Year: 2010

Dipped Our Toe Back In The Water

On our way to do a little shopping today we decided to see if we could find From Tree To Shining Tree.

On our first attempt we found Stage 1 easy enough (well Donna found it easy), but Stage 2 in spite of being a regular sized container, eluded us. We were not the only ones who couldn’t find it either, several people before us couldn’t find it as well, including some cachers with very large find numbers. The owner checked on the cache and sure enough the final stage was gone.

Four months went by before the owner placed a new second stage in the field. We had the cache on our Watch List, so when it went back live, we went after it the very next weekend. We hadn’t saved the Stage 2 coords from our first attempt, so we went back to the first stage, where this time it was easy even for me, I had been there before. Good thing we did that too, the 2nd stage had been relocated. We knew this because we were lead right by where we were searching on our first try to a spot 25 feet outside the park fence to a barren spot that had no possible place to hide anything without it being in plain sight. We alerted the owner, who was mystified as to the mix up, as she was sure had placed the final hide inside the park, she would check on it hen she got back in town.

Three months go by this time before the cache is reactivated. We don’t get to go looking for it for another month. Two hundred and forty three days after our first DNF we finally get to add this cache to the find database.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 556

The Professional

Finally finished the last ever Spenser novel yesterday. It has taken me a lot longer than normal to finish for a couple of reasons, Donna got sick so I haven’t had the time and for some reason I just couldn’t get interested in the story. Maybe it was subconscious, knowing that it is the last of the line or maybe it really is as the critics have said, the last several Spenser novels were written on autopilot without much thought to plot, but more a gathering of old friends in familiar situations.

I had started reading them all over again and got as far as #4 before the last two books I didn’t own showed up in the mail. They first few were when Robert B. Parker was feeling his way in developing who Spenser would become and the last few, well, see above. Maybe I need to reread the middle group when the series was really cooking. I’ll start at 15, Crimson Joy, and work my way to Sudden Mischief, #25.

The last book held one last Spenser’s Crime Buster Rule – One of Spenser’s Rules For Criminal Investigation: Most things have two ends. i.e. I’d gotten nothing much from Beth’s end, so I decided to try the other end, and went out to JP to visit Boo.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 553

Dr. Buffer

One of my favorite House episodes in on USA right now, the Season 4 opener Alone, where he uses the help of a janitor and Cuddy to solve a case because his team of three years quit on him. But the best part is the sub plot where Wilson “kidnaps” House’s $12k guitar. Which now that I’m re-watching it, was probably inspirational in my having fun with Rob’s dead roach a while back.

Ooooh, an In Plain Sight promo, March 31st. Looks like I need a new countdown.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 551

Way Behind

I am either way behind in blogging about the oil changes on the Emperor or just way behind in actually doing one. My routine has been to change the oil every 3,750 miles, which is exactly twice as often as Mazda recommends and while I’m at it I rotate the tires from front to back. But the last time I mention an oil change was on September 6th, which judging by my Miata Mileage posts would put it at around 95.5K or about 9,000 miles ago!

This Saturday I’m going to do the oil change slash rotate the tires thing. Unless I forget to buy oil or it rains or…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 551

Porno Pants

Not only has Donna lost some weight using the Sickly Colon Diet™, I have lost about 15 pounds. I need to add an extra hole in my belt to hold my pants. Right now they kinda of droop in a semi-fashionable way if I was a lot younger than 54. I have lost enough that the pair of 34 x 34 Levi 501s that have been at the bottom of my closet fit just fine.

This may be showing my age or maybe just my similar proclivities to Fox Mulder and Gregory House, but I seem to remember that Levis 501s were the pant of choice of male stars of XXX movies, no chance of any part of their anatomy getting caught in a zipper during a scene.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down once more, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 550

Has It Been Almost A Week Already?

Seems just like yesterday I posted last…

The rampant electronic consumerism continues here, I’m blogging on a new laptop, a Toshiba Satellite T135-S1307. The screen is a couple inches smaller than the old Dell, but after a few hours of use it is not really an issue any more. One big advantage is this thing weighs like half as much. Another is the loooong battery life, I’m fairly sure I’ll never get that promised 9+ hours out of it, but right now I’m at 82% left and according to the task tray icon that equates to 6 hours and 3 minutes. Getting it set up on the home network, while not painless, certainly went pretty easy. And all and all Windows 7 hasn’t been too hard to deal with. My only complaint so far is the letter markings on the keys are faint and hard to see in dim light – I know, learn to touch type already.

It is time to replace our current living room stuff, the couch has started to creak when we sit down or get up from it and a seam has split showing stuffing (fortunately it is out of sight mostly.) It is kind of a shame too as the love seat and chair are practically new, because they rarely get used, but anyway, today we started furniture shopping. This could possibly be a six month adventure because we have such different tastes sometimes it is hard to agree on a compromise, on the other hand we always do seem to find something we both like, so it might happen quickly. It didn’t happen this afternoon in the local Rooms To Go.

The weather has still been unseasonably cold around here, looks like it will straighten out this next week, but I did manage to get the top down a couple of days this last week and it did go down again today, so the total below should be up to date.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, down once more, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 546

No TV Monday

House was a repeat and Castle was preempted by some nonsense reality show. Thought for sure now that the Olympics were done we would get new shows. At least TDTVS won’t let me down tomorrow.

This Ip Odd thing is turning into a money pit. We needed a set of headphones so Donna could listen, she hates ear buds – $50. We then wanted a dock with speakers for the bedroom – $80. If I want to use in the Miata, I could remove the 6 disc changer in the trunk thereby reclaiming precious space, an adapter is needed – $150.

Started down, went up, went down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 541