Year: 2017

69,000 Miles to Florida

Mini Minnie lives in Washington state, so she has come a long way, but not really that far. The Purple Whale on the other hand has traveled 69,000 since May of 2011.

Cicada Siren Song

Remember last Friday when I said I had two things on my honey-do list before I put down the garage floor tiles? The tiles were installed on Sunday and those two items are done, but for the life of me I can’t remember what day I did them. Might have been Saturday afternoon or heck even Monday after work, I do remember it was during the day.

I don’t have my own little shop to work in, so I often do little projects either in the driveway or on the back deck. For cutting up that junk wood, the deck was used, because this way I could lay the long pieces of wood on the seat that runs around half the deck, stick the wood out about a foot, step on it and use the circular saw to cut segments off the the end.

The 12 feet of junk wood from behind the plant started life as a box top, so along with the 1/2 thick pieces I needed for my test, there was a border of 1″ x 3″ wood strips as support that had nails spaced about 4 to 5 inches all around. Rather than try and remove the approximate hundredty-million twisted nails from the 24′ of wood, I just hammered the bent ends down flat. Because of the nails I had to cut the 1″ x 3″ wood into about 60 pieces total.

After a little while I got a nice rhythm going; cut a couple pieces, release pressure on my foot, slide the board forward, repeat until done. About halfway through cutting up the second 6′ piece of wood a very large black bug dive-bombed by the front of my face and angled down towards my right hand. I let go of the trigger on the saw and dropped it to the deck.

There was a female cicada trying to mate with still spinning blade. After a few seconds the insect realized its mistake and flew back whence it came. I finished that board and started on the third 6′ piece and wouldn’t you know, my horny cicada took another shot at the saw. I dropped it on the deck again. This time when the bug flew back into its tree, I went inside the house and got my can of Raid Wasp & Hornet spray for the next time.

Sure enough, as I was finishing cutting the third piece, my love struck bug returned. I dropped the saw, grabbed the can and fired off a stream of insecticide at her. I’m not sure if I hit the cicada with any of the stream or she finally learned that the sound of a circular saw rhythmically cutting 1″ x 3″ pieces of wood was not a male of her species, but I cut the full 6′ length of the last piece without a return fly-ins.

What Is It?

If you have ever watched Ask This Old House you will have seen a segment they call appropriately, What Is It? One of the four hosts brings out some sort of oddity and asks the other three, “What is it?” They then, in their best To Tell The Truth manner pretend they know what it is and spin a yarn, only to be told what it actually is at the end.

Mazda USA every year gives out something they call a Zoom Zoom Box that is loaded with various Mazda branded items (pens, keychains, hats, t-shirts, etc.) to Miata Clubs around the country to give the items away as prizes or door prizes for an event they have planned. This year the MMC received such a box, and the officers divided up the content and passed out a small bag with some items in them out to all the members. One of the items that was given to us was the thing you see in the above picture. It is made from some sort of rubbery material and the back is covered by a piece of peel and stick adhesive. There are also 4 tiny holes in the back through the adhesive and material. I have no idea what this is.

If I was a host on Ask This Old House and was handed this item I would say, “I know exactly what this is, it is a replica of a small auto trash bag for your 1/4 scale replica Mazda made from Lego blocks.”

What would you say it is? Leave me your answer in the comments.

Got It

117 Years of Transportation – 2017 Fiat 124 Spider: A co-worker has had this Fiat 124 Spider for several months now and this is its normal parking spot, but this morning she was early enough, and I was early enough and we both had our tops up, so that I could get an uncluttered photograph of the 2 of our cars. (7/24/17)


I have been planning on taking this photo for the Moss Motoring Challenge of the CTBNL next to this Fiat 124 Spider for several months now and this morning my co-worker was early enough, and I was early enough and we both had our tops up, so that I could get an uncluttered photograph of the 2 of our cars.

Two hours later at my morning walk this is what that corner of the lot looked like:

Ta-Da!


Putting down the tiles only took about 2 hours. Would have been about 30 minutes shorter too if I didn’t have to trim 10 of the carpet tiles to fit around the stairs and the legs holding up the cabinets. Overall it took about 4 hours from start to finish when factoring in taking a bunch of stuff out of the garage to clean up the floor, lay down the landscape fabric, move stuff back in and clean up afterwards.