Today’s high temp was 54, which is approx­i­mately 20 degrees colder that the aver­age high tem­per­a­ture for this date. To boot it rained on and off all day. Felt like a Jan­u­ary day here in my fair city, Aiken, South Car­olina although it is only early November.

Speak­ing of Novem­ber, I fin­ished up mak­ing November’s CD Mix of the Month. Burned the CDs last night, printed the labels and liner notes and packed for mail­ing at work today. Sub­mit­ted for your approval this month is a Christ­mas music mix. Since the mixes have been show­ing up late in the month if I waited until Decem­ber to do the Christ­mas thing folks would get it too late.

Wouldn’t you know that my lat­est Christ­mas CD came in the mail today, too late for any song to make it into the mix. Too bad, Dobby Dobson’s ver­sion of White Christ­mas from “Reg­gae Christ­mas from Stu­dio One” is almost as good as The Drifters ver­sion I included. There is always next year.

Started down, went up, still up.
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Decem­ber weather (with a twist of March) in Novem­ber today. Progress. The sun came out and we hit the 60’s, but the wind came sweep­ing down the plain. Went out for the monthly Aiken Bicy­cle Club meet­ing at the Aiken Brew­ing Com­pany in down­town Aiken. I had a ham­burger that was OK and washed it down with a .… coke. Did buy a new Pal­metto Cycling Coali­tion hat for $15 dol­lars Donated $15 to the Pal­metto Cycling Coali­tion and got a neat hat as a thank you.

Started up, went down, still down.
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Went to the Master’s Miata Club meet­ing in Augusta tonight. Nice turn out, 18 mem­bers and one guest. The Creer’s brought along a fam­ily friend, Lor­raine Page. It was Lorraine’s birth­day and we all sung happy birth­day to her. Lor­raine is famous for this hit song.

Today is also my 13th anniver­sary as a Miata owner. This is my sec­ond Miata, but if you added up the mileage from #1 and #2 I have been in a Miata for 225,000 miles.

Started down, went up, went back down, up again, still up.
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When Donna and I sat in the car seats this morn­ing we both kinda squirmed. It had been way too short a time out of them after way too long in them. But the feel­ing soon passed and because we were a lit­tle early we went right on past the usual turn off for work and extended the drive by a few miles to some kill time. After work, we put the top down even tough it was chilly and cool­ing fast (still warmer than yesterday.)

The story of yesterday’s poker run in the Macon Telegraph.

Started up, went down, still down.
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Up for the early morn­ing frosty drive to work. We did go out at lunch and just drive around for 45 min­utes in the mid 60 degree sun­shine. After work it went up as the temps were falling fast and the clouds, although no rain was pre­dicted, looked like they could sprin­kle on us at any minute.

Today was hair­cut day for both of us. Every 4 weeks we go to a salon run by a friend of ours from the ol’ Aiken Bicy­cle Club days. Donna likes get­ting her hair­cut every month, so at the begin­ning of the year we sign up for appoint­ments on a Tues­day evening at 5:00 PM every 4th week. While my hair has basi­cally stopped grow­ing on top (and in sev­eral patches is actu­ally regress­ing) the sides are still thick and shaggy after a month, so the trim is wel­come for me as well.

Started down, went up, went down, went back up, still up.
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This after­noon was the rea­son for my bitch­ing and moan­ing all week about being at work an extra hour every day, we were FREE! At 11:30 Donna and I got in the car and pointed it away from 1561 Colum­bia High­way vow­ing not to return until 7:30 AM on Mon­day, Novem­ber 25th.

Went home and changed into what is known as week-end wear and headed out for lunch at the Boll Wee­vil Cafe. I had a Jose and she had a Curi­ous George, mmmm. After the vit­tles we went out and planned the route for the Master’s Miata Club’s Christ­mas Light Tour I’m lead­ing on Decem­ber 7th. It is a pared down ver­sion of the one from last year in the Augusta Chron­i­cle.

Started down, still down.
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Decided to drive it work and see where I could go from there about my coolant leak. My wife fol­lowed me in her Mom’s car in case some­thing hap­pened. I’ll spare some of the other weird hap­pen­ing of the morn­ing except to include the fact that a huge cloud of white vapor engulfed the car upon park­ing in the lot at work. At morn­ing break the IE, Chris, and I went out and started the car and looked to see if we could actu­ally see where it was leak­ing. Sure enough you could see a lit­tle drop — drop –drop com­ing from the lower heater hose. I called the two “local” Mazda deal­ers and nei­ther had the hose in stock. I called Advance Auto and they said we have one of the 2. I ran there at lunch and picked up the hose for $10. When I got back to work Chris asked if I had any luck find­ing the hose I told him yes and that I was going to call the shop right across the street to see what he’d charge me to put it in.

He said, “Don’t do that, get me a pair of pli­ers and I’ll change it in 5 min­utes.” 50 min­utes later the hose was changed. To be fair he prob­a­bly would have been done in less than 10 min­utes if I had the stock hose. The Advance Auto hose was just a generic 90 degree bend thing and was too long requir­ing trim­ming and retrim­ming and retrim­ming to fit. And because it was in such an inac­ces­si­ble spot forc­ing it on and twist­ing it only to have to remove it as a big PITA. Thanks Chris.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Tran­si­tions since 02/02/02: 326

Almost for­got. Back on the 17th one of the door prizes I won in the Poker Run was a $25 gift cer­tifi­cate from MM Miata On the 19th I mailed in the cer­tifi­cate along with an order for some leather seat­belt stalk cov­ers. I already have the leather shift and hand brake boots and this would com­plete the ensem­ble. They came in today, pretty good ser­vice. The first 4 years Miatas were pro­duced the seat­belts were fas­tened to the floor. Start­ing in my year they were fas­tened to the side of the seat for I’m sure gov­ern­ment man­dated safety rea­sons. The sleeves fit all year Miatas, but for mine, about 3 inches had to be trimmed off the length. Now that they are installed they really are noth­ing spe­cial, glad they were essen­tially free to me. I would have been dis­ap­pointed to have shelled out $25 for that lack­lus­ter enhancement.

Last Fri­day while out scout­ing the Christ­mas Light Tour route we stopped at friends from the Miata Club’s house (they are the end of the line because they are host­ing this year’s Hol­i­day Party.) It was get­ting chilly as day­light faded and we con­sid­ered putting the top up for the ride home. That’s when John said here try this. He had another member’s old wind­blocker to copy to make a pat­tern so he can make one up for him­self. John is our Club’s closet seam­stress, he has made a bunch of stuff up includ­ing bags for the boot and our Club’s Loaner Trunk Bag. We have had to wind­blocker on quite a bit and it has def­i­nitely extended the lower tem­per­a­ture limit for top down dri­ving. Using just the blocker it keeps the cold wind off your back. With the blocker and win­dows up it is very cozy inside. Still get some cold air in, but hey it is a con­vert­ible. I think we are going to get John to sew us one up too.

Upper 30’s on the way to work — no prob­lem, the top was down.

Started down, still down.
Top Tran­si­tions since 02/02/02: 328

Washed the car today, that is why the top went up. It was fairly filthy. Not only did I was the out­side, but the engine com­part­ment got a wash­ing too. Found some quick and easy instruc­tions in a Miata.net forum post and decided that 7 years of road grime needed to go. I really need to wash off the coolant residue left behind by my leaky heater hose inci­dent, I could still smell it and it made me think that the leak was re-occurring. The engine com­part­ment looks a whole heck of a lot bet­ter now, won’t win any car shows, but looks good. As a bonus the coolant smell is totally gone, it has been replaced by the scent of Sim­ple Green.

Started down, went up, still up.
Top Tran­si­tions since 02/02/02: 329