Month: August 2017

Second Saturday in a Row


We have led a Masters Miata Club Event…this week was the annual Bug Splat.

When Donna and I put on this event for the very first time way back in 1999 I had devised it sort of like a rally style start, I would send each car out at 3 minute intervals to guarantee clean air in front of the cars for maximum exposure to bugs. When I tried that the next year everyone balked at it, so I handed out the maps and sent them all on their way. I had underestimated the Club’s love of driving all in one long line (which as it turns out is second only to the love of all eating at one long table no matter how big the group or small the venue.)

By the third year everyone wondered why Donna and I weren’t playing along. When I explained that we didn’t want to steal anyone’s chance at a prize, they all went, “Pshaw, you should have some of the fun too.” We have been leading the line of cars around the route ever since.

It took me a couple of years to figure out the group had ulterior motives for this. They just wanted someone to lead so they wouldn’t have look at a map and/or not get lost, but probably the most likely reason was to decrease their odds of winning the Biggest Bug Trophy which is so ugly it is kind of cool. You either love it or hate it, with the haters having the larger numbers.

As we were loading the trophy in the trunk to bring to the starting point on Saturday, Donna was looking over the list of names of those who have held it in the last 18 years and asked, “How come we haven’t ever won it?”

“Alexa: play ominous music”

That’s right, we won the trophy this year with a silver dollar size splat on the nose of the CTBNL right next to the Mazda logo.

70,000 Beats Per Minute


One of Donna’s retirement gifts was a Gift Certificate to a local store called Birds & Butterflies. And one of things she bought with her GC was a hummingbird feeder. We have filled it a couple of times and had yet to see a hummingbird. About a week ago we were sitting on the porch when one flew up, took a sniff of the feeder, seemingly shook it head, turned around and flew off. I took the hint and changed out the sugar-water nectar (it had been awhile anyway.)

The very next day it was back and since then has become a frequent visitor. One time after it had been coming around a few days, it seemed to notice us on the porch. It flew up and over about half way between the feeder and the screen, then zipped up a foot or so, so it was eye level with us. It hovered it front of Donna for a second or two, then zipped horizontally to hover in front of me for a second or two, then it took off back into the trees.

Earlier this week the hummingbird did something that stunned us. It flew out from the trees, stopped to hover at right about the same spot it did when it was “eyeballing” us, swiveled it head 90° and sucked a small flying bug right out of mid air. Who knew? We both thought all they ate was flower nectar and pollen and such.

Forgive the crappy picture, but we were sitting on the back screened porch near dusk and the cell phone camera focus is slightly freaked out by the screen between us and the bird. Tonight for the first time we had two hummingbirds come to the feeder. Not at the same time though, hummingbirds are pretty territorial. As a matter of fact, we first noticed that there were two because we saw one chasing bird the other around.

Sometime early this week the Purple Whale passed the 70,000 mile mark.

Zero Crappy Pallets


Remember last Friday’s photo of all those broken damaged pallets? Yesterday morning Waste Management showed up and collected the second of the two dumpsters full of the damaged pallets. Yesterday afternoon the usual used pallet truck showed up and collected the rest of the damaged ones that were still on the ground in the back parking lot.

I say back parking lot only because in the 70’s when the building was originally put up the original inhabitants actually used it as such, but ASCO has never let us use it as a parking area. From the three different companies that drop off bar stock and tubing, to pallet delivery and removal trucks, to the metal recycling trucks and not to forget the garbage dumpster people, there is just too much truck traffic back here, that even if they did allow parking, I wouldn’t risk it.