WTF

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.

Still !?!

The Emperor from day one has had a few minor scratches on the top of the passenger door. We actually didn’t notice them until after a few days of ownership, but the dealer was apologetic and had them touched up right away. Just like a Dent Wizard, the dealer had a Paint Wizard that he could call and they a great job. Even after 11 years, if you don’t know where to look you wouldn’t notice them.

At first I speculated that it was a dog owner who took his mutt with him on a test drive, but I found out later from a salesman who used to work at the dealer that my car was one of a half dozen or so that had their air bags stolen while they sat on the lot. The thieves were caught when a local detective put 2 + 2 + eBay together.

I could have swore that I wrote about this once before about 5 years ago when I had found a 1″ square stray bit of shattered auto glass while doing something under the passenger seat, but my trying to search for it on this here blog turned up nothing.

Why am I writing about it now you may ask yourself. I went through the DD drive thru on Sunday and my total came to $1.09, when I was handed the change I attempted to drop it one of the cup holders. All of it made it in except for the penny. When I got home I slid the passenger seat forward to look for it and I didn’t find a penny, but I did find another small chunk of that shattered glass.

Hard to believe that after 11 years and all the vacuuming of the interior that I could still find a one inch by one half inch piece of auto window glass, but I did.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1447

Another “Christmas Gift?” Story

Last April my department manager retired. My supervisor, who was also in charge of the Programmer and the 3 engineers, stepped up into the corner office. All three engineers submitted resumes and interviewed to move up into the vacated Fabrication Engineering Supervisor spot. They hired someone from the outside. There were a few ruffled feathers.

Needless to say, I expected a little push back when in the first week of December I asked the 3 engineers for some money for the usual annual Christmas Gift Card for our supervisor. I thought I’d start by asking for a smaller amount than in previous years, but after, “Sure thing, let me know.” I got a, “Well, if everyone else gives…” and a, “No #$%*@ing way am I giving any money for him.” I abandoned the whole thing.

On Tuesday the 22nd, we are all gathered in the conference room for our monthly Tool Box communications meeting and at the end, our new outside hired supervisor hands out Christmas cards to the four of us. Inside is a $25 gift card to Home Depot. A couple of us looked inside and knew we were in trouble, while the other two just knew instinctively that we were going to look bad because we had nothing to reciprocate with. When the meeting broke up, there were a few mumbled thanks as we made our way out the door.

On his way by my cubicle Mr. No #$%*@ing Way tossed a twenty on my keyboard.

Because his wife is expecting their first child, the new guy got a gift card to CRUMBSNATCHERS-R-US from us.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1446

Kinda Hoping December Would Be Better

November wasn’t really a banner month around here, early on it was big ways as we lost a member of the family and 10 days later a good friend. More recently in little ways. Last Wednesday while washing clothes in preparation for the trip to Hendersonville, I noticed a big wet spot underneath the water heater that resides in the laundry room. Sunday afternoon the monitor on the PC started to flicker blue tinting in the lower left corner that grew to encompass 75% of the screen. We caught an Early Cyber Monday Sale and picked up a 23.6″ Samsung monitor for $120, but nobody had any Black Friday deals on water heaters though.

While December has got to be better, but it got off to an inauspicious start. Tonight while chewing a hamburger I bit on something hard, thought at first it might have been a bit of bone, but upon further review it turned out to be a piece of the lower right mandibular second molar. For the past few months I had an occasional pain on the right side when chewing, but never could pinpoint whether it was upper or lower and it was never regular enough to worry about. On the bright side, I don’t have to worry about how to use up that last $500 we had in flex spending anymore.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1434

English-ish Spoken Here

There are 6 microwaves on an L-Shaped counter in our break room. One of them no longer works, a fellow associate made a sign using a marker and a paper towel. Placing half the paper towel inside the microwave, closing the door leaving the words in big black letters on the outside, “DO NOT WORK.”

Donna and I were heating up our lunches, along with another co-worker, and we all got to wondering who might have made up the impromptu sign (hoping against hope it was not someone from HR or some other college graduate from the front office.) Up came the stockroom supervisor and we asked if she had a pen so we could fix the sign. She did, and quickly added an ES on the end of DO to make it right.

As she was doing it she said, “I seen that this morning.”

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1422

Six Weeks Old

I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it again, if Donna’s sister didn’t live in Florida we wouldn’t come here. I would be willing to admit that that attitude does play a role in our dislike of visiting the state. We have visited many beautiful spots and enjoyed the state, but we have seen pretty much all of that we want to. Here is a little scenario from yesterday morning’s drive down that illustrates why we would rather avoid the the state.

We stopped for gas at the usual kind of exit off I-95 (see previous post) and while I was topping the tank Donna went inside to get a hot chocolate and a People magazine to read while it was my turn to drive. She came back out with the magazine, but no drink. The place had a nice machine for various kinds of hot chocolate, but all that came out into the cup was a stream of light tan, to mostly clear in color, steaming water. She showed it to the person behind the counter and told him that she wasn’t paying for that and someone should fix that machine. She did get her People magazine.

She came out of the store while I was still pumping gas. I wanted to wash the dead bugs off the windshield too, but had to wait to do it after filling the tank because I had to stand there and hold the handle to keep the gas flowing, the auto shutoff lever was busted. With still a while to go before we would be ready to roll, I suggested that she go next door to McDonalds and get the hot chocolate as they have that McCafe thing that serves all those starbucks-like drinks and would have what it.

Just as I was finishing cleaning the window, up walked Donna without a hot chocolate. When she had got to the counter and the associate asked what she wanted, she told him and he was dumbfounded. He turned to another personn behind the counter, “Do we make Hot Chocolate?” She looked back at him like he was speaking French. Donna decided that even if they could find someone back there who knew that they did in fact have hot chocolate on the menu, the chances of anyone actually knowing how to make it were pretty slim, so turned around and left.

With us both in the car, the tank topped and the windshield transparent, I started to drive out of the gas station lot for the 1/2 mile, 10 minute trip back to I-95. It was then she noticed the date on her new People magazine, July 14, 2014, or about 6 weeks ago!