Exodus – Part 2

Episode number 24 was the two hour Season 1 finale and we got excitement aplenty. Artz the high school science teacher blows himself up, Locke nearly gets eaten by the smoke monster, Claire’s baby gets snatched temporarily, Walt really gets snatched off the raft which then gets blown up and finally, three sticks of dynamite blows off the door of the hatch, all wrapped around images of the main cast boarding the Oceanic Airlines’ Flight 815 in Syndey.

Started down, went up, back down, up for the last time.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 391

 
Up for the last time, because the Emperor is having a sleepover at Redmond’s Upholstery in Augusta where tomorrow he gets a new top after approximately 2,235 transitions. I say approximately because I didn’t keep track of the transitions for the first 13 months of ownership, so I took what it did do for the year before and the 2 years after to get an average count per day (1.03), then multiplied it by the number of missing days and added that to the counts I did know.

Exodus – Part 1

Episode 23’s off island flashbacks feature a lot of the main characters in the Sydney Airport getting ready to depart while on island we see the last frantic construction on the raft as it gets ready to depart. Meanwhile the crazy French Chick arrives with a warning that the “Others” are coming. Jack thinks they should all hide in the hatch, but it still can’t be opened prompting a French Chick lead trip to the black rock to get some dynamite.

We rode the tandem to work today and it was chilly enough (low 50s) that I wore tights and we both wore some light knit gloves. We have been using a NiteHawk Pro Dual for commuting that we have had for what seems like ages (maybe 10 years?) It is starting to show its age as the light output is nearly non existent when we pull into the parking lot after just under a half hours worth of riding. You can buy a replacement battery for $55, but even when brand new it was only good for an hour and a half (plus the battery weighs about 2 lbs.) Instead I decided to try one of the newer LED lights, after a bit of internet research I opted to try a Cateye EL-530 which I found at Nashbar for forty bucks.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 388

Born To Run

Episode #22 is Kate-centric as she tries to get off the island on Micheal’s raft we find out more of her off island back story and just who belonged to that little plane and what happened to him.

Tonight the Emperor got a transfusion and a new kidney. While he was on the table I swapped his gloves with his socks. Friday he gets a new crown.

In one way I’m glad I live in a very red state, no robo calls bad mouthing the other guy clogging up my answering machine.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 388

The Greater Good

Season 1 Episode 21 revolves around Sayid off island and we find out just how he ends up on that fateful Flight 815. On island we attend a funeral, witness a near murder and Sawyer calms the new baby, “Turnip Head”, by reading a car magazine. The SciFi Channel has been running repeats of TDTVS since September by running 4 episodes every Monday starting at 7 PM and coincidentally the show running tonight at seven is The Greater Good.

I stayed up to see the whole game last night. It was close the whole way and the FRS had a couple of chances in the late innings, but couldn’t pull another rabbit out of their hats. The Tampa Bay Rays are on the way to the World Series to play the Philadelphia Phillies and the Red Sox are going home. Because it doesn’t matter to me who beats who in the Series, I might watch some portion of the games if Donna can’t find anything she wants to watch on TV those nights, so baseball is pretty much over for me for this year.

Pitchers and catchers report in 115 days.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
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Twins Every Time

A census taker in a rural area went up to a farmhouse and knocked. When a woman came to the door, he asked her how many children she had and their ages.

She said, “Les’ see now, there’s the twins, Sally and Billy, they’re thirty-two. And the twins, Seth & Beth, they’re twenty-six. And the twins, Penny and Jenny, they’re twenty-four.”

“Hold on!” said the census taker, “Did you get twins EVERY time?”

The woman answered, “Heck no, there was hundreds of times we didn’t get nothin’.”

Have I Learned My Lesson?

I’m going to say no. The FRS forced a deciding game seven in their series with the Rays by winning last night’s game. But tonight, if the Sox are trailing by a bunch of runs in the late innings, I’m going to bed at 11. Tomorrow is an early start and the 5:00 AM alarm will come quickly.

I’m kinda glad I don’t have HDTV, John Lester’s sweat salt encrusted hat is ugly enough in plain ol’ analog TV.

Although I like the theme of the Brooke Shields commercials for the new Volkswagen minivan, I just wish there was some actual German engineering behind the Routan aside from figuring out where to paste a big VW logo on a Chrysler Town & Country.

Started down, still down.
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Spooky

This morning was a MMC morning. First up was breakfast at a place called Just Fresh in Martinez. Donna and I picked this place early this year when we were over that way on a Saturday. I guess we should have rechecked because the place looked awfully dark we we arrived 15 minutes before the scheduled meeting time. Walking up to the door we saw why, they had adjusted their Saturday opening time to 11:00AM. Fortunately for us there was a Sonic just across the parking lot and Miata folk are very flexible.

After breakfast one of our members had planned an excursion to nearby Edgefield. Stacey grew up there so knows all the cool places to visit. First stop was a first for our Miata Club, a graveyard. This one was behind the Edgefield First Baptist Church and is the final resting place of perhaps South Carolina’s most famous citizen, Strom Thurmond. From there we visited the Discover Center of the South Carolina National Heritage Corridor which turned out to be a nice little museum and well worth the visit. After there the Club headed over to visit an antebellum home, Oakley Park and Donna and I headed back to ASCO.

Today was the annual company Fun Day where the company hosts a hamburger & hot dog lunch on the front lawn. We also had an employee talent contest, a kids Halloween costume parade and a ton of door prizes. This year Donna and I both won a door prize, an umbrella and a bathroom scale, which doesn’t sound too exciting on the surface, but in years past we have usually given away what we’ve won to someone who might use them. As icing on the cake each employee (and their dependents) were give a Mega Pass to the Western Carolina State Fair that is right across the street from the plant.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 384