Month: November 2024

Mod Regret

In the 2 months of ownership I have added or changed 11 things to make the car my own. Of those 11, nine are just what I wanted, there are 2 I am slightly disappointed in.

The first is the Shark Fin delete. It was something a fellow on the Miata Forum was selling on eBay, a small 3-D printed plug that fills the hole on the trunk lid once the satellite radio antenna was removed. He did have some that were professionally painted in stock Miata paint colors, but my car’s Aero Gray wasn’t one of them. I ordered one in white and then bought a spray can of touch-up paint in 52C PaintScratch along with a can of clearcoat to finish it off.

After a little sanding and painting I went to but it place, but it wouldn’t fit in the underside of the trunk lid’s cavity. The “plug” portion wouldn’t line up because the round base was off center in the trunk lid’s round hole. I had to sand about 3/32 of an inch off the front half to get it to fit. When I did get it in and lined up, my Aero Gray touch up did not match the trunk lid’s Aero Gray. I was going to put the shark fin back on, but by then I had decided to vinyl wrap the car so I left it in.

The second item is the Rear Running Light Strip that I bought from CravenSpeed here in Portland. It is a strip red LEDs that are stuck to the underside of the trunk lid that spans between the two tail lights and lights up when ever the lights are on or you hit brakes. A few cars have something like this from the factory, most notably, the Porsche 911. It isn’t as nicely integrated as the 911’s, but it is cool looking. Trouble is, the 2024 Miatas have gone full CAN bus, so that every time I start the car the left info gage in the cluster shows a big old “Rear Brake Light Warning” note that has to be dismissed by by hitting the Info button on the steering wheel. It is a minor hassle to have to do this every time right now, but I’m not sure about how long it will be minor hassle.

What I’m Thankful For Today

My drivers license photo, my new Real ID drivers license photo.

When Donna and I first got our Oregon drivers license back in early 2020 There was something off about the camera that they couldn’t adjust out with any settings so, our pictures were totally washed out. I resemble what I imagine a real vampire would look like just before requiring a feeding, totally devoid of any color.

A couple of weeks ago I made an appointment at the DMV to get a new license. The primary reason for the new one was I wanted to get a Read ID version of a license so I wouldn’t have to use my passport to get on an airplane. The second reason was to update my address to the Fairview one. Not really a reason, but more of a accidental benefit was getting a better photo. It came today, you be the judge:

Vampire

Human

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Winter Plans Edition of SORT
As of Monday, November 25, 2024 at 5:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2023 Porsche 718 Spyder 1998 Suzuki Jimny Turbo 1957 Pontiac Star Chief
The Spyder will be stored until next summer’s driving season. The Jimny is for running around to parts places to get stuff I need to complete the Star Chief project finished.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sport: 1955 MG TF Bid to $19,205 on 11/20/24
Off-Road: 2011 Ford Ranger Sold for $18,750 on 11/20/24
Touring: 2011 Ford Taurus Sold for $14,750 on 11/20/24

The Man Of 11% Of A Thousand Post Offices

And also, the man of 29% of the 385 Oregon Post Offices.

Yesterday evening the weather forecast called for rain overnight, turning to just cloudy during the day today. So, I mapped out about 8 post offices to go get photos of in the morning only to wake up this morning to find it raining and now it was going to continue raining for the whole day.

I briefly considered calling the drive off, but I now know from living here for over a year, that even if the forecast calls for rain, that rain, more than likely, will be just off and on not a steady downpour. I jumped in the Miata and headed south.

It did rain pretty steady for the first 25 minutes on my trip down I-205, but it did become sporadic once I started driving on B roads going through the Post Office towns. My second planned Post Office was in West Linn, but when I got to where it was supposed to be, it wasn’t there, it was a paved parking lot for what looked like a new supermarket. Guess it moved to somewhere else. The address I had was from 5 years ago when I first compiled the list. I really should check these on USPS.com before I go out looking.

The convoluted post title was because a few miles from home on I-84 heading west the New Blue Miata hit the 1,000 mile mark.

Blue Is The New Gray


The guys at PDX Wraps did a great job. The vinyl is from Avery and the color is called Gloss Bright Blue Metallic. I think it looks like a combo of the two blues that I had on previous Miatas, 3/4 Laguna Blue from the ’95 with a 1/4 of Mariner Blue of the ’90 mixed in to darken it a bit.

It was raining all morning and it quit about half way on the to pick up the car. Then, the sun made an appearance for a few hours after reclaiming the car. Seeing as I was close to a couple Post Offices in the town of Tualatin I stopped and took their photos with the new car. After grabbing the DCU I headed over to get the regular Post Office. The photo above is of that, but I didn’t realize, until I got home and downloaded the photos that my left forefinger featured prominently in the upper left of the picture.

At first, I thought, well I’ll get back there, but then I opted to try and photoshop out the finger. I didn’t turn out too bad, with a causal look you might not notice anything. If you want to see the finger, hover over the image…

Its A Wrap

The folks who are wrapping the Miata posted an Instagram reel yesterday that showed what they were working on that day. Along with the commercial vans, fuel tanker trailer, semi trailer, a race car and a Range Rover getting a color change was this cute little foreign car. They called me 4PM today to say I could come and get the car tomorrow morning.

On an unrelated note, I started another jigsaw puzzle this evening and while I was sorting pieces I stepped on something. When I looked down I saw the missing puzzle piece from yesterday. How I missed with my high powered bicycle headlight I’ll never really know, but my money is on the alternate universe theory.

Did it Again

Alternate Title: Sunset Surf Shack.

A month ago, I did this puzzle and when I finished it, it was missing two pieces. A couple weeks later when I vacuumed under the puzzle table I found those two missing pieces. So, after finishing the Monument Valley puzzle, I was working on at that time, I decided to do the puzzle again now that I had all the pieces.

When I finished it this second time there was one missing piece! Thing is, it is a totally different piece! I got out a high-powered bike headlight and searched the floor looking for this missing piece. No luck, I don’t know where it went. My guess it slipped into an alternate universe, quite possibly like the 2 original missing pieces. My only hope is in 2 weeks the piece will return magically like those two other ones.

But if it does, do I attempt to try and finish the puzzle again? Am I risking another missing piece, another totally different piece? Another alternate universe?