Year: 2010

Free Floor Mats

They are building an office addition on the back of the plant and this where my department (Fabrication Engineering) and another (Product Engineering) will be moving into when it is complete. We were supposed to be in the building this month, but some of the HVAC units arrived well behind schedule, so it is looking more like January before it happens.

Yesterday and today they installed the new carpet on the floor. When I saw the color, I thought, “Hmmmm.” So this afternoon as the installers were wrapping up I went back and grabbed a couple of 24″ x 24″ squares of the industrial grade carpet. Because they just didn’t look big enough I also took a couple of 10″ x 24″ scraps. Good thing I did that because the Miata floor mats are about 18 inches wide and about 28 inches long.

I came home and used some duct tape on the back of the two pieces to hold them together. I then flipped the existing mats over and traced around them with a Sharpie to create the cutting pattern. Using a box cutter and a pair of tin snips I cut out my new free floor mats.

Because I traced around the outside the new mats are a little bit larger than the stock ones so maybe they won’t slip around as bad even though they don’t have a thousand little nubbies on the bottom. If they do move, my cubicle neighbor suggested getting some male-side Velcro to put on the bottom, that ought to grab a hold of the fuzzy OEM carpet (thanks for the tip Jim.)

I don’t even think they will need any binding around the edges. A cross-section of 3/16″ thick carpet reveals the bottom half is some sort of plastic/rubber material with short fibers embedded in it. It’ll shed a bit, but not enough to unravel unsightly. If anything, running a match quickly along the edge, would be ll it needs (Jim again.)

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 910

Mini Scare

Donna has been having some second thoughts about a Hyundai Sonata recently. It is big! It has 4 doors which means people might ask us for rides.

A fellow at work recently bought a Mini. It is a red Cooper S with a white roof and red bonnet stripes and it has rekindled our mild infatuation with these cars. We test drove one back in 2003 and came away feeling a little like Dudley Moore did after bedding Bo Derek in the movie 10, i.e. disappointed.

Well, just the other day she says to me, “Maybe we should look at a Mini again?” Coincidentally, that night, I happen to see a commercial on TV about leasing a new Mini for $199 a month. Hey, I could do that, what with keeping the Miata, the Mini would be sharing driving duties, so keeping it below 12,000 miles a year would be easy.

The lease deal has a few roadblocks. I’ll list them in order of magnitude: First it must be well equipped and list at above 23,100 smackers, this shouldn’t be a problem. Second it has to be an automatic, that will be a slight issue. I could get used to driving one, but finding one…the Greenville dealer has 12 on the lot and not a single one is a slushbox. Charleston’s dealer has 11 with the same problem. Of course I have no idea if this is accurate because the price of all 23 Minis range from $20,100 to $27,100 and each and everyone’s description is identical as far as standard equipment and installed options. The third is the final nail in the coffin though, the deal ends on November 30, 2010. Today!

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 909

License Plate Bingo

The way we have been going lately, we have missed the first cache we have tried, so this weekend I tried something different, I picked out 3 easy caches as warm ups to find before we got to our real objectives.

Our first cache of the day on Saturday was:

The Augusta-Savannah Series.. Old Road Way
It is a large cache hidden on what use to be a road that crossed over Hwy 25 before they turned it into a four lane road. This cache has plenty of room for trading. There is no theme, but so far the only items in there have to do with traveling, such as old car license plates. Use your stealth when finding this cache because of passer-bys.

Passers-by? Tongue must have been in cheek when the CO wrote that, this section of road is no longer in use so you have to have a reason for traveling it, like geocaching or illegal dumping. You can’t be seen from the four lane so it is practically muggle proof. I know we saw no one the whole time we were there. We left a Santa hat and took a license plate.

In our garage attached to the cross support beam for the door tracks we have tacked up our license plates from every place Donna and I have lived. Except for one, when we moved to Louisiana they would not give me a new plate until I turned in the one that was on the car. It was from Virginia. So guess which license plate we took from the cache?

The collection is now complete.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 907

The Emperor Visits A Graveyard


The Emperor Visits A Graveyard

The middle cache on yesterday’s adventure took us to a Revolutionary War cemetery in Louisville, Georgia.

Today was all about Thanksgiving weekend traditions at Domus Bogardi on Boardman Road in Dunbarton Oaks as I blew off the roof and we both then cleaned up the side and front yards of deceased leaves. The afternoon was spent watching 2 of the three Jason Bourne movies and dinner was open faced turkey sandwiches with gravy.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 907

The Rock House


The Rock House

We spent the whole day, and I do mean the whole day, geocaching. We were gone from 6:30 AM until 6:30 PM traveling a total of 250 miles. We had breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts in Aiken, lunch at McDonalds in Louisville, GA and dinner at Cracker Barrel in Augusta. We found 11 caches, collecting 5 GA Counties, 2 GA DeLorme map pages and 2 GA State Parks, while DNf-ing just one. We walked a total of 6 miles, 3 in one state park, 2 in the other and 1 more chasing the rest of the caches.

There were several memorable finds, including the last one, The Rock House outside of Thomson, Georgia which was built around 1785 and is the oldest stone residence in the state of Georgia. The home is now owned by the Wrightsboro Quaker Foundation and has been rumored to be haunted. The Augusta Paranormal Society visits this location from time to time. Maybe because it was light out we didn’t see any ghosts.

The first find of the day was pretty cool too, but that is a story for another day.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 907

White Friday

No it didn’t snow here (it did rain some though.) Donna and I spent exactly zero hours waiting in line for and spent zero dollars on any door buster deals. We didn’t even leave the house until 5:30PM and that was only to go out and get a Firehouse sub for dinner and ice cream for dessert from the Marble Slab. Tomorrow we will also avoid any sort of areas of consumerism by taking to the back roads of rural Georgia hunting the wily tupperware with guile and the aid of multi-million dollar military satellites.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 905

Turkey Day In Aiken

We have had a nice big screened porch on the back of the house for a decade now and for at least 4 of them we have had Donna’s family gather here for Thanksgiving. We have always said, wouldn’t it be great if we could have Turkey Day Dinner out on the porch. But each time they were here the weather was always too cold. Too bad we didn’t host them this year because the temperatures were in the upper 70’s today and the porch was a delightful place to be this afternoon.

No one came here and we didn’t go anywhere, so instead of making a Thanksgiving meal for two and all that entails, we opted to go to Aiken’s One Table. It started 5 years ago and is basically a free Thanksgiving meal served in the Alley to anyone who shows up. Billed as “NOT a ‘hand-out’, but more of a ‘hand-shake’.” by the organizers, we have thought of going before, but never did. This was the year. They didn’t charge for the meal, but did ask for anyone who comes to bring some canned goods. Food would be served between the hours of 11 AM and 2 PM and we arrived at a little past eleven thirty and were greeted by a very long line. That didn’t move.

We have very little patience for waiting. For anything. After a couple of minutes of not getting any closer to food we hopped out of line to check out what was going on. The first thing we noticed after passing the music stage was another identical stationary line. Then about halfway down the block we cut into the alley and noticed that there were a lot of empty seats and a lot of volunteers walking around with trays of food. As we completed the loop we arrived back at the point we had left the line and the fireman who were standing behind us were still standing in approximately the same spot.

Plan B was implemented, Fatz Cafe. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce, a slice of pumpkin pie and a drink for $11.99. As a bonus, the servings were large enough that we actually brought home some leftovers.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 904