Miatatude

Mmmm…BBQ

The monthly meeting of the Master’s Miata Club was tonight and we held it in a back room at Bobby’s BBQ just west of Aiken. I like the food here and managed 3 trips to the buffet, before getting dessert. I don’t heap the plate or anything, but I do get my $6.95 worth.

The weather has been downright dreary around here the last week or so, but today we did manage to get the top down for the drive in to work and the ride home. We put it up while at the meeting as radar looked ugly, but it didn’t rain while we were inside. So the top went back down for the drive home. We almost made it home with it down, but about 2 miles from the garage we had to put it up as the slower city driving allowed the rain to get us wet instead of just the windshield.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 162

Another Newsletter Put To Bed

As they say in the business. The June issue of “The Driver” is all ready for mailing. Tomorrow we will make the trip to the big city and postagize the envelopes at Rader. If you are allergic to paper, you can read the gist of it online here thanks to the generosity of Yahoo! Geocities and some of their fine sponsors that the Master’s Miata Club neither approves nor endorses.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 153

Well, It Was Clean

Last night about 9:15 my wife came up to me and said, “Let’s go for a drive.” Because I’m all about marital harmony, I said, “Sure.”

It was a beautiful night for a drive, the bright, dusky full moon was just clearing the trees and the temperature was in the upper 70s. We headed out on one of our usual 25 miles country road loops, but when I should have made a right turn, I missed it. As we passed by the road I could see why, somebody had knocked over the street sign, so I didn’t see the bright green rectangular cue to turn. We kept on rolling.

The last time we went this far down this road was way back when we moved to Aiken in 1989 and went exploring. That time, right about where we were, the road turned to dirt. Back then we kept going on the dirt road just to see where it ended up. We followed it to the end where it tee’d into a paved road, which we followed a while before figuring out where we were and found our way home. What was once dirt was now paved, so we decided to follow it and see if it was that way to the T. Sure enough about 6 or 7 miles later we came to the same intersection.

We ended up covering about 50 miles and were gone for an hour. The only downside to our trip is that the weather has warmed enough now that the bugs are out in full force, so when we got home the front of the car was peppered entomological remains.

Alas I was out of Meguiar’s Quik Detailer, so I had to go to work today with a dirty car, for shame. But please forgive my transgression, as soon as I”m done with this post I am going to go out in the garage and clean the nose with my newly purchased bottle of QD.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 153

How Many Minutes Is 692 Seconds?

And just how far will you go at an average speed of 53 MPH? My wife and I weren’t to sure about the answer to either of those questions this morning and that may have been our downfall. We totally blew a turn and had to back track several miles to re-engage the course. It threw off our time and mileage for the first segment, plus it skewed our Fiero checkpoint time so that we ended up losing out on 39 points. That probably would have been enough to put us near the top of the standings.

Our own fault. The general instructions for the today’s Master’s Miata Club TSD Rally said have at least a watch with a second hand… Last year the instructions were turn right at the third opportunity, but this year the instructions were full of: Turn right. CAST to 42MPH. Drive for 800 seconds. Turn left at next opportunity. First problem was all we had for a clock was the one in the dash which just gives hour and minute. Second problem was our rusty math skills in dividing triple digits numbers by 60. Third problem was remembering to remember the next approximate time for a turn all the while trying to find the answers to esoteric trivia questions in the surrounding environs.

We didn’t repeat our last year’s second place finish, we finished totally out of the money, but we did win a booby prize for having the highest score on the trivia portion of the contest. I now have a gift certificate for a free oil change at our sponsoring dealer. I also have yet another hat with Miata on it. This one is almost like the one I won in November except the word Miata is in navy, so it may actually get worn. Matter of fact, if anyone wants a nice never worn hat, cream colored with a navy blue bill with the word Miata embroidered in bright purple script, drop a comment in the box, cost is just a couple bucks to cover postage.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 149

Two Days In A Row

Unless Donna shows up soon and makes good on her threat to go for an evening drive with the top down, the Miata will have sat still in the garage for both of the weekend days. Highly unusual.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 141

?Que Dia Es Hoy?l?

The Master’s Miata Club holds it’s monthly business meeting on the first Thursday of the month. Because the members come from all over the general area we rotate those meetings between restaurants in Aiken, North Augusta and Augusta. This month’s rotation put us in Augusta. We because they had a back room we could use and the food is sort of cheap we elected to return to Mi Rancho for May. No one thought to look at the calendar to notice the date.

Turns out the first Thursday in May is the 5th. May not mean much to most of us Club members, but to Mexicans it is a big deal. Cinco de Mayo. The place was hopping. Even though a couple of groups started to join us in the back room they didn’t stay, so it worked out all right anyway.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 139