Month: April 2008

3/4 The Same

I swapped the inserts on the vanity faucet and now three fourths of the bathroom faucets work the same — in is on and out is off.

The instructions for installing these units actually specify that they work the way they did yesterday, so Mr. Contractor had installed them right. What about the shower/tub faucets? Were they installed right? Who knows, I didn’t save those instructions, but I’m betting they were installed just the way the Price Pfister wanted them. So why would they turn the opposite way from sinks? I guess we’ll never know.

Started down, went up, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 134

76,000 Nitpicks

The contractor is done. Well, all except for he’ll be back next week sometime to install the bottom molding around on the outside of the new walls of the small bathroom. He left behind a few little things that need to be taken care of, might be easier for me to go ahead and take care of them, but I might just leave them for his return. There is one part of the bathroom wall that didn’t get totally smoothed out, probably missed it because it is hidden by the usually open door. The light fixture above the mirror was wobbly and I asked him to tighten it down, but it didn’t get done ( I fixed it tonight.) There is a crack in the grout in the corner seam of the stand up shower, that he touched up today with just some success.

The one that is most noticeable was not within his control. We bought Price Pfister porcelain cross handled faucets for both showers and one for the bathroom sink in the big bathroom for two reasons, 1) we like the look and 2) they would match our already existing faucet in the small bathroom. The existing one works in a manner such that you turn both knobs counter-clockwise for on and clockwise for off. We were thrown for a loop when we started to use the new shower in the small bathroom. This set works by turning the cold counter-clockwise for on and the hot clockwise for on. Now in the newly completed big bathroom at least the shower/unit controls are identical to the ones in the shower of the other bathroom, but incredibly the vanity faucets are just the opposite of the shower units, you turn the cold clockwise for on and the hot counter-clockwise. So now we have to learn how to operate 4 separate faucets in three different manners. I hope I don’t scold something important.

Today on the way home from work the Emperor reached the 122,310km (76,000 mile) plateau.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 132

New Truck

One day Jim Bob was walking down Main Street when he saw his buddy Bubba driving a brand new pickup. Bubba pulled up to him with a wide grin.

“Bubba, where’d you git that truck?!?”

“Tammie Joe gived it to me,” Bubba replied.

“She gived it to ya? I know’d she wuz kinda sweet on ya’ll but a new truck?”

“Well, Jim Bob let me tell you wut’ happened. We wuz drivin’ out on County Road 6, in the middle of nowheres. Tammie Joe pulled off the road, put the truck in 4X4 wheel drive, and headed into the woods. She parked the truck, got out, threw off all her clothes and said, ‘Bubba, ya’ll take whatever you want.'”

“So I took the truck!”

“Bubba, yore a smart man! Them clothes woulda never fit you!”

Nearing The Finish

Almost finished. The contractor has a couple spots to touch up and the mirror to hang and he is done in the second bath. Now it is up to me to finish up with painting, etc. We think we are going to go with a green in here on a similar note to the blue in the other bathroom. The existing border is coming down and the bright green on the window frame will be painted over in white.

Donna and I are off this weekend to the GA mountains. We are sharing a cabin with two other couples we know from the Miata Club. If we are back in the cabin on Saturday evening early enough we are going to watch a movie. Even though I think it will be nearly impossible to pick a movie that everyone will like, I volunteered to try. I asked everyone to send me a list of two movies that were either their favorite movie or something that if they stumbled on it on TV they would watch it the rest of the way no matter what they were watching or doing before. So far all three ladies have complied. One guy (me) has offered up his two picks, one only gave me one movie title and number three has been not submitted anything yet. Here is the list so far (in no particular order):

  1. My Cousin Vinny
  2. Dirty Dancing
  3. The Fugitive
  4. Something’s Gotta Give
  5. Titanic
  6. Ocean’s 11, 12 or 13
  7. Pirates of the Caribbean
  8. Pretty Woman
  9. Bullit

I have asked a couple folks at work for suggestions of movies that have some action, some comedy, a bunch of romance with a car or boat chase. Here are the their and my suggestions (once again in no particular order):

  1. For Love of the Game
  2. Bonnie & Clyde
  3. Milk Money
  4. Out of Sight

Any other ideas?

I searched the internet for movie recommendation sites, but they all required rating a ton of movies before spitting out personal recommendations. What I really need is something along the lines of Pandora radio for movies. Maybe I should open a new Netflix account and just rate these 9 movies and see what it recommends…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 132

She’s Not Using That Either?

The wife came home early and found her husband in their bedroom making love to a very attractive young woman.

“You disrespectful pig!” she cried. “How dare you do this to me…a faithful wife, the mother of your children! I’m leaving you.. I want a divorce!”

He replied, “Hang on just a minute, so at least I can tell you what happened.”

“Fine, go ahead”, she sobbed , “but they’ll be the last words you’ll say to me!”

So he began – “Well, I was getting into the car to drive home and this young lady here asked me for a lift. She looked so down and out and defenseless that I took pity on her and let her into the car. I noticed that she was very thin, not well dressed and very dirty. She told me that she hadn’t eaten for three days! So, in my compassion, I brought her home and warmed up the enchiladas I made for you last night, the ones you wouldn’t eat because you’re afraid you’ll put on weight.

The poor thing devoured them in moments. Since she needed a good clean-up I suggested a shower, and while she was doing that I noticed her clothes were dirty and full of holes so I threw them away.

Then, as she needed clothes, I gave her the designer jeans that you have had for a few years, but don’t use because you say they are too tight.. I also gave her the underwear that was your anniversary present, which you don’t use because I don’t have good taste.

I found the sexy blouse my sister gave you for Christmas that you don’t use just to annoy her, and I also donated those boots you bought at the expensive boutique and don’t use because someone at work has the same pair.”

He took a quick breath and continued – “She was so grateful for my understanding and help and as I walked her to the door she turned to me with tears in her eyes and said,

“Please … Do you have anything else that your wife doesn’t use?”

How Not To Rally

We read and understood the instructions, at least we thought we did. Take a look at the scan of the instructions (click to zoom), I think you can read them pretty good.

All but the first few instructions consist of a picture, a direction (right or left) and a number. The number represents the opportunity after the picture at which you should turn in the direction specified. … Pictured objects may be on either side of the road. Opportunities: Paved streets and roads on the same side as your next turn are opportunities. Dead-end or “no outlet” streets or roads, if paved are opportunities. Driveways, entrances to parking lots, and unpaved streets or roads are not opportunities. Opportunities are reset by a numbered instruction.

What we both knew would be trouble was the way the photos were to be followed. On the front there were two rows of three, the back consisted of 3 rows of 3 columns and you were supposed to read them the way they are numbered, in columns.

For a change of pace this time, Donna drove and I acted as navigator, she wanted me to experience the pressure of responsibility instead of just whistling while I drove. We left the start point first brimming with confidence.

We spotted our first picture with ease after exiting the interstate and then the trouble began. I started counting opportunities when the driver questioned my counting method, ie. she wanted to know why we weren’t counting on both sides of the street. While I explained my interpretation of the rules to her she kept driving. During this brief interlude I could not maintain 100% vigilance on opportunity counting. Uh-oh, 4 miles into the event and we were already in a cloud of uncertainty.

We arrived at a major intersection which seemed to be a natural spot for our turn, but I was only at 6 and we needed to take the 7th turn. We turned anyway. After driving about 5 miles we started to worry, we had not yet spotted the next clue, a water tower. Was that opportunity 6 we turned at instead of the correct #7? We agreed to go to the top of the next rise and if there was no tower we would turn around. Well there was no tower so Donna did a u-turn. Half way back to the scene of our supposed mistake we passed car #2 going in the opposite direction (the one we used to be traveling in.) We have finished 2nd or 3rd to the couple in this car the last 2 years. The uncertainty clouds just thickened a bit.

Pressing on, hoping that they miscounted too, when we got to the spot where we turned, we took a left and started looking for what might be the 7th left opportunity. We passed a lot of dirt roads, a few driveways and we also passed going in the opposite direction from us, car #3. They obviously thought this was a wrong course of action. We kept on and when we found what we thought would be the “correct” left turn, it was a dead-end. While dead-ends are opportunities, driving down one at this point would not be a good idea. Time to turn around again.

Sure enough, the other turn was the correct one, not a mile past were we had turned around, was the water tower. As we passed opportunity #3 and on our way to taking the next right, we came up behind car #4. They turned and we turned right behind them. I told Donna to go around them so we could make up the time we had lost in our ill-fatted attempt at the start. She gunned it and zipped on by. We were back in the hunt.

But not for long, I then did exactly what we thought I would, instead of going to the top of the third column, I reverted to my early childhood training and read from left to right, skipping right to clue number 8, bypassing clue 7 entirely. Even though we didn’t take a left because of the missed clue we ended up on course somehow, but we started counting opportunities too soon. Wen we got to where the next clue should have been, we found the railroad tracks, but the road in the background looked different than what was in the photo. Figuring it was just parallax error we turned right as if everything was hunky-dory. Sure enough the next clue, #10, was on the road we were on.

We found number 11, 12 and 13 before not seeing #14 at all. Figuring we missed it and coming to a tee intersection, we took a right because that was what we were supposed to do at the first opportunity after the missing clue. Hot-diggity, clue #15 was right where it should have been which led us to number sixteen and then #17 and the end of the rally.

In spite of the “detour” we were the first car to finish and because of a clue at the end of the instructions, we thought we were early. Knowing this and that we missed some clues possibly shortcutting the route I took our time and distance figured and padded them using a SWAG (scientific wild ass guess) and handed in our sheet. In the end, even if I handed in our true figures, we would have still ended up in third, but only because car #3 arrived a full two and a half hours after we did, having made four attempts at running the rally until they were successful just so they wouldn’t have to open the emergency envelope.

Wait’ll next year.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 130