Year: 2006

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.

Pod People

You know they are among us. Just waiting for the right moment. How do they know who is one of them already? I know they can smell each other, but when they are driving cars, how do they know? Donna and figured it out tonight:

They only have one headlight working.

(For sun up recognition, it is one Daytime Running Light working and they seem to have a propensity for Chevy/GMC pickups and SUVs.)

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 28

South Carolina Math Test

SHOW ALL WORK!

  1. Calculate the smallest limb diameter on a persimmon tree that will support a 10 pound possum.
  2. Which of these cars will rust out the quickest when placed on blocks in your front yard?
    (A) ’65 Ford Fairlane ( B) ’69 Chevrolet Chevelle (C) ’64 Pontiac GTO.
  3. If your uncle builds a still which operates at a capacity of 20 gallons of shine produced per hour, how many car radiators are required to condense the product?
  4. A woodcutter has a chainsaw which operates at 2700 RPM. The density of the pine trees in the plot to be harvested is 470 per acre. The plot is 2.3 acres in size. The average tree diameter is 14 inches. How many Budweisers will be drunk before the trees are cut down?
  5. A front porch is constructed of 2×8 pine on 24-inch centers with a field rock foundation. The span is 8 feet and the porch length is 16 feet. The porch floor is 1-inch rough sawn pine. When the porch collapses, how many dogs will be killed?
  6. A man owns a house and 3.7 acres of land in a hollow with an average slope of 15%. The man has five children. Can each of his grown children place a mobile home on the man’s land and still have enough property for their electric appliances to sit out front?
  7. A 2-ton truck is overloaded and proceeding 900 yards down a steep slope on a secondary road at 45 MPH. The brakes fail. Given average traffic conditions on secondary roads, what is the probability that it will strike a vehicle with a muffler?
  8. With a gene pool reduction of 7.5% per generation, how long will it take a town which has been bypassed by the Interstate to breed a country-western singer?

Now I’m Lost

Totally lost! One of my wife’s co-workers talked her into wanting to see “Lost.” I heard the buzz about the show last year, but I’m not into TV much anymore, so I never watched it. I added Season 1: Disc 1 to the Netflix queue and it arrived today.

So instead of watching Rachel Ray cook on “30 Minute Meals” as usual with supper, we watched part one of the pilot episode. A couple of leaps of faith were required right in the begining, besides the whole plunge from 40,000 feet and living part, but it wasn’t too bad. So we watched part two, then the next episode and the next. Before you know it we were through the whole DVD. Helps that each episode is only 40 minutes long without the commercials. So now if you look at my rental queue to the right, you will see the rest of the “Lost” discs in a row.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 26

A Picture Is Worth A 1,000 Words

And sometimes a good chuckle.

Inside the Miata’s Birth Announcement was a photograph of the proud father and his new baby. Check that pose, I guess that was what I thought was cool. Looks a little too much like an awkward teen aged boy who “just happened” to be hanging around the malt shop hoping to get noticed by that car load of cheerleaders.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 25