Life of Brian

This is slightly tangential to the naming of the silver Miata…

Here at the Valve Store we use Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs) to run parts from the stockroom to the assembly lines in certain cases. Our first set of AGVs were about the size of a large Radio Flyer Red Wagon and it followed a 2″ wide metallic piece of tape laid out in loops in the aisles around the shop floor. These worked pretty good except it kept the Maintenance Department busy replacing the gaps in the tape from the wear and tear of foot and forklift traffic. Because humans need to anthropomorphize their mechanical underlings, these two AGVs were named Bubba and Bubbette.

They have decided to upgrade our AVGs to a more modern system. These babies are the size of a forklift and use an optical system that bounces a rotating beam off of reflective tubes stationed at intervals along the walls surrounding the assembly floor. The Stockroom Supervisor opened up the floor to submitting names for the new AGVs. She got 70 different pairs of names for consideration.

A lot of pop culture references (my entry is bolded and Donna’s is italicized) with a sprinkling of two word puns and a few robot inspired names. Another good reason not to ask the general public to name something, by either Internet or Post-It note.

I have been referencing the new silver Miata by the acronym CTBNL which means Car To Be Named Later, but what if later never comes? Our first two Miatas never had names, while the thrid one did, The Emperor. It got its name because it was an LS, the top of the line with leather seats, a cloth top and other goodies, plus it was such smooth riding car compared to the previous one, it just felt royal.

Cars are supposed to tell you their names subliminally by their deeds/actions or by your reaction to them, so far nothing has come to mind. I thought maybe I’ll just create one for it with a starting point of the 5 letters of the acronym – CTBNL. What words could I create that had those particular letters in that particular order with other letters in between and around them?

My first step was to write the 5 consonants out with gaps between them, start plugging in vowels and then searching the internet to see if they might be real words. Not much luck. Step 2 was to search the internet for a sort of word generator that would use my criteria and come up with words that fit. It took a couple tries before I found dCode and bingo, 13 words.

CONTUBERNAL
CONTUBERNIAL
CONTUBERNYAL
CONTRIBUTIONAL
RECTOABDOMINAL
CERATOBRANCHIAL
CRYOTURBATIONAL
CERATOBRANCHIALS
PECTINIBRANCHIAL
COUNTERBALANCINGLY
OCTACHLOROBIPHENYL
OCTACHLOROBIPHENYLS
ACETYLMETHYLCARBINOL

I really like the first one, CONTUBERNAL because it means literally “living in the same tent” or living in close proximity; intimate, familiar and this certainly fits Donna and I in the Miata. But the trouble is that first N – Car Named To Be Named Later – doesn’t work. Looking down the list the only word that has the 5 magic letters in the right order with no extras is – RECTOABDOMINAL – and that certainly won’t fly.

I’d open it up to internet voting, but I’m afraid that Miaty McMiataface would win. So for now, CTBNL it is.

Back when we owned the aging Emperor I considered adding a roll bar to stiffen up the chassis some. I never could seem to pull the trigger on the cost of one though. John Haff of Clunk & Thunk fame runs a ’91 Miata in NASA‘s TTE class and has been threatening forever to turn his wife’s ’99 Miata into another race car now that she doesn’t drive it so much. The ’99 has a Hard Dog Hard Bar installed in it and I have told John several times when he welds a race cage into that car I’d buy the used bar from him.

Donna and I drove over to Augusta’s Cars and Coffee this morning to check out the cars (even had our peekture taken.) John Haff was there with a “booth” trying to entice people to join NASA to go racing on weekends. When we stopped to chat, John asked how I liked my “new” car. His next question was, “How’d you like to swap that Hard Dog Ace roll bar for the Hard Bar?” “No thanks,” I said.

We also went there to see if we could find some cars with stripes on them and ask where they had them done. We struck out. Oh, there were a ton of cars with stripes, but all the older cars had them painted on and all the newer cars had vinyl, but they came from the dealer that way…