New Year’s Resolution

I’ve started work on what my New Year’s Resolution for 2005 is going to be. My first instinct is to pick something doable, but that got me in about 15 pounds of trouble a couple years back when I vowed to eat more and exercise less. So I think maybe I’ll shoot for something hard to do, like watch more television. How can that be hard you ask? Easy, I will not watch any reality shows (as much as I am intrigued by the Gilligan’s Island one.) I’m not interested in and CSI show. Ditto it’s imitators. No Law & Orders. The only sport I’m remotely interested in is baseball, so there won’t be any of that until April. I’d watch MTV if there was any M in it. VH1 is as bad, as it has become the network of “The 100 Most Insipid Music Related Countdown Shows.” About the only thing left is MXC on Spike and it isn’t on but a few times a week. But considering I only watch West Wing on Wednesday nights now…

Dry Run #1

This Saturday is the Master’s Miata Club’s annual Holiday Party. Before said party, I always lead a Christmas Light Tour for the group. It is a cobbled together combination of light tours that have appeared in the local paper. Tonight we ran through a section of it to see how it would go. There were plenty of lights up already considering it is the first Sunday after Thanksgiving, but it was definitely a good thing we did a dry run. With me following Donna’s reading of the newspaper’s directions, on darkened and unfamiliar streets we must have made a half dozen U-turns because of passing the right street or worse yet, because we didn’t go far enough.

Why is the letter u in U-turn capitalized?

Thanksgiving 2004

Thanksgiving 2004

Back row from left: Me, Donna’s oldest brother Jim, her younger sister Sandy and her youngest brother Scott. Middle row from left: Linda (Jim’s wife), Donna and her next older brother Steve. Front row from left: niece Jennifer (Jim & Linda’s daughter), Paul (Sandy’s husband) and Beth (Scott’s wife).

Turkey Day

Before the whole family descended on the house demanding baked poultry and all the fixin’s, Donna and I had time to go out and get a gourmet breakfast at Hardee’s. Mmmm…Biscuits & Gravy. It was a bit chilly, but seeing as top speed was around 35 MPH we could handle it.

Later I took my 17 year-old niece for a top down drive through some of the twistier sections in a couple Aiken’s sub-divisions. Amazingly enough about a 1/2 mile into the ride she emulated a classic Donna pose while I drove, throwing both hands straight up like a lot of roller coaster riders do. I may have to resurrect the old warning sticker I had in the 95.

Forced Night Off

Did you miss me? I missed you?

About 3:30 yesterday afternoon mr-miata.net disappeared off the face internet. Not only me, but everyone connected with me on whatever server that failed. The web site of my hosting service was long gone. When that happens I flash back to the ThatHostingCompany fiasco of April 2002. I can just feel it in my bones that they have gone under and taken my internet life with them. After several hours of absolutely nothing, by 7:00:00 pm I knew they were working on coming up from the depths. The hosting web site was back up, I still had no web sites, but I could see the files when I FTP’d in. This morning when I got up everything was back to normal. Whew.

Happy Anniversary

It was one year ago today that we left behind a 1995 Laguna Blue Miata at Rader and brought home a 2003 Miata in Garnet Red Mica. In 366 days we’ve been over 18,000 miles together. It is raining tonight, just like it was last November 24th. Last year when we got home with it, we parked it in the garage and drove the MSV down to Florida for Thanksgiving, this year it will be in the same garage, but we will be here with it.

Mr. Fletcher’s Ride – November

Mr. Fletcher's Ride - NovemberWe went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods this morning and autumn has reached Aiken. I would say our leaves are just past their peak (they are certainly falling off the oaks and hickories in my front yard.) I decided today was the day I was going to start something I’ve been thinking about for some time. Find a spot in the woods and take a picture there every month around the same time. This will allow us to watch the seasons change here. Of course, snow is so rare in these parts, I reserve the right to ignore the once a month rule to capture it if it happens. Looking southwest at the corner of Mr. Fletcher’s Ride and an unnamed path about 1/2 mile in from our usual entry point.