Am I Fan Enough?

Its a showdown at the Fenway Corral and I can’t stand it. We went grocery shopping tonight and when I got home the Sox were up 2 to 0 on the Yankees. My wife said, “Your team is winning, you should be happy.” But as a lifelong Red Sox fan I know that doom is just around the corner and sure enough, the very next inning the the MFY scored three runs and are now in the lead.

I gave up on the FRS last night when they were down by three with three chances to make it up against the Indians. I’ll hang on tonight with three innings left because they are down by one and because it is the Yankees, but I don’t know if I can stand it much longer. The pitching is killing me. They just walked the number 9 hitter after getting two outs. Come on, the #9 batter is in that part of the order for a reason, he’s the weakest hitter in the line-up, quit nibbling the corners and throw the ball in there. The offense isn’t helping matters either, in the fifth inning they had the bases loaded and the “best” hitter in the American League, Adrian Gonzales, struck out. In the sixth the tying run was left on second base and in the seven they went down one – two – three.

After tonight’s audible torture, I’m in for some visual tormenting the next two days as the games will be on TV, FOX on Saturday afternoon and* because the game will be ESPN on Sunday night.

* Just checked the TV Listings online and it looks like the local FOX affiliate will be showing the Phillies – Giants game. Maybe it will be raining in San Francisco tomorrow afternoon.

I Missed You Guys Yesterday

We got home from work yesterday and were surprised to find we had no new email. We then realized there was no internet access. That explains that. I went into the living room and turned on the TV, nothing but snow. Because I already had an errand to run and the Cable Co office is like a 1/2 mile away, I opted to stop by instead of dealing with voice mail hell.

The woman at the office tried some things with no success, so we set up a repair appointment for today. When I got home I went over to check the junction box and what do do know, cable wires coming out, but nothing going in. I looked up at where the cable runs through a hook on the soffit and the hook was bent straight. Odd, the junction box nor the splitter inside looked damaged, did someone need a 100′ of coaxial cable? I walked to the street, crossed it and walked up to the pole where the cable comes from. Somebody didn’t steal the cable, it still headed up the pole and the length of the cable was neatly coiled at the base.

Tuesday was trash day and I figured that the truck the city uses to pick up the yard waste, AKA: The Jaws of Death, most have somehow yanked it down while picking up vegetable matter from in front of the house across the street. I called the Cable Co and let them know what I had discovered.

Today at 12:30 a tech called me at work to tell me he was just leaving my house and he let me know he replaced the cable from pole to home as it had a couple of squirrel induced damage spots. He could see my modem was online with his computer, so he figured he had the thing fixed, but to give a call if when we got home the TV wasn’t working (it was.) He modified my theory of the incident slightly because the cable end wasn’t damaged and it makes a lot of sense. The truck probably hit the cable just enough to yank it out of the hook on the soffit, leaving it dangling low across the street. A city worker probably manually disconnected it from the splitter and rolled it up under the pole so as not to endanger any traffic on the street. It sure would have been nice if they reported the issue to the Cable Co, the issue might have even been fixed before we got home…

Off Roading

We ran a couple errands after work today, the last of which was to pick up our evening meal, a buy one get one free spaghetti dinner. Trouble came when we left the restaurant parking lot, home was to the left and making a left on this road at this time of day is nearly impossible, so I made a right. Then I hung a quick left on a road I have passed by a zillion times, but had never driven. When I got to the next stop sign I realized where I was. Back to the right was a road I had already traveled on the way to the restaurant and away from home. To the left and towards home was a dead end with a little dirt spur that dumped out behind Walmart.

I went left. The little dirt spur was in a lot worse shape than I remembered. The pot holes were separated by not much of level and because of the recent afternoon thunderstorms, filled with dirty brown water. Slow and careful driving allowed me to keep most of the wheels out of the divots. Then to top it off, the final obstacle was a curb to drive down off of to get back to pavement. Thank goodness we weren’t in the Miata.

The Purple Whale got a deserved bath after the spaghetti dinner.

Car Free Sunday

We slept in a little this morning and then got on the tandem for a bike ride before the weather got stinking hot. We rode a long looping 15 miles before ending up at the west side DD for our usual. By the time we were done we had gone 22 miles and change. After parking the bike and closing the garage door, neither of us ventured outside again.

We watched the last 2 episodes of Season Eight of Law & Order: The Mother Ship on a DVD from Netflix with lunch. This disc was the end in two different ways, first, it marks our return to one DVD out at a time from Netflix and secondly, Season 8 is the last of L&O seasons of the 20 that is available for rental (except for inexplicably, season fourteen.) The afternoon was spent watching the FRS beat the CWS on TBS. And tonight, well, when do you think I’m writing this.

Three For Three

We ate for the Trifecta. Breakfast at Autens where we were too early to for the annual pancake eating contest. Lunch at Chick-fil-A where the parking lot was full, the drive-up window line was long, but inside the service was surprisingly fast. Dinner was at Zorbas Pizza and Grill where the food was spectacularly mediocre for the price they charged for it.

Dinner with the MMC at Zorbas was a prelude to the Annual Bug Splat Rally and for only the second time in its 13 year history no one went home with the Biggest Bug trophy. I skipped 2002 for some reason and this year, as I alluded to in Friday’s post, no one hit a bug, let alone a big one. In an effort to make sure he didn’t take home the trophy, one member wrote the word bug on the green Avery dot on another car and another member, a past winner, said even if he did actually win the trophy, his wife would not let him back in the house with it. So, awaiting next year’s run, the trophy sits in a place of honor at our house; on top of the water heater in the laundry room at the back of the garage.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1052

Bugless Splat?

Saturday is the MMC’s Annual Bug Splat Rally and this year we have added an extra zig and corresponding zag to the route. Monday we ran about half of the route to see how the extra roads worked out and last night we ran the whole thing to make sure that my mileage numbers on the route map were correct. Before we started I didn’t really make sure the nose of the car was squeaky clean, but at the completion of both runs the nose of the Emperor did not have seem to have any real new splats on it. Maybe the very dry, very hot weather has really decreased the insect population around here.

There are 4 prizes up for grabs on the Bug Splat Rally, Biggest Bug (winner gets an awesome trophy), Closest To The Target, Most Bugs and Cleanest Car. If the insect total tomorrow is anything like this past Monday and Thursday one car could win those first three prizes and the rest of the participants will all be tied for the Cleanest Car Award.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1050

Screwed

The back deck project is finished for all intensive purposes. I have to try one thing and if it works out, there may be about an hour of staining left to do.

Saturday morning we got an early start to beat the heat. Donna and friend Joan went for a walk and I went out to put the top trim boards on the railing around the deck. I didn’t buy any screws because I had a bunch of 1-5/8″ deck screws left over from a long ago project. The first thing I did was to drill pilot holes in the already cut to length and shape boards. I used the old boards as a guide to get the right amount of holes but made sure I was slightly off so as to not try and use an old hole for the new screw.

I grabbed my old screws and instantly thought they are too light in color compared to the dark brown (Brazilian Walnut) decking boards I had purchased at Home Depot. But I opted to try a couple to see if they would be that noticeable after they were sunk in the piece of decking. Two screws were all it took to realize that they didn’t get hidden enough and really stood out.

So I drove the 1 mile over to Home Depot to buy some darker screws. They had on the shelves screws in gray, forest green, silver, tan and my best option choice – brown. I took my 1lb. box of brown composite deck screws home and tried a few. I started the first two in the holes of the previously tried tan leftover screws. Not bad, but they will have to do considering what my options were. The third screw I tried, in a virgin hole, went down and stopped with he head above the board before spinning uselessly stripped. I tried one more with the same results. I backed out the 1-5/8″ screws, tossed them back in the box they came out of and drove back to Home Depot to return them.

This time I bought 2-1/2″ screws. The color selection was the same, so I took them home in the same brown color. Wouldn’t you think that a store that sold two kinds of composite deck boards, both in a dark brown shade, would carry dark brown composite deck screws? The 2-1/2″ screw heads sunk in just fine while holding down the top boards, but they were about a 1/4″ too long for outside trim boards and they stuck out a bit from the bottom. Once I finally got going, I finished the job in about an hour. The one pound box turned out to hold just the right amount for my job as there were only three screws left over.

When I opened the second 1lb. plastic box, right there on top, was a brochure showing all the variations of the Grip Rite Prime Guard Plus composite deck screws. The second color illustrated was dark brown and it would have been a perfect match. To add insult to injury, they also offer it in a #8 x 2″ long version that would have been the perfect size. So I guess in 20 years when the composite boards need replacing I’ll pre-order my screws.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1047