Year: 2008

Crude Composite

Crude Composite This is a quick stitch job showing the small bathroom as it exists now. The contractor sasy he can start work a week from tomorrow and we are getting ready. All we have left to buy is 2 new toilets, a tub for the other bath and light bulbs for the new fixtures. The tile is on order and should be here mid-week. The last faucet is in the Greensboro UPS hub, so it will be here Tuesday. I see a lot of chatter about the US coming into a recession. Donna and I are gallantly trying to stave it off because in our household consumer spending is definitely on the upswing. You can thank us later.

The 2008 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four is all set. Usually there are three #1 seeds playing with one upstart on the last weekend. The final four has featured only two number one seeds 5 times and has had zero one-seeded teams twice, 1980 and 2006. But this year is the first ever to feature all 4 number one seeds. For the heck of it I ran all eight different permeations of outcomes for the Final Four and of the twenty one people in our office pool there are 13 people with a chance to finish in the money and 8 still with a chance to win the thing. My favorite situation is Kansas beating NC, UCLA beating Memphis with UCLA beating Kansas in the final. If that happens three people would be tied for first so it would come down to the tie breaker, total points in the final game. Two of those three people picked the same total points! Coin toss? Two out of three at Rock, Paper, Scissors?

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 95

Flowering Vine

Flowering VineWhat is this flowering vine? I Googled “Yellow Flower Vine” and didn’t get a definitive answer.

Instead of taking a hike in the woods this morning we decided to take a walk downtown to the Old Aiken Market where we can get fresh baked bagels and fresh squeezed orange juice for our Sunday breakfast. It is definitely springtime here in Aiken because on our 5 mile meander we passed by numerous plants and trees in bloom and stopped at several spots so I could take pictures of the azalea, dogwood, wisteria, cherry and whatever that yellow vine is blossoms. We also stopped for a while at the Aiken Training Track and watched the thoroughbreds go through their morning exercises. We stopped at a railroad overpass and watched the local 5 car work train pass by. On the way home we ducked into the library to read a magazine. By the time we got home we had killed the entire morning.

Update: Two years (March 31, 2010) after I posted this, I got an email from someone asking if I ever did find out what this plant was called. He has a big bush of it in his backyard and was trying to figure what it was. He did manage to find out what it was with zero help from me and emailed me the name, Rosa Banksiae ‘Lutea’. Cool. So that is where the old home that dates from the time of the Civil War War of Northern Aggression, Banksia, and currently houses the local county’s museum got its name.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 95

A Miata Is Not Always As Good As A Pickup Truck On A Sunny Day

In spite of my repeated protestations to the positive, every once in a while you do need a pickup truck.

Tonight we went to the Home Depot in Evans to buy the vanity that was supposedly online order only. While we were there we bought the top too, went with a Beige because the Blue Pearl was more black than blue and they had a Beige one right there in stock for $199 instead of ordering the Blue Pearl for $465. To the cart we tossed in the matching mirror, two wood framed medicine cabinets and a couple of new exhaust fan / light combos. Try as I might, no matter how I arranged them, I just couldn’t get all that stuff in the trunk.

Rudy and his S10 to the rescue. He and Patti were nice enough to make the round trip from and back to Evans to haul our bathroom bounty. All it cost me was an ice cream cone for each of them. Thanks guys.

If you ever find yourself in Evans at dinner time both Donna and I highly recommend the Pork Anticuchos at Patagonia Grill.

If you have been waiting patiently for my witty captions to the BMW Ultimate Drive on Tuesday, your wait is over – 2008 BMW Ultimate Drive Gallery.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 94

Those Numbers Look Somewhat Familiar

Got my latest cholesterol numbers back and the HDL & LDL numbers are pretty much identical, but the total number was down 10 points. Maybe because my triglycerides were the lowest they have ever been.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >31 <100 30-150
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

So I guess I’ll be sticking to the 48mg Tricor in the morning and the 20mg Zocor in the evening. Actually worked out cheaper this way because I’m taking the generic for Zocor and it is only $8 bucks a month compared to the $30 a month for the Red Yeast Rice it replaced.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 94

Just A Kid

Mmmm3 CoupeAs always when the BMW Ultimate Drive comes to town I try to talk everyone I know into participating. So far with my co-workers I have had limited success, but with the fellow MMC members I have had better luck.

This year I had almost talked one of our young engineers into doing it. He was on the fence until I mentioned that they had an M3 Coupe in the line up, then he started leaning. He currently drives a tarted up Lexus IS250 with inspirations of turbo charging it.

When Donna and I left work on Monday he said call him if they had the M3 available and he would seriously consider taking a half day off. When we saw the M3 sitting there in the morning I gave him a call, he said he would be there in the afternoon. Because it was just sitting there waiting, Donna and I took our first loop in it. A couple of miles into our loop and having listened to the sound coming from the exhaust pipes when mainlining bursts of acceleration I told Donna to call Ian’s work phone. I wanted to seal the deal and make sure he came over by having her hold the phone out the window when I punched it. He must have been working because he didn’t pick up.

Turns out he didn’t need that sound incentive because up he drove at about 12:45. At that point the Survivor Drive was in progress so there were no cars to drive. I told him to park and go inside to register. At that point of the day it was taking a while to register, so it took about 20 minutes before he showed up back outside. He had a disappointed look on his face, turns out you have to be 30 years old to drive the M3. He wasn’t to badly hurt because he had lined up a round of golf for later that afternoon, so he just got there early and hit a bucket of balls before playing.

I think Donna and I felt worse about it than he did. I didn’t think anything of it when I asked him to come drive. I thought there might be a 25 year-old age limit on the 6 & 7 Series cars, but I didn’t know about the extra 5 years needed for the M3 Coupe. Because he is so mature acting I thought he was in his upper 20’s, but as it turns out Ian isn’t even old enough to drive the 6s or 7s. He is only 23.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 92

BMW Ultimate Drive Day

We drove 8 loops in seven different cars for a total of 113.6 dollars raised to help fight breast cancer.

  1. M3 Coupe
  2. X3 3.0i
  3. 650i Coupe
  4. Z4 3.0i
  5. 528xi Sedan
  6. Z4 3.0i
  7. 750Li
  8. 535xi Sport Wagon

There were a few surprises for us today. Two of the available cars actually had manual transmissions. One of the cars that had a manual transmission was the M3 Coupe. It was not on the reservation form, but once there they put you on a list (if you were over thirty, sorry Ian), and when your turn came…woohoo. The other stick shift was a Z4 3.0si, which we didn’t end up driving.There were no 1 Series or no X6 to drive (the signature car was an X6.) Both of these vehicles are supposed to join the fleet at the end of the month.

The biggest surprise was they held a survivor’s lap at 12:30 that lined up every car with a breast cancer survivor in it and was given a police escort around the course. Good for them, but they should have done it first thing in the morning, because it took a two hour chunk of time out of the middle of the day. Good thing we had the whole day off from work and didn’t do just an afternoon off or we would have only got in two laps.

The gallery is here: BMW Ultimate Drive 2008.

I’ll write more about the experience later this week too.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 90

What was plan B?

“I was going to have you fight Klondor in a stone circle death match.”

I stopped watching network when The West Wing went off the air. Was it the really annoying commercials? Or was it because shows weren’t aimed at me anymore when I reached 50 thereby falling out of the favored demographic? Or was it because the shows were too predictable, because I had seen so much TV to this point in my life, there was nothing new anymore?

“You should definitely step outside the circle”

Commercials have always been annoying, so that probably wasn’t it. A lot of shows were never aimed at me even when I was in the most desirable demographic. Probably not that either. Predictable? Yeah, but even predictable when done right will make me tune in.

“Yeah… just to avoid any confusion.”

Reality killed TV for me. Apparently a lot of people want to be famous and will go to great measures to try and get there. And the rest of the people tune in to see the missed attempts so they can feel superior. I don’t want real life on TV (I’ve got my own reality show starring me going on right now), but I want fantasy. Aliens on X-Files, an intelligent President on West Wing and now magnetic anomalies, smoke monsters and time travel on Lost.

“Klondor, let’s, aah, pack it up.”

I’ve found a couple of new shows that I enjoy. Both are on Fox, one just ended it’s writers strike shortened season and the other just started up in it’s time slot. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles stopped after nine episodes and there hasn’t been any word on wether or not they will film anymore or even if it will return next season. Tonight is episode 5 of New Amsterdam which I will watch tomorrow on the internet because Donna is watching something else. Who knows how long this show will last.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 88