Year: 2006

Now That’s Scary

Candy!Tuesday, August 29th and the local supermarket has an aisle full of Halloween candy. It is more than 2 months away for criminy sakes.

What’s even scarier is that I got a message from my credit card company this afternoon asking me to call them about some questionable charges. They questioned 4 charges, two under ten dollars and a couple of over $300. They read me the names of the companies and I didn’t recognize them, either as anyone I have done business with or had ever heard of. They were all online charges and I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing they caught them using something along the lines of SPAM filtering. Anyway, that account is closed and a new one with card is being sent to me.

I have made several travel purchases in the last 10 days or so, but almost all were from reputable big companies. The timing was curious though, all the transactions were midday today which is just a bout 4 hours after I received my monthly email notification that my web host had hit that very same charge card. I wonder just how secure my CC data is with these folks? I would just pack up and leave, but they are the ones who registered the domain name mr-miata.net, so I’d lose that and y’all would be cast adrift in the rough seas of the internet until you found me again. If someday soon you come here and don’t find this blog, try lifeofbrian.com or mrmiata.com or some other variation on those themes…

I would do it in a heartbeat if WordPress was as easy export my posts from as Movable Type was.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 353

Hard At Work HTMLing

Self PortraitEntry submission into the “My Favorite Miata Picture” Contest 2 ended yesterday at noon. Nice little turn out of 58, compared to last year’s 44. The first pictured submitted was mine, it was there when I put up the page to begin with. The last one arrived with just 16 minutes to spare. So this evening was spent getting all the pages and scripts ready so people can vote for their favorite Favorite picture. You don’t have to have entered the contest to vote, so click on that link on Thursday and pick the one you like best. Right now I’m leaning towards voting for the last picture submitted which I think is the nicest, but I might just vote for the first one. 😉

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 352

All Jacked Up & No Place To Go

All Jacked UpWe did a little jean shopping this morning followed by a lunch ribs at Tony Roma’s. This afternoon was spent changing the oil and rotating the tires.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 350

Andy Jones

Andy JonesWashed the car this morning in preparation for today’s MMC gathering for the Sno-Cap Drive In’s 42nd Anniversary. We had a pretty decent showing of cars, six, but all of us were late arrivals, so we were beat to the shady spots under the awning by the Corvettes and the VWs.

I was a few minutes late because I stopped for an impromptu photo shoot at the empty Andy Jones car dealer lot. Andy Jones opened a Mazda dealership in Aiken a year or so after I bought my first Miata. A couple years later they moved 15 miles west to this shop in North Augusta. Now they have packed up and moved 20 miles further west to Augusta, GA.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 348

Welcome Mr. Bond

Cancer Death RayYou will be strapped to a table and your cancer cells will meet their doom from blasts of my special death ray.

Because Donna’s skin was getting very red and sunburned looking, with even a couple of small blisters forming, her doctor decided to give her a slight break from the total breast irradiation. So, since Wednesday, they have been doing some of the seven scheduled “direct on the spot where the tumor used to be” treatments. For these treatments, instead of just the regular output they add some extensions with metal plates that act as lens to focus the beam on just one spot.

I went along with Donna for her radiation treatment again today and I watched them do the setup. I only took the one photo of the radiation machine, I’d have liked to taken one or two with Donna laying there all ready to go, but because of the nudity the MPAA would slap me with an R-Rating. 🙂

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 347

RIP Pluto

Good Morning If I had a really, really long telephoto lens and it wasn’t daytime, you could possibly see the ex-ninth planet in this photo.

For last weekend’s Bug Splat rally everyone places a green Avery dot on their car in hopes of winning the fabulous “Closest to the Dot” prize. I played along and put one on the front bumper on the driver’s side about headlight level, but splatted no insect anywhere near it. Raise your hand if you are still driving around with a green dot on your car. Just me then?

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 345

My World Is Empty Without You Babe

Emptiness I had been sharing my cubicle/workspace with college kid/summer help, Adam, since May, but he is gone now and the silence has been deafening. Now it is echoing.

A few days before Adam left ASCO’s employ, the Department Manager and the IT guy showed up and asked, “Your last day is Friday the 11th, right?” Adam assumed that they were coming to say nice working with you, you’ve been a big help, come back next time, etc. His bubble was popped when the IT guy said, “That PC should work.” The manager said, “I’ll get Maintenance to move the desk on Saturday.”

Seems the new departmental Industrial Engineer was starting on Monday and they needed some stuff so the FNG wouldn’t come in to an empty cubicle. Turns out the new IE doesn’t start until this Monday, so the PC got moved last Friday and Maintenance didn’t come to get the desk until today. For good measure those guys also grabbed the side table and the trash can. They left behind only a chair and lots of dust.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 344