Sonata Mileage

61,000 Pieces of Flappy Strips of Cloth

When we got home from work tonight I was feeling energetic, so I decided to go outside and wash the Purple Whale. I took one look at the car and thought, man that’s a lot of metal and decided to wash the Miata.

After dinner and the evening news we opted to do our weekly grocery shopping tonight instead of Saturday or Sunday morning. On the way to the store we made a quick stop at Lulu’s to run the Sonata through the automatic car wash. Normally we just do the “Molly Wash” which is basically a wash and a tire shine for $10, but not tonight. All I had in my wallet was a twenty and we wondered if the automatic check-in machine would give change. The answer to that question would go unanswered because as we pulled in there was an advert for the Manager’s Special for twenty bucks so we decided to shoot the moon.

The top of the line wash is $18 and there are like 4 different add-ons that range from $2 to $4 each, the Manager’s Special tossed everything in for a mere $2 more. We got Bug Shielded, Simonized, Buffed and more than I can remember. What I did remember was something called Lava Wash where the Sonata was coated in three times as much soap as usual and instead of it being plain white, the suds were a mixed combination of red, orange and yellow colored.

After shopping I filled up the Purple Whales tank and when I looked to read the mileage from the last fill-up I notice the total mileage showed 61,117. Hmmm, missed the transition from 60999 to 6100 which probably happened some time last week. Shame on me.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 164

60,000 Corn Chips With Salsa

Tonight was the MMC’s monthly meeting and Donna and I attended. We usually have a bunch of excuses as to why we won’t go to one of these functions, but chief among them is we don’t feel like driving 25 miles one-way to eat in a restaurant when we have like sixty thousand of them within 53 miles of our house. Well this month we couldn’t use that excuse as the meeting was at a Mexican place right here in Aiken.

Amazingly enough, most of the attendees at the meeting were from right here in Aiken or close by. Just like us, there are some of the Augusta folks who don’t want to drive all the way over here just to get Mexican food. But probably a lot more would have attended if it wasn’t for a wide band of thunderstorms passing through smack dab around meeting time.

For the first time in a long while we drove the OTM to the meeting. Two reasons actually, 1) the aforementioned thunder storms and b) we needed gas in the Sonata and it is always less crowded at the pumps at 6:00 PM than at our usual quitting time of 4:00 PM. As I got ready to kill the engine to fill up, I glanced down at the ODO of the Purple Whale, it read 60000.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 148

59,000 Books in the Palm of My Hand

Lens Flare Sonata

And a cheap camera too.

Way back on Black Friday, Amazon was offering their their new bottom of the line tablet, the Kindle Fire, for a mere $35 instead of the usual $50. I thought, thirty-five is near impulse buy territory, but I was perfectly happy with the Kindle Paperwhite, so I passed.

The following week I was chatting with a co-worker about the near purchase, when she mentioned that she bought two of them. Curious, I asked why, knowing she has and has had several. “To give as Christmas gifts of course” she said. There were a couple of young relations in mind, one she knew was fine, but for the other she was unsure whether the mother would let her give it to her daughter.

I said if it doesn’t work out I’d give her thirty for it. She countered with forty. We agreed on the $35 she spent on it. I forgot all about it until last Friday when she asked me if I still wanted it. Taking this as some sort sign, I said yes. So now I’m the proud owner of a small Android based tablet locked in the orbit of the planet Amazon.

The above picture is a small portion the interior of the Purple Whale through some lens flare cropped from a larger image. I took it with built in camera on the Fire while waiting for Donna to come out from getting her allergy shot. Yesterday the Sonata passed the 59,000 mile mark while on a bagel run.

59,000 58,000 Really Dead Brain Cells1

While waiting in the bank’s drive up window this afternoon I looked down at the Purple Whale’s odometer and realized that it read 58,024. Back tracking as best I could with a large chunk of fifty-eight thousand brain cells that no longer work, I figure that mile mark was crossed on our grocery shopping trip on Sunday.

That same chunk, likely 1,000 less at that point, is probably responsible for my totally missing the 58,000 mile mark sometime between July and now.

1. This post has been edited to reflect that perhaps not only are the brain cells dying, but the eyesight is not nearly as acute as before too. Got in the car this morning (Thursday 11/12) and saw that the ODO read 58,xxx.

Essence of 57,000 Dust Mites

The Emperor rolled by the 57,000 mile mark on Donna’s trip to get her allergy shot this morning.

I can’t help myself, I’m watching the Sox on MLB.tv right now. The good thing is they only gave up two runs in the first, scored one of their own in the bottom of the first. And it is still 2-1 after 4-1/2 innings. Bad news is it has been raining on and off at Fenway and now the game is official, so if it starts pouring real bad and they have to call it the FRS would be the losers.

56,000 Raindrops Per Minute

Destination Brunswick, Georgia and the rain threatened all the way until Statesboro, where we stopped for dinner, before it actually materialized. From there until we made it too the Hampton Inn it rained at a rate of about 56K drops/hour.

Somewhere about 10 miles before it started raining the Purple Whale rode through its fifty six thousandth mile.

55,000 Gazinta 150,000 How Many Times?

French Toast

Last night Donna and I took a drive to confirm my wholly online Google Map planned route for this morning’s MMC Breakfast At Betsy’s event we were leading. Half way to I-20 I noticed the Sonata’s ODO read 55008. We were only about 4 miles from the our driveway so the Purple Whale must have passed the 55,000 mark on our way home from work on Monday. Didn’t notice.

Good thing we pre-ran the course too, because Mr Google was thrown off by construction of Giant Tire Parkway and its interruption of Vaucluse Road. The map had me turning right after a half mile when it was really a left after more like a whole mile.

At the start point of the drive this morning we were joined by exactly one other Miata. Had this been any other Club event besides breakfast we would have called the thing off, but because we had to eat anyway and the restaurant was back in our own Fair City(R) we lead one other couple on a convoluted route through Edgefield & Aiken Counties to Betsy’s. I had the trip counter up because I needed it for keeping track of the miles between turns as called out by my navigator along the way, but once we were just one familiar turn from our destination I flipped it back the odometer. It read 149999. A few feet before pulling into a parking spot the Emperor hit 150,000 miles.

There were three other Miatas already there.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1482