Month: February 2009

Stop Calling Me

It seems as if the Aiken Bicycle Club has forgotten to renew their web hosting agreement, maybe even on purpose, so a Google search turns up an old link. That Geocities page has me listed as the Secretary and Newsletter Editor. The President, VP and Treasurer are, I think, no longer living around here, so none of their contact info is worth a darn. Neither of my email addresses are valid, but the phone number is still good and last weekend I got not one, but two calls asking about bike rides. There have been others previously on a sporadic basis, but two in two days made me want to do something about it.

I created that page back in the early 90s on Geocities and the page you see is a cookie crumb left behind in 2001 when the ABC went big time and got their own domain. It hasn’t been touched since and there is no way I can remember what the log in info is so I could change it or take it down. Today I used the Yahoo contact page to ask then to take the site down. I’m sure I’m spitting in the wind.

A long, long time ago I created a web site for my local bicycle club. I have moved on and so has the bicycle club, but unfortunately the old Geocities web site has not. I no longer remember the username or password for the site and undoubtedly any email address I used as a contact is no longer valid.

If you search the web for the ABC the first result is the old Geocities site and I am still getting phone calls requesting information I can no longer supply. Is there anyway that the site could be decommissioned on my request?

If not maybe it could be removed for violating your Terms of Service, to wit:

7.2 Prohibited Uses
(p) use your home page (or directory) as storage for remote loading or as a door or signpost to another home page, whether inside or beyond Yahoo! GeoCities;

Thank you for any help in this manner.

There is another Geocities page that comes in a close second when searching the web for the ABC and it also has my phone number listed. I emailed the contact on that page over a week ago and have not heard back from the owner yet. If I had to bet he is in the same boat as I am and has long since forgotten his Yahoo login info too and is too embarrassed to admit it to me. I searched for his name, Andy Nagai, and found a photography site with the domain of nagaiphotos.com. I know this is the same person because it has the same email address I used to try and contact him. It also listed his phone number (626-392-9506.) A reverse look up of that number results in a California cell phone that may or may not still belong to him (and I’m not paying anything to find out), so maybe I should just call it…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 133

I Got Nothing

The bright yellow bananas that I bought last Friday that weren’t ripe on Monday, I ate the last one this morning and it still wasn’t ripe! We went grocery shopping tonight and I bought some more bananas, I’ll report tomorrow on their ripeness.

If you, like me, don’t think Netflix’s recommendation engine is all that smart, try Jinni. Sorta like Pandora for TV & Movies. Sorta. You can search by entering keywords, themes, mood, place. I’ve tried it a couple of times and my conclusion is they need a bigger database and maybe that be helped along by more people joining… Interested? You have to drop them your email so they can invite you into their “private” beta testing. If you try it, let me know what you think.

If you need a T-shirt that is newsworthy the day you buy it, I have just the shop for you: CNN Shirt. Those short little scrolls at the bottom of your TV screen like “Octopus pulls plug, floods aquarium” can be immortalized in your choice of 6 colors, 2 styles and 5 sizes. How can you resist?

The Big Picture (fast connection a plus for this)

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 132

4 Month Update

OK, we’ve had the new Robbins Streamline Top on the car for 4 months now, time for an update. The top has made well over a hundred transitions and it has stretched out just fine, making the raising and latching of the top a cinch. But putting it down is not the simple unlatch and throw it over your head the OEM was.

I still have to reach back and help the top (front) of the glass window down, by pushing slightly back and down. Doing the maneuver has become almost second nature and doesn’t slow down the operation (unless I fumble it, like I’m apt to do every dozen times or so.) My concern is to what this will do to the longevity of the top. I can’t help but think in a couple, three years that that extra push along with the aging of the fabric is going to cause a rip along the top or bottom of the glass.

One other little nitpick (and it really is a nit) is that the original top had a short strap that went from the edge of the top between the first and second ribs and attached to the frame which the Robbins Streamline top lacks. The purpose of this was to pull on that bit of the top, tucking it inside the well when the top was lowered. With the Robbins, the top folds up fine, but there is a little ear sticking out of the well that needs poking under when putting the boot on. I think I need a picture to better illustrate my point, but to do so might elevate the nit to a full blown bother.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 131

Cost Cutting?

We received our ESPN Magazine in the mail today. Strange thing, all the usual crap cards that are stapled in just fell on the counter. That happened because there were no staples in the magazine.

You can buy 25,000 staples for $5.49 at, where else, Staples. ESPN Magazine has a monthly circulation of nearly 2 million. Eliminating two staples per magazine means they are saving about $10,500 a year.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 129

Mother, Jugs & Speed

Every time the MMC goes out for a breakfast run I take a few pictures, usually shots of the cars in the parking lot, people at the tables, the place we are eating at, what we might be eating, etc. While standing outside the restaurant lining up one more photograph of a row of Miatas I decided no more generic photos. This picture is the result. Fresh & New? Or Lame & Amateurish?

Stumbled on the last half of M, J & S on Fox Movie Channel tonight and instead of watching the news we opted for classic cheese. The cast included a Battle of Network Stars Dream Team: Raquel Welch, Bill Cosby, Dick Butkus & Larry Hagman. The soundtrack listing was fun too, the only mid-seventies band missing was Geronimo Jackson.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 128

88,000 Genetic Manipulations

We went grocery shopping on Friday afternoon and I bought a small bunch of 4 bananas. Buying bananas always seems to be a chancy proposition, invariably they are either bright green or so ripe they are fit for nothing but an ingredient in banana nut bread. Friday was my lucky day (or so I thought), as the bananas on display were the very definition banana yellow.

Saturday morning I went to peel one of the bananas and I knew I was in trouble because the skin was thick and hard to tear. Ever hopeful, I took a bite, big mistake, it was tough as shoe leather, I spit it out and threw the rest away. Using all the brain power I could muster I determined that these pieces of fruit were not ripe and decided to skip Saturday’s banana and wait until Sunday before eating another.

By Sunday the peeling process was slightly better and the banana was almost al dente, but I choked it down anyway. No banana this morning and I am hopefully that by tomorrow they will be really ripe.

The only way I can explain it is that these bananas have been genetically altered so that they turn yellow when they really should still be green.

The Emperor flipped past the 88,000 mile mark on the way home from Augusta on Saturday.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 128

One For Three

It was cold and windy in the morning so we did the sensible thing and stayed indoors eating Girl Scout cookies. But the call of the wild was too great and by afternoon we just had to go outside and try a couple local caches.

The one in Hopeland Gardens sounded pretty simple and we could get a short walk in wandering around the place before finding the cache. We got the short walk in, but the rest eluded us. Both Donna and I took runs at the location and we narrowed it down to about 20 foot of ivy covering just off a trail, but after a little more than 15 minutes we admitted defeat and headed back to the car.

A short drive up Whiskey Road led us to the library and a small park where objective number two was hidden. The GPS led us right to a back corner of the park, but when we came to the boundary fence we still had 13 feet to go, which would have put us quite literally playing in the traffic (if there was any on a Sunday afternoon.) Looking down there was a nice little pile of bricks. AHA! Sure enough there was an ammo can under them. TNLNSL.

The third cache was a 1/2 mile walk down Colleton Ave called Ye Olde Tire Swing even though the swing has been missing since like 2006. We found the marked Long Leaf Pine Tree mentioned in the instructions and the GPS led us right to what looked like a perfect place for hiding a cache, several minutes spent poking around a couple of shrubs left us with nothing but dirty fingernails and a small scratch on my cheek.

So far we are 2 for 6 in Aiken and 3 for 4 out of town, giving us an .500 average. Terrific if you are a baseball batter and not too bad for cache catching, but if we are going to find a lot of these things we better get better. Both finds in Aiken were ammo cans and on the other finds we were accompanied by Larry & Rita from the MMC, so it appears that we will have to only search for ammo cans or the Garners will have to come with us every time we go geocaching.

Started dow, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 127