubled back and went into Movie Gallery, where we stopped going when Blockbuster came to town about 9 years ago. We grabbed the two DVD cases we wanted and went to the checkout. My name was still in their files, but that was it. Every other bit of info had to be re-entered. Once that was finished, ready to go, the clerk informed us that these were just the empty display cases, she needed the box with the DVD behind them. They weren’t on the shelf. Damn, they were already checked out. Disappointed we headed home for a dull afternoon inside the house. Part way home I made an unexpected right turn, I remembered the other Movie Gallery on the southside of town. We had never even been in this store before. At first we couldn’t even find what we wanted, but then there they were, behind the display cases were rent-able DVDs. Grinning from ear to ear, I handed the girl behind the counter my license and a credit card so I could open an account. We politely looked like we were listening to her spiel of the rules. We smiled attentive-like at her sales pitch for a rental gift card thing that could be had for $17.95 and was worth $24.95 before bolting for the door. We didn’t even feel the cool misty rain as we skipped back to the car.

Clutched in my hands were Season 1: Disc 3 & 4 of “Lost.”

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 32

Lost 35,000 Miles From Home

On the way to dinner out tonight the Emperor notched over the the 35,000 mile mark. Donna and I meet with two other couples for a meeting of the Fine Dining Round-table, a Boolean Subset of the MMC. We reconvened after a long holiday break at the last place we met back in October, Rae’s Coastal Cafe.

While tonight’s meal was good it didn’t live up to either October’s fest or our memory of it. Donna’s twin lobster tails were large and tasty, but my Cajun flounder, off the “specials” menu, was not that great. I’m thinking that maybe Chef Papou must have had the night off. The only thing that saved it was I spread some of the hot sauce that came with John’s Jerk Chicken Meal.

About 12:30 this afternoon the postal delivery person filled our mailbox with a bunch of charitable come ons and Season 1: Disc 2 of “Lost.” We spent the next 3-1/2 hours of a beautiful sunny warm January afternoon inside on the couch riveted by the escapades of 46 individuals stranded on a uncharted Pacific isle.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 32

Pop Top

Back in October the Miata Club received an unsolicited email advertising something called a California Pop Top. They were offering Club members a 10% discount and if we did a group buy they would ship all to the same address for the cost of shipping one. Seemed like a good deal, but we had no takers. I know I’m the only regular user of a cockpit cover in the Club since Russ defected to the Black Forrest, but I was not interested because we had just replaced our aging unit about a month earlier. One other member did express a slight interest, so I told him if he bought let me know as I wanted to see if this thing worked as advertised. He never did buy on.

Fast forward to two weeks ago. Our new car cover mounted a different than our previous one and we never really got used to it. It might have been operator error but the hold down hooks kept falling off the wheel wells randomly. Donna asked about that one we had heard about before and maybe we should look at getting one. I wrote the contact at California Pop Top to see if the deal was still valid. Yep. I wrote the other individual who expressed a slight interest to see if he wanted in on the deal. Yep. Ordered them Sunday, shipped Monday and arrived yesterday.

I have put it on and taken it off twice as practice in the garage. Way radical. The first time was tricky, the second time went smoother, but it didn’t seem to cover the back of the cockpit as well as the others. Left a little sliver of opening exposed. Reading the instructions I think that is from me not pulling the cords in the back tight enough. I need more practice.

The Pop Top is made of Tyvek so it is lighter and more compact than either of the two previous cockpit covers I’ve owned. I like it that it is more of a one person job than the earlier ones too. The others could be done by one, but it took a couple passes to get it lined up and locked down right. Donna likes the one person aspect too. It is also supposed to fit top up or down, so if it turns out to be real easy I can use it nearly every time I park for an extended period of time.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 32

Yeah, Go Baby!

The local High School is only about a mile from my house and because ours is a nice quiet neighborhood the track team uses it as part of their training runs a couple times a week. Tonight I passed several groups of runners in both directions on my rollerblading excursion.

On the way to the Odell Weeks track for my middle mile loop I passed from behind a small group of guys who I smiled at as if to say, “I may be old, but I’m faster than you.” Which is easy if you are on eight wheels instead of two sneakers.

On the way back from my loop I came across a group of a half dozen girls. We were traveling in opposite directions on the same side of the street, so I looked up as we approached so as to not bump into anyone. A cute brunette near the back made eye contact and and shouted, “Yeah, Go Baby!” I smiled to myself and thought, I still got it, 50 years-old and the chicks still swoon.

It was then that I remembered I was wearing a blue sweatshirt with large bright yellow letters that I bought at the gift shop on Annapolis a few years ago. She was saying. “Yeah, Go NAVY!”

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 30

Spamtastic

SpamtasticI HEART Gmail. And the spammers HEART my Gmail address. Items that are classified as spam get instantly tossed into the spam folder. Like most people, I’m guessing, no matter what spam defense you might have occasionally one sneaks through the net. In Gmail all I have to do is select the offending piece of junk and click on the button marked “Report Spam” and it gets put in the spam folder. The folder is self purging, anything that is in there with a date of 30 older than current gets sent into never-land. This afternoon I reached a new high in my spam folder – 1000.

That’s like 33-1/3 a day. Now that I write that out loud it doesn’t seem that impressive. I get nearly that many credit card offers daily in the snail mail! OK, kidding about that, but my work spam filter catches about 50 a day. Remind me to look in the morning and I’ll let you know how many under 30 day old spam letters I have there.