Truck Day

Pitchers and catchers report in just 9 days…

12 Rules

The other day on my morning walk, I listened to an episode of the podcast Revisionist History entitled “Malcolm Gladwell’s 12 Rules for Life“. He was reacting to a whole 12 Rules meme that was generated by a book called, surprisingly, “12 Rules for Life” that came out last January. He had an interesting take on the idea and in typical Canadian fashion it ended up being mostly about hockey.

In typical Life of Brian fashion I knew nothing about this meme until after it had been around so long it was already out of fashion so, you just know I’m going to make my own anyway. Trouble with that is, there is no way I can come up with 12 rules without doing a whole lot of cognitating first, so I’m going to take a play from Mr. Gladwell and name only one. His rule is: Pull the Goalie (it has to do with Risk vs, Reward and is worth a listen.)

Here’s mine: Life is too short to drive boring cars.

Brushed Stainless Steel Dash

Stainless Steel Gauge Surround

On the 25th of January, they announced the winners of the 2018 Moss Motoring Challenge and mailed off the $50 Gift Certificates. As expected, we landed in among the top 50 runners-up at the totally respectable level of tied for 8th. Our Gift Certificate arrived on Monday the 28th, on Tuesday I ordered the goodie you see above and it arrived today. A couple hours later and it was in.

We took advantage of mild weather this afternoon and took a drive to do a little work towards another $50 Gift Certificate next year. We snagged 3 photos to go along with the 2 we already have giving us a total of 15 points out of a possible 298.

Pete Bostwick Trail

The bottom sign “To South Boundary” has always been here, the Pete Bostwick Trail part is kind of new.

 

Work on that New Years Resolution is going smoothly, we have now walked in Hitchcock woods more in the month of January 2019, than we have done in the last two years.

We entered at the South Boundary Entrance for the first time in a long time and made our way through Memorial Gate to the Horse Show Ring before heading back. With a little side trip following an unmarked (and as it turned out, dead end) trail we probably covered about 2-1/2 miles. Maybe next time we’ll remember to bring the GPSr so we can get an accurate mileage figure.

Everything Comes in Threes?


First it was a nail in one of the Miata’s tires, so we had to buy a new set for the car. Then came the desktop PC breaking, necessitating a new one. And now we are the proud owners of a new Washer and dryer.

About 6 months ago of piece of the plastic bushing that the dryer drum spindle rotated in broke off. This made the dryer squeal slightly while in use. My solution to this was to occasionally squirt some 3-in-1 oil on the bushing. A couple months ago while washing the mattress cover the load became very unbalanced and the washing machine tried to walk out into the garage, stopped only by rubber inlet hoses, and placed a couple of dents in the water heater. Ever since then, when doing a full load of clothes the odds were 5 to 3 that there would be puddle of water under the machine at the end of the cycle. As the days went by, the odds of it occurred never wavered, but the amount of water left on the floor started to increase.

We have always opted for a basic washer/dryer combo, not the bottom of the line, maybe a couple steps up. What we were replacing cost us a little over $500 fifteen years ago. Using the same criteria this time as well, even with these machines being on sale it cost us $500 each… Sounds like a lot, but figuring we do about 10 loads a week, for the next 15 years with these that is a little over a quarter a load and is a magnitude cheaper than a laundromat visit.

After About 31,000 Minutes

We went up to Hendersonville, to the SMH to visit with my sister and her husband the weekend before Christmas. They had just moved in and wanted our help in hanging all their paintings, prints, diplomas, bits of memorabilia and whatnot. We originally planned on spending two nights, but by late in the second day, having finished hanging everything up, having not slept well on night one and me starting to feel a little sick, we opted to pack our bags after dinner and leave. This got us home early enough get a full night’s sleep in our own bed and not have to drive on the roads on Christmas Eve.

Part way home, Donna decided to put some hand cream on. As she always does, she removes the wedding ring from her hand and places it on the pinkie of my right hand to hold while she completes this task. Trouble was, there was no wedding ring on her left hand. A quick search of her purse and immediate passenger seat area turned up nothing. When we got home we made a more thorough search of the car interior and every nook and cranny of our luggage, but still no ring.

We figured the most likely spot the ring was left was on top of the dresser, in the bedroom we spent the previous night in. Donna does remember putting hand cream on shortly before we made the decision to pack up and go. She texted my sister to go in the bedroom and see if she could find it. The reply came that the ring was not anywhere to be found in there. Our speculation was that it probably fell off the dresser and hit the carpeted floor so it wasn’t heard and one of their pesky cats has batted somewhere not easily visible. We asked for a second check around and they still didn’t find it.

After a couple weeks, or about twenty thousand minutes, Donna felt funny not having a wedding band on, so we took her retirement watch that has been collecting dust for the last year and a half down to a local pawn shop and sold it. We then took the proceeds and walked next door to one of those perpetually Going Out of Business jewelry stores and bought a wedding ring as similar as we could to my band.

About 31,000 minutes after the wedding ring disappeared, it magically reappeared. My sister texted Donna that she had looked down, and there it was. Obviously our cat theory was right and now one of them had batted it back into the daylight. Yesterday we made a day trip to North Carolina to retrieve the wondering ring. While motoring along I-385 not far from Gray Court, SC the Lady Bug passed the 31,000 mile plateau.

That Went Easier Than I Thought


The CTBNL only had forty some-odd thousand miles on it when we got it, so the interior was still fairly new looking. In the thirty some-odd thousand miles we have put on it since, it still looks pretty good, but the cloth driver’s seat had started to fray in three spots over the summer. We figure the velcro closures on the pockets of my cargo shorts were most likely the culprit.

We hemmed and hawed about the possibility of buying leather replacement seat covers, but in the end decided to replace the covers with the OEM cloth. While we have been happy with leather seating in the previous two Miatas, I really like the not too hot or not too cold aspect of the cloth. And as a bonus you don’t slide around on them in spirited driving. The cost of buying new Mazda cloth covers is only marginally cheaper than aftermarket leather, $660 vs. $800, but for now, seeing as the passenger seat is fine and we are not replacing it, we are in for just $330.

The internet “experts” said changing the covers was easy as pie, but because I am not the most skillful person when it comes to do-it-yourself type projects I wasn’t so sure. I read all I could on the Miata forum, watched some youtube vids and figured taking my time, in a couple days I could do it.

Turns out it took me a just little over 4 hours to finish the job. And at least 30 minutes of that was returning inside to do further research in disassembly of the seat. All the videos I watched were of the 1st generation Miata seats and the NB versions, being that there have been ten years of advancement in seat technology since then, were different in several ways.

That $330 spent is really more like $395 because I spent $20 on some Hog Ring Pliers plus 150 rings. Another $20 was spent on a pair of dedicated hog ring cutters seeing as my 40-year old diagonal cutters are literally not the sharpest tool in the box. I also spent twenty-five dollars at the local auto upholstery shop to have them sew a small half moon of fabric on the top back of the seat cover. This will hopefully replace the squeak preventative cloth and look cleaner than what I have wrapped around the roll bar now.

In the above photo I have finished replacing the seat back and was mid way through putting the new cover on the bottom. The bicycle helmet with an LED headlight on it is there because I was working on the floor of the garage and the door opener lights and my hanging drop light never seemed to be enough or coming from the right direction.