Blogger’s Night Off

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 382

Post Office Mania

Duncan, SCI’ve got all 30 odd Post Office photos from this weekend uploaded to the gallery. I’ve got some sort of verbiage for each photo, but in a bunch of them you can tell I’m really reaching. In the beginning it seemed easy to write a blurb for each Post Office, but it is getting harder as the total goes up. It becomes especially hard when we take mass quantities of pictures in one weekend. They all kind of blur together. Tomorrow I’ll try and get them up on Flickr! and this weekend get them geotagged.

Before my keyboard was having trouble with the letter ‘O’, I took it apart and but it back together and the problem went away. For a couple of weeks. Now it is dropping the letter ‘T’. So if you read some of my photo captions and a word doesn’t seem right, add a ‘T’ to it. If that doesn’t work I probably just missed the connection between brain thought and finger press.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 379

Dedo de la Mantequilla

Drayton, SC Post OfficeOnce every couple of weeks I’ll have a snack attack and head into the cafeteria to quench it. My usual extinguisher of choice is Lance’s Peanut Butter on Nekot cookies. These have two draws, 1) I like ’em and 2) they are only 50¢. Today I opted to go wild and get a candy bar of some kind. It had been awhile since I had a Butterfinger bar, so I pressed E9. I know it had been awhile because the last time I bought one it was 65 cents, today the price tag below my selection said 75¢.

The only problem with buying a Butterfinger from a vending machine is you don’t usually get to bite off pieces to eat, falling from the E Row always busts the bar up into a bunch of uneven chunks. When I got back to my desk, I opened up the wrapper and sure enough there were 3 big pieces and one small piece inside.

As I savored that crispety and crunchety candy I read the label and discovered that each English word was followed immediately by it’s Spanish counterpart – Bar followed by Barra on the front for example. I’ve noticed some of the larger chain stores around here have goten ino the same act, Wal-Mart, Lowes, etc. Men with a smaller Hombres underneath. Doors -> Puertas.

I don’t like it. Not for the reason you think either, I don’t like the cacophony (ruido) of it, English and Spanish. Just pick one. Hell, I don’t even care if you pick Spanish. With immersion, I’ll figure it out.

Butterfinger in Spanish is still Butterfinger.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 378

66,000 Spokes

66,000 SpokesAt least that is how many it seemed like as the peleton streaked by us yesterday afternoon in Greenville. It is also the mileage milestone that the Miata moved past this afternoon somewhere south of Laurens, SC.

We took the “long” way home today by circling north of Duncan before heading south to visit 9 more Post Offices for photographing. That made a total of 33 POs for our three day trip. Going to take a while to get all of those photos edited and online. I know I’m going to have a heck of a time remembering anything unique about every one of them for captioning. Good thing we are not going anywhere next weekend.

Even with all driving, picture taking and bike race watching I still had time to finish one Spenser book and start another. This one won’t make the Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules page, so I’ll post it here:

There was no answer when we rang the bell. The house had that stillness that had Paul had mentioned. In the interests of not looking like a jerk, I tried the doorknob. It was locked.

“I already tried that,” Paul said.

“It’s a Dick Tracy crime stopper,” I said. “Always try the door before jimmying it.”

“Great working with a pro,” Paul said.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 376

Busy Day

Beep-Boop-BeepOne R2D2 mailbox and
Fourteen Post Office pictures in the morning.
One hundred fourteen professional cyclists in the afternoon.

Started up, down, up, down, up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 373

Took A Drive

Tigerville, SCWe had a reservation at a Holiday Inn Express (guess I should make this an acronym – HIE) for Sunday night because our original plan called for us to drive up on Sunday morning to watch the Professional Road Race Championships that are being held in Greenville. Decided to drive up today and catch a few Post Offices. Ten fell before the shutter. Most interesting: Tigerville.

Last night, six FRS pitchers gave up nine runs and 13 hits to the Baltimore Orioles. Tonight, 1 pitcher gave up no runs on NO hits. In 23 year-old Clay Buchholz’s second big league start he faced only three more batters than the minimum possible.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 369

Mainlining Spenser

I’ve now finished 17 out of the 35 Spenser books. I’ve got two more books still on the way from my Amazon spending spree of a week ago and I’ve still got one left to read of the four I’ve already received. Today we went to 3 used book stores, one in Aiken and two in Augusta and bought 6 more books including a good find of a paperback reissue of #3 in the series, Mortal Stakes. his now leaves just 9 books in the series I don’t have.

Mortal Stakes is about Spenser and the 1975 Red Sox (with fictitious players) so it is like getting two pleasures for he price of one, even though I’m really not enamored with the FRS right now after their showing in the Bronx and tonight’s game, so far, against Baltimore.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 365