Miata Washings

30,000 Orange Barrels

30,000 Orange BarrelsOn last night’s trip up to the mountains to spend the night, there was construction on US441 between Clayton and Dillard, GA. We must have past 30,000 of those orange construction barrels as the Emperor past through the 30,000 mile mark.

Yesterday morning I washed the car because we had a MMC event in the early afternoon. This was our Senior Drive. One of the Club members is the Administrator of the Elmcroft Assisted Living Center in Martinez. He and I concocted a scheme in which the Club would come over and take the residents who wanted to go on a top down Miata drive instead of their usual Saturday 8-passenger van ride. We had a perfect day for it too, lower 70’s and a cloudless blue sky. We had 5 cars and 5 passengers for the first trip and when 4 more people showed up, we did a second slightly shorter trip for them. The one fellow who I drove was so appreciative that I was embarrassed by it. This is definitely an item we should do at least once a year.

When we got up this morning in the north of Georgia it was in the lower 30’s and there was a layer of frost covering the car. We wimped out for the first couple of hours of driving. The leaves didn’t cooperate in the whole picturesque, blazing fall color, Norman Rockwell painting we had hoped to see, but you take what you can get and we got extremely patchy color. We even did a 20-mile segment of the Blue Ridge Parkway in hopes, but the colorful vistas never materialized. There was one short stretch of NC 215 coming down off the parkway that in a matter of minutes we went from bare trees to patchy color to green. Never the less we had a wonderful time in our 24 hours of the mountains. We got in a night away from home, a short hike in the woods, a look at a beautiful twin waterfall and miles of twisty roads.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 343

29,000 Matchbox Cars

29,000 Matchbox Cars29,000 pairs of socks. 29,000 knives. 29,000 VHS tapes. 29,000 out of date bottles of asprin. And 29,000 used chainsaws.

Today we went to the Jockey Lot outside of Anderson, SC. Someone thought it would be fun, so we planned a trip with the MMC and it was a nice day for a drive. While the Jockey lot is a huge ass flea market, pretty soon it all starts to look alike, did we have fun? You bet. Will we go back? Doubt it. About halfway there the Emperor passed through the 29,000 mile mark. We bought this Miata just before Thanksgiving in 2003 so it looks like we will make it past 30k before the 2 year mark.

Most of the time the skies were blue with scattered clouds, but on the horizon, in every direction you looked there were dark gray clouds. The weather forecast called for a chance of rain and while it never did (on us anyway) everytime we stopped for any lentgh of time everyone put their tops up in case. On the way back we stopped in the quaint little town of Abbeville for lunch. We parked over on the same street as we ended up at the last Trivia Road Rally the MMC did in May. I had snagged a picture of one of our member’s cars as it was parked and the wall and art there made a nice back drop, today the Emperor had it’s portrait taken there too.

Can’t really tell from the picture, but the car was really dirty. I did wipe off the big stuff with a towel I keep handy, but when we got home the car got a much needed bath.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up again, then down, then up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 322

Back From The Land Of Twisty Roads

Been back most of the day, but I’m just now back computing. Installed the second half of my birthday present to myself this afternoon. I’ve got the basics loaded back on the fresh new hard drive, so I’ve still got a lot of software left to install. Those will happen when there is a requirement to use them.

While XP installed I went out and washed the car. It was quite dirty because at least 50% of the roads we traveled this weekend were wet.

Sorry if something is misspelled something, haven’t put that in yet…

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 299

Wash Day

Washed the car this morning even though the intent is to get it dirty tonight with bugs. Afterwards I washed the windows in the car too. While the car finished drying I made a quick trip to the local auto store and picked up a can of Meguiar’s Cleaner Wax. Old school paste wax in a can that went on easy and came off the same.

While the whole car washing thing was going on I was doing the clothes washing too. My job is to load the washer, then swap from washer to dryer and load the washer again. Donna does the folding, mostly. I’ll help with that too if I’m not busy with other things like this morning.

Car Morning

Changed the oil this morning. As always I took this time to rotate the tires too. Jacked up the car and put it on 4 jack stands. This makes it easier to get to the drain plug and the filter. When spinning off the filter I always tuck a rag under where the filter is so the oil left in the filter will drip into it and not on the ground. Well, today I learned that khaki pants don’t do well when used for this job. The old cotton t-shirts absorb the oil, while khaki pants absorb a little and then act as a conduit for the oil to pour all over the underside of the car and then drip on the driveway. At least the tires rotated without incident, even the semi-mangled lug stud and lug nut cooperated fully.

After I put the car all back together, I went ahead and washed it. Had to use some bug remover on the nose to get off the stubborn bug guts off, so a quick bit of wax applied to the area. I keep reading about using a clay bar on the car and wonder if that would completely clean everything off the paint. But because it seems like such a production, maybe an all day affair, that I have been avoiding it. Maybe a fine fall Saturday could be set aside for that project.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 256

Any Man Who Falls Behind, Is Left Behind

Decided to go ahead and wash the car. I couldn’t use the excuse that it might rain anymore, I’ve used it for the past week or so, and the weather forecast was for more of the same for the next tens days…

I knew I shouldn’t have watched the game. The FRS lost to the Yankees tonight on ESPN. They lost on Thursday as I watched on ESPN2 and then they lost Saturday afternoon on FOX with me on the couch. The Sox won big, 17-1, on Friday when they weren’t on TV, I didn’t even listen. So I shouldn’t have watched them on TV tonight, they probably would have won the game.

The only thing that saved the night was right after the game I found TDPM playing and it was only an hour in. 🙂

Barbossa: Why thank ye, Jack.
Jack Sparrow: You’re welcome.
Barbossa: Oh, not you. We named the monkey Jack.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 228

Letter Sweater

Looking for the perfect 50’s college nostolgia? How about a letter sweater just like dear ol’ dad wore? Get a duplicate of the one the moths ate or make one up of your very own at lettersweaters.com.

Letter Sweater
Here is Doug Neidermeyer’s letter sweater from Faber U.

Or if you would like that High School Letter Jacket you missed out on back in the day, because they didn’t award them to members of the AV Club, you can get one at their companion site, American Letterman Jackets.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 191