Month: August 2006

Fab Fours

444441 – Four is the only number in the English language for which the number of letters in its name is equal to the number itself. 2 – People have four canines, four incisor and four wisdom teeth. 3 – Four is considered an unlucky number in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures because it sounds like the word “death.”
4 – In tarot, card No. 4 is “the Emperor.”

The cockpit of the Miata is a warm place to be. A known issue is the fresh air venting. It draws air from the cowl area and by the time it gets from there to the interior of the car it is considerably warmer than the outside air. I’ve tried nearly all the suggestions on Miata.net, but the air is still warm. Some one on the forum did something about it and created this neat little air scoop thing that mounts on the windshield header when the top is down. Maybe next spring we will invest in one of the Cool Breeze Scoops, $41 with shipping.

For now I have invested $25 in solving the other source of unwanted interior heat, the transmission tunnel. The exhaust pipe and premuffler run right along underneath the tunnel on the driver’s side and after an hour or so of driving you can toast Pop Tarts between the tunnel and the driver’s seat cushion. This morning I pulled the seats and console out of the Emperor out. I folded back the carpet, so I could line the transmission tunnel and for good measure most of the floor pan with Reflectix using shiny foil duct tape. It took a couple hours to cut and tape around the seat mounting points, E-brake, a couple of wiring harnesses and the rubber shift boot.

Speaking of shift boots, mine was cracked/ripped and this also lets in heat big time. Not only was the large inside boot in need of replacing, but the smaller boot that seals the transmission turret to the shifter was blown as well. This is another reason the Cool Breeze Scoop will wait, it’ll cost $46 to buy replacements for both these rubber pieces.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 307

Hawaiian Shirt Day

Hawaiian Shirt DayEver since I found some cheap Hawaiian shirts on sale for $15 at Goody’s last year, I bought three, I’ve been wearing them on Fridays during the summer. This year when ever some one says something about the shirt, I ask if they got the memo. “What memo?”, they ask. That Friday is “Hawaiian Shirt Day,” I reply.

It is starting to work, more and more Hawaiian shirts are showing up on Fridays. I think the high was 5 two weeks ago. Today, two out of three of the Fabrication Engineers had their Luau Wear on. To make the plain shirted engineer feel like he was part of the fun, I let him take the picture. From left to right: Greg, yours truly and Chris.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 305

Looks Like Red Is A Popular Color

Miata Club Meeting Tonight was the August edition of the MMC Monthly Meeting. We met at a NASCAR themed restaurant, Kinsey’s Auto Grille, in downtown Augusta that would like to be known as a BBQ joint. They have been in business since May and are still somewhat behind the learning curve when it comes to running a restaurant. The food was terrific when it got to the table…

We told them that we would have 12 to 20 and we split the difference with 16 people in attendance. They only had two waitresses to run the whole restaurant and it wasn’t enough because there were about 2 dozen other folks there to go along with us. The was a big buffet set up in the back and we had to plead with our server to tell us about it. French fries arrived cold. Orders arrived backwards from when they were placed and one got lost entirely. We might give them a try in a few months and see if they have gotten better.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 304

At Least I Thought It Was Great Idea

Cancer Care InstituteThe other day I realized that I wasn’t using my camera anymore, it was just riding around in the cargo net in the trunk. The honeymoon was over. Then I had an idea (watch it, I know what you’re thinking), I would take one picture a day for every day in August. This way when I blogged in the evening describing my mundane day, there would be a mundane picture to help you really get a feel for how my life is being carried out. After all this thing is called “Life of Brian.”

Yesterday’s photo was supposed to be of the local used bookstore where we stopped on the way home and I selected 5 fiction paperbacks to read. I forgot to take the picture. You would have think I would have been reminded to do so when I plopped the books into the trunk, because the camera would have been plainly visible. But noooo.

This afternoon Donna was feeling a bit worn out, so I volunteered to drive her to her radiation treatment and then take her home. While she was inside getting zapped I took my camera and walked to the edge of the property and took a couple of close-up snaps of the Cancer Care Institute sign with the building in the background. Tonight I put the camera in the cradle and hit the download button. Selected the directory, as always I checked the remove from device box and hit go. Everything looked normal until the EasyShare Gallery software loaded and today’s pictures were not where they were supposed to be. Searched the hard drive to see if they went somewhere else, nope. I picked the camera up out of the dock and the LCD screen said, “Memory Card Needs Formatting. Proceed or Cancel.” I hit cancel thinking maybe I can salvage the pictures tomorrow at work.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 301

Through the Magic That is Pre-dating…

Booklovers…I give you the August 1st picture. Today (8/25) was another trip to the bookstore and I remembered the camera in the trunk this time. I picked up for paperback books to read, Donna snagged two and we bought a new book for the “Baby to be Named Later” out in Snohomish.

I had a good time rummaging through several boxes of books on the floor that were as yet unshelved. I even picked one I know I’ve read before, Rumpole’s Last Case, because we have been watching “A Touch of Frost” DVDs and that British show has left me with a hankering for Horace’s adventures down at the Ol’ Bailey.

How Was Your Day?

At lunch I needed to go fill up the car with gas, so the low fuel light wouldn’t come on while Donna was on the way to or way back from her radiation treatment. Donna just hates that light. I do too because she reminds me that it is one of my few jobs to keep the car adequately supplied with the necessary provisions and that light is a shiny reminder of my failure. It is not like I am ever far away from a place to refuel, there is a station at every other corner in town, but I always seem to find a reason to avoid it. So I popped out and ran just down the street from work to a station and filled up ($30 worth at $3.02 a gallon.) I used the lane marked Express Pay for people who use credit cards only. Swiped the card and pumped the gas and then my least favorite thing in the whole world happened, that’s right, the LED display said “RECEIPT INSIDE.” %$#&

I was supposed to mail out a box to someone today. I didn’t go at lunch because of the other above mentioned errand, so I stopped at the Post Office on the way home from work. The line was out the door. I didn’t have time, so I’ll try again tomorrow.

We went out tonight to get a couple gift cards for a co-worker’s upcoming wedding. First stop was Lowes where Donna’s department had decided to get their group gift from. Snagged a card near the front of the store and got in line. There were only two check-outs open and both lines were pretty long, so we picked one and waited a bit. It was moving so slow that the word glacial wouldn’t cover it. Peeking down the line you could see the trouble, the cashier couldn’t scan anything on the first or second swipes and if it happened on the third try she was lucky. We put the card down and exited the store in a huff.

We got back in the car and drove across the street to Target to get a card from us personally. When we walked by the check-out area there were only two lines open and they were pretty long. So we picked some greeting cards that we needed and headed back to the cashiers. We were about to leave here too when they opened a 10 items or less line that we managed to get in at the number 2 spot.

We zipped back across the street to Lowes to see if the lines had died down. Unfortunately we thought they were open until 10 PM, but Monday through Thursday it is only 9:00 PM. That point was driven home by the click of the front doors as the red vested employee closed them while we were still 100 feet away.

The FRS lost to Cleveland and the Yankees beat Toronto, so what didn’t happen last night, did 24 hours later, the Red Sox are percentage points out of the division lead.

Not a lot went right for me today, but at least my spouse didn’t die. I’m so sorry Lillian, we will all miss Bob and I know all the grief that all of us who knew him are feeling put together can’t equal what you are going through now…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 300