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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Several months ago in a fit of anger some chucklehead smashed the paper towel dispenser in one of the Men’s Rooms at work. Today the replacement was installed.
With the old dispenser it took 3 pulls of the lever to get what I felt was the perfect amount of towel to bring my hands to the proper dryness level, 2 feet. With the new dispenser, 3 pulls gets you close to half that total or about 1 foot of paper. Maybe this is government mandated like the 1 gallon per flush toilets or maybe everyone thinks that this will help save the planet, i.e. less trees cut down, less energy used to make the paper, less trash generated etc. As a bonus I’m sure the company feels it will save money on buying the paper towels.
Ah, Mr. Smarty-pants, wrong answer! I still need 2 feet of paper to dry my hands. The same amount of energy and waste will be produced and you will now lose money as it takes twice as long for me to dry my hands. Say an extra 30 seconds at a time. 2 trips to the bathroom a day, times 1/2 minute. times 5 days, times 52 weeks, equals 4 hours and twenty minutes. With my exorbitant salary that’s a lot of dough.
Continue reading New & “Improved” Paper Towel Holder
After Wild Bill the Tropical Storm passed our are in the night, we woke up to a forecast that called for no rain. The skies looked threatening, but bolstered by the forecast I left the top down and used our new cockpit cover.
About 10 o’clock my wife called and said that it was raining and maybe I should go put the top up. About that time I heard the sound of a really hard rain hitting the roof above my head. It only lasted about a minute. After it quit I thought I’d go look under the cover and see how wet it might be. Walked out to the car in the still sprinkling morning and when I peeked inside it was 99% dry. Cool the new cover worked like a charm
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $830.88
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 137
…in this fast paced world. Finally got my CafePress stickers I ordered June 14th. I bought two for the Rant and two for the Miata Diaries. They look pretty good, but in the 2–1/2 weeks that have passed between ordering and receiving I’ve moved the blogs. Both URLs printed on the stickers are wrong.
After tonight’s Master’s Miata Club meeting it was such a pretty night that Donna wanted to go the long way home. Well, she didn’t have to twist my arm very hard, but first we needed some gas. The first place I pulled into must have run out of gas because the numbers were moving real slow and they stopped dead on $0.12, netting me a total of 0.08 gallons of mid grade. Drove about a mile down the road to the next station where I finished filling up.
I wonder how much it is going to cost that store and my bank to transact a twelve cents purchase?
Purchased Today: $13.87
Money spent since 03/03/03: $843.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 137
Or “Where The Boys Aren’t.” Having spent the last couple of weeks following boys little league baseball I now know where all their sisters are, doing gymnastics.
A cousin of Donna’s from NJ (Exit 14) has a daughter competing in the YMCA National Gymnastics Championships being held in Savannah, GA. So we drove the 3 hours down to see her compete.
Kristen is 11 and is on the Madison Rosettes Novice squad or the level 6 division. Age doesn’t matter, just skill, in determining what level you compete at, the girls ranged from 8 to 14. Also going on in the same arena were the levels 7 & 8, (Developmental and Championship.)
A veritable sea of glittery hair and even more glittery lycra. I watched as long as I could and then I pulled a play I learned from my sister, I had brought a book, so I climbed to the top row of the arena and read.
I did the K& N air filter cleaning and re-oiling this afternoon. I bought a bottle of cleaner and a small vial of oil instead of the cleaning kit as I didn’t think I’d need that much oil for my approximately 5″ x 10″ sized filter. Wrong, I got about a third of the filter soaked in oil. Off we went to the auto parts store to buy some more oil. They didn’t sell the stuff separately, so I ended up buying a cleaning kit anyway. I now have an awful lot of the cleaner solution, so come on over and get your K & N filter unsullied, free of charge. (Also snagged a new bottle of Meguiar’s Quik-Detailer while we were there.)
On the same trip we also stopped into Target to buy a set of smaller folding chairs. They had ones that are half the size of our current ones on sale for $4. We wanted some that would fit in the trunk and still leave room for some luggage. The ones we have now have arms and a high back so that a pair of them practically fill the trunk. Although needed for one reason they were not needed for another, our little 3 person household has 8 folding chairs stored in the back of the garage.
Purchased Today: $15.88
Money spent since 03/03/03: $859.63
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 137
I don’t know what else to call them. Drove over to Augusta this evening to buy some more wheels for my inline skates and before we left I cleaned off the dead insect residue from our last trip. About 1/2 way there I ran through a cloud of invisible bugs, you can’t see them in your headlights, but when they impact the windshield they leave behind a little puff of dust no bigger than a couple of millimeters in diameter.
When we came back out of the store I got out my bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels and cleaned the windshield again. It lasted about 20 minutes before another swarm of bugs peppered the windshield again. I used the washer jets and the wipers to clean up this time, only to get another dusting within 5 minutes.
Squirt, squirt, wipe, wipe and this time we made it home without another encounter with the mysterious ghost bugs.
Went out this evening to snap some photos of the car after being inspired by this web page. Found a deserted parking lot on the north side of town and parked my car in it at an angle. I was hoping to catch the sun going down in the background and then get some other pictures after sunset in the magic twilight. Right after I snapped photo number one, who should pull in, but an Aiken Public Safety Officer. Of course I was nervous even though I was doing nothing really wrong. He was just checking to see if I was all right and wished me good luck with the pictures once I explained what I was doing.
Well not the stickiness part of the tape, but the foam in the middle. A few weeks back I installed a 3rd brake light flasher that a fellow I work with is making. I used double stick tape to hold it in place in a spot in the top of the trunk. Today on the way home from work when I closed the trunk there was a loud rattle that I didn’t recognize. I opened it back up and there was my ABIA hanging by the wires. Sticky stuff still on the car and sticky stuff on the unit, just the foam had torn.
Going to remount it tonight using Velcro and epoxy. Epoxy one side of the Velcro to the ABIA and epoxy the other side to the cubby hole in the trunk. We’ll see if this will last longer than 2–1/2 months.
Purchased Today: Nuttin’
Money spent since 03/03/03: $859.63
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 139
Sitting here blogging and watching my beloved Red Sox play the Blue Jays in a window in the upper right. The centerfield camera shows the angle that the pitcher gets as he is throwing to the plate. They are playing in Toronto and there are some seats at playing field level that must have their own waitress to get them their refreshments. I can’t help but think that must be distracting to have her walking back and forth delivering nachos and beers and whatnot back there while the he is winding up.
I know she is distracting me as she looks pretty good in my little fuzzy window.
Continue reading How Does He Concentrate?
Well, two winning tickets to the powerball game were sold, unfortunately neither was one of the 18 tickets we held for our group buy at work. Just to be sure I asked the fellow at work who was buying the tickets did he take a trip to Missouri or Pennsylvania to buy this week. He said no.
The jackpot for this coming Saturday is only $10 million, hardly worth the effort to go to the store and buy a ticket.
Something, I’m not sure what, triggered my memory to change the filter in the central air conditioning unit today. I remembered that I hadn’t changed it in a while, a long while, but couldn’t remember exactly when. It was probably more than a year ago judging by how dirty that sucker was. Next month’s power bill will probably be 20% less…
Found another blogger that is running a CD swap. Ever since the demise of Crabwalk’s CD Mix of the Month earlier this year I have been jonesin’ for a free music swap, but am to lazy to actually run one (besides the list of regular readers here is too small.) I *have* swapped a couple discs with one semi-regular, Sinclair of Hello Mr. Mackenzie fame since then.
This one is not monthly, best I can tell this is the second in a sporadic series, but I have signed up to play Burn-It. If you want in, better hurry, sign-ups end Tuesday.
Purchased Today: Zero
Money spent since 03/03/03: $859.63
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 143
Today was day two of my air-conditioning repair marathon. After the filter replacement, I’d walked around the house holding my hand near all the outlets to feel if we were getting cool air out of them. Found one, the one near the back wall of our bedroom, that was not really working. Damn, no wonder our bedroom has been warmer than normal for a while. Shown a flashlight down there and it looked like the ductwork had fallen off the register.
It figures it would have to be this one, as it is almost the furthest one from the little door into the crawl space under the house. I got on some old clothes, grabbed the flashlight and a roll of duct tape. Crawled around on my belly like a dog soldier creeping up on enemy lines and dodged other ducts and pipes like bullets and tracers to get to where I needed to be. The actual repair went pretty fast and smooth. Duct tape is a marvelous tool and I have used it for a hundred different things, but this was the first time I actually used it for its intended purpose.
Just another spectacular day in my home town. We (Donna, I, Fellow ABCers Chuck and Cindy) went for a 25 mile bicycle ride this morning. Got at it early to avoid the traffic and the heat. The sky was beautiful, in that religious cliched sort of way, sporadic big clouds covering the morning sun, but allowing streaks of sunshine through to illuminate the green fields. Just awesome.
The rest of the middle of the day was spent indoors in front of the computer. I finished up the mix for my upcoming CD swap. It is supposed to be “music that makes you hot. Music that makes you sweat. Music that turns you on.” I don’t know any of the music titles from those cheesy porn movies of my youth, so I made up a mix of songs that have the word summer in the title.
Tonight around 8 o’clock Donna wanted a top down drive in the Miata and being the accommodating guy I am, I agreed. After the first turn out of the neighborhood we knew we couldn’t go north, dark ugly storm clouds were brewing. I headed east and then south. After a 20 mile loop or so we headed back into town to stop at the store to get some odds and ends. As soon as we turned north we realized that all the while we were driving east and south those clouds we saw earlier had continued their relentless march south. We needed gas anyway so we ducked into the first station available to top up the tank and put the top up. We made it into the store before the rains came, but had to use the little emergency umbrella to get back to the car without getting entirely soaked. The drive home from the store was very similar to the drive home from work on Friday.
Purchased Today: 14.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $874.13
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 144
Going away for a few days starting right after work tomorrow. Burgular Notice! My mother-in-law is staying home. She is pretty good about aiming for an extremity with the shotgun — that is when she remembers to put her glasses on first.
So tonight I worked on the car topping off the fluids (oil, gas, coolant & windshield washer) and filling the tires up to 35 PSI. Our bags are packed and all we are doing is coming home, changing and heading out — destination Thursday evening is Statesville, NC. Friday morning we finish the trip to Lexington, VA. We are staying there until Sunday morning when we will drive the 8 straight hours to get home. Don’t worry I’ll analog blog the highlights so I can fill you in later.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $874.13
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 151
For the second day in a row I put the top up with less than an hour of the work day left. Unlike yesterday, this time it was a very good thing. It poured. It was a mini gale. At quitting time it was still coming down very hard, but because we were leaving town to go on our long weekend we left promptly, instead of the sensible wait it out we would normally take. We got soaked walking to the car, even with an umbrella.
Maybe later I will enjoy the irony of this evening’s drive to Statesville, NC, but right now I am cursing the North & South Carolina Departments of Transportation. As we traveled north on I-77 towards Charlotte, we couldn’t help but complain about the sorry state the pavement was in. The concrete was full of potholes and big cracks caused by the passage of huge number of 18-wheelers and heavy SUVs not considered in the initial design studies. Plus, where they had made an attempt to fix these defects, they did a lousy and/or cheap job, making it no better and sometimes worse than before. Where we could get away with it, we drove in the smoother, because of less traffic use, left lane. Later in the drive while in NC we encountered 2 places where the Interstate was narrowed down to one lane which caused a 20 minute 1st gear creep to cover 2 miles. The reason that they had one lane closed was of course to repair the very damaged road surface we had been complaining of earlier.
Purchased Today: $12.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $886.63
Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 154
Way back in the 80’s when they first started appearing on the landscape, Fuddruckerswere the be-all-to-end-all of hamburger places. I remember when the first opened a store in New Orleans there were signs posted outside that said, No Photography Allowed, so no one would steal there decorating idea of leaving empty food cases arranged around the place. Well it is twenty years later and the bloom is off the rose. The burger I was served was good, but not up to my memory and certainly not the “Worlds Best” with which they billed themselves. Which is why perhaps some truth nazis made them paint over that particular phrase on the awning outside the door.
Continue reading Fuddrucker’s For Dinner
We tried to avoid the Interstate today on our way to Lexington, VA. Mainly because that is our preferred way to travel, but we also hoped to avoid the construction delays we seemed to encounter every 50 miles. Nice try. We found delays on the back roads as well, from slow drivers to lane closings with flagmen because of grass mowing. Turns out we made the best time on a road we normally avoid. Although beautiful to travel, the 45 MPH speed limit of the Blue Ridge Parkway usually means slow forward progress. I’m sure we weren’t going as fast as Interstate travel, but today compared to the trip thus far, we were flying.
Spent the afternoon wandering the quaint downtown of Lexington. I of course was hoping to replace my long deceased Washington & Lee trident sweatshirt while Stuart (the HS senior son of our friend) was looking for a feather for his cap, literally. Claire (the college senior daughter of our friend) was there too, but no fun at all because her allergies were in high gear and could do nothing but sniffle and wipe her watery eyes.
When Sally (friend) arrived home from work we had just enough time for her to change before we headed out for Fridays Alive in Davidson Park, a short 5 block walk from their house. Tonight’s free music was provided by the Ammon/Bassett Band. They played what we in South Carolina call “beach music,” you may call it 50’s Rhythm ‘n Blues. We hung around for about 1/2 of the three hour show. Just about as much of that as a person could stand, unless of course you live to shag.
Purchased Today: $10.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $897.13
Started up, went down, went up, went down, up, down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 160
The first year we visited our friends after they moved to Lexington, VA I stopped into a local screenprint/sporting clothing store, Sayre, and picked up a navy blue hooded sweatshirt with a large white Washington & Lee trident logo on the front. I literally wore that sweatshirt out in the ensuing 5 years. Every time we have been back since, I stop in and look for a replacement sweatshirt, with no luck yet. Every time I ask about when they might have some in, the response is always the same, “We will be getting some new stuff in for the fall/winter/spring, check back then.” And every time I leave empty-handed and disappointed. This time I went ahead and bought a white T with the logo on the back, but it is just not the same. Sigh…
After a morning visit to Sally and a brisk couple mile walk around some walking paths in Lexington, we said so long and hopped in the car. Spent the first part of the trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway again before finally getting in some delay free back roads to Martinsville, VA. We picked this particular town because they were home to a minor league baseball that was playing a home game this evening.
Donna and I have been going to minor league baseball since the early eighties when we would drive from Meridian, MS to Jackson to see the Double A Mets play. We loved the old parks that had all kinds of character. Most started out with old concrete dugouts and concrete benches for stands. Our favorite place was Asheville where the “box seats” were metal folding chairs painted green that came with waitress service. Down through the years minor league ball has grown up and we thin not all for the good. Before, most of the teams had the names of the parent club, but since the movie “Bull Durham” and the success of marketing that teams merchandise with the distinct bull in the letter D logo every team wants a piece of that pie. The Savannah (GA) Cardinals became the Sand Gnats, my home town team the New Britain Red Sox became the Rock Cats, etc. A team of marketing people were brought in the create a cute nickname and mascot to go with it so money could be made. The stadiums themselves grew up. Leagues instituted minimum standards for seating. New stadiums had to be built or a team would move to another town. Prices went up, the $3 dollars we paid at Asheville for our box seats is now what it costs to park at the Columbia (SC) Bombers games. Instead of kids being taught to keep score to get them involved and give them something to do, now between every inning we play games, dizzy bat races, race the mascot around the bases, musical chairs, and rolling big dice for prizes. We missed the good “old” days. but still we go because it is a relative bargain compared to attending a major league game and there is still something special about hot dogs, nachos, cold beer and the crack of the bat.
We had a bad lunch experience, but the hotel was nice. They had a free internet terminal for guests to use (Ack! Dial-up, but beggars can’t be choosers.) so I checked on Lance’s Tour de France day (Ack! He lost time Jan Ullrich.) and went to the Photo Friday site to get my challenge (AK! Identity.)
After lounging in the room for a couple of hours we headed over to the ball field to watch the game. The Martinsville Astros were playing the Kingsport Mets. Well we were confronted with the past and now we are not so sure we like it. Martinsville is a short season rookie team in the Appalachian League, about as far down as you can get on the pro baseball ladder. Their stadium was small, old and looked thrown together from bits and pieces they inherited from the local high school when they got a better field. It was mix of cement bleachers, aluminum bleachers and old plastic movie theater looking seats planted on top of the dugout. There was one concession stand and the souvenir shop was a small metal building. The line-ups and league standings were hand written on pieces of paper and taped to a board. I think we may need to go to an Augusta (GA) Greenjackets, used to be Pirates, game this weekend, they are single A and have a nice 3 year-old stadium just to compare.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $897.13
Started up, went down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 164
We arrived in Martinsville, VA about 12:30 PM and stopped at the Holiday Inn Express to see if per chance we could check in. We could and did. Donna had a hankering for Chik-fil-A and we wondered aloud what the odds were that we could find one in this town. The helpful desk clerk said take a right out of the parking lot, at the second light go left and the mall is on your left about a mile down the road.
The mall was an older one, built probably during the hay-day of malls, in the early 80’s. There was no food court, just a fast pizza place and the Chik-fil-A. The Chik-fil-A was packed and the lines were long. Turns out it wasn’t so much the lines to order, but they were people who had already placed an order and were waiting on their food. Trying to politely decipher which was which was impossible. We considered leaving to find someplace to go, but figured a short wait wouldn’t be too bad. Not too long after we decided to stay a clerk called out, “I’ll help the next one in line.” I started towards her, but a woman came from nowhere and proceeded to order her lunch. Donna and I looked at one another and promptly did an about face and headed for our car.
Back towards the hotel there were a few places, so we headed that way. We spotted an Applebee’s, but hesitated. We like the food, but dislike them because they separate the smoking and non-smoking sections by an imaginary line and a thin railing. To make matters worse the bar and smoking section are on a lower level making a nice chimney effect to draw the exhaled smoke and smell right into the non-smoking section. Deciding to give them a chance anyway because we were getting hungry. I got into the turn lane and waited for the arrow. Looking left there was an entrance to a steak place to the right of Applebee’s that was closed, so I made a U-turn and got in the right lane looking for the other entrance only to realize that the entrance I saw was for both places. I drove a quarter of a mile back the wrong way, U-turned again, returned to the original light and waited for the green arrow again. The hostess seated us against the wall on one in response to our request to be as far from the smoking section as possible. Maybe it was just inattentiveness or perhaps we had broken an unwritten hostess rule by requesting special seating, but there we sat ignored. After no one came over to greet us or take a drink order within the first couple of minutes, using the silent communication that married couples develop in time, we discussed leaving with just a glance. I said out loud, “Wait here comes a waitress, if she isn’t ours, we’ll leave.” She paraded slowly by without so much as a glance our way. We headed for our car once again.
Up ahead was a Ryan’s Steakhouse, complete with a woman out front in a poorly made cow costume waving at the drivers as they blew past her at 55 MPH. Unfortunately our survival instincts overrode our good sense and we pulled in, even though we knew what was in store for us inside. Both of us really didn’t want steak for lunch so we chose to dine on the Mega-Bar. What started out as a simple salad bar 10 years ago, has transmogrified into a buffet of immense proportions which includes every thing you could possibly think of, except salad. The variety of fried food stuffs is only out numbered by the quantity of vegetables that have been cooked and swimming in butter or prepared with animal fat as a seasoning. To be honest there was the makings of a tossed salad to be had, but by the time I found it, I was so full of chicken wings, fried okra, etc. to not want any.
Left from Martinsville, VA at 8:00 PM and didn’t arrive home until a little after 2:00 PM, 6 hours on the road and it seemed longer than that. Every way we turned we thwarted in our quest for a two lane back road route back from Virginia. We were glad that we were far enough east so as not to have to retrace our Thursday evening route of I-77, but that placed us near a group of the large cities of Raleigh, Durham, Winston-Salem, etc. North Carolina. After trying a couple of roads we gave up and traveled the near Interstate four lane divided roads that populated the area. Then hooked up with I-85 and then I-77 near Charlotte.
I’ve other stuff to take care of before I can transcribe the analog blog of the other 3 days to here, so if you are interested (and I can’t believe you wouldn’t be) check back tomorrow evening as I probably catch up blogging instead of working Monday.
Purchased Today: $11.50
Money spent since 03/03/03: $908.63
Started up, went down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 164
Tonight we needed to run to the store for a few items. It had just quit raining and the radar showed more showers in the area, so instead of taking the Miata, which would have meant putting the top up, we borrowed my mother-in-law’s MSV (Miata Support Vehicle, in this case a Honda Civic.) Next thing you know we will be borrowing the car if it is going to rain and I just washed the Miata.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $908.63
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 165
Mailed off 6 home made CDs today. Three to Texas and one to Canada as part of the Burn It — Summer Edition. (Wonder if I need to make a little page with the song list and such like I had for Josh’s CDMOM?) One to the state of Washington for the People’s Choice Award winner in the Barndoor Fan Club Flag Photo Contest and one to Merry Ol’ Scotland and Sinclair as a payback for sending me a CD of the Scooter’s latest.
Purchased Today: $15.00 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $923.63
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 166
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec eleifend, eros vel cursus tincidunt, sapien velit imperdiet massa, vitae auctor justo diam sit amet mi. Nullam eu erat. Nullam eget magna. Aenean volutpat. Curabitur orci dolor, pellentesque ut, vestibulum vel, sollicitudin nec, metus. Phasellus placerat. Duis fermentum metus vel nunc. Proin a est. Donec et eros et augue fringilla auctor. In eget ipsum. Quisque bibendum mi eu elit.
Aenean fermentum augue non orci. In lobortis nunc in sem. Curabitur elementum lectus in tellus. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Suspendisse tempor. Etiam ante ante, suscipit porttitor, lobortis non, convallis vitae, justo. Nunc vulputate magna et enim. Sed nec urna ut est euismod scelerisque. Integer condimentum fermentum ante. Sed congue consequat lacus. Morbi volutpat nulla ac turpis. Aliquam egestas lorem in tellus. Duis ultrices venenatis urna.
Cool huh? Standard dummy text that looks like I have something important to say. So important that I’m saying it in Latin, the language of really smart people like doctors and Jennifer Lopez. You too can look smart, get your own Lorem Ipsum here.
Did a little sprucing up anound here, very little, but I feel better.
1) This site is now a proud member of the Blogging Brians, so I added a link to the left.
2) I got rid of a stale weblog that hadn’t been updated since like March from the Mortal Blog list and added Blogumentary, go check it out.
3) This page’s extention is now PHP instead of HTML. I snagged a script that allows me to keep a constantly updated set of stats in my search for ET and installed it on the left. Thanks Sam Ley.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $923.63
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 166
It has been two weeks at least since I’ve watched a DVD. Right now there are 4 Netflix rentals on the coffee table waiting a spin. ( Rabbit-Proof Fence, Moonlight Mile, Spirited Away and Adaptation ) Also stacked up there are 3 other movies from my Co-Worker DVD Swap Club: Pork Chop Hill, Tuck Everlasting and K-19. Plus on top of those I have A Brother From Another Planet that I picked up in a truck-stop in rural North Carolina for $4.88. I guess I’m going to have to take a break from writting in 3 blogs and reading 10 for a night or two…
You may have not noticed this unless you live in LA (Los Angeles) or LA (Lower Augusta) but in today?s newspaper there appeared this blurb in the people in the news section of page 2:
The “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown, has announced his breakup from his wife, Tomi Rea Brown, with a full-page ad in the show-business trade newspaper Variety.
In the July 21–27 weekly edition of the paper, the ad features a photo of the couple and their 2 year-old son, James Joseph Brown II, smiling at Walt Disney World while posing with the costumed character Goofy.
Above the photo, a statement said that because of their “heavy, demanding tour schedule, they have decided to go their separate ways. There are no hard feelings, just a mutual show business decision made by both parties.“
Mrs. Brown is one of Mr. Brown’s background singers.
The pair is touring together in Europe, the newspaper added, and may continue working together despite the breakup.
They are splitting up because of the heavy touring schedule? They’re together! I could understand it is she was home while James toured the world.
They are going their separate ways? Yet she is one of his backup singers and may continue to work together!
I glad to see I wasn’t the only one to find humor in this announcement, why else would have the copy person who culled this from the Variety ad have made room for the part about the whole family posing with Goofy.
After asking my wife for years about getting a style bar for the car and having her deny all requests, I have successfully worn her down. Today she said yes. She said yes to this bar. I like its looks from the top picture’s angle, but I’m not sure about the straight on from the rear view. Plus the other pictures I have found on the web of them shows it finished in gloss black. I like the matte finish that shows on the page.
I really like the Evil Spider bar, but it is a bit more than is in my budget.
The Moss Motors bar is worth investigating too. It also promises no seat travel restrictions and no cutting.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $923.63
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 167
I added my SETI@Home stats to the Miata Diaries site. I got it to work after several failures. I wanted to add it to this site as well, but I was stymied by the same thing that slowed me down on the other one, I couldn’t get it to work in anything but the root directory of the plog. So I had to use two copies of the PHP script and two copies of the XML file. For whatever reason the one on this blog doesn’t update. It still has last night’s stats.
So I tried once again to get it to link to the one file that is residing in the diaries directory. After one messy failure I think it hooked up to it, but it still shows the old stats.
I guess it wasn’t linked after all, I just deleted the supposedly not being read .php and .xml files and the script fails and outputs what you see on the left.
Back to the drawing board.
Continue reading SETI@Home Stats
I’ve got my wife to let me buy the Frenzy Evil Spider Bar, but it cost me. She doesn’t like it because it is chrome, she liked the more subdued black of the other bar (truth be told, so do I.) I haven’t ordered it yet though. I have a minor clearance concern. When lowering, my glass window top just clears the OEM cockpit brace, but requires a little push to do so. The Frenzy bar has a couple of tabs that stick out towards the back to support it’s windblocker and if it extends any further back than the OEM piece it won’t work for me. Turns out that there is a fellow here in the area that has one on his 2001 Red. We’ve exchanged emails and I hope to go visit sometime this weekend. I’m going to bring a tape measure.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $923.63
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 167
This afternoon I finally blocked out a segment of time to watch a movie. To practice first-in, first-out inventory control, I started with Adaptation because it had been around the longest. Managed to make it about 15 minutes in before bailing out. Just couldn’t take Nicholas Cage’s whiny characters (Character is plural, because he plays twins.) The Meryl Streep portion of the movie that is supposed to be the book that Nicholas Cage is turning into a screen play seemed interesting, but it couldn’t overcome the WHINE.
So we picked the next oldest movie, Rabbit-Proof Fence. It had an interesting premise of a trio of half Aborigine girl who escapes from a re-education camp and head back home. The trick is that home is 1200 miles away and to get there they follow Australia’s rabbit, now emu, fence. We made it 42 minutes into this one.
Tomorrow I will try to get in Spirited Away.
Donna and I drove over to visit Dave & Shirlene in Augusta this evening. Dave is the owner of a red 2001 Miata with the coveted Frenzy Spider style bar. We had to wait a bit in their living room while a passing shower, one of many I dodged today, went by. I measured from the back of the convertible well to my OEM cockpit brace and got 16–1/4 to 16–1/2 inches. When I measured Dave’s car I got 15–1/2 inches. This was not good news for me. I already had to give the top a serious push to get it to clear my bar, another 3/4 to 1″ more seems to make it way too much. I’m sure I could make do, but think it would really shorten the life span of the vinyl at the bottom of the glass window stressing it that much. Especially with the amount of times the top goes up and down around here. Even removing those windblocker tabs would not make it that much better because they only stick out about 3/8 of an inch.
Made Donna happy though, as she really didn’t want the shiny bar. Too bad, as it was really nice looking bar, even better in person than the photos. Guess I’ll have to figure something else to spend my disposable income on…
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $923.63
Started down, went up, went down, up, down, up, down again, up again, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 174
Well, I’ve lost the ability to watch a movie all the way through. Watched 1 hour and 27 minutes of Spirited Away, stopping like 40 minutes before the end. I don’t have a concrete reason for stopping, I just got bored. The animation was wonderful and the story was intriguing, but it would have made a nice 90-minute movie. Scenes took too long and maybe there were too many bathhouse scenes.
If you check my Netflix rental queue to the left you will discover that I have a plan. Seeing as I can not watch a whole movie I’ve reverted to TV shows. Specifically, one long gone, but still missed show, The X-Files. I am going to keep at least one disc on the coffee table and every Sunday night at 9:00 PM I will sit down and watch 1 episode. For the next 4 or 5 years I will have something to look forward to on Sunday nights.
Bought $13 worth of gas and walked over to Advanced Auto and bought 4 quarts of oil for $7.48. At home I jacked up both sides of the car using my new hydraulic jack and placed the 4 jackstands under the jack points. I removed all four tires to rotate them front to back on the same side as the tread is directional. I pulled the drain plug and drained the oil straight into the recycling container. I used to have to drain into a shallower basin and then pour that into the recycler because the car was too low.
As I rolled the right rear forward to the front I noticed a bit of shiny metal imbedded in the tire. Damn. I had picked up a nail somewhere. Hustled the tire down to the local tire place and they confirmed my worse fears, the hole was too close to the side wall to patch and nobody plugs tires anymore. 2500 miles and I need a new tire.
He offered to sell me some Goodyear HP tire as that was all he had in stock in 195/50–15. I said no thanks, I’m not mixing and matching on my car. Came home and went to Onlinetires.com, the place I bought this set of four about seven weeks ago. They had them still on sale for $59, but with the 2nd day shipping charge of $47.55 it put the cost at over $100. Which is still cheaper than the other two places I checked online by about $30.
Purchased Today: $127.03
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1050.66
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 175
118,500
Today was haircut day for both the Bogarduses. We go to a place called Sheri’s Hair Affair because Sheri was in the bicycle club with us at one time and she does a right nice job too. It is a typical salon and the place is just littered with women’s magazines for me to look at while Donna gets her hair cut. I hunted through the stacks until I found a relatively recent one to look at, a Vogue from March 2003. I actually don’t mind looking because they are usually chock full of cheesecake. It was my turn to hop in the chair. When I sat down, there on her table in front of me, was another issue of Vogue. About that time I became conscious of the music playing in the background, Madonna singing, pause for effect, Vogue.
Continue reading Vogue
The Miata stayed home in the garage today. It was embarrassed to be seen in public wearing that ugly little mini-spare. We took the MSV to work with the flat tire in the trunk. I went out at lunch and had the shiny metal object removed and a plug of sticky rubber shoved in the hole. Cost five bucks. The plug will get us by until the new tire arrives from California. I sure hope it is coming because I didn’t get a tracking number today. If I don’t get one by tomorrow AM I’ll give them a call.
Purchased Today: $5
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1055.66
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 175
There is an intersection on my way to work where a street with a 35-MPH limit turns onto a street with a limit of 30 and to make it “easier” for people to negotiate them they have rounded them off more. I can now take these turns and not have to slow down. This is OK in a Miata, but when bigger cars do it they still can’t keep it on the road. They either cut more off the turn and run over the persons lawn or they get their left side tires off the left side of the road. Traffic engineers will analyze this intersection and probably round the turn off more. This will encourage more speed and the cycle will repeat. What they need to do is sharpen up the radius and either put a curb on both sides of the road or better yet, a ditch.
They also need to narrow some of these streets down. The bigger road encourages bigger speeds. There is a section of road that I sometimes travel that goes from 2 lanes to four and the speed limit stays the same 35-MPH. Yet as soon as traffic hits the four lanes the speeds jump about 10 MPH over the 40–45 they were already traveling.
Wider lanes also mean less attention needs to be paid attention to lane discipline. Another bit of road I frequently travel passes through the horse/historical district of town and because of that it still has the same narrow lane width it had in the 40’s. When driving on this stretch people travel slower than they do when the road widens because they have to pay attention to whether they are on their side of the white line.
Then again if I had my way, they would only allow Miatas on the roads and all the lanes would be narrow and windy.
The cockpit cover saves the day again. With a 40% chance of afternoon thundershowers I expected to maybe have to raise the top later in the day. At 2:20 my wife came down to my cubical and asked had I put the top up. I said no, why? She replied that it had rained, didn’t I hear it? Nope. So at her insistence we went out into the lot and shook the puddles off the cockpit cover, folded it up, put it in the trunk and put up the top. I figured that the rain was done and didn’t really think it was necessary, but it is a good thing I listened. It rained hard twice more before quitting time and both times it was harder than the last. The cover probably wouldn’t have held back that much water.
Went out near sundown to take some pictures for tomorrow’s Theme Thursday challenge. I’ve got to do a little (well maybe a lot) of photoshopping to put something together for the theme. I’ll post something tomorrow when I’m done.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1055.66
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 177
My replacement tire arrived from Onlinetires.com, but it was not alone.
I ordered the tire on Monday evening and specified 2 Day Shipping (for which I paid almost as much as the tire for.) Figuring they would pull and ship my order on Tuesday and I would get it on Thursday. When Tuesday passed and I didn’t get a tracking number I wasn’t too worried, they are in California and there is that pesky 3-hour time difference thing going on.
By midday on Wednesday and still no tracking number, I figured I had paid two-day shipping rates for three-day. I called and the fellow that answered the phone said he would tell shipping to email me my tracking number. It finally showed up later that day with the disclaimer that it wouldn’t be active until later that night. Now I was sure the tire wouldn’t get here until Friday.
This morning I clicked the tracking number and lo and behold they were shipping it FedEx overnight, that meant I would get it on Thursday, I was pleased (and surprised.)
This evening we I got home from work there was the tire and it brought along a companion to keep it company for the cross-country trip. I guess the new guy in the shipping department saw that the packing slip said one and figured that meant one bundle of two tires.
Had they not got my tire to me on time I might have kept the second tire as payment for aggravation, but seeing as they did right, I did right. I called their 800 number and asked them if they wanted their tire back. They did and will get a FedEx guy to come pick it up.
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