A Night At The Spa

The Purple Whale is spending the night at Taylor Hyundai getting his 15,000 mile beauty treatment. Because we learned our lesson last time (call and schedule in advance a couple weeks) we have a loaner car from the dealer.

It is a 2011 Hyundai Azera with 2,222 miles on the clock. I don’t have the greatest relationship with loner cars (examples: 1 & 2) and this one is no exception.

Or maybe it is just me, because I’m sure this is a very fine automobile, but it is severely lacking in quite a few categories compared to its cousin the 2011 Sonata. The styling leaves a lot to be desired, both internally and externally, the front leg room is less than an Elantra we tried, the leather seats are rock hard, uncomfortable and slippery, and it wallows down the road like a mid-seventies GM sedan.

On the plus side it has a bigger engine, a V-6, that puts out about 30% more HP than the Sonata (but the gas mileage is 20% less.) The only other thing that is nicer than the Purple Whale is that it has Dual Climate Control.

The sticker was in the glove box and the MSRP was over $4,000 more than the Sonata. To be fair, I’m sure the esthetics, both inside and out are much better in the newly redesigned 2012 Azera. But it is no wonder they had to turn this into the Service Dept Loaner, they would never get want they wanted for this wallflower with all the new Fluidic Sculptured, larger and cheaper Sonatas on the lot.

15,000 Calories

Miss me?

Spent last week in Matthews/Mint Hill, NC “learning” how to program our new Mori Seki NTX100-SZ to turn, literally, raw steel into parts that in turn go into valves which make the world go round. I was not alone in this endeavor, thank goodness, a real CNC programer (Hi, Mark!) and 2 guys that are going to be the machine’s operators came along with me.

We drove up early Monday morning and spent the next 5 days in class soaking up all we could about how to use a CAM program called Esprit. We can only hope it was enough…

Between all that learnin’ we did a whole lot of eating. There were four breakfast buffets at the hotel and you know me and buffets, I eat a lot at them to make sure I get my money’s worth, even though Uncle ASCO was paying. The school provided all 5 lunches from local places and they were very good and all of them were larger than I normally eat. Of the four evening meals, two of them were at Razzoo’s, where it is impossible to stop eating once you start in on their over-sized plates of food. Plus there were Rat Toes to consume as an appetizer.

Somewhere just north of Columbia, SC the Purple Whale passed the 15,000 mile mark.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1126

BC BROOKIE

After a short and very chancy bike ride this morning, we did a bit of running around to pick up some things. It was time for both cars to get new windshield wipers and there were also a couple of grocery items needed. The only place that you can get that mixture of stuff at 8:30 AM on a Sunday morning here in our fair city is Walmart.

We checked the radar before setting out on the tandem at dawn this morning and it looked like the rain was was going to pass to the south of us. And to validate this, as we exited the garage the sky was dark and the sound of thunder was heard from that direction. We mounted up and headed north. We only made it about 5 miles before we opted to turn around as the gray clouds were closing in from all sides. On the ride back a confluences of events, sun rising in the east and dark clouds to the west, led to a wonderful rainbow, often fully complete. Should have brought my camera.

After lunch we headed back out to pick up some more stuff that were not available at our local Wally World, from places that don’t open until later. Goodwill for the male equivalent of the little black dress, a blue blazer. We also had to go to Kroger and buy some of the last available Girl Scout cookies and fill up the Miata with gas.

Later as I entered all our receipts into Quicken I started reading the items on the one from Walmart. 18 Rain-X, check. 26 Rain-X, check. Wiper Blade Qty 2, check. Q-Tips, check. Cheetos, check. Bcbrookies, Qty 2, $2.24 each. What the heck is a BC BROOKIE? I have no idea. It was only 7 hours ago…

It took Donna a minute or two, but she remembered. She is making something for a March of Dimes bake sale at work. It was two boxes of Betty Crocker Cookie-topped Brownies.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1122

Refrigerated Pyrotechnics

This is part of what happens when you leave a can of Diet Dr Pepper too close to the cold air ducting of your refrigerator. The rest is brown drips and ice chips scattered everywhere around the inside requiring the removal of every shelf and bin for washing.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1120

Pine Pollen

So far it doesn’t bother me physically, but it sure does make a mess of anything externally.

Back the last week of January we had a warm spell and the yellow dust made a slight appearance. Then it got cold, real cold for a few days, then it rained hard. The back driveway near the plant was littered with a mess of the pods from the pines that hold the pollen. Several weeks of warm weather went by and no new pollen appeared, so I thought that we had dodged a bullet.

Not so, last week the pine tree branches were filled with more of those pollen pods and they have now started to give away those fine little specks that give everything a yellow tint. I used the California Duster on the Miata Saturday before the MMC breakfast and by the time we finished eating pancakes there was a light coating.

Don\’t even ask about the Purple Whale, from being parked way out in the Valve Store’s parking lot, surrounded by pine trees, it is well covered in yellow.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1120

Yikes!

While walking a trail in Santee State Park we came around a corner to a small lake and heard a couple of small splashes. There, not 50 feet away was a 7-8′ female alligator lazing on the opposite shore with her brood. We counted seven small, 15″ to 18″, hatchlings in the water or right near her.

We would probably never noticed them if it weren’t for the splashes. Good thing they weren’t on our side of the pond…