Masters Miata Club

Salt Lick

Out behind our plant in a wooded spot, co-worker Mark has a trail camera where he captures photos of the wily white tails that live out there. Tired of capturing just one or two deer per photo he started to seed the ground in front of the lens with something called Deer Crack to create an irresistible mineral lick. Within a day or so he was capturing 5 or 6 deer in each frame.

Last night was the monthly MMC Dinner Meeting over in North Augusta at a Ryan’s Buffet. It was lightly sprinkling when we left the house and by the time we got to US1/78 (AKA: The Aiken-Augusta Hwy) it was raining pretty hard. And for the entire second half of the trip it was coming down in buckets, so much so that 40MPH seemed like a dangerously high rate of travel. I wish we\’d taken the hint and turned around.

We had the worst meal we have ever had, as far as we can remember. My salad was fine (although the kitchen help should learn to slice the onions and bell peppers instead of whacking them to bits with a cleaver), but it went downhill from there. The green beans were cooked to complete water loggedness and the corn had no discernible flavor whatsoever. The piece of steak I got off the grill, when cut into, looked medium-rare, which is fine when it is a nice cut of meat, but this must have been cooking over the low temperature side the grill for several hours as it had the taste and texture of, pardon the cliché, shoe leather.

Donna’s meal was no better; she stopped eating her soup after a couple of spoonfuls, with the piece of white fish she tried getting dumped in that bowl shortly afterwards. And after listening to me grumble about my meal, she tried to help by sharing some of her skinless chicken breast with me. Which after one bite I learned was a clever ploy to rid herself of this, so dry it was crunchy, bit of poultry. We both agreed that if there was a predominant flavor that did show through, it was sodium chloride, salt.

Even dessert couldn’t save it, as her cake, although covered in soft serve ice cream, still was almost too dry to eat. My chocolate chip cookie was stale and somehow they managed to remove the every bit of flavor from a crumbled Oreo cookie and Cool Whip mixture.

The meeting itself was a nearly typical MMC meeting in which the Treasurer announces our bank balance, we briefly discuss past events and then quickly go over the upcoming events, what set it apart were the elections of new officers. The current President has held the post for several years now and has wanted to find someone else to take the reins for at least the last two years, but no one wants to take the job. This year when he asked for nominations there was the usual silence and looking at the floor, just when it looked like he was ready to sigh and reluctantly accept the office for yet another year, his wife nominated someone else. It was quickly seconded and the nominee had the choice of being a schmuck or accepting the job. He took the job, but only under the condition that we actually get someone to fill the VP spot (for the last few years Sarah Palin has held the position in absentia.) One of the newer members stepped up and agreed to fill the #2 spot on the ticket.

The meeting broke up and as we left the “party room” heading for the door I noticed that the restaurant was pretty full and there were families in line at the cash register to get in. With the food tasting so crappy and it not really being cheap (for the two of us it almost $30) the only explanation I can come up with is that this place acts as a human salt lick.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1237

Now We Wait

‘There were 5 people for the MMC breakfast and after eating Donna and I drove over to the Club’s Tech Day just to see if we could pop the non-working radio out of the dash. Donna was hoping to have someone magically heal it by laying on of hands, didn’t happen. Turns out, between two of us, Rudy and I, we could only get the right half of the head unit loose from its mounting. The left side would not budge. Of course we only had the bent into U shaped coat hanger pieces to work with, yeah, that’s it, and we didn’t have the proper tools. I did manage to get an additional blood blister on my left hand when I pinched the web between the thumb and forefinger cutting the coat hanger.

After scouring the interwebs for hours looking for solutions to my radio issue I settled on buying a new aftermarket radio. Because we like to be able to walk away from the Miata in a shopping center parking lot with top down and not have to worry any, I was looking for the least flashy looking head unit. I found it, a Jensen MP1524. It’s a veritable wallflower, but it has an inner beauty that includes all the modern bells and whistles. The downside is that the unit isn’t even shipping from the manufacturer yet. Crutchfield lists it as not being available until 6/15, so now we wait.

Jensen MP1524

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1224

Seasonally Appropriate Weather

Today was the MMC breakfast for January. Unlike last weekend’s top down all day weather for the trip to the Microcar Museum, this morning’s temperatures were about half of what they were then, so tops were up at all times. Fittingly this weekend we only had half the cars of last weekend. Still there were five cars for the drive to the Swamp Fox in Aiken from the starting point in North Augusta. And when we got to the restaurant there was one car waiting for us.

We had told the folks at the restaurant that there would be around twelve of us and it turned out we were right on the money. Ten made the drive and one was waiting. The twelfth man was a friend of a member who worked at the Aiken Train Museum and came to tell us a little about it and offer up a tour of the place afterwards.

We could walk to the museum as it was only about 4 blocks away, but with the seasonally appropriate weather and being a car club and all, we would probably drive. As breakfast progressed and we heard some history, almost everyone thought a trip to a transportation museum for the second Saturday in a row didn’t sound like too bad an idea.

At some point our guest received a phone call and when he hung up he had some “good news” for us, there was a kids birthday party at the museum and we could help out by doing a little instructional skit for the kids. Four of us would be the train engine wheels and make chugging noises and one lucky person would be the smoke stack and get to make woo-woo sounds. One other would get to pretend to be stuck on the tracks and another would get to rescue them.

Our guest had to get to the museum in a slight hurry, so off he went, telling us to meet him there. As we all settled up our bills, most of us decided that visiting the train museum would be a better idea on a day that didn’t involve a kids birthday party, I think a couple cars did go, but the majority scattered in other directions.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1191

Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum

Toy Cars

Today the MMC took a last pilgrimage to a museum full of cars that make the Miata look normal sized, the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum before it closes its doors forever in February. We had a recent record turnout of 10 Miatas and a bonus RX-8. We also had near perfect weather.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1190

Mini Leaf Tour Wrap Up

cross posted from mastersmiata.com
Members Attending: Brian & Donna Bogardus, Rudy & Patti Wilmoth, Larry & Rita Garner, John & Jackie Nicholls and Ernie Bloom.

Alternate Title #1 You Should Have Been Here Last Week

Two weeks prior to leading the leaf tour Donna and I ventured to the northwestern part of SC looking for places to go and see colorful leaves. We saw some color, but enough brown and bare trees to make us rethink the traditional all day affair we usually present. There was no sense driving all that way and spending all that time to be all disappointed.

So last week, we drove on a closer to home, shorter in time loop that provided a fall sampler in the mid state area. It included breakfast at a favorite mom & pop breakfast joint, a nice drive to farm for a small no admission fee corn maze and a very back road drive to see colorful fall foliage. We felt we had a sure winner and everyone would be home for lunch instead of the usual after dark return.

In the chilly near dawn of this Saturday we were pleased to be joined by 4 other Miatas for our fall drive. Two cars had their tops down for the short drive to breakfast at the Airport Cafe near Twin Lakes Airport in Trenton. As we usually do everywhere we eat as a group we made ourselves right at home by dragging some tables together. That is just fine with the folks who run the cafe as it is definitely a help yourself kind of place. When they are busy you should feel perfectly free to pour your own first cup of coffee while you wait on your food.

After eating, a couple more cars lowered their roofs for the trip to the corn maze at Hickory Hill Farm. I had made up sheets of paper with a map of the route on one side and a list of directions with intermediate mileage numbers on the other side for everyone. It was also especially important for Donna, my navigator, to have one because we had only driven the route once and didn’t want to lead everyone astray. Ahh, the best laid plans…

On one longer stretch of road I must have carried a one when I didn’t need while adding the odometer reading to the leg mileage because I missed a turn and didn’t realize it for sure until too late. But luck was on our side as I realized when we came to the next stop sign that I knew where we were and knew how to get back on track with little fanfare. It just meant that we would take a tour of downtown Edgefield instead of a rural loop around it. Seeing as we were a small group, everyone was just following the car ahead, so only one person even noticed the detour.

I noticed that, as we pulled up to the 1/2 acre corn maze that Donna and I had chased each other all around inside of last week, it was already in the process of being plowed over. The maze is part of the dairy farm’s every Thursday in October open house where they give tours and have other activities for $5. Today was November 3rd and they had wasted no time getting back to farming. I had tried to call on Friday to see if the maze was still going to be up, but the number that I got off Google was for a private residence.

No really big deal, it was a pleasant day and a good spot for a leg stretch. While some folks wandered about the half standing maze others shopped at the self service fridge for fresh milk, both regular and chocolate. As an example to show you how the love of a small open topped sports car can bring wildly divergent personalities together, two different couples were picking and shucking the dried corn off the standing stalks to take with them. One wanted them to feed the cute deer that wander out of the woods behind their house into their backyard and the other wanted them for their backyard as well, but they are used it to lure squirrels to their deaths by BB gun.

The last leg of the journey was a 50 mile route through the Sumter National Forrest to get back to North Augusta and the end of the tour. This is where we had found some really awesome color, but because of 7 days time and the winds of Hurricane Sandy there was virtually nothing but brown and the ever green of pines. To keep thing interesting anyway I threw in a close call with the back end of an Edgefield County Sheriff Deputy’s car who pulled out without looking and a missed turn that had 5 Miatas pulled off to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere only to have a nice couple in a pickup, dressed for a wedding, stop and ask if we were lost.

Alternate Title #2 Is That With a Y or an I?

Back at the corn maze Larry mentioned that a friend and ex club member was showing his Cobra at the CSRA Road Angel’s fall car show at Hooters on Washington Rd, so a plan was formed. One car (Nicholls) made a quick stop at home to drop off milk, one car (Ganers) made the longer trip to their house for the same reason and one car (Wilmoths) just went home. Five of us wandered around a gawking at the cool rides in all shapes and sizes for about an hour and were getting ready to split when the Garners returned and we all decided to have some lunch.

Hooters was naturally jammed what with the car show, college football on the dozens of TVs and the nattily attired servers, so we grabbed one of the only free tables and ordered some drinks. Our waitress introduced herself and after she left none of the guys were sure if she spelled her name with a Y or an I even though she was wearing a name tag.

When Brandi returned with the drinks and took our food orders we all made sure to notice that it was with an I. The food was, surprisingly, not bad. Donna enjoyed the crab legs and I’d order the grilled fish tacos again. None of us bought the official Hooters calendar that one server was hawking, even with the promise that she could get the girls to sign our copy.

When we got to the car show I bough 6 tickets for $5 for the 50-50 raffle before I knew that you had to be present to win and they wouldn’t call the number until around five o’clock. We asked Brandi whether she would still be around at 5 that afternoon and she said she’d be just about getting ready to go home. So to go along with the standard tip I gave her the raffle tickets and said, “Good luck.”

After lunch the Donna & I, John & Jackie and Ernie returned to our cars to head home leaving Larry & Rita to enjoy more of the car show.

I wonder if “Brandi with an I” won the 50-50.