Up for the way to work and down for the way home. Put it back up once we pulled into the garage because it had rained in the after­noon and the top was still quite wet. At least the rain was thought­ful enough to stop long enough for us to take a lit­tle round­about way home before start­ing up again.

Started down, went up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Tran­si­tions since 02/02/02: 354

No tick­ing this AM, but I still need to change the oil this week­end. Warmed up to the upper 50s for after work, so the top went down, well at least I thought it was a nice day. After the work­out at the gym I made my trip home and for the sec­ond time in 2 weeks what should pull up behind me at the first red light, but a new dark gray BMW Z4. This time his top was up. The next three miles went exactly as before, we made our right at the yield sign onto US1 and blasted up to speed, mine 55 and his 65 so that he passed me once again. I just watched him go by, I tried a wave the first time it hap­pened and was ignored, so this time I look at the car and not him. The car actu­ally looks good with the top up too. Now I catch him at our left turn and end up fol­low­ing him up the hill for a mile or so until he turns left and I con­tinue on straight. When I first saw the mag­a­zine pic­ture I was hor­ri­fied, that was one butt ugly car. My feel­ings were rein­forced by quite a few of the car mag­a­zine writ­ers as well. But now that I have seen one in per­son, I almost like it. And if my salary were to jump by 75% next review period I might look at buy­ing one (of course that depends on whether it comes in a nice look­ing blue.)

Started down, went up, went back down, still down.
Top Tran­si­tions since 02/02/02: 354

It’s Sun­day what did you expect. I went out­side early to get the 2 morn­ing news­pa­pers and in the beau­ti­ful 60 some­thing degree weather went for a cou­ple miles on rollerblades. Sit­ting on the stairs in the garage remov­ing my wheeled shoes I couldn’t help but notice that the car was pretty dusty. So I took the Cal­i­for­nia Duster to the dash and then the out­side of the car too. Less dusty and it will have to do until a cou­ple more weeks. No drive today, so the Miata will “reward” me with some lifter tap­ping tomor­row when I start it up for the ride to work. It is time to change the oil and I’ll try and remem­ber to get a fil­ter when I’m over at Rader using the postage meter to mail the Master’s Miata Club’s newslet­ter on Fri­day. Which reminds me, I bet­ter get busy writ­ing that sucker.

Started down, still down.
Top Tran­si­tions since 02/02/02: 352

Put the Short Shifter Kit in today and it went sur­pris­ingly well. The upper boot was not torn so that was a relief, but I’m still run­ning on the old tur­ret oil.…maybe at the Club’s Tech Day in Feb­ru­ary. Low­ered the height by about a 1/2″ looks good and if it affected shift­ing effort I don’t notice and for that mat­ter the shifter throw doesn’t seem any shorter either. Worth the $120? Not really.

While I was in the mood I decided to fix the flash­ing 3rd tail light. It is a wire that keeps break­ing right at the trunk hinge joint. I added a 4 inch piece of wire to the repair which I hope will alle­vi­ate the bend­ing at one spot that has doomed this con­nec­tion from the get go. I also took this oppor­tu­nity to move the relay back to the end of the trunk next to the light itself. I added the flasher unit when the wire first broke, instead of splic­ing it back together I just stuck the flasher in between the break. This in ret­ro­spect was a bad move, because that made the flasher hang right near a short tun­nel to the inte­rior and con­se­quently the click-clicking could be heard when the brake was being applied. Now it is silent once again in the cock­pit at stoplights.

Started down, still down.
Top Tran­si­tions since 02/02/02: 352