Year: 2024

800 Mile Thoughts

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After 6 weeks of ownership, 800 local miles driven and 8 modifications added I am almost totally happy with the car. There are a three more modifications I have scheduled to do next week and I won’t say I’ll be totally finished changing or adding things then, but I’d like to think I will be.

I have noticed three things that I kinda wish were different, but do not diminish the love of the car in any meaningful way:

1. The car has heated seats which are nice, but I wish they operated like in the Mini. Right now, if you turn on the heat at one of the three settings it stays at that level after turning the car off, so the next time you get in the heated seats come back on at whatever level they were. In the Mini after shutting off the car and 15 minutes elapse the heated seats will turn off.

2. The power windows have a one touch feature for down, but not for up, you have to hold the switch to raise the windows. And when you unlatch the roof to drop the top, the windows go down a third of the way so the top will clear the window, but they don’t automatically go back up. MX5Things makes a module that you can add to get the auto up, but I’m not sure it is worth the $120 to me.

3. There is a back-up camera, but the guidelines are static. On every other car I’ve been in with a backup camera the guidelines bend with turning the steering wheel to give you an idea if you will clear the side obstacles or not.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

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Veterans Day Edition of SORT
As of Monday, November 11, 2024 at 11:11 AM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1953 Willys M38A1 1953 Dodge M37 2001 Stewart & Stevenson M1078 4×4
Okay, all of these items would typically fall under the off-road category. However, in honor of Veterans Day, I’ve selected items that include the word ‘military’ in their descriptions. Next week, we’ll resume our regular schedule of car-related fun.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sport: 1963 Alfa Romeo Giulia 1600 Spider Sold for $47,000 on 11/7/24
Off-Road: 1988 Suzuki Samurai Sold for $8,200 on 11/7/24
Touring: 1973 Citroen SM 3.0L 5-Speed Sold for $50,000 on 11/6/24

Another Post Office Picture Drive(s)

After today I am 1/4 of the way through getting pictures of every Post Office in the state of Oregon. Of the 22 post offices labeled Portland I only have 5 left. Trouble is, of those five there are 3 that I tried to get already, but for some reason couldn’t find them. I’ll try to find those at least one more time. The first picture in the top row was taken yesterday when I took a drive to way southeast Portland to CravenSpeed to buy their Clear Acrylic Wind Deflector. The other five were taken this morning.

Genuine Rear Under Skirt

While out driving around yesterday I stopped in at the Mazda dealer to see if the little tape things (AKA Protectors) arrived. Nope, so my friendly parts guy ordered another set. I have lost all my days that have no rain and will reach to low 60s and now I have a hard deadline of Sunday the 17th of getting the under skirt on. Hopefully those Protector things will get here during the coming week so I can get them on the car by then. The skirt itself can be done after the 17th if need be.

Forget what I just said in the last couple of lines above, f*ck the Protector things, I put the rear under skirt on this afternoon without them. The first of the two YouTube videos I watched made zero mention of those little double sided “protectors” and second vid didn’t show the process, but did mention it was a pain in the ass to put them on. I would be willing to bet if I paid the big bucks the dealer wanted to install the whole kit and caboodle those guys wouldn’t have gone through that hassle and used them either.

The Diplomat

While watching Jimmy Kimmel Live the other day (on YouTube, so not really live) Allison Janney was telling him about her most recent acting gig. She has a 2-episode run at the end of the second season of the show The Diplomat as the Vice-President. She likens the show to an old favorite, The West Wing, because it is set in the world of high-level politics. She was also enjoying working with the creator, producer and writer of this show, Debora Cahn who was an Emmy Awarding writer while working on The West Wing.

Coincidentally that same night, the star of The Diplomat, Kerri Russel, was on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Okay, it probably wasn’t a coincidence because the shows second season had just come out the week before.

The show is on Netflix so I thought maybe I should check out season 1 and see if I’d like to watch the show. I’m three shows in and I’m hooked. It is very The West Wing like in that there is a lot of smart dialogs, a lot of walk-n-talks and a lot of very fancy English settings (its filmed in London.) My only complaint is, at the beginning there is a chyron telling the shows rating, TV-MA, and the reason why it is rated at that level, Language, Nudity, Sex, Violence and so far, there hasn’t been any of the Nudity or Sex. 😉

Update: The nudity and sex showed up at the end of episode 5 and there was a little more of it in the middle of episode 6.

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Installing The Appearance Package

wideInstead of taking a top down drive on what is possibly the last few days of the year fit for that, I’ve got the car up on jack stands. That 60°ree; temperature required for optimal mounting tape adhesion is only available for today, tomorrow and Friday. And even though it didn’t get all the way to sixty today I did get the side skirts installed and as an extra bit of insurance I taped them in place with some masking tape which I carefully remove tomorrow.

Tomorrow I’ll concentrate on getting the front lip installed and on Friday I’ll hopefully be able to put the rear skirt on. I’m waiting on some small pieces of special thin double stick tape that for some reason they did not include in the box. I ordered it from Mazda last Friday, but it is coming from Georgia and hasn’t arrived yet. Fingers crossed.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

4 N Cars Edition of SORT
As of Monday, November 4, 2024 at 2:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1963 Alfa Romeo
Giulia 1600 Spider		 1988 Suzuki
Samurai		 1973 Citroen
SM 3.0L 5-Speed
This week we have 3 immigrant vehicles that are in this country legally. They have been in the US long enough that most likely they are naturalized citizens.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sport: 2017 Factory Five Racing Daytona Coupe Sold for $65,001 on 10/30/24
Off-Road: 1995 Fiat Panda 4×4 Country Club Sold for $13,000 on 10/30/24
Touring: 1994 Blue Bird Wanderlodge Wide Body Bid to $56,000 on 10/30/24