Year: 2008

On My Way To Fame (& No Fortune)

About 3 weeks ago I received an email asking for permission to use a photograph of mine that I had on Flickr! called 12-13-2007 Sunrise. It was to be used at the bottom of a page to end a section of a 30 page Executive Summary entitled Savannah River Basin Textile Recovery Plan and Graniteville Area Redevelopment Plan. Yikes, that’s a mouthful. It is a set of recommendations developed over about a year of study for the local economies in Aiken, Abeville, Anderson, Edgefield, Greenwood, Laurens, McCormick, Oconee, Pickens, and Saluda counties that have been negatively impacted by the closures of textile mills and related facilities.

I said go ahead and use it, all I asked in return was that they send me a copy when they were printed. Came in the mail on Friday. Glossy thing with lots of consulting techno-babel that takes up a lot of space and doesn’t say much. I was surprised that mine was the only photograph in the whole thing (aside from the cover.) There were about 250 copies printed up, and the other 249 will be distributed to stakeholders throughout the region (whatever a stakeholder is.) There is a list of them on the back page along with the Project Team, Steering Committee and at the bottom the Photography credit of yours truly.

You can say you knew me when….

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 175

2,701

According to my WordPress dashboard this is post two thousand seven hundred and one. I think there are a lot more, but some must have got lost in the many times I’ve restored from a backup or moved from a different blogging platform. I deduce this from when I went hunting yesterday for mention of when I had painted the bedroom red I’m going to now paint blue. If you check the archive for the month of April 2004 you will see that there are several days of missing posts. There are several days of multiple posts, but that is to be expected because at that time I had two different blogs going, one Miata related and one Rant related. There should be nearly 60 posts per month because then, like now, I rarely missed a night posting on both.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 174

Small Town Parade

We went downtown today, had lunch, bought an ice cream cone and watched a parade. Veterans groups, high school ROTC groups, boy scouts, politicians, army trucks and fire engines. Do other countries have parades like this too?

Got the first coat of blue on the smaller bathroom and I have to say it is a nice bright blue without the vibrancy of the green in the other bathroom. Perfect. Coat two goes on tomorrow. I painted one coat of primer over the Vin Rouge paint of the bedroom in preparation for painting it a darker shade of blue. But first I’m going to paint the ceiling, which hasn’t been done in a while. Then all the trim will get slathered with the gloss white before the walls get covered in flat Ocean Cruise.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 174

Saved A Couple Bucks This Morning, But Spent Them Later

Rode the “Bus” into work today. Not mass transit, but our own alternative fuel vehicle, the tandem. I call it the Bus because compared to a single bike the tandem rides and drives like one compared to a single bike. We didn’t really do it to save the gas money, but because we have been threatening to get back to biking to work for the longest time and today was the day. We have vowed to ride to work every other Friday, you know, the one we actually work. We are also going to try and take a ride on the Friday we are off work, weather permitting.

Speaking of weather permitting, we don’t let anything below a 50% chance frighten us off, so today’s weather calling for a 20% chance of afternoon thunder showers was a non-issue. Until about an hour before quitting time. The skies outside darkened and fearing a repeat of Tuesday’s hail I checked the weather radar. At first glance it looked like we were in trouble as there was a long line of orange and red south of Aiken and Augusta, but when put in motion that line wasn’t really moving north. Still, the plain green was spreading our way, so it looked like it would be a wet ride home.

We had a couple of offers from co-workers with pick ups for a lift home, but declined them because if it was raining, we and the bike would probably get just as wet loading the bike up and on the drive. By the time we left it had been raining for a while and had slowed to a sprinkle, so the roads were wet. Turns out that is where most of our wetness came from because as we got closer to home the rain stopped and the roads had dried. Just as we made it home it did start to rain again, but too late to soak us.

The Emperor didn’t go to work, but it did get out this evening. We went out to eat with friends and then did a little more shopping for the final accessories for the green bathroom, a set of towels, a toothbrush holder and a shower curtain, leaving just needing one more thing, a liquid soap dispenser.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 174

Ballast

Last weekend at the races when there was break in the action some of us were sitting around at Camp POS When this fellow walked up and asked if I would do him a favor. I said sure and followed him over to a concrete pad.

There sat his race car. I said, “Nice color.” He started to tell me about how there were only so many made in that color and what years it was available not realizing he was talking to a Miata Geek, I stopped him by saying that I had a 95 in the same color, Laguna Blue, before my current car and still miss that hue.

He was doing an alignment and needed someone to sit in the driver’s seat to simulate having himself in the car, so it would be set up correctly. I said, “Oh, you need some dead weight. I’m just the guy you need.” The car had a full roll cage and a racing seat and even with the steering wheel off it took some major contortionist moves to get in. Getting back out was even a little worse.

Donna and Carol had followed us over to stand around and make fun of me. Carol, of course, had her camera, so she snapped a couple of quick photos of me sitting in the car while I was making vroom-vroom sounds.

After he was done and thanked me for the time I made my way back to Camp POS. John was done with his latest adventure, so I asked if he wanted me to turn in my POS Racing hat because I had helped that other Miata out. He said, “Don’t worry about it, he’s in a different class.”

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 173

Pretty In Pink

We are in the middle of a British Movie Binge — Casino Royale (well sorta British), Once begat The Commitments, The Last Detective (Disc 2 of Season 3), Death at a Funeral (didn’t finish), Starter for Ten, Keeping Mum (on the coffee table) and Rumpole of the Bailey: The Lost Episode (next in the queue.)

Starter For Ten, was pretty darn good. It reminded me of those 80’s John Hughes movies, Pretty in Pink, 16 Candles, et al. In plot it was probably most similar to Some Kind of Wonderful. The 80’s soundtrack (The Cure – Psychedelic Furs – Echo & The Bunnymen) probably helped the comparison along as well.

This is interesting – The Netflix Player by Roku. I’m trying to justify the purchase, but I’m having trouble. Of the Netflix library there are only 10% available for viewing using this box. Admittedly that is 10,000 titles, but they are mostly older flicks and TV shows. Not that I can’t find a bunch of stuff to re-watch, but I already have 100 movies in the regular rental queue to watch, there is bunch stuff on HULU that I want to see and the FRS are on the radio nearly every night, so my free time is limited. I haven’t really explored Joost or Miro or even Find Internet TV. The $100 would be better spent on a PC to TV converter so that other internet media could also be watched on the tube besides just Netflix.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 172

P.S. Which Sports Car Are You?

Hail To The Emperor

There was a 40% chance of afternoon thunder showers. We took the umbrella to work, but left it in the trunk. My job was to keep track of the radar and if it looked like thunder rolling our way I was to go out, take off the cockpit cover, raise the top and bring the umbrella back in.

I failed miserably at my job. When it was time to go home at 4:00 PM I got up from my desk and walked down to the other end pf the plant to get Donna. As I passed by some windows it looked very dark. Uh-oh! As we left the plant someone was walking in with an umbrella saying that it had just started raining. He was right and they were big fat drops too. As we walked quickly to the car the rain intensity picked up rapidly. We started running (this is the only time I regret parking in the north forty), it was coming down at a pretty good clip by the time we reached the car. I popped the trunk tossed in everything I was carrying and started to take off the cockpit cover. Tossed the roof up and Donna tried valiantly to click it down while I wadded up the soaking wet cockpit cover and tossed it too into the trunk. I started the car and raised the windows as the rain poured down. The interior was pretty dry, but we were pretty wet.

About a mile from the plant the skies really opened up, even with the wipers on high I had to slow down because of visibility. Then it sounded like somebody was shooting at us. Pow! Bam! Rat-A-Tat-Tat! Call 911 we’re under fire. It was hailing. Pea-sized up to grape-sized frozen water was pelting us. With absolutely no place to hide I just kept driving. I’m afraid to go out in the garage to look at the car and see if there are any little dents, but not as afraid as I was during the storm that the hail would get big enough to start tearing through the canvas roof and start hitting me on my noggin. After a couple more miles, and a couple more cloud bursts, the skies cleared, the rain stopped and we donned our sunglasses for the rest of the trip.

Started down, went up under duress, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 172