Month: February 2008

Happy Anniversary

Horse Drawn CarriageTonight was the 15th Anniversary Dinner for the Master’s Miata Club. As usual we all got dressed up nice and went to a “fancy” restaurant. While the attendance total was right around the usual level, but percentage-wise it was probably the highest it has ever been because of the shrinkage of the membership rolls.

This year we dined at 6th & Watkins. Nice place, great food and a fun event. Some of the discussion at our table centered around the so-called Club’s Anniversary Dinner jinx in which the restaurant that has hosted our dinner has fallen on bad times not too long after we dine there. We have “killed” at least two places, one went bankrupt and changed hands and one had a big fire. We then tried to name all the places we have held an anniversary dinner and came to the conclusion that we don’t have the memory capacity we did when the club was first formed.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 53

Was There An MX-5 In Cargo Hold Of Oceanic 815?

Yunjin KimActress Yunjin Kim plays, Sun-Hwa Kwon, one half of a married Korean couple on Lost. This photo and a brief interview appeared in last Sunday’s Daily Mail. While I like that particular color of the car, I think they missed the boat, it should have been white and they should have replaced the Mazda Flying M with the DHARMA logo. Maybe even replaced the text Mazda with the words “Dharma Initiative” and the script Miata with the words “Sports Car.”

Here is a blurb from the interview:

But I really love this Mazda MX-5. It’s so cute. It would be great around town and it’s perfect for somewhere like Hawaii, a sporty runaround – just put the roof down and off you go. I feel I’ve bonded with it.

You can read the rest here.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 52

A Kick In The Pants

Router Since Saturday our internet connection has been problematic. Sometimes it was dial-up slow, others it would take 2 attempts to get to a web site and sometimes it seemed to be browser specific. I wanted to blame the cable company, you know take the easy way out, but before I made a fool of my self I decided to try a couple things.

I cleaned out my internet temp files. I cleaned out the hard drives temp files. Both were substantial. I defragged. Tonight I figured I better eliminate the router from the equation, and that turned out to be the problem. When I hooked a Cat 5 cable from modem to PC, things flew with nary a hiccup. I downloaded a firmware upgrade, reset the unit to it’s default settings, set it back up from scratch and once again we can watch streaming video with aplomb.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 51

73,000 Pieces of Hair

Haircut DayTonight was our every four week haircut appointment. Because one of the stylist’s other appointments didn’t make it in both Donna and I got got taken care earlier than we expected. Which left us enough time for her to make a Pampered Chef party over in Augusta. I drove her over and stayed behind at John & Carol’s house while she and Carol proceeded to go to the “party.” Soon John and I were joined by exiled husband of the hostess of the party. John grilled burgers and us guys hung out, chatting about guy things and watch the History Channel show, Modern Marvels: “Trucks.”

On the way back from Augusta, somewhere on I-20, the Emperor hit the 73,000 mile mark.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 51

Fog

FogHad to use the fog lights this morning to get to work. Not that the fog lights on the Emperor are that great, but at least then I could see the road ahead of me. The first five feet of it anyway. When the fog is this thick you can get a real good idea of the sharpness of the cutoff of the projector low beams of the 2001+ Miatas. It was a slow trip in.

Via links in The Lost Forum I have downloaded the first 4 episodes of this season of Lost. I guess someone hacked into their DVRs and uploaded the files of the HDTV broadcast. Each episode is around 350 Megabytes and looks like about 640 x 360 native, which still looks pretty darn good on my PC when played full screen. I’m looking into turning them into DVDs that I can play on the living room TV instead of Donna and I having to cozy up to the laptop…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 50

Quicksand

QuicksandLet’s see, it rained most of Wednesday and it rained cats and dogs on Thursday, today is Sunday, it should be safe. It was, we only sunk in up to our insteps.

I wonder how Miles is doing with that hand grenade in his mouth? I wonder if his jaws getting are tired yet.

It has been 78 days, but we have once again broken out the state map with the colored dots on it. Next weekend we are going on the first Postal Safari of 2008.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 48

Used Books

Used BooksWe went to Booklovers today and I picked up five new reads. It is hard to pick out books, seems like I’ve read them all already, or maybe it is because the three paragraph blurb on the back on all of them sound exactly the same, there must be one guy writing them all. Kind of like that Movie Announcer Guy. To make it easier next time, I’m bringing a list.

In past years I’ve given a blow by blow accounting of my Girl Scout Cookie consumption, this year it will be different. I am letting you know that 14 boxes were delivered to our door today. I will mention them again just one more time, when the last cookie is gone. On a sad note, this year they are not selling Lemon Coolers. They have been replaced by Lemon Chalet Cremes and while I’m sure these are a fine snack, to me they will pale in comparison to the Coolers.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 48