“Assigned” Parking

Oil StainLike most people who work at places that have their own employee parking lot, the folks at ASCO fall into two categories, the ones who park anywhere as long as it is as close to the entrance door as possible and the ones who park further out so they always get the same spot.

Donna and I are of the second group, we park way out, so we always know where the car is, we minimize door dings, we get in a nice walk just getting from car to door and back, plus we have our own “assigned” parking spot because no one else wants it. Two rows up from us is where the two 2nd shift maintenance guys park and they are in the same group too. One fellow drives a newer Dodge Dakota or occasionally he drives his nicely restored 66 Ford Mustang. The other guy drives this ratted out pickup. As you can see the surface underneath where he always parks looks a lot like the shoreline of Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez. I’m hoping this guy takes better care of ASCO‘s machinery than he does of his own daily driver…

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 358

Now That’s Scary

Candy!Tuesday, August 29th and the local supermarket has an aisle full of Halloween candy. It is more than 2 months away for criminy sakes.

What’s even scarier is that I got a message from my credit card company this afternoon asking me to call them about some questionable charges. They questioned 4 charges, two under ten dollars and a couple of over $300. They read me the names of the companies and I didn’t recognize them, either as anyone I have done business with or had ever heard of. They were all online charges and I didn’t ask, but I’m guessing they caught them using something along the lines of SPAM filtering. Anyway, that account is closed and a new one with card is being sent to me.

I have made several travel purchases in the last 10 days or so, but almost all were from reputable big companies. The timing was curious though, all the transactions were midday today which is just a bout 4 hours after I received my monthly email notification that my web host had hit that very same charge card. I wonder just how secure my CC data is with these folks? I would just pack up and leave, but they are the ones who registered the domain name mr-miata.net, so I’d lose that and y’all would be cast adrift in the rough seas of the internet until you found me again. If someday soon you come here and don’t find this blog, try lifeofbrian.com or mrmiata.com or some other variation on those themes…

I would do it in a heartbeat if WordPress was as easy export my posts from as Movable Type was.

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Hard At Work HTMLing

Self PortraitEntry submission into the “My Favorite Miata Picture” Contest 2 ended yesterday at noon. Nice little turn out of 58, compared to last year’s 44. The first pictured submitted was mine, it was there when I put up the page to begin with. The last one arrived with just 16 minutes to spare. So this evening was spent getting all the pages and scripts ready so people can vote for their favorite Favorite picture. You don’t have to have entered the contest to vote, so click on that link on Thursday and pick the one you like best. Right now I’m leaning towards voting for the last picture submitted which I think is the nicest, but I might just vote for the first one. 😉

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 352

All Jacked Up & No Place To Go

All Jacked UpWe did a little jean shopping this morning followed by a lunch ribs at Tony Roma’s. This afternoon was spent changing the oil and rotating the tires.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 350

Andy Jones

Andy JonesWashed the car this morning in preparation for today’s MMC gathering for the Sno-Cap Drive In’s 42nd Anniversary. We had a pretty decent showing of cars, six, but all of us were late arrivals, so we were beat to the shady spots under the awning by the Corvettes and the VWs.

I was a few minutes late because I stopped for an impromptu photo shoot at the empty Andy Jones car dealer lot. Andy Jones opened a Mazda dealership in Aiken a year or so after I bought my first Miata. A couple years later they moved 15 miles west to this shop in North Augusta. Now they have packed up and moved 20 miles further west to Augusta, GA.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 348

Welcome Mr. Bond

Cancer Death RayYou will be strapped to a table and your cancer cells will meet their doom from blasts of my special death ray.

Because Donna’s skin was getting very red and sunburned looking, with even a couple of small blisters forming, her doctor decided to give her a slight break from the total breast irradiation. So, since Wednesday, they have been doing some of the seven scheduled “direct on the spot where the tumor used to be” treatments. For these treatments, instead of just the regular output they add some extensions with metal plates that act as lens to focus the beam on just one spot.

I went along with Donna for her radiation treatment again today and I watched them do the setup. I only took the one photo of the radiation machine, I’d have liked to taken one or two with Donna laying there all ready to go, but because of the nudity the MPAA would slap me with an R-Rating. 🙂

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 347

RIP Pluto

Good Morning If I had a really, really long telephoto lens and it wasn’t daytime, you could possibly see the ex-ninth planet in this photo.

For last weekend’s Bug Splat rally everyone places a green Avery dot on their car in hopes of winning the fabulous “Closest to the Dot” prize. I played along and put one on the front bumper on the driver’s side about headlight level, but splatted no insect anywhere near it. Raise your hand if you are still driving around with a green dot on your car. Just me then?

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 345