Year: 2011

Picture Post

A couple of random photos from Saturday’s MMC Road Rally final destination, the Yacht Club at Grand Harbor on Lake Greenwood.

Twins

When we went to bed last night our plan was to go for a bike ride on our single bikes and then get some breakfast at the Atlanta Bread Company. But this morning when we got up I suggested an alternative, eat at home and get in an early morning walk in Hitchcock Woods. We had a lovely 4.6 mile walk and had the woods nearly to ourselves. As a bonus the Kalmia were blooming nicely.

Later in the morning, swapping Miata for Sonata, we went out driving around the backs of local shopping centers trying to locate where I took the header image of this blog. I wanted to use the same wall and take a picture of the Purple Whale in front of it and rotate the two images. The one place I was sure was it, either wasn’t it or they had cleaned up and repainted the wall. Oh well. Later on we did find this cool blue wall and I may try and make it work.

For Sunday lunch we headed over to Firehouse Subs and as I pulled into a spot in front I noticed through the window a decent sized group of adults at a table. Almost in unison they turned and watched us park. I thought, gee, I know this a sharp looking car, but hadn’t anyone ever seen one before? When we entered the store the adults, mostly dressed in the same color scheme, had gone back to their subs and in the back of the dining area sat about a dozen 12 to 13-year old boys in baseball uniforms. There must be a tournament over at Citizens Field and they were eating lunch between games.

As we sat in our usual spot, the counter looking out over the parking lot, I realized why the adults all watched as we pulled in, a row over and two spots past where we parked, was an Indigo Blue Pearl Hyundai Sonata, with a dealer tag on the back. One of those folks recently bought an identical looking car to ours. Theirs was the Turbo Limited, so the only exterior difference was the 2.0T & Limited badge on the right side of the trunk.

After a while the kids were done eating and they all headed outside to wait on their parents. One of the kids walked over to our car and opened up the back door. I hadn’t locked the door because I normally don’t and I still haven’t gotten used to the whole radio fob in the pocket routine. Donna perked right up because her purse was on the floor of the back seat. She said aloud to me and the group of parents, “Get that kid out of our car.” I jumped up and opened the restaurant door and said to him, “That’s not your car. That’s your car!”, while pointing at the other Sonata. Poor kid, I think he was a little confused when he opened the door and didn’t see the stuff he was expecting to see in there. He was pretty embarrassed about it.

As a side note, I wonder if they asked permission to use the logos on their baseball uniforms from Major League Baseball? The were from Columbia County in Georgia and they called themselves the Mudcats. The C on the caps with a catfish inside, the lettering of Mudcats on the jerseys and the color scheme was identical to the uniforms of the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds in Zebulon, NC, the Carolina Mudcats.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1008

MMC Road Rally

Today was the Sort of Annual MMC Road Rally and Donna and I WON!

We didn’t run away from the field by any means, it was a very narrow victory over the second place team. But because there were only two cars competing, the worse we could have finished was second, even if we took twice as long as predicted in time, mileage or both to run the course. There were supposed to be 4 cars, but illnesses to entrants and/or family members cut the field in half. It is kind of sad that with all the work put into creating one of these things, thanks John & Jackie, that only 4 people even signed up to do the rally.

You can’t truly blame apathy for the low turn out, because if you take the folks that were supposed to run the rally it accounts for almost a quarter of the Club. Add in the folks who created the event and you are almost up to a third of the membership.

The problem is the size of the Club and so far we haven’t found a solution to growing the membership. I can’t tell you how to add members, but I can tell you why the Club rolls are shrinking. First off, Mazda doesn’t support a national Club anymore. When they did, every buyer of a new Miata received a glossy magazine that had a back page listing all the regional clubs that someone could join. Even if they were still doing that, the pool of possible club members would be shrinking because the sales of Miatas is falling off. In the US, annual sales have gone from nearly 36,000 in 1990 to a low of around 6,300 in 2010. Because the Miata is such a reliable car, used car sales easily outpace new, and those buyers never find out about the existence of a local Club unless they are looking. Also, now a days life has sped up to the point people don’t have the time to dedicate to Club memberships of any kind.

Pretty soon our little club is going to reach critical mass and disappear in a puff of exhaust smoke just due to natural attrition. So if any one out there has any ideas how to get folks to join a club, any club, suggestions are welcome.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1007

New Carport?

It had been there for 11 years before something heavy enough landed on the carport tarp to puncture it and it might be another eleven years before it happens again. And it might happen again in 11 days.*

This afternoon on our cycling trip home from work we took a slightly different route than usual which took us right by one of those portable building places. Right after we passed it we made a u-turn, which, on a tandem, takes more road than you might think. We went inside and picked up a brochure for one of those metal carports.

*We hope it waits at least twice that, because we were told that it takes about 3 weeks to get one of those metal carports installed.

We’ll Be Fine

We got up this morning and Donna asked if we wanted to head over to DD and get some breakfast. “Awesome,” I said. The reason this was such a great idea was we both enjoy our usual meal there and secondly we needed to get a couple of bagels for Friday’s breakfast, because we were riding the tandem to work.

As we prepared to leave I eyeballed the radar and wondered out loud if we would make it over there before we got slammed with a line of thunderstorms. The very tail end of the storms that wreaked havoc over the rest of the south on Wednesday afternoon/evening was making its way through the CSRA. Donna asked, “Should we stay home and eat?” “Nah,” I said, “We’ll be fine.”

As we loaded up the Sonata it was just starting to sprinkle. That was fine, I stayed dry, because the car was under the little tarp over metal frame “carport” we put up for Donna’s mom’s Civic when she moved in with us back in 2000.

About 4 miles into the 6 mile trip I started to regret that offhanded, we’ll be fine, comment. The bottom fell out and it poured and poured and poured. The wind whipped around and driving was limited to under 25 MPH with your fingers crossed that you wouldn’t run off the road.

We did arrive safely and ate our meal while reading the paper sitting on some stools at a counter near the front window. In hindsight this was probably not a good idea as it turns out we were in our own little tornado watch. We dallied long enough that the main part of the storm passed over us and it was raining just enough to make me keep the wipers on intermittent during the drive to The Valve Store(TM).

The wind and rain kept up for most of the day, but by the afternoon the sun was out making for an uneventful drive home. As I pulled into the driveway and headed for the “carport” I noticed a decent sized branch had pierced the tarp and was standing straight up. It was held up by the foot or so of the branch sticking out of the top of the tarp though large tear it made on its way down.

Had the Sonata been parked under there, the branch would had hit the edge of roof and slid down the side of the car along the door and rear quarter panel, maybe busting the little opera window. Yikes.

So now the question is when did the branch fall, during the storm? If it did and if we had stayed home for breakfast, we could have been sitting at the table and heard the crash, bang noise of our 8 day old car being skewered…I guess that, “We’ll be fine,” comment meant us and the Sonata.

Old School Fish Dinner

A while back on a Wednesday evening we decided to go to Captain D’s for dinner. Turns out Wednesday is senior night where the local restaurant offers several options for meals at the $4.99 & $5.99 levels, including a drink. Needless to say we came out happy for around twelve bucks, telling ourselves that we needed to remember that on haircut night.

Tonight was haircut night, so guess what we had for dinner? And, even at 55, guess who were the youngest folks in the room?

Night Riders

There was a barely audible clunk as the stuck pad released its grip on the rotor. Twenty years of recall memory allows a smooth clutch engagement as we back out of the garage. At first, the air feels heavy and stagnant, but as we turn the first corner, the nighttime cool surrounds us. We are lucky that in less than a mile we are are barreling down some lightly traveled two lane blacktop.

On the final leg of our journey Donna, says, “I’m sure glad we didn’t trade this in.” I replied, “That was really never an option.”

While the Sonata is an awfully nice car, it will never be able to hold a candle to the Miata in pure driving fun.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1006