Finished up the images for my 2007 Emperor Calendar. It is titled Must Have Been Those 400 Acid Trips I Took because I have taken some of my photos of the Miata and ran them through a few different Paint Shop Pro filters to give them that slightly twisted look. See the Miata – 2007 Calendar gallery on the side bar a preview.
…but a new place to put my old Japanese license plate.
A co-worker has sort of inherited a Miata from a relative. It is a ’91 or ’92 and it had a bra on the front of it when he got it. Trouble was the bra was right over the top of the front license plate bracket. It was that way either to try and cover up the fact that the nose had dimples in it from the bracket being pushed into it or it was to cover that ugly bracket and it thereby caused the dimples. He removed the bra, but had to leave the brackets on to camouflage the dents. I told him if he was interested I had an idea to help cover those dents, he could have my replica Japanese license plate and mount it on the brackets. The holes I had put in the plate were non standard, so he would have to drill two new ones for mounting. When he did he could put them in spots that raise the plate and the dents would no longer visible.
Over the Thanksgiving weekend he put the plate on. For whatever reason he didn’t put the holes in the right spots because the top of the brackets and the dents are still visible. Sigh. I still think it looks good on the front of his car, but it would have looked a lot better if it was a touch higher. I guess if it really doesn’t matter to him, who am I to whine.
Here is a photo from the trip that with a little help almost isn’t dreck. It was underexposed and not very interesting, so I cranked up the contrast which washed out the colors. I then ran it through a sepia tone filter and viola, an old locomotive.
Most of the photos from the railroad roundhouse would look improved once run through a sepia filter. You know, I think if I work at it I can get 20 decent photos for an online vacation gallery, just don’t hold your breath waiting for it, OK?
It took me a couple hours of starring at the paperwork on my desk before I could decipher where I left off 10 days ago, but once I got my bearings it was off to the races and I had a fairly productive day. I hope the company doesn’t expect that everyday now…
I took about 114 photos on our trip to Florida and back, but most of them are dreck. The ones I took inside the aquarium came out blurry or dark. Because a flash would just reflect back off the glass I turned it off, so in the hand held shots (I steadied the camera against something) the fish appear as blurs because the little buggers won’t sit still. I took a few at the railroad roundhouse museum, but the light was wrong or the caution tape keeping you out of certain places was prominent in the frame… I think if I have ten worth posting in a gallery I’d be lucky, so I probably won’t bother.
Donna had a list of state parks that we were going to use as breaks by visiting on the trip down, but the weather was so cloudy, cold and windy that when we did venture out of the car, it was not for very long. On the way back the weather was a little nicer, so we did take a walk around a park in northern Florida. The most interesting photo from that was this tree that had a whole flock of woodpeckers on it:
Ate the end of yesterday’s drive we were one mile short of 1515 for the trip and the Emperor was just two miles shy of the 51k mark. We took care of the short coming on the way to the store for our weekly grocery shopping. Seems like we must be driving the heck out of this car recently as the mileage milestones are coming fast and furious. 51,000 – 11/26 • 50,000 – 11/21 • 49,000 – 11/08 • 48,000 – 10/28 Last November 14th we were just at 31,000…
Donna’s cough was a little better today and her voice didn’t crack but once. She still needs to talk to the doctor tomorrow because she should be getting over this by now. Of course the reason she might be feeling better is she has passed along some of those flu germs to me. Started feeling a little off last night and continued on to today. No cough or fever, but body aches, headache and a general out of sorts feeling. We have stayed pretty much indoors all day and both of us have caught naps on the couch twice. We are going to try and get to bed a little early too.
The photo was taken by Donna’s brother Steve as we got ready to leave for home on Friday afternoon.
After fifteen hundred fourteen miles in six and a half days, we are home again.
When we left last Sunday we ate breakfast on the way out of town at Aiken’s New Moon Cafe and as a nice bookend to the trip, our last meal on the road was a quesadilla for lunch at Statesboro, Georgia’s The Blue Moon. While I’m not really ready to call it a theorem, it is definitely a postulate: Moon=Good Food – to wit, any restaurant in the downtown area of a small to medium sized town with the word Moon in it’s name will serve good food in a funky hip kind of style.
I know someone who will never get a flu shot again. Tuesday before last Donna got a flu shot at work. Everyone told her it was a good idea because even though she is long finished with chemo and radiation, her immune system is probably in a weakened state. Nice theory, lousy execution.
The two days following the shot she felt pretty crappy and once that kind of cleared up she developed a cough. The cough is still hanging around 9 days later. Even with taking cough medicine the cough has been keeping her from getting a good night’s sleep. Without a good night’s sleep Donna has been feeling a little out of it. Not feeling up to spending 12 hours riding in the car on Saturday to get home, after lunch today we decided to head back to the hotel, pack our bags and get a few hours head start.
Our northward momentum petered out just south of Ocala, FL. When we unpacked the luggage tonight we realized that I was a couple pants shy a load (and a sweatshirt and some loungewear.) Ooops, Donna had packed the suitcases back in Stuart by emptying only the two top drawers of the dresser in our hotel room, not realizing that I had put some stuff in the bottom one too.
I called the hotel and explained the predicament to the clerk and she said she would leave a note for housekeeping to bring the clothes to the front desk. I then called my brother-in-law and begged him to go over to Stuart tomorrow and retrieve the baggage. I expressed the importance of getting these items back because one of them is my favorite Levi 501 jeans. These are the ones so are so broken in they are getting holes in places that make them almost unsuitable for public wearing, but the still have a long life ahead of them as “knock about the house” wear.