Year: 2017

Visibility 66,000 Inches



Two weeks ago I changed the oil and rotated the tires on the CTBNL because we were getting ready to take a weeks vacation and drive to Louisiana. After studying the future weather in Hammond all week with figures crossed, on Friday night we gave up hope and started to pack like we had 3 times the storage space of a Miata, because we did. The forecast said anywhere from 100% to a low of 60% chance of rain/thunderstorms for the entire four days we’d be there and for the drive both there and back. We’d take the Sonata.

We still were going to take the back roads as both Donna and I abhor the Interstates. We simply enter home as the start and add our the destination into Google maps while selecting the Avoid Highways option. We then made a couple of slight shifts in the route to accommodate our choice of an overnight stay and a small bit of nostalgia. 673 miles/12 hours 56 minutes There was of course a few more minor shifts (and one major) in the route on the fly as usually happens when we get going.

The minor shifts mostly involve wandering around looking for suitable lunch places. Because the route and timing may fluctuate it is nearly impossible research every little town and every little eatery on the internet beforehand, so we are usually end up relying on our Garmin GPS. And while I try to keep the maps updated (and I did just before the trip) its database of places to eat is not that comprehensive, so we’ll roll up on what is supposed to be a chosen lunch spot and it will be out of business, only serves dinner or there are no cars in the parking lot. So we try again. If that fails we will try and find a local and ask, “Where is a good place for lunch.” This works well, if you can find someone knowledgeable, but you might be surprised at how many people say, “I don’t know, I just work here. I live in another town.”

The major one happened because we were using the map of Alabama that we used 2 years ago for the Motoring Challenge Loop and it had a nice highlighted route on it. On that trip our last stop over was in Evergreen at a Sleep Inn & Suites, somehow we got that in our heads that that was where were going, except we were staying at a Holiday Inn Express this time. As we got closer and closer to Evergreen the GPS was kept telling us to veer north. Finally Donna pulled out the reservation email and noticed that the HIE was up the road northwest 35 miles. If you leave the GPS in the Avoid Highways mode and select Shortest Distance under navigation, the route turns very zig-zaggy and adventuresome just to save possibly a few feet.

Visibility along the Gulf Coast last Friday was a little more than a mile in spots (or 66,000 inches) and along there somewhere the Purple Whale passed the 66,000 mile mark.

65,000 Oil Changes

Changed the oil and rotated the tires on the CTBNL this evening. I like to do this bit of routine maintenance every 5,000 miles because the nice round number makes it easy to remember. It takes about an hour and a half from start to finish and acts, like washing and waxing, as a bonding agent between a man and his car.

The first step in the procedure is to back the Purple Whale out from under the awning so I can use that for my wrenching under. As I rolled back I noticed the odometer reading was 650004. The last time we drove the Sonata was to work on Tuesday, so the 65k milestone was crossed about halfway home on that day.

The Challenge Begins

This year the Moss Motoring Challenge has been revamped by removing the requirements for US states and Canadian provinces. They have also knocked off the alphabet soup of cities, so you can now compete and not have to drive the entire North American continent gatherings points. There are more destinations, sign related and roadside oddity type points to be had. Should make for a lot more people with a chance at winning. Should be fun.

This morning the temperature was in the teens, so we temporarily lifted the “must bike ride to Ridgecrest for a panini” rule and drove over. Plus because of the temps, we took the Miata instead of the Sonata as it was nice and warm due to being in the garage. At breakfast the owner mentioned that on her way to work this morning (at oh-dark thirty) that Park Avenue was closed due to a water main break.

When we left, Donna said, “Road Closed was one of the challenges for 2017. Let’s go check it out.” Park Ave is pretty straight so we could see the excitement from a long way away, but we couldn’t get too close to the action because they had cones up a block away. We couldn’t have gotten any points for anything here anyway because the Road Closed challenge required a sign and the crew out in the freezing weather and calf deep in gushing water didn’t bother to erect one.

No worries, I knew they were still working on the York Street railroad bridge, so we detoured (pun intended) over there.

Let’s Blame Holiday Eating

Had my 3 month follow up with the PCP today to see how the Crestor was doing. He wanted the LDL to come down, well it sure did, 119 to 84. The total number dropped too, but my HDL (the supposed good cholesterol) is still at the very low limit. Now my Triglycerides were the third highest they’ve bee in the 12 years I’ve been keeping track.

Doc said, “I’ll chalk up the triglycerides up to holiday eating.” “Yeah, this is the worst time of the year for a cholesterol check,” I said. His reply was, “I don’t know about where you are, but around here you couldn’t turn a corner without something to eat. And I was killing it.”

Damn Peppermint Bark!

                                                        Goal Ranges
Date Chol 80-199 HDL 40-110 LDL 30-130 Trig 30-150
01/05/17 169 40 84 225
09/29/16 189 40 119 150
03/31/16 170 37 95 180
10/10/12 196 36 128 160
04/10/12 193 39 121 166
10/10/11 162 43 88 155
04/04/11 155 38 96 107
12/06/10 176 41 114 105
05/18/10 151 38 91 109
12/15/08 167 41 92 171
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271

50,000 Data Points?

As you can see from the chart, winter has set in and the Miata gets driven a lot less. For the first 2-1/2 months we were racking up miles at an average rate of a little over 37 per day. It seems like just yesterday we bought the CTBNL with a mere 46,320 miles on it, but it has been nearly 5 months and we are averaging about 24-1/2 miles a day for the total ownership.

On the actual yesterday, the CTBNL passed the 50k mark on the way into work at the Valve Store.

Galleries of Peektures

For about a dozen or so years I’ve been uploading groups of my photographs to this blog and organizing them in galleries using plugins. I first used something called NextGEN Gallery. It was everything one needed for the job. Thousands agreed and it became the most downloaded and used WordPress plugin. The developers continue to update, improve and add features to it still.

Sometime about 3 or 4 years ago it became unwieldy on a couple of fronts and people, me included, started looking for something similar, but not so advanced. The seekers were joined a programmer and a soon there was a plugin called NextCellant Gallery available. It basically froze the NextGEN gallery at the version that was just before it became something BIGGER! BETTER!

This worked for me like a charm until just recently. I’m not sure if it was a WordPress update or the plugin itself, but the galleries, while still view-able, they couldn’t be edited. The admin panel would quit displaying after a few lines and then show: Warning: Illegal string offset ‘taxonomy’ in …/wp-includes/taxonomy.php on line 1874, etc.

Since just after Christmas I’ve been experimenting with other gallery plug-ins. Most were either paying apps or offered no NextGEN import function, making them unattractive or unappealing. But I think I have found something that will work, FooGallery. I’ve got it sort of where I want it, but things will probably still change randomly for while longer in my picture galleries.