Miatatude

Not A Hyundai, But A Kia?

Apparently Kia’s design chief has a soft spot for the Miata and possibly hinted that a two-seat rear-wheel drive drop-top sports car might be in the company’s future: Autoblog article. Maybe we will just wait until 2012 to buy a new car. By then we should have the next generation Miata , possibly VW’s Bluesport roadster and a Kia to choose from.

Or maybe next November we will just plunk down 3 grand more than we we planning on spending for the Hyundai Sonata and get the Turbo version: Autoblog article.

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 856

Breakfast At Home

Not home, home, but the Home Cafe in Washington, GA. Six Miatas with 11 persons onboard made the drive to dine at the spot the locals eat at. From the Bogardus table we can recommend the hash browns and the pancakes, but the biscuit with sausage gravy was unexciting. We didn’t order any breakfast meat because we had cheated on the way to the rendezvous point in Evans, GA, we stopped for an appetizer at the Golden Arches. Sausage McMuffin for me and a breakfast burrito for Donna.

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 830

Forget the Sonata

For my grown up car I’m going to get on of these…

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARCyYS_tkDI

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 820

Rule #7

“Travel light”

Because the Miata is our only car and it has a mere 5.1 cubic feet sized trunk we have learned to travel light. We’ve taken two week driving vacations in it. But we have learned to pack smart, by taking at most 4 days worth of clothes and using the hotel laundry. We have even gone for a long camping weekend carrying 2 mountain bikes with us using the Miata too.

We travel light when flying too. Donna takes a small carry on with the essentials and her purse while I carry the laptop with various electronics. We check one big bag, so we don’t have to hassle hunting for an empty overhead bin.

Seems like the only time we don’t pack light is when we go on an overnight trip in the Miata, we always end up taking as much as we do when we go away for a week in it.

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 783

Rule #31

“Check the back seat”

Here is where the Miata has the advantage, there is no back seat to worry about checking. But this plus is more than offset by its major disadvantage, the soft top.

Back a decade or so ago when we went to one of the first Miatas at the Gap, one of the MMC members was out back of the lodge washing her car when a small black bear waddled by. She quickly hopped in her car ’til it passed. Later at dinner when she was telling this story at the communal table, someone who had spent some time in Alaska, where the bears were more of the grizzly kind, asked, “Do you know what they call convertibles there?” Shrugs all around, so she answered her own question, “Peel ‘n’ Eats.”

So, if Columbus would be so kind to quote me too, I’d like to add another rule, when given a choice of vehicles, minivans aren’t cool and convertibles are dangerous, so “Rule #34: Take the SUV.”

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 777

Something Different

After about 3 years of boring, no new business, no old business, this is what we did, this is what we are going to do meetings, last night’s was a breath of fresh air. It was so exciting that Robert’s Rules of Order and the Club’s Bylaws were quoted.

We have a new president who ran with the platform of doubling the club’s membership and if any Club could use a membership doubling, it is ours. We started his term with 15 cars (AKA memberships) and before he held his first meeting we lost one. A couple sold their Miata, saying they wanted a sports car?!? I think what he wanted is something with more horsepower or maybe more perceived prestige…

The first thing the new president wanted to do was change our monthly meeting setup. He picked a big issue to push through in his first hundred days. It was his phrase that I turned into the Club web site’s tag line, “We’re like the French Underground. We rotated meeting locations every month and members arrived willy-nilly and sometimes not even in their Miatas. His idea was to meet at same spot every month, someplace visible on a busy street, have the business meeting and then drive as a group to a local restaurant.

This is a great idea, but it really doesn’t fit into Donna and my time schedule. By the time we go through all those steps dinner will not be until 8:00 PM and we always eat some where between 5:30 and 6:30. We have a work around in place for this, seeing as the original meet up spot is at a Mexican restaurant we will eat there, stay for the meeting and then drive with the group to the second restaurant, but just not go inside and eat.

After a close vote, 4 yeahs, 2 nays & 1 abstention, on adopting this format, last night was the first go round and it went pretty well from our point of view, I don’t know what everyone else thought of it though.

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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 771