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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Went over to Aiken Discount Tire this morning and had my new tire mounted and balanced, twelve-fifty, exactly 1/4 of what the charged me to do all 4 tires seven weeks ago.
I called the folks at Onlinetires.com last night and asked if they wanted their tire back. They did. They said they would let FedEx know to come pick it up at no charge to me. FedEx was a no-show today. I wonder how long this will be sitting in my garage?
Purchased Today: $12.50
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1068.16
Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 183
Today was mail the Master’s Miata Club newsletter day. Our sponsor pays for postage, so we headed over to Rader Mazda to run our 38 envelopes through their meter. Upon arrival the office manager told me their meter was down, smoked by lightning the other day. Parts were on order and it should be fixed by next week.
Plan B was to go to a post office, buy the stamps and then get the Club to reimburse us. Donna suggested we go up Washington Road to Evans where we used to have the P.O. Box. I said, “Let’s compromise and go to the Martinez one that is half as far away.” “Make it so,” she replied. We have driven by the entrance to this post office a bunch of times, but had never actually used it. I pulled in and park at a left hand building even though Donna said I should go to the hand one because there was a postal van out front. I countered that it was just delivering mail there as there wasn’t any sign out front say the post office was there. As we walked to the front door, I commented that it didn’t look like a post office. That is because it wasn’t, it was someplace called UniWay. Glad we didn’t go in and ask for stamps.
We got back in the car and continued down the street until we came to the real P.O. As we walked inside we knew we were in for a long wait as about a dozen people were in line with boxes and such. Not having to actually mail these things just yet, we u-turned out of there and headed 4 miles up the road to the Evans Post Office.
You can see the Evans P.O. from the road before you have to turn into their lot. As we got ready to make the turn I did some fast visual scanning and made a command decision, I u-turned the car and got going away from the masses that populated the parking lot. And the 68 cars waiting at the exit of the parking lot to return to the road I was already on.
After lunch as we headed home, I thought of another Post Office to try, the one where the Club’s current box is, North Augusta. As we approached this one, we both could see that we would pass right on by, as it’s lot was so full that people were causing a traffic jam on the side street to get in.
There are 2 Post Offices in Aiken and I flipped a coin and chose the southside one as it caused a more scenic route home. Even though it meant resigning myself to having a slightly longer wait.
We finally caught a break, as we left the valley to head towards Aiken I spied a tiny Post Office in the tiny town of Bath. Pulled right in as there were only two other cars in the lot. As we entered the building those 2 folks were checking their P.O. Boxes, we stepped right up to the counter.
My X-Files DVDs from Netflix arrived in the mail yesterday. I got Season 1, Disc 1 so I can start watching a episode every Sunday night at nine. I also got Season 1, Disc 7, which contains some special features, mostly Chris Carter yapping about how smart and lucky he was.
While watching one of the special features they mentioned that the pilot episode first aired on September 10, 1993. This got me thinking, should I just wait until September 10th of this year to watch the pilot, exactly 10 years to the date? Maybe I should watch all of them on the 10th anniversary of their original air dates, I’m sure there are some fan sites still up that have that information. September 10th this year falls on a Wednesday, that is not a good night. The first 4 seasons the series aired on Friday nights, so should I watch these on Fridays, before moving to Sunday for the last 5 seasons?
No, I want to watch them on Sunday night as the dessert following the main course that is my weekend, so that is what I’m going to do.
I’m seriously considering a new digital camera. My current Fuji is a 2 MegaPixel and I’d like to double my pixel count. The more the merrier for me, as my in camera composition skills are seriously lacking. Thank heaven for Paint Shop Pro.
I’ve got it narrowed down to two cameras, the Olympus D-40 and the Minolta S414. The Olympus is discontinued already according to their web site, but it’s pluses are it is small, uses just 2 AA batteries, uses the same smart media card that I already have and has a remote control for the shutter. The Minolta has a 4x zoom and is slightly cheaper.
Now that I’ll listed the pluses for each it seems a no-brainer, Olympus. I’m still about $100–150 short of the money I need to buy the thing though. I was all excited to find the Olympus for <$300 at several places on the web, but came crashing down to reality when I noticed that this was from marginal dealers and refurbished to boot. The Minolta is more readily available and about $50 cheaper.
Come back in a month, I’ll let you know.
A while back I sold one of those ABIAs from the Barndoor Fan Club Store to a fellow in Maryland. After he got it installed it didn’t work, so I told him about the secret trick of swapping the in and out wires, sometimes it helps. For him it didn’t. So I sent him another one and $5 to have him mail me the defective one as the guy making them likes to test the failures. We he got the second one and installed it, it only flashes twice (not the advertised 5) before going steady. He has swapped the wires and he has more than 11 volts so I can’t figure out what the problem is. The odds of two of these things being bad is nearly astronomical as they are tested before shipping.
I spent about an hour in the garage this evening trying out several different units on my car. I’ve got one that worked good that I think I’ll just mail it to him. If this one doesn’t work I’ll just refund his money, he hasn’t asked for it, but I’ll feel better about it.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1068.16
Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 190
Well, not really hate, more like aversion.
For some reason, the local SC NPR station has changed into “Your NPR News Station” from “Your Classical NPR News Station.” Doesn’t sound like that big of a change, but to me it was. I now have lost a big part of my workday background music. I used to record Echoes every night from 10 to midnight in MP3 format and take into work on my little thumbdrive. But no more, they have replaced Echoes with Carolina Jazz. First in September I lost Thistle & Shamrock on Saturday evenings, now this. Those folks can just forget about my pledge this year.
Continue reading JOHHNY HATES JAZZ
The local Honda dealer bills himself as “Your Straight Talk Dealer.” Apparently the straight refers to just the talk. Tonight coming home from the Master’s Miata Club meeting we were behind a new Accord recently purchased there and the 3 x 5 inch sticker telling me where he bought the car with the words Straight Talk in bold was plastered on under the left tail light at about 5% off from level.
Dang. I’m really jonesin on the Olympus D-40 Zoom camera. Dell had it early this week for $369, now today when I get the go ahead to buy the camera Dell doesn’t even show in inventory any more.
Now the only place left on the net with a semi-recognizable name is TheNerds.net (well maybe not recognizable to you, but I’ve bought stuff from them in the past and have been satisfied) and their price is $398 plus $18 for shipping. They have ten left. I hope they don’t sell them all until after I get home from shopping the local chain stores tomorrow.
Today the car got a much needed wash and vacuum, plus a shoeshine (some Meguiar’s Endurance Tire Goo.) It needs a waxing, but I didn’t have the time.
This afternoon was a Master’s Miata Club get-together. We hung at a Baskin-Robbins for a while before heading over to the Evans Dinner for chow. After that a few of us headed over to one couple’s house to chat some more. While we were there they said did I want to buy one of the die-cast Miatas that they found over at KB Toys. There were only three left @ $6.99 instead of $9.99 so they bought all 3 of them. John has a red so he kept that one, but he had 2 blue ones left over. Seeing as mine is blue I bought one from him. It is not the exact same blue, but it is still cool. The doors, hood & trunk opens and the steering wheel turns the front wheels. Now all I have to do is make up some 1/24 scale Alley Gator teeth.
After the Miata event we went over to the Augusta Mall as it was close by. The only store that was a possible was Sears, so that was the only place we checked and got the same negative results.
From there we returned to Aiken and hit our Target and Sears and received 2 more noes. In each of these places we shopped I looked at everything they had on display and then asked a sales person if they had the camera in the back, nothing. Including my negative answer from the local camera store when I called them on Friday, I have come up empty handed in 10 places locally.
Hi-ho, hi-ho, to the net we go. Because TheNerds.net is not a dedicated camera store, but a computer store that also sells electronic goodies I hope to avoid a repeat of Will’s digicam online shopping experience.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1082.91
Started down went up, went down, up, down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 199
TBS the Superstation is showing “Terminator” this afternoon. Does this mean that they have to grant equal access time to the other 150 odd (and I do mean odd) candidates? Or did they black out California? Nick at Night will have to stop showing “Different Strokes” re-runs, Comedy Central will have to snip out the Father Guido Sarducci bits in the SNL shows and we probably won’t see the Woody Harrelson flick “The People vs. Larry Flint” for a couple of months either.
Deep Throat is scheduled tonight on X-Files at the Bogarduses.
Carl Wormus drinks alone at a bar in Baltimore, MD. He notices a dark-haired woman in a low-cut dress walk in, and he approaches her. They get into a discussion about the ice in his drink. As a water expert, he knows that the government-added Chloramine in the water is actually not as healthy as has been reported. Intrigued, the woman entices him into leaving, and they drive off in his convertible. He slows down at an opening drawbridge, but the woman clamps down on his right leg, forcing his foot on the accelerator. The car flies off the open bridge and plunges into the Potomac River. Deep underwater, Wormus wiggles out of his seatbelt and begins to swim to the surface. The woman is lifeless next to him. Suddenly, the woman opens her eyes, grabs his ankle and pulls him deeper under the water.
Episode 9x01 of the X-Files. It was a two-parter that guest starred Lucy Lawless of Xena: Warrior Princess fame, that featured her as nude as you can get on network television.
This has nothing to do with my day, except that the title of that episode and the title of today’s post are the same.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1082.91
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 199
For the last couple of months my wife and I have been meeting a few of our fellow Aiken Bicycle Club members for an early morning ride on Sundays. We have been riding more or less 25 miles by picking a loop from the Club’s inventory of past and present Spring Century rides. It is a small group of 4 to 6 riders of around the same abilities and inclinations so no one is dropped and forgotten about, nor is anyone riding at half speed so as not to get too far ahead. The ride is always fun and a nice work out, plus we are home early enough, around 9:30, so as to still have the whole day left for other things.
Start time is at 7:30 for a couple of reasons. One, it is summer in South Carolina and the heat and humidity make later in the day rides unpleasant at best. And two, traffic is very light at the time of day on weekends. The routes take us on a variety of roads in the lighter populated areas of the county, but in the last 1/2 hour of the ride no matter where we are, car traffic picks up. And these are usually the most rude and impatient drivers. They pass us on two lane roads when there is oncoming traffic and/or as close as possible to us.
The strange thing about these folks is they are all dressed very nicely, obviously on their way to church. I’m a non-attendee of church, so I don’t know why they would endanger our lives, their lives and those of the poor unsuspecting occupants in the other car just to ensure they get a good pew. My recollection of Christian beliefs is not so hazy that I wouldn’t have remembered that being late for church was a sin.
I got a visit from the UPS man this afternoon. Perfect timing too, as we had just pulled into the garage minutes before.
New Digi-Cam.
It’ll take a while before I can digest the instruction manual, as it is about a half an inch thick (to be fair that is four different languages.) One nice thing is that Win2K recognized it as soon as I plugged it in, so I didn’t have to install several hundred megs of Olympus software. Smaller than expected, but this is a good thing for when we go backpacking or I decide to take it along on a bicycle ride.
An old man was sitting on his front porch down in Louisiana watching the sun rise. He sees the neighbor’s kid walk by carrying something big under his arm. He yells out “Hey boy, whatcha got there?”
Boy yells back “Roll of chicken wire.”
Old man says “What you gonna do with that?”
Boy says “Gonna catch some chickens.”
Old man yells “You damn fool, you can’t catch chickens with chicken wire!”
Boy just laughs and keeps walking.
That evening at sunset the boy comes walking by and to the old man’s surprise he is dragging behind him the chicken wire with about 30 chickens caught in it.
Same time next morning the old man is out watching the sun rise and he sees the boy walk by carrying something kind of round in his hand. Old man yells out “Hey boy, whatcha got there?”
Boy yells back “Roll of duck tape.”
Old man says “What you gonna do with that?”
Boy says back “Gonna catch me some ducks.“
Old man yells back, “You damn fool, you can’t catch ducks with duck tape!”
Boy just laughs and keeps walking.
That night around sunset the boy walks by coming home and to the old man’s amazement he is trailing behind him the unrolled roll of duck tape with about 35 ducks caught in it.
Same time next morning the old man sees the boy walking by carrying what looks like a long reed with something fuzzy on the end. Old man says “Hey boy, whatcha got there?”
Boy says “It’s a pussy willow.
Old man says “Wait up.… I’ll get my hat.”
Actually this is only a half-hearted rant. I had a brainstorm on Wednesday while at work for what I wanted to shoot for Theme Thursday, of course my camera was at home. I brought it today, but didn’t get a chance to use it. I was going to take the picture at lunch as to not disturb the actual work process, unfortunately about 11:45 the fire alarm went off. I had just got my lunch plate, so I picked it up and headed for the door knowing I’d get an impromptu picnic on the front lawn during the drill. Bad news is it wasn’t a drill. One of the machines in the back of the plant ( a wheelabrator thing that deburrs our parts) had actually caught fire. We had four fire trucks, including the ladder truck drive around the back of the plant, along with 20, count ‘em 20, police cars. I think that is the entire contingent of city cops (to be fair all our cops are trained as fireman and vice versa.)
I my haste to grab my lunch, I neglected to grab my new camera. The fire was quickly contained but not before smoke filled most of the plant. No one would be allowed back in until the smoke was cleared. The rest of first shift was canceled and if you had your keys, purses, etc. you could go home, if not have a seat in the shade of the pines and wait. I’m not sure when they let people back in, but by the time I went back at 4:30 to get my stuff, 2nd shift was at work (all except the one department where the machine was) and the place looked clear, but still stunk of smoke.
Tomorrow is a half day at work and Donna and I are off to the Gap for a little fun in the Miata. I will try and get my photo in the morning, but may not post it until Sunday when we get back. Don’t worry, you won’t miss a moment of my exciting life as I plan on analog blogging for transcription on Sunday night.
When I read the article about the fire at our plant in the Augusta paper this morning I noticed that the reporter got our Human Resource Manager’s name wrong. He was quoted as Dave Gustafson, not Mark. Upon arrival at work I made a bee-line for his office to introduce myself to the new HR Manager, Dave. Mark took my kidding in good graces and said let me tell you a story.
That reporter was being a real pain, I spent most of my time riding herd on him. Even after a polite request to him that I was the point of contact and if he wanted any information to come to me, I still had to break up him talking to employees several times. We had one female employee of the department the fire was in that was overcome by smoke and was being treated by paramedics on the scene. He husband had shown up and she was sitting in the passenger seat of their pick up while she received oxygen. The reporter had taken a couple of pictures and the husband told me about it and asked if he would tell the reporter not to print the photos. When I asked the reporter to not run the pictures, our fourth estate friend said something to the effect of freedom of the press and that he was allowed to be there and take and use whatever pictures he wanted. I agreed that what he said was true, but only if he did so from across the street, but he was on our private property and as such subject to our whims. That reporter was not there to cover the news, he was there to find a story.
Not knowing whose legal ground was firmer, I guess the reporter decided that he wouldn’t run any of those pictures. Seeing as most people love to see their name in paper, maybe he thought that that he could punish Mark by printing his name as Dave. But Mark is only to happy to be Dave as long as those unflattering pictures of one of his employees didn’t get published.
The drive to Dahlonega, GA that normally takes 3 hours took us 5 this afternoon. To be fair this is the first time we have made the trip in the afternoon. The other half dozen times it has been an early morning drive, which is what it will be from now on, trust me.
First came the 15 minute delay while we waited on a sporadic line of school buses leaving from the Lula school complex. There were 13 buses total in various states of fullness. They had a State Trooper stopping crossing traffic at a tee intersection. A good thing probably, as that was quite a line of busses that would have had to come to a stop and wait for traffic to clear on semi-busy GA52 before making their rights or lefts.
Next happened only about 5 miles down the road when we came up to a just closing railroad crossing. We sat for about 5 minutes watching train cars full of wood chips move by. With no end in sight, the train much to our chagrin, started to slow and eventually stop. At this point all the other cars and trucks in line with us started to make u-turns. After waiting a few more minutes with no sign of movement we figured these were probably locals and they knew better, so we too did a u-turn and headed back to the last intersection. We pulled out a map and headed in a likely direction. As it turned out we ended up going south about 7–8 miles and then prompting headed back north to come out about 3 miles further down the road we were on. Moving was better than sitting.
After we checked in to our room in the Holiday Inn Express it was off for pizza at our favorite little Italian place on the square, Caruso’s.
When we finished dinner it was time for a little shopping as we needed toothpaste and I wanted a paperback crime fiction book to occupy the time normally spent doing this. We went to the Wal-mart on the edge of town and parked nearly as far out in the parking lot as we could, to get in a walk and avoid door dings. I found a book, we snagged the toothpaste and headed for the checkout. We ended up just placing our items down on the nearest flat spot and walking out though, as there were 4 or 5 cashiers with at least 10 people in each line.
Unbelievably there were 2 cars, 1 in front and 1 next to, parked near us when we got back out to the north forty. WTF? No door dings though.
There was a chain drug store right across the street that had everything Wal-Mart had except the long lines, where we found a book and the toothpaste no problem.
Purchased Today: $16.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1099.41
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 200
Last fire story — The Activities Committee several weeks ago had set up a Bar-B-Que luncheon for those employees who wanted to participate for Thursday. The cost was $9. A local favorite BBQ joint, Shealy’s, came in and set up their food warmers and laid out all their stuff on a couple tables in the cafeteria at around 11:00 PM. The first group in the plant that goes on lunch break is QA with about 25 people and they start at 11:30AM. I don’t know how many of them took advantage of the BBQ lunch. I have no idea how many total through out the plant were scheduled to get BBQ, but QA were the only ones to get a chance. Them and me. I eat breakfast at around 6:30, so at 11:30 I’m digging into my lunch box even though my scheduled lunch time is 12:15. The fire alarm went off at 11:40ish about 2 minutes after I got back to my desk with my plate. The caterers were forced to abandon the food to evacuate the building. When it turned out to be an actual fire and the smoke made it’s way into the cafeteria, the food was no longer able to be served to people (wouldn’t have mattered as no one was allowed back in the building until around 3:00 PM anyway.)
Friday morning a couple of members of the Activities Committee made the rounds of the plant and gave everyone who had signed up for BBQ their $9 back. When I tried refuse the money saying I had actually gotten my food, they told me that it was easier all the way around for them this way. Cool, I got a picnic BBQ on the lawn for free.
After our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, mmm…cinnamon rolls, it was off for the drive to Robbinsville for our reconnaissance mission.
First stop was in Andrews, NC for a peek at our first possible fun thing to do, a corn maze. After spending about 15 minutes talking with the manager that runs the thing, Donna remains excited, while I am now convinced that it will be not be and might possibly be too much like work to find our way through. As an option for the folks in our group who may not be able to do the walking, the field covers 7 acres and the maze has a total of 3 miles of paths, there is an indoor flea market a mile or so down the street.
Next we drove the final 25 miles to Robbinsville to check for possible restaurants. We had heard from another Club member that there have been the addition of Mexican and Chinese places to dine. One in which we were interested in is apparently not open for lunch and the persons inside would not even come to the door to give a menu after a couple of knocks on the glass. We may still try them out when we are there.
After a quick tour of town we headed north for a dragon run. I decided to turn around about 5 miles from reaching the goal as I was number 6 in line of minivans, pickups and SUVs that I just knew would make the trip through the dragon agony. Besides there were plenty of e-ticket roads that we had already driven and would drive this weekend. Definitely need to hit the gap in the early AM before the normal folks get there.
Next up was a trip into the Joyce Kilmer Forrest for a look at possible non-car diversion #2. There was a short, rated easy hike in the woods with two distance options. After Donna and I walked 25 yards into the trail we knew that it would not be doable for more than 50% of our group. Way too steep, slippery, etc. Oh well, maybe it’ll rain and we will all stay inside and watch HBO on the telly that weekend.
Now hot and disappointed, with the cheap BBQ sandwich bought at the “Outback Trading Post” broiling in our bellies we headed the 90 miles back to Dahlonega. One good thing about the return trip was we detoured over to GA60 for 44 miles of new twisty pavement. The last 12 miles are almost as good as the gap. This road, nicknamed the Snake, is a favorite of Atlantians who own sport bikes or cars as it is only about an hour and a half away for them.
Purchased Today: $26.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1125.91
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 204
Up this morning in Dahlonega, Georgia and even though Holiday Inn Express’s cinnamon rolls are awesome Donna wanted eggs for breakfast. We asked the desk clerk where to go and she directed us to Danny’s just up the street. When we got there about 7:15AM we weren’t sure they were open because there was only one car in the lot. The sign said they opened at 6:30 so we went on in. Glad we did, nice home cooked breakfast type place. The food was good and cheap. And it showed, by the time we left the place was nearly full.
After chow we headed to Marietta by as many back roads as we could. There was even a 15 mile detour around a bridge that was out on GA53 we hadn’t planned on, but it was Ok because GA136 was a real nice Miata road. And like most of these roads in North Georgia on a Sunday morning, deserted except for us. We eventually had to get on I-75 to finish the trip to R-speed for there 4th Annual Open House. We got there at about number 25, by the time we left 2 hours later the lot was nearly full, probably 150 Miatas and about a dozen Minis. I was not swayed to buy any of the bargains, but did buy a new Rspeed T-shirt.
When we got home this evening and started to unpack the trunk I noticed what looked like brown water all over some of the bottom layers of stuff. At first I thought it was muddy water as we had tossed our dirty hiking boots in there. Upon closer inspection it looked like spilled Coke, which is weird because we didn’t have an open soda near the trunk all weekend. It took me about a hour to clean up the mess and I still need to let the bottom carpet dry from the cleaner I sprayed on it before I can vacuum it and then put it all back together.
Purchased Today: $14.75 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 209
I have plenty I could rant about this evening as I have just returned from Atlanta and I despise big cities and the urban sprawl that surrounds them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want 200 acres of woods, live in a cabin I built myself in the middle of it and feed off the wild game I trap there. I like smallish towns with just enough civilization. But I digress…
Somewhere between there and here I noticed a very small patch of 4 foot tall Black-eyed Susans growing in the median. Right in front of it stood a 2′ x 3′ brown sign with white lettering on it proclaiming, “DOT WILDFLOWER PROJECT. DO NOT MOW.” The sign had more square footage than the plot of flowers.
Sort of. The icky fluid turns out to have been from water, that used to be ice, leaking out of a hole in a plastic bag and soaking through a box of raisins. Donna remembered what it was when she started to empty the insulated lunch pack we carried some of our goodies in last night.
Dodged a big bullet today. About 20 minutes before quitting time I heard one clap of thunder. I looked outside and although it looked really ugly I was on the fence about putting the top up with it so close to quitting time. Erring on the side of caution I went out, removed the cover, removed the boot and raised the top. While I was in the process, seeming to validate me choice, it started to sprinkle. After the top was up and I returned to the building the drops stopped and it looked like it would blow over. Precisely 2 minutes before 4 o’clock the skies opened and it poured down. Whew.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 210
Well, actually, pay me $25 to eat dinner. Donna would rather I didn’t share this with you and I don’t think it is my most shining moment either, but it happened, so here goes:
Friday night in Dahlonega, GA we went to our favorite place in town, Caruso’s. It is right on the square and has some of the best pizza we know. We got a new waiter, probably just back in school at the local college, that wasn’t the swiftest antelope in the heard. He checked in one to many times to see if our food was OK (which is as bad, if not worse than, not checking at all.) But then we had to call him over to ask for the check. Once he brought the check for $12.50 he never reappeared. We both had time to visit the restroom.
I went second and as I was heading back to the table, I saw our waiter leave the dining room. I thought, good, he’s got the check. Donna told me he had just walked on by totally ignoring her and the $20 bill in the tray. Tired of waiting we headed towards the entrance to the kitchen where we could see behind the curtain, the cash register and another waitress doing a check. When she came out, she asked us what we wanted. I replied, “To pay our bill.” She looked at it and said, “Oh that’s Ralph’s,” and ducked back into the kitchen. While we stood there waiting a different waitress appeared and asked what we wanted. Pointed back where she came from and repeated, “Pay our bill.” Waitress number one reappears and says, “He’ll be right with you.”
When Ralph finally appeared he handed me the tray back with my change and walked off. No sorry you had to wait, nothing. I walked back to our table to leave him a couple bucks tip anyway. When I got there I noticed that he had placed my $7.50 in change right over the top of the ticket and my original twenty. The little devil on my shoulder said, “Take it!” — so I did, it and the five.
My wife and I went for a bike ride this evening (in the stinking hot, humid weather.) Our road bikes hang by their wheels upside down from hooks in the garage ceiling. To take them down I have to grab the handle bar with my left hand and the seat stay with my right, lift a little to clear the hook and then rotate the bike to the right side up position and land the wheels on the ground. Today as I rotated my bike down it suddenly stopped short about 2 feet of the ground. The back tire had landed on the extra Toyo tire that is sitting there waiting for Mr. FedEx to come get it, that was 2 weeks ago. I think the waiting period is over, I’m going to try and sell this tire as the folks at Onlinetires.com sure ain’t missing it.
After this weekend’s trip and tonight’s little drive in the dark the Miata’s mileage stands at 119,825. At 120k you are supposed to change the timing belt, a $400-$500 job. Now the rubber belt in my car is the same rubber belt that are installed on cars sold in California, but in California you don’t have to change the belt but every 100,000 miles. This is because by California law any emissions part must be warranted for 100k. So, should I wait and do the belt when I hit 160 because I did change it at 60,000 miles like Mazda says I should or should I spent the money now and get it done like a good boy? For reference, the Miata is a non-interference engine (meaning if the belt does break, nothing bad happens.)
And what would happen if I moved to California?
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 211
There is a stretch of US 1 & 78 that runs between Aiken and Augusta that they recently lowered the speed limit on from 55 MPH to 45. Myself, being a law abiding citizen, I slow down to 50 from 60 when I reach here. No one else does, they just keep barreling along. You can’t miss the signs, there are even “Reduced Speed Ahead” signs wih two orange flags popping out the top to warn you. Still no one slows down. What will they tell the cop? “Well, I used to drive 60 MPH through here before, shouldn’t I get grandfathered into being able to still go 60?”
This is almost a week late too. When we went into the Wal-Mart in Dahlonega last Saturday night we entered through the garden section and much to our horror they already had one aisle set up with Christmas stuff.
This easily trumps the Thanksgiving decorations we saw at a Michael’s craft store two weeks ago.
We went out after dark and drove one of our favorite 25 mile loops into the less populated sections of the county. Smashed about 1,000 bugs onto the front of the Miata. That is OK as tomorrow it will get a wash. Later in the day we are headed over to North Augusta to help the Sno-Cap Drive In celebrate their 39th anniversary, throughout the day various local Car Clubs hang out for an allotted time. We will be sharing the lot with the Mustang Club. There will be free drinks and food samples served by middle and high school cheerleaders, plus games, contests and trivia. Pleasant way to spend a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon.
At the end of our drive was a stop at Krogers for the essentials for breakfast tomorrow. Eggs, bacon, bananas, apples and a cantaloupe. As we were walking in, we had the misfortune of following in a fat family of three, mom, teenaged daughter and a pre-teen. The “littlest” was 4′-6″ and 150 pounds. The teenager was maybe 5–8 and 175. Mom was a little shorter than the teen and weighed more, maybe 200 lbs. The two daughters were busy calling each other names. The mother was telling them to stop it and they just ignored her. They went left and we went right. Of course we ran into them again near the eggs. The teenaged daughter was standing there swinging the gallon of milk she had in her hand not paying attention to anything. We had to shift over to another aisle to get by. The two girls were still bickering and the mom was still shushing them. We made it to the cashier and guess who got in line right behind us? Right. After listening to them for about 30 seconds we left that line even thought we were next and went 3 lines over.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 211
The top cycled, but only because I washed it. Then I waxed the car too. After the clean-up I went out and bought some new windshield wipers. I remembered while windexing all the widows that the last time it rained I needed wipers, so I bought them before my usual reminder, a streaky windshield the next rain. Feeling real expansive, I also bought a can of semi-gloss black to respray the wiper arms and a roll of masking tape so I could use the same paint on the two rocker panels to touch them up.
At lunch we drove in the MSV out to a farm in the county to see our neighbor girl do a show jumping competition.
Mid-afternoon it was over to North Augusta where we had a nice turn out of Miatas for the Sno-Cap Anniversary, but we were outnumbered by Mustangs.
We had just an hour after returning from there before we went two streets over to “baby-sit” our friends kids. Time for bed as it is up at 6:30 for an early bike ride. Yawn. Maybe tomorrow afternoon I will have time to hunt up something broken for Photo Friday.
Purchased Today: $25.38
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1166.04
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 213
This evening as my wife and took our walk around the neighborhood at dark, we were marveling at the fireflies. I don’t know if it has been the really wet weather that has kept them scarce or what, but tonight they were everywhere. A few minutes into the walk we were passed by a 20-something fellow on a mountain bike with no lights or reflectors. We exchanged hellos and off he went. As Donna and I started discussing his unsafe riding habits once he was about 20 yards away he pegged the stupid-o-meter. He suddenly swerved across to the other lane as he reached into his pocket to answer his cell phone. At least he was travelling down a quiet street with little chance of getting flattened by an automobile.
Got an interesting email last night and I am not sure what to make of it. The subject line was “taste..” Go and look at this page I have on the Barndoor Fan Club site called Barndoors Down Through History and now read the email reproduced in it’s entirety below. What do you think?
I can understand your “taste” in headlights but perhaps you should consider some “taste” where you place superimposed images of a car. I am not trying to be rude, honestly, in fact I am not even sure how I stumbled across your sight or why I am wasting my time on this email. I will say though, I realize you “love barndoors” and “mourn their loss,” and will “continue to cherish their retro beauty”. Just realize that some people might mourn the loss of great leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King and J.F.K. or those lost in the vietnam war, and would also like to cherish the beauty of thier memory and would prefer not to have images of such horrible events made worse by placing in a lame superimposed image of a cheap imported convertable. Really, there are other historical events that you could use instead.. consider perhaps, a miata driving down a dusty street with two huge buildings falling behind it– hilarious!, or&n! bsp;maybe one behind Ghandi while he is fasting to stop the brittish empire– he he… actually no, perfect, have a miata speeding away from Princess Diana’s crash scene  . See what I mean, there are soooo many other great historical events to defile! But I reeeealy love the one where the Berlin wall was going up.. that-cold-war-was soooo silly! and the suferage parade, ha, that one’l keep me giggling all night!
don’t get me wrong, miatas did have very nice headlights. Just consider some taste.
If that whole section was done with best intentions, than so was this email. Please realize though, that your best intentions may be offensive to some.
Continue reading Troll or Concerned Citizen?
Don’t worry I finished the newsletter. Print it up tomorrow at work, collate it at home and in the mail Friday, right on schedule.
I may or may not have my picture in the Sunday paper. I may or may not have my pearls of wisdom printed in the Sunday paper. I know somebody who knows somebody is how it happened.
The local rag, the Aiken Standard, is doing a Sunday feature this week on the plethora of specialty SC license plates. The reporter who interviewed me said that there are 96 different plates available with 6 more on the way. I have Share The Road plate from the Palmetto Cycling Coalition (picture is about halfway down the plate page.) I was not the only person photographed or interviewed so we will see what gets published.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1181.24
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 213
Got a response from my arbiter of taste. Seems he now thinks he was hasty. I think so too, but that does mean he isn’t right. There probably are folks who might find those images distasteful, but I’m sure they are very few and very far between.
Hey Brian, I came on strong. I apologize for that, and I really did mean what I said about best intentions. I realized later that I probably just took it the wrong way, I really came off pretty defensivly right off the bat. And, I did mean what I said about liking those cars too! I actually used to have a datsun Z with the barndoor headlights, had to sell it for school.. Hopefully some day I’ll get another. Anyway, my apologies. Take Care.
We only had 1 day left of unscheduled vacation and I was hoping to use it the day before Thanksgiving for the drive to eff-el-ay, but Donna won out. She wanted to take a 1/2 day tomorrow (leaving a half for November) so we wouldn’t have to go in to work at all. We now have a 4 day weekend and nothing planned, zero. Seems almost a waste to me, but then again any day out of the office is a good day. With any luck our Powerball numbers will come in on Saturday and we’ll never have to go back.
With our whole day off we decided to go over to Augusta and do some shopping. Donna won a $25 gift certificate to Sports Authority and it was burning a hole in her pocket. We also wanted to go to Bed, Bath & Beyond to pick up a gift card for Donna’s Mom to take to Seattle next week as a gift for her brother’s wedding.
While we were over there we went in a few other stores looking for just the right prizes for tomorrow’s Master’s Miata Club Bug Splat Rally — read cheap. By the time we came back to Aiken it was near 2:00 PM and in the lower 90’s, but the humidity must have been down as it felt hot, not oppressive.
Tonight we drove downtown and got a dish of ice cream and wandered around looking in shop windows. Well Donna was looking in windows, I was looking for possible spots to try out the night mode on my digital camera by taking pictures of the Miata.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1181.24
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 213
I read the video reviews every Friday so I can get some ideas for movies to put in my Netflix queue. The Augusta Chronicle publishes about a half dozen condensed versions of the Roger Ebert review. (I don’t always agree with Roger, but I always find him entertaining.) Here is the review for the movie Chasing Papi:
A feature-length jiggle show designed to display Roselyn Sanchez, Sofia Vergara and Jaci Velasquez in a way that would make your average Maxim reader feel right at home. They play the girlfriends of the three-timing Papi (Eduardo Verastegui), and when they arrive simultaneously at his home the plot requires them to run through a lot of scenes wearing high heels and squealing with passion or fear or delight, while a stupendous amount of jiggling goes on.
The primordial man in me is intrigued by this and is trying to figure out how to “accidentally” get Netflix to deliver this movie.
Here is his full review.
Nice turn out for the Bug Splat. We had 6 Miatas do the route, plus one Chevy S-10 and a Camry. There were three Miatas that didn’t participate. The OTM belonged to a couple of members whose cars are not running right now. Big engine problems for both, both basically self-inflicted. One non-participant was us, the judges, another just literally got back in town from a two week vacation and another that just popped in to say hi. The cleanest car was an easy call, as was the closest to the dot, but biggest and most was a little more difficult. Two cars were pretty covered and the same two also had a couple of large mayflies plastered on their fronts. The big bug winner and recipient of the big trophy was chosen because of the intangibles, his was still twitching on arrival at the finish and trailing behind it was a long streak of bug blood. So the other woman was awarded the most bugs prize.
Oh yeah, I changed the oil and rotated the tires this morning at 120,200 miles. I had the filter so all it cost was the oil.
Purchased Today: $7.35
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1189.59
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 213
As mentioned the other day, I did in fact make the Sunday paper. I had actually forgotten all about it until I picked up the paper off my lawn this morning.
A picture of the cute kid who went to Camp Sertoma that is partially funded by the sale of the license plate he posed next to was at the top and the first one written about in the article. I snagged about 5 minutes of my allotted 15, by having my picture and words taking up the second half of the article. I wish I could link you to the article, but our little paper hasn’t posted the article yet (and when they do, they don’t do pictures.)
My plate is from the Palmetto Cycling Coalition which is a statewide organization to help promote cycling awareness, both to the general public and state government. Across the top is emblazoned “SHARE THE ROAD.” In the article I am quoted as saying that I hoped that this would make people aware that cyclists are people and not just something in their way.
Cut to several hours later…On our usual Sunday morning ride with some other ABC members we are coming back into town on the last leg of our journey. I was in the front of the group of five riding along close to the white line when a pickup truck blows by fairly close. As I look up to glare at the driver, I see him gesture with his hand towards the right, as if to say get off the road. Obviously he hasn’t read his morning paper yet. Usually, I just give a friendly wave as if I misinterpreted their intention, but for whatever reason today it struck me wrong, so I gave him the finger. He is about 30 yards up the road by now and returns my one-fingered salute in kind. And his brake lights come on, but just for a second. Perhaps his wife in the passenger seat was screaming at him like mine, who was riding right behind me, was screaming at me. Now I’m hoping he didn’t read the paper because maybe he would see my smiling face (and name) and put it together that was me on the bike.
Because yesterday was so busy, when I got home last night I barely had the energy to post, let alone read my usual blogs, so imagine my surprise when I read this blurb in Will’s blog and thought how close I had come having something like that happen to me.
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