Month: April 2007

Spontaneous Debadging

The Emperor has been surviving on sponge baths, AKA Meguiars Quik Detailer, for a while now, but today after work I gave him a proper washing. Then I decided to lay a coat of wax on there too. I used some Meguiars paste cleaning wax I had under the cabinet. Looks a whole lot better now, but the finish doesn’t feel baby butt smooth. Maybe tomorrow when I get home from work I’ll put another layer of wax on. I have a bottle of something else under there, I think it is called Black Magic and maybe that is what I used last time. If one layer is good, two have got to be better. Right?

While I was taking off the wax, getting it off around the edges of the chrome Mazda logo on the back end, it came loose and one side fell down. The badge is held on by 2 pins and one was broke, so I pulled the badge off the car. There are usually these fancy one way push washers on the pins, but there wasn’t one on the non broken pin and there was some adhesive behind the lettering holding the badge on. What the heck, I might as well take off the MX-5 Miata badge on the other side too. On my ’95 the Mazda was held on by two pins, like this one, and the Miata was just held on by double stick tape. I went in the house and got a piece of dental floss to “saw” through the adhesive. The floss broke three times in about the same spot. That is when I realized on the ’03 the MX-5 Miata badge was held on by two pins as well. I wrapped a screwdriver in a rag and pried off the badge. Turns out it was held on by no adhesive and only one push on washer.

I now have 2 small holes on both sides of the license plate. With the dark color car they are hardly noticeable, but I think I may fill them in with something and then use touch up paint to hide them better. When I debadged the rear on the ’95 I replaced both badges with hand cut replicas made of blue reflective vinyl. The blue on blue was very subtle in the day but really stood out at night when headlights hit them.

Now, as I write this, I know why the badges were held on so haphazardly. The body shop weasels did it when they repaired my little trunk bender from last year. The adjuster put in the cost of new badges when he did the estimate. Satcher Ford’s Body Shop reused the old badges and charged the insurance company for new ones.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 135

Mmmm Mmmuffins

Miataless Post OfficeWe bought this morning’s breakfast from the New Moon Cafe after yesterday’s hike, a low fat Blueberry muffin for her and a Raspberry Coconut muffin for him (which we ended up splitting 50-50.)

Meal Cost: $2.65
Tip: 35¢
Spent This Meal: $3.00

After breakfast we tried to make up for the last 3 weeks on non-activity in the Post Office quest by heading to the capital city of the Great State of South Carolina and getting a photo of all 13 POs. Mission accomplished. The only Post Office not accounted for that lists Columbia as the city is the one on the Army base, Fort Jackson. (They have an Open House on the 18 & 19 of May for Armed Forces Day so we might try and sneak in then.)

A few years back a favored Sunday lunch spot was an Italian fast food chain called Fazoli’s, but they closed up shop here in Aiken and we have missed eating their food quite often since then. Well, Columbia has two Fazoli’s and both are close to some of our destination Post Offices, so we thought it might be a treat to eat there for lunch. I guess our memories have been colored by time (or maybe it was this particular restaurant) because it didn’t seem worth the trip. The Twice Baked Ziti with Hearty Meat Sauce was good and the bread sticks were practically dripping in butter, but the salad and the dressing left a lot to be desired. I had a fountain Coke and Donna had water.

Meal Cost: $10.76
Tip: None
Spent This Meal: $10.76
Spent Today: $13.38
Year to Date: $923.03

Five out of six isn’t half bad. As a matter of fact it is 83% good. After looking lackluster on Fox yesterday the FRS came out swinging against the dreaded Yankees today and came out on top of a 7 to 4 score. Big Papi contributed a homer, as did the coming out of his funk Manny Rameriz, but those guys are expected to smack the long ball. A nice bonus was a homer from our utility infielder Alex Cora. Now we have 19 warm up games until we come back to the “House That Ruth Built” on the 21st of May.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 133

57,000 Little Purple Flowers

FlowerWe went for a hike in the Woods this morning. In our quest to walk on all the trails in there we entered in a different spot than usual and purposely walked on some trails that really didn’t go anywhere special, just looped and/or spurred out along the edges. We did stumble on the big field that was full of these little purple wildflowers (botanists feel free to let me know what they might be.)

For lunch Donna had a hankering for Mexican so we headed over to our new favorite place for that regional cuisine, Maria’s. We got the usual Carnitas and forgetting that we really didn’t need them, 3 hard shell tacos. Sierra Mist to drink for the lady and I had ice water.

Meal Cost: $15.27
Tip: $2.73
Spent Today: $18.00
Year to Date: $909.27

On the short 1-1/2 mile drive back from Maria’s the Emperor ticked past the 57,000 mile mark. To make up for passing that major milestone on such a short trip, tonight when we went grocery shopping we took the 28 mile longcut to the store that is only a mile away.

I found this cool place on the web that will create just the right striped background image for you, Stripe Generator 2.0, now I just wish this template wasn’t so confounded complex so I could add some stripes here.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 130

Small Pickup

StuffedFinally hosed off the screened porch this evening. Even with a good vacuuming, the cushions on the patio furniture still looked a little yellow. Plus they were also getting a little tired looking. Hey, this is the furniture we have had out there since we built the deck back in 2000. A command decision was made to go to Lowe’s and buy some new cushions.

We got about a 1/4 of the way there when Donna asked had we determined whether we needed mid back or high back cushions. I made a U-turn and we came back home to measure our existing cushions. They were 46″ long, high back.

We had pre-shopped online the other day and had picked out some cushions we liked, now we hoped that our local store had enough of what we wanted in stock. We have a big table for 6, a chaise lounge and two rocker/swivel chairs, meaning we need 8 seat cushions and one chaise cushion. We were in luck as they had just 8 of the chair cushions and a bunch of the chaise cushions. We picked this pattern because it is reversible and we could use one side for the six chairs at the table and use the other side for the chaise rocker grouping.

All those cushions take up a lot of space. Mmmm, should we call our friend with a pickup or our neighbor with a pickup. Ooops, forgot the cell phone. I am fond of saying that the Miata is as good as a pickup on a sunny day and now it is time to see just how true that is. I was disappointed. I could only get 5 chair cushions and the chaise cushion in the car, so I had to make 2 trips. If I had a couple of bungee cords I probably could have gotten all the cushions in and on the car, but I still would have had to make two trips because I would have had to go back to get the wife.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 130

Imagine

What Would Yoko Say?“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one.”

Right now I’m working at my ripping CDs project and listening to the FRS come from behind to whoop up on the Baltimore Orioles. I’ve almost got one shelf of the ten total done and I’m up to Bogguss, Suzy.

I’m still leaking copious amounts of Brain Lubricant, but I made it all the way through the work day without the overwhelming desire to take a nap. I made it all the past dinner before having to catch 20 winks.

When I woke up Fox News was in the middle of wall to wall coverage of a low speed chase in LA, some knucklehead in a stolen car was leading cops and news helicopters around town. At one point, riding on nothing but the rims, the “suspect” did several doughnuts in the middle of an intersection leaving nicely marked up asphalt in his wake. When they finally stopped him, he immediately hit the ground flat and about 20 LEOs pounced on him. I’m sure it would have caused a big uproar in the media, but I was actually hoping they would beat the crap out of him for being so stupid.

Uploaded the other 24 photos from the northeast trip, but I’ve still only got captions on about eight. I’d better get busy because 4 weeks from tomorrow we are off to the other side of the country for 10 days.

The screened porch is still covered in a layer of pine pollen and my hope is to get out there after work tomorrow and wash it off.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 126

Toilet Seat Condom

I ran into something I had never seen before at that Italian restaurant in Jersey from last night’s post. My wife tells me she has seen a bunch of them, but maybe because most of the time I’m using a different appliance and there is no need for something like that for what I use.

Didn’t use it here either, but the door was open so I noticed the device and was intrigued. I just had to try it out. Wave your hand over a sensor and a fresh tube of plastic wrap is automatically pulled out of one side and dragged around to the other side, covering the toilet seat. Just a whirring noise and it looks like a snake molting its skin or something.

Ladies, I guess you have already seen this thing, but guys maybe pictures are better than my stumbling words: Sani-Seat.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 126

Love Me Do

Paul's in the NationLeft over story from our northeast visit: After the service for Donna’s aunt the family gathered at a nice Italian restaurant in Summit, NJ, where we were served a five course meal. Donna and I sat at kind of the “kids” table with the youngest cousin, her husband and their young daughter, a couple of family friends and the daughters of the middle two cousins, Susan’s two girls Meghan 14, Jessica 12 and Mary’s 14 year-old Kristen. When they came around taking drink orders those three girls to my right ordered Shirley Temples, I had a glass of red wine and for fun Donna ordered a Shirley Temple too. I’m not to sure who started it, might have been Jessica, but the girls decided to see if they could take their cherry stems and tie them into a knot in their mouths using just their tongues.

Meghan was the only one of the three to actually accomplish the feat, we of course applauded her success. If I was her father I’m not so sure that I’d have been that proud and I would have definitely instructed her not to demonstrate that talent on a date with a hormonally charged teenager.

Arri’s Grill for supper. Two 1/3 lb hand formed patties of ground chuck served with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, mayo and mustard. We split an order of fries.

Meal Cost: $10.37
Tip: None
Spent Today: $10.37
Year to Date: $891.27

I’ve got a 485 CD collection that is rarely used anymore. Matter of fact, if it wasn’t for the rental car the other week and the one we’ll be driving out west in another month they wouldn’t ever leave the shelves they sit on. So I have decided to rip them all into MP3s and store ’em on my hard drive. I’ve done about 30 so far, but I haven’t really been applying myself to the project. I mean if I do get them done, what do I do with all that plastic? Maybe I can find somebody to wholesale ’em to about 50¢ a piece…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 126