Sturgeon’s Law Ninety percent of everything is crap.
Derived from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once said, “Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That’s because 90% of everything is crud.” Oddly, when Sturgeon’s Law is cited, the final word is almost invariably changed to ‘crap’.
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We took half a day vacation from work and are off to Hilton Head for the weekend. We get to stay free at a condo on the beach. Payback for doing a web page for the owner. He owns a couple he rents out and manages a few more for rent as well. I designed the original page and now I keep it updated and add/remove units as needed and he thanks me by letting Donna and I stay one weekend a year in the off-season.
Really cold morning, but by noon when we left Aiken it was warm enough to put the top down for the trip. It stayed down for the 2–1/2 hour trip to HHI. We shopped for breakfast items and tonite’s dinner, headed over to condo, parked and put the top up. Supposed to rain tomorrow and maybe Sunday, might have been the only time the top is down all weekend…
Started up, went down, went back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 37
I hope I stay online long enough to post this. Trying to use Juno to blog because I am in Hilton Head Island for the weekend and it is a free way to connect, but for what ever reason about every minute I get a pop up ad that fills the screen trying to entice me to use something called HotHomePages. Even if I go through the first few screens they keep coming and coming and coming. There are about a dozen of them in the background. Sometime soon they are going to overload the memory of this laptop. The bright side is Juno must think I’m surfing the web or they probably would have disconnected me by now ’cause I’m just typing.…
Raining on and off, but mostly on, all day. Went out to lunch at the Atlanta Bread Company because we like the food and it is right next to that second-hand book store where we bought some old library books to read yesterday. Ate and went back into get some more used hardcover books for less than the price of a new paperback. Yesterday’s Robert Parker Spencer book lasted all of three hours, kinda like a big ol’ piece of cheesecake; not really good for you, but delicious and sadly, over too soon. After lunch and book buying we headed back over the half-dozen speed bumps of the codo complex back to our parking spot. Still raining, so we spend a lazy afternoon watching the gulls, the waves and the TV out of one eye and ours books out of the other.
Back out for dinner, Donna wanted seafood, so we were headed to Crabby Nick’s where we had eaten before, but somehow ended up at a place called Captain’s Seafood. We had eaten there once before as well and remembered it fondly. Tonight it was packed because a church bus had pulled in about 15 minutes before we did. Still it didn’t take long to get seated and served. Something about fried seafood, a tossed salad and iced tea…mmmm good, but somehow it didn’t seem to be worth the $29 total it cost.
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 37
Up at 7:30, ate a bagel, packed the car and started home. Still raining, so there was no sense hanging around Hilton Head when we can sit at home and watch the rain. Driving west we exited the rain storm, but left the top up as the road was still quite wet and the 18-wheelers on I-95 put out quite a spray. Off the dreaded interstate and driving into Hampton, we couldn’t stand it anymore and put the top down. The windshield was occasionally getting hit with a light rain and the sky we were driving towards looked really dark gray, but we managed to last about 40 miles, until just the other side of Barnwell, before raising the top. Not 2 miles further down the road the rains came harder and we would have gotten soaked.
Started up, down a bit, then back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 39
Our whole front and back yards are dug up for the sprinklers we are getting put in. Looks like a scene from a GI Joe sized WW I movie. Friday they put in a new sidewalk. This one is a concrete one about 3′ wide replacing our falling apart brick stepping stone like thing that has been there since we moved in. We hardly ever use the walk, as our main ingress/egress portal is the garage, but now I told my wife that we will have to use the thing more, seeing as what we paid for it. 
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 39
Here is another movie I would love to have on DVD, but is unavailable. For now. According to the web site http://www.koyaanisqatsi.org/ fall of this year is the target date for re-release on DVD around the same time as the theatrical release of the third of trilogy, NAQOYQATSI.
All this was brought to the front by my renting from Netflix another film with a Phillip Glass soundtrack, Mishima.
It was fine early this afternoon, but at 5:00 PM eastern time, poof, they were gone. 5–1/2 hours later they are still unreachable. It is not just my Miata Club site or the Bike Club site and any other number of sites they are hosting, but their’s as well. Email is also gone. It is as if That Hosting Company has been wiped off the face of the earth.
I say three in the title, but it could be four, I’m not sure. I know that since signing up in September this is the 6th major outage.…I wonder how much it will take to buy my domain from them?
Almost 24 hours of dead air…no explanation. I’ve got to find that tech support phone number while they are up so I can call next time and ask, “What’s UP!” next time I lose internet contact.
Bonus Not Serious Rant:
My No Account Parents
If they had worked a little harder I could be independently wealthy. I wouldn’t have to work 9 to 5 for peanuts. I could afford to buy the car I just got to *sit* in for 5 minutes this evening — 2003 Mercedes Benz 500SL. One of the Miata Club members who came to the meeting tonight is the GM at the MB/Mazda dealer in Augusta and they just got this one in. He brought it over for us to ooh and ahh over and we didn’t disappoint him. 100 large! For that you get seats that are heated and air-conditioned, a hard top that folds into the trunk in 16 seconds and a credit card sized gizmo that if you have in your wallet or pocket will allow you to unlock the car and start it without the use of a key.…
I’ve got to get a cockpit cover. There were some dark gray clouds hovering about after the lunchtime run, so I chickened out and put the top up. In an effort to make this top last more than the typical 3 years I usually get I have promised to take better care of it. Step one is to use the boot whenever it is down, this will protect the underside from damaging UV rays. Step two should be to not raise and lower it so much. The cockpit cover will allow me to keep the top down when there is a slight chance of rain and hopefully keep those days of 5–6 transitions to a minimum. Just hate to spend the $40 when there are so many other cool non-essential things I’d like. Kinda like getting underwear for Christmas.…
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 42
I have been a big fan of Law & Order since the beginning. It is still one of the 4 or 5 prime time TV shows I still watch. But they have branched out and now there are two other Law & Order: XXX’s. I know this because they are constantly plugging these puppies during Law & Order: Classic. I tried to watch the second one, L & O: SVU, a couple times. The plots are mostly like watching a Lifetime channel movie, all battered women and sicko sex stuff. The only redeeming factor was that Mariska Hargitay was easy on the eyes (she comes by that naturally, being Jayne Mansfield’s daughter and all.) I have yet to see L & O: CI, but maybe I should, there is bound to be another rant in there.…
I am not buying any underwear, frivolous Miata stuff for me! I’m getting THIS from Rspeed so I can have something to install at next weekend’s Master’s Miata Club tech day. Just have to figure put a way for the cockpit cover to be a necessity, so the funds for it come from the household monies and not my discretionary fund.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 42
Got this in an email today from support@thathostingcompany.com
_______________________________
In an effort to provide better service to all of our customers, That Hosting Company, Inc., has merged our web hosting services with another web hosting company.
This transition period will begin Sunday @ 8:00am PST, March 10th, 2002. And will require approximately 5 days to complete. During this transition period you may experience unexpected downtimes. Please note that we are working to keep things running as smooth as possible, however, some downtime will be unavoidable during this transition phase.
As compensation for the recent events which caused our customers to be offline, we are happy to offer all of our customers a certificate for an additional hosting account free of charge, which you may use to host another website.
_______________________________
The bolding is mine. What makes them think that I would jump at having another site hosted by these chuckleheads! I will have to see if service improves after this merger before I trust them with such things as valuable as say this blog.
Fairness disclaimer: The shoddy service from these guys is probably because they got in over their heads capacity-wise and this will be the best thing for us and them.
I started watching the X-Files in the middle of season 1. I watched it nearly every Sunday for 7–1/2 years. I watched the reruns on FX both times when they ran all the episodes in chronological order. I voted in the Thanksgiving marathons. I saw the movie. I bought the action figures. I hooked my friends on the show. I was a bonified fan, not obsessed, but close. Last season was painful, no Mulder and Scully was reduced to the Greek Chorus role. I actually warmed to Dogett, but still the magic was gone.
This year I have pretty much ignored the show. Today at lunch with some of the friends I hooked on the show I was asked if I watched it last week. I had to say no. They wanted an explanation of what was going on and I couldn’t say. So I tuned in tonight and it was painful still. To me the show seems a parody of itself, but I guess I owe it to myself to watch it through until the end. At least I can get a rant out of it for the next couple of months. Tune in next Sunday.
Loved ST:TOS & most of the movies, never watched T.J Hooker, loved those stupid priceline.com ads. I like the way he can make fun of himself. Just saw the TV trailer for Showtime and he is in it, making fun of the T.J Hooker thing.…
If he was African-American would he still be working after his last wife drowned in the backyard pool? Or would we be all over him like we were on OJ ?
Close to freezing this morning, so the top went up for the ride to work. I thought winter was over with? Off to the printer at lunch to drop off the flyer for the Bike Club’s Spring Century. Put the top down and the boot on. Stayed down for the ride home, but will probably go back up in the morning, Weather Channel say rain.
Bad news is my new A/C panel is out of stock at Rspeed and they are the only folks handling these parts. Guess I am going to have to find something else to do at Tech Day, sigh.…
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 44
Tom Brokaw might as well have read that headline on his NBC Evening News show this evening. I can’t tell if this was a statistical anomaly or every night it is like this, but on tonight’s show nearly every commercial was for some wonder drug or over the counter medicine. There were only about 3 non-medicine ads and they were cross promotional spots for MSNBC…
You could see the rain on the radar, it was close, but being 50 degrees we left for work with the top down. Made it about 2 miles and had to pull over and raise the roof. It has been raining on and off for the rest of the day so it is currently up.
Found a neat idea over in the Interior/Exterior Section of the Miata.net forum on changing the Hazard and Pop-up switches out to toggle switches, this may be my Tech Day Project.
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 45
Enough already — the swimsuits are nothing new, how many ways are there to make a bikini?
No top with hands over the breasts, done it. Wet T-shirts you can see thru, done it. Back lighting so you can see through translucent cloth, done it. 3-D, done it. No suits and just paint, done it. This year they decided to pose some of the models with ordinary people, not good, as this just shows how skinny and unrealistic “super” models look. They only thing left is total nudity and if they did that how could they call it the Swimsuit Edition?
We had to make an emergency run last night. Drove the 15 miles to the grocery store that is a mile and a half away to get chocolate chip ice cream. Now go figure, we put the top down. I guess maybe because it is dark it is OK to be cold…
…because this morning, in the light, we put it back up for the ride to work. Foggy as all get out and lower 50’s. Even if we had braved it, I would have put it up at work because we are still in the clouds and the interior would have gotten soaked.
Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 47
Top down and boot on for the ride home. Because of the continued absence (63 hours and counting) of That Hosting Company the Miata club site is nowhere to be found. We still have the Geocities space so I uploaded the most current web site back there. Figured a banner ad or two is better than nothing. http://www.geocities.com/masters_miata/
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 48
I guess I set myself up for this one. Way back in the late 80’s when the internet was young, my favorite past time was to view other folk’s web pages. Find an ISP and look at all the local people’s sites. Some were lame, some were good and others were awe inspiring. I could waste hours a night surfing home pages.
Flash forward to the 00’s (?) and today’s new home page is the blog. Go to the Blogger home page and there on the left are recently updated blogs and blogs of note. Click one and it leads to more, which lead to more and the next thing I know it is time for bed. how I got there last night I don’t remember, but I started reading Sean’s Daily Drivel and for whatever reason it captivated me.This guy was writing about ordinary events like most, but he was incomplete. He kept refering to Kelly in the past tense. I read further and further back and then there it was, February 25th would have been his wife, Kelly’s, birthday and this was the one month anniversay of her death! Just 6 weeks ago Sean is another happy-go-lucky 25 year old, married for about 6–1/2 years and today he is a widower. Wife got sick on a Saturday with what they thought were kidney stones and by Monday she was gone, a victim of a blood infection.
That wasn’t what I bargined for while reading blogs. Damn, I’ve been bummed all day thinking about that. One day things are cool and like 48 hours later your world is rocked, big-time. Hang in there Sean, I hope the blogging helps ya. It sure opened my eyes.
Another San Francisco morning here in Aiken, SC. Cold, damp, foggy, real ugly this morning so we put the top up for the ride in. Today was lunch date with my wife and by noon it was sunny and had warmed up nicely. We made the 20 mile round trip to the Burger King that is less than a mile from the plant for Whoppers (Regular for me and a Jr. for Donna.) Can’t imagine being trapped inside a giant SUV with an A/C that is on all the time, missing the sounds and feel of the outdoors on spring days like this.…
Not having an SUV almost cost us a couple of pieces of chocolate though. On the way home we stopped at the drive-thru of our bank to cash a check. Used the lane closest to the bank so when the teller pushed out the little draw again with my cash and driver’s license back I reached up and in, grabbed the envelope and started to pull away. The teller as she was wishing us a good weekend, said, “Wait, you forgot something.” When I took the envelope, I felt something else in the draw, but ignored it as they always keep a pen in there for folks who don’t have one and I thought that is what is was. When I reached back in there I could feel some little squares, so I picked them up. They were a couple of those little Hershey’s miniatures in St. Patrick’s Day colors. The teller smiled and said, “See, not a pen.” If I had an SUV I would have been looking down into the tray and would have seen the candy. Of course, taped to one, was a bit of paper that invited us to refinance our mortgage with Regions Bank. Erin Go Braugh, indeed.
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 50
It is March Madness time and I’ve entered the office pool. In a couple of weeks that $7 will be lining some one else’s pocket. I have never come close to winning the NCAA Tourney pool. I take that back, I came close 4 years ago when my cubical neighbor didn’t know what to pick so I told him to just go with the highest seed and for the final four take them on the order of their year end poll position. He won! and he gave me $10 for my help.
We also have a Football Bowl pool that I fare much better in, 2 years ago I won and a year ago I finished second. For football the point spread counts, so I have a Excel spreadsheet that generate a random number, which is then used to pick the winner. This past January it failed miserably and I came in dead-last. But that is OK too, because the last place person gets the booby prize of his or her money back.
This year instead of grappling with trying to pick the upsets right in the NCAAs, I went back to that highest seed thing — I’ll let you know.
Below are a couple of quotes from their email a week ago.…
“This transition period will begin Sunday @ 8:00am PST, March 10th, 2002. And will require approximately 5 days to complete.“
It has now been 6–1/2 days and they are not finished. I know this because…
“During this transition period you may experience unexpected downtimes.“
They didn’t need to pluralize it because it has been *downtime* since about 4 AM Tuesday morning. Nothing. My site, my friend’s site, their own site.….n o t h i n g .
I think the 5 day thing was just to let them get a head start before we sent the Internet Police after them.
Put the top up to wash the car this morning. Back down for the drive over to the GA Welcome Center to meet the gang. Today was Tech Day for the Master’s Miata Club. We meet there and drove over to Kurt’s house because he has a two car attached garage, a place for four cars in the drive, a single car un-attached garage with workshop and he lives at the end of a dead end road where more cars can go. First we made a “quick” stop at the local Mazda dealer, they just got in a new 2002 Titanium Gray SE and we wanted to peep at it.
Today’s Tech Special was brake bleeding. Rudy bought a Forced Induction device called a speed bleeder. You pressurize the brake system and open the bleed valves and whoosh, out with the old and in with the new. No need to pump the pedal. Supposedly this allows you to do the job by yourself, of course it took 4 of us to do it. They did 4 cars (I think including clutch systems too) and Rudy changed over to some new Axxis brake pads. I didn’t do the brake thing as I was busy installing toggle switches to replace the hazard & pop-up buttons. Now that I got them in there, I’m not sure I like it.
I’ll give it a couple weeks to see if it grows on me. Needs a little refinement as well. The outside plate I made was a little too small and I need a backing plate or something as the switches move around when used as I couldn’t get them tight to the console.
When we went in for our pizza lunch I put the top up as there were some gray clouds hovering about. Cleared up a bit after lunch so the top went back down. Jim Creer brought his polishing wheel and magic goo so he could show me how to shave the lettering off the side makers. It is an old hot rodders trick from way back, to polish off the raised lettering on the red and yellow lights to keep from getting unsightly dried wax build up. He did one and then part of another, which I then finished. Borrowed the stuff from him so I can do the tail lights evenings this week.
Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 54
Watched it again last night. I could have sworn last week John Doggett was in a coma. This week he is just fine, but in the intro his partner Monica Reyes is in a car accident and guess what, ends up in a coma. The show is becoming like a daytime soap opera in fast forward. Next week is Agent Scully’s turn? They are calling for the return of Fox Mulder to end the series with a bang, I’m sure when we first see him he will be in a coma.…
Oh, yeah, this episode reminded me of something, I could swear I saw the same plot in an old Twilight Zone episode.
Donna’s Mom has a 1997 Honda Civic DX. It is an official Miata Support Vehicle and as such every time the 3 of us go anywhere I get to drive the Civic. The one thing that always bothers me is the location of the gas gage. It is an automatic and there is no tachometer. The instrument cluster consists of three circles. The biggest one is the speedometer in the center which also has the odo and trip odo in it. To the right of the center circle in a slightly smaller circle is the gas gage to the far right, while the gear indicator lights are to the left in that same circle. To the left of the center circle is another slightly smaller circle with the temp gage to the left and to the right are the words, “Unleaded Fuel Only.” Why didn’t the verbiage about unleaded fuel go in the same circle as the gas gage? To logical?
No fog for the first time in a while, but the clouds were not pretty looking, forcing the top to be put up while at work, just in case. Good thing too, didn’t rain, but saved the interior from a major dusting of pine pollen. The car was covered with the stuff at the end of the day. The top went back down and we drove the 20 miles of our 6 mile commute home.
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 58
Had a pattern going there…but not anymore. Just started raining and is supposed to go most of tonight and all tomorrow. I hope it rains hard so as to knock all the remaining pine pollen out of the trees. The parking lot at work has a yellow tint and when the wind blows it makes little yellow clouds fly across the asphalt.
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 60
We got a little flyer included with this month’s checking that describes a service the bank likes to call Overdraft Privilege. If you can understand the gobbledy gook they have printed on this 1/3 page you are either a banking lawyer or certifiably insane. I wish I had a scanner at home so you could see it, but I think this little asterisked portion on the bottom sums up this service nicely:
The Overdraft Privilege Service does not constitute an actual or implied agreement between you and The South Financial Group, Inc. Nor does it constitute an actual or implied obligation of or by the bank. This service represents a purely discretionary courtesy or privilege that the bank may provide to you from time to time and which may be withdrawn or withheld by The South Financial Group, Inc. at any time without prior notice or reason or cause.
I just knew I could count on them…
I subscribe to nearly every Lockegnome daily newsletter. Well when That Hosting Company went dark last Thursday who knows what happened to those email newsletters. Eight days later my email started coming back in and 2 of the 4 newsletters started right back up. What happened to the other 2? Does the listserver automatically remove you after repeated bounce backs?
I went to the site Lockegnome and tried to resubscribe to one of the missing ones and I got this in response:
The email address ‘Brian_the_Red@mastersmiataclub.org’ was a held member of ‘lghtml’. Your status has been reset to ‘normal’.
Does that mean there are still sending them and I’m not getting them or does it mean I’ll start getting them again tomorrow?
I started getting the Lockegnome Windows Daily newsletter again. So I tried to resubscribe to the missing 3 using yesterday’s technique and got back three similar messages:
Sorry, but the email address ‘Brian_the_Red@mastersmiataclub.org’ is already a member of ‘lgtech’. Because you are already subscribed, ListManagerSQL did not subscribe you again.
I guess I will have to unsubscribe and resubscribe to get these missing ones.
This afternoon I finally polished the right taillight to match the left. When Jim got to the Sonic, we walked over to my car so I could give him the wheel and polish back, he said, “Missed one.” Me, “Huh?” Jim, “The third brake light on the trunk lid.” Me, “DOH!” accompanied by a Homer Simpson-esque head slap. The Procrastinator King now has 10 days to do the center taillight before the next Club meeting.
Big crowd for MMM…Time number two, considering 3 of the regulars were off tearing up the track at Talladega. Judy Arrowood and sons, Nicholas and Zachary came out in the Miata with the VW Bug kit. Cathy Miller rode navigator in son Andrew’s car, while her friend Roxanna Lane drove her car. Ron Kaufman’s son, Keith and grandson Josh came along in a Corvette. And guest Terre Bohman joined some of us regulars in his turbo’d white ’99 with those sweet Flyin’ Miata duals. Seven Miatas and nine cars in all.
Plan was to hang out at the Sonic an hour or so, then take a back road drive over to North Augusta and the site of last month’s MMM…Time, the Sno-Cap. The Sno-Cap was having their 4th Saturday Cruise-In and we wanted to look under the hood of a car besides Jim’s. We ended up staying a while longer than planned at Sonic, as Jim was stuffed under the dashboard of Andrew’s car fixing his windshield wipers. Without too much more than the usual shenanigans associated with a nine car train on public roads, we managed to make the last half of the Cruise-In. John & Jackie skipped the drive and were waiting for us at the Sno-Cap.
When we finished parking, the lot was full, even with Ron and son parking in the church lot across the street. Besides us there was a little of everything, classics, hot rods, 60’s muscle and even a couple of choppers. They held some drawings for door prizes and Jim won a milkshake, while John won a banana split. Andrew would have won a T-shirt, but he left 5 minute before they drew his name. Ron missed winning a Long Dog for the same reason.
After the prizes, Sno-Cap owner, Rachel tried unsuccessfully to coerce enough contestants to hold some sort of dressing/undressing contest. She swears that they had done it once already earlier and everyone had fun, we remained unconvinced.
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 63
After 8 days of nothing THC sends me an email with the particulars needed to log in and re-upload my site. By Thursday (3/21) the Master’s Miata Club web site is back on line. Not only that the problem I used to have with FTPing is now gone. So why the rant, you ask? It is two days later and for some reason tonight getting to the site is as slow as molasses in January. Should I join my brother rats in deserting THC and taking my domain name and running? My heart says stick it out, things will be fine, but my head says get out.…
No X-Files tonight. I thought for sure tonight was Skinner’s turn to be in a coma. I guess Fox didn’t want to try and compete with the Oscar broadcast. Humph, is the demographic of one even remotely the same as for the other? I could see in the X-Files’s heyday not competing with the Emmy’s, but come on. With the sorry state of the show I would have thought they would be more worried that someone like me might tune in, see they were not on, figure that the run was over and never try and tune in again.
Today at lunch I ran to the Post Office to mail off my CD of the Month. I mailed 2 copies and I should get 2 back, one of Josh’s and one from somebody else who sends in two. I just love this idea of random music. When will I get it? Will I love it? Will I hate it? I made up some labels for the CDs and stuck them in one of those plastic cases I get at work. I wonder how intricate the ones I get will be? Wait here, I’m going to check my mail and see if they are there yet. 
When I got back from the PO I decided to put the top up. There was no mention of rain in the forecast, but there were a couple of big gray clouds wandering the sky. Went right inside and called Rspeed and ordered up a cockpit cover, this way on days like today where there is a slim chance of water droplets from the sky I can use that instead of taking off the boot and raising the top. My fancy-smancy A/C Cover Plate is not in yet. Two weeks ago they said 2 weeks, today they said one more week.
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 65
Made it to work with the top down, but up it went as rain was in the forecast. Lightly rained a couple of times during the day and we ran right through a heavy line of thunderstorms on our way to Augusta to run the Miata Club newsletters through the postage meter.
Big news is it is a different postage meter. For the first time in nearly four years of Miata Club newsletter producing we have a different sponsor. Ever since the last GM at Andy Jones was hired our relationship has soured. I hope the guy is selling cars for Andy, because he sure wasn’t nice to us. Let me put my Nostradamus hat on and say this is probably cyclic and we will be back at Andy Jones in another 10 years. Right now the new guys are interested, the GM and a salesman at Rader are Miata owners and are in the club, but life is fluid.…
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 66
I got progressive lens bifocals about a year ago. Kept misplacing the $15 drugstore reading glasses. But now I find I have become lazy, I look through the magnifying portion all the time. Now everything seems fuzzy without the glasses. Have my eyes just deteriorated over the last year or have they gotten lazy only because they can look through the magnifying portion?
They have changed to ad for the Buick Rendezvous over to a New Orleans flavored ad as opposed to the last version with the old black & white 1930’s feel. The earlier one had the Edgar Winter Group’s, “Frankenstein” playing in the background and to me it was just a little too true. While the Pontiac Aztec is the actual Frankenstein’s monster, the Rendezvous is pretty much the Bride of Frankenstein. It looks a little nicer, but still seems to be tossed together from bits that fit together, although oddly.
Didn’t put the top down until the trip home. So in honor of an absolute perfect spring day we took the 25 mile long cut home. After, I ran right back out to go to Mailboxes, Etc. to make copies of the Aiken Bicycle Club’s newsletter for distribution. On the short 3 mile trip there I saw 3 newish Chrysler Sebrings with their tops down (I told you it was a perfect spring day) I also saw a 3-series BMW with their top down. Also a red M1 & silver M2 Miatas with their top up and a silver M1 with it down.
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 67
Top up for the ride to work, top down for the ride home. Big news is my cockpit cover from Rspeed came in today. Going to spray it with some Scotchgard waterproofing tomorrow for insurance (supposed to already be weather resistant.) Then, put it on so I can get the straps adjusted. We’ll see if using this thing turns into a hassle, I hope not. I hope that using it in combination with the boot I can slow the climb of the number at the bottom each post, thereby increasing the life of the top.
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 69
Got an email addressed to the Master’s Miata Club from someone offering us a discount on a group buy of roll/style bars. Minimum order of 20. We have 37 cars in the club, I know of 4 that already have a bar, that means we need 61% of the remaining cars to buy one to qualify for the discount. That’ll happen. Maybe they should have taken the time to look at our website. I passed it along to everyone in the Club, just in case mass hysteria takes place.
Not only that I just checked his web site, Frenzy, and the group buy price is $10 off for the chrome style bar. WOW, what a deal. 
The cockpit cover Does not need waterproofing, I think. It is made of Technalon and it is supposedly fairly water resistant already. No straps to adjust, just elastic with rubber coated hooks. When I first put it on it appeared too small, but after futzing with it, it seems OK. Got to put the front on first, roll it out and put the tabs under the trunk last. Right now it is rolled up and tucked under the boot to preserve the trunk space.
Made a trip to Augusta to drop off Bike Club newsletters at the three big bike stores over there. The 2 in downtown were a cinch, but getting to the one in Martinez proved problematic. Friday and Saturday are what they call a tax holiday in Georgia. In order to boost sales or cut parents a break, school type items are tax free. Traffic was such a mess around the shopping centers that after trying a couple of ways to get around it, I bailed and came home. We will be out that way next Thursday and will drop the stuff off then.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 69
As befitting a government policy, Georgia’s Tax Holiday this weekend is thing of wonder.
You can purchase gym suits tax free, but you must pay tax on martial arts attire.
You can purchase bow ties tax free, but you must pay tax on head bands.
You can purchase lingerie tax free, but you must pay tax on athletic supporters.
Company was in town to go see the harness races this weekend, but this morning started with a horrendous rain storm. Put the top up and drove over to see if the races were still on before schlepping everyone over, nope called off until next Saturday. What are we going to do now. Around lunch the sun came out so we piled into my sister’s car and drove to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia. Nice time. We managed to get out and back to the car before it started to rain again.
This evening we needed a trip to the store for some last minute items for Easter dinner tomorrow, so Donna and I dropped the top back down and made the 15 mile drive to the Publix that is 3 miles away.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 71
The rain washed out the last leg of Aiken’s Triple Crown. Today’s harness races were called of until next Saturday because they just can’t pull a sulky on a muddy track. And because today was supposed to be cloudy with a good chance of additional rain, there was no way the track would be dry enough by tomorrow. We’ve got a rail side parking spot and 6 tickets, but next weekend it will be just the two of us as the company we were going to go with will be long gone.
The closest I’ve got to the Miata all day is I have walked by it a half dozen times on the way to and from the washer/dryer. It has been raining nearly all afternoon anyway. This morning Donna and I took my sister and her husband over to Hopeland Gardens to walk around and take some photos. Being the heathens we are, we didn’t realize that they were having Easter services at the amphitheater. Fortunately it is a big place and by the time we had covered everywhere else and wanted to head that way, services were over and the crowd broke up. Afterwards, we drove around horse country to breathe in the ambiance…
I have finally made it over 1 year CPU time in the search for ET. I am a member of the Miata Club over at SETI@Home. I am currently in the number 10 spot. The only other person I could possibly overtake unless I rent supercomputer time is #9, Erick Sodhi. He is currently 130 WU ahead of me, but it looks like he has stopped contributing. His last uploaded results were on February 1, 2001. At my current rate and if Erick doesn’t wake up, I will overtake him on the 19th of June this year.
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 71
I’m sure if I was much younger and hadn’t seen all the SciFi movies I have seen, AI would have been a monumental movie. Unfortunately, as often as it was so original, it was also so derivative. Blade Runner, Star Wars, Wizard of Oz, even John William’s score seemed to be, at times, by Phillip Glass. Still, I did watch the whole thing and at 2 hours, 25 minutes that was a serious commitment of time.
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