Rants

Fenway Faithful Lose Faith

Run Over SocksMonday the FRS gave up 4 runs in the top of the first inning, AKA before they even got going, to what the Red Sox radio broadcaster Joe Castiglione called the light hitting Chicago White Sox. They wound up losing 10 to 8. Last night they gave up 5 runs in the top of the first to those same light hitters on their way to losing 9 to 4. Tonight was an improvement, Chicago only scored 2 runs in the first. The Sox went down in order and the White Sox scored two more runs in the top of the second.

That’s when I turned off the game.1

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 28

Right now it is 8 to 1 Chicago winning in the 7th inning. Ended up 9 to 2

Monochromatic Miatas

We still don’t have all the details on the US version of the new Miata. We’ve got most of it, but there isn’t a configurator online to start building your ideal car yet. What we do know is that the color palette is pretty monochromatic. There are seven “colors”, including a white, a pearl white, a white-ish gray, a dark gray and a black. There is a blue, but it is really a medium gray with blue undertones, leaving the only real color something called Soul Red. And it is a metallic paint, so on cloudy days or in the shade it will darken right up.

Taking a cue from our German friends, (cough, cough…BMW…cough, cough) Mazda is going to start charging extra for metallic, mica & pearlecent paints. In the UK the Soul Red is a thousand dollars extra. The only color on the chart that is free is the Arctic White, the rest are an extra $800. I have seen on the Miata.net Forum that the Soul Red will be extra in the US, but not sure if the other paints will be more too.

Once these 7 colors were basically confirmed as the ones the new car would come in a thread appeared on the forum on the lack of real sports car colors. This thread has peaked at 32 pages compromising of 778 posts. The agreed upon solution to fix this – vinyl wrap your new car. So don’t forget to add about 10% to the cost of your nearly thirty thousand dollar new car to get it in the color you want. Your options are now wide open, take your pick from this chart of over 60 colors, including several hues in the now trendy matte finish. If you are buying a car for wrapping, here is a hint, buy a black one. This way when you open the doors or hood or get a peek inside a panel gap, the original red or white original color doesn’t pop out.

Me, I’d more than likely go for the Gloss Intense Blue (CB-169) or the Gloss Metallic Bright Blue (CB-162).

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1474

Forget Fortitude

Forget Fortitude. Episode 9 was so graphic that Donna left the room and there were even a couple places where it was so creepy/gross that even I fast forwarded through them. We started watching episode 10 after work today and it wasn’t gross, but it did kind of veer into slightly ludicrous territory.

Episode 11 solves the opening episode’s original mystery, leaving us now with the secondary mystery of why there were some folks on the island going bat-shit crazy. This too gets revealed in #11 near the end in an X-Filey way. We are left with a cliff hanger of a cast member doing something so stupid that it could only happen in a TV show.

Episode 12 opens with our cast member being saved by something that could only happen in a TV show, filling the room he is trapped in, that is also full of what is causing the madness, with oxygen and hydrogen and having him ignite it by flicking his lighter. The ensuing explosion knocks out the glass wall in a ball of flames. When the dust clears, the 2 folks who pumped in the gas, then stood outside the glass and watched, stagger to their feet and drag our cast member out alive.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the lighter, we had never seen said cast member with it until episode eleven where he is sitting in a bar nervously flicking the Zippo open and closed as the camera slowly zooms to a close-up of it. Three minutes into the season finale, we stopped watching the show.

As a pallet cleanser, watch this short video of scenic arctic beauty, this time from the antarctic:

httpvh://vimeo.com/124858722

Full Moon Flush

Full Moon Flight

Shortly after takeoff from Atlanta, Donna noticed the full moon out her window hovering just off the wing tip, so I thought I’d get a picture. About the time I got the camera out from under seat in front of me and leaned over her to take some pictures the plane started its turn to the west. Just managed to get one with the wing and moon1 in the same frame.

About 30 minutes into the flight the Captain made an announcement from the cockpit they were having toilet troubles, seems like only a couple of them would actually flush. He literally told us to hold for a bit while they tried a couple things to fix it. If those failed we were going have to land shy of our destination to get another plane. A few minutes later he came back on and apologized for the inconvenience, but good news, they all seemed to be working now.

The rest of the flight was uneventful and we finally arrived at our hotel near the airport at about 11:30 PM Seattle time, but for our bodies it was really 2:30 AM Saturday. We got checked into a room and before we even got settled in we had go back down to the lobby to get a different room, the reason – the toilet wouldn’t flush…

1I wonder if the Man in the Moon knows he’ll be passing through the earth’s shadow tomorrow morning? We won’t notice, it’ll be too cloudy here to see it.

Not Even Close

I redeemed the $50 gift certificate for our 20th place finish in the 2014 Moss Motoring Challenge. The cockpit cover we have been using needed replacing. We have already replaced the side elastic and the velcro would have to be next, as the all three spots it is used were no longer staying stuck reliably. Fortuitously, the cost of a new cover fell close to value of the certificate.

An hour ago the UPS guy dropped a box off on the front steps. I went out into the garage to put in on the Miata. It doesn’t fit. Our old one fit awkwardly around the mirrors, but it still covered everything as it should. From 2001 to 2005 the seat on the Miata had taller built-in headrests. They are so much taller than the ones in earlier year cars that they earned the nickname “surfboards.” The OEM tonneau covers required you to slide the seats forward and then push the seatback back so that it didn’t stick up past the level of the doors.

I thought maybe that is what I needed to do here. Well, with seats laid back it sort of fits and covers all the right areas, but you have to stretch the elastic that goes down the doors to hook on the frame rails so tight that I can’t imagine them lasting more than a month of use.

I came back inside and went to the Moss Motors web site to see if the description said anything about not fitting 2001 to 2005 cars. It did not. There was a link to something called instructions, so I clicked on it. It says that those door straps attach to the weld seam at the bottom of the car like we are doing with our current car, but the photo shows it attached to the bottom of the door itself. I went back to the car and tried hooking it that way, didn’t work. It might, but you would have to open the door first.

The current, worn out cover goes on the same general way as this one, 4 elastic hooks and 3 velcro straps, but with the addition of moving both seats, then opening & closing both doors, it becomes too much of a hassle. Might as well cycle the top. This cover is going to be returned.

Six Foot Tall

My height was listed as 5′-11″ on my very first driver’s license when I was sixteen. 6-00 is what it reads now on my current South Carolina driver’s license. I grew an inch in Navy boot camp and this height is what has been listed on every subsequent driver’s license, in whatever form required by any of the several states I’ve lived in since. In the intervening *cough* *cough* years I’m thinking that if measured it stocking feet today, I’d be back at the five foot eleven inch mark. In shoes though, still six foot even.

Back in May 2011 we bought a metal awning to park the Purple Whale under. The bottom edge of the powder coated mild steel side edge is 6′ 3″ from the surface of the driveway which allows for me to walk right under it. Normally. Sometimes I forget, like I did the day before yesterday, and step on the 3″ square tubing that serves as its base.

This caused me to bop the very tippy-top of my slightly pointed head. Fortunately I was wearing a hat so that instead of scraping off a dime sized layer of skin, I only ended up with a 1/4 inch long cut. Still it’s a head wound, so stopping the slight bit of bleeding took a while and a band aid.

In the past four years this happened with some regularity and you would think that I would avoid doing this and you’re right. I remember to step over the base or duck slightly when stepping on it for about two months, just about the time the previous wound heals.

A Day Early

And 4 days late.

The offset O2 sensor wrench from Harbor Freight came in the mail today. If I follow along with the USPS tracking page this tool left Los Angeles, CA and passed through Lake Havasu City, AZ, Vaughn, NM, Clarksville, AR, Graysville, AL and Atlanta, GA before arriving in Aiken, SC some 2,400 miles later. When I looked at the return address label on the padded envelope it arrived in it said; Harbor Freight, 224 Harbor Freight Rd, Dillon, SC 29536. Did it actually come from California in 7 days or did a Postal Service employee walk it the 160 miles from Dillon to my house in the same time frame?

I’m not sure just what I’m going to do with it right now. Do I mail it back to return it? Do I make a trip to Augusta to return it? Do I eat it and keep it as a backup in case the one I bought from Advanced Auto breaks when I’m trying to replace the front sensor when it inevitably fails in 6 months? Maybe I’ll give it away as a door prize at this Saturday’s MMC breakfast.