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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And such a waste. Donna and I attended the wake/viewing of a co-worker tonight. He was more than an acquaintance, not really a friend, but only because we traveled in different circles. He was that way, friendly to everyone and I bet that if you needed help he would do it without regard. Wayne was in the wrong place at the wrong time. On the Fourth of July weekend he was riding his trike (a chopper with a VW bug engine) down a main commercial street in town when a woman jumped her red light and pushed him into a ditch and ran over him. After a hospital stay he returned home to start recovery. He needed skin grafts for his arm that was burnt on his hot exhaust when the trike rolled over him and lots of physical therapy. We thought all was well, but a short while ago he started having seizures. Unsure what was causing them he was readmitted to the hospital, where died from a reported blood clot in his lung. I apologize if I’m hazy and maybe wrong on some of the details, but I’d ask about how Wayne was doing every other week or so and mostly got the positive side of things. Because we are a decent sized company in a small town, where Donna and I worked with Wayne also employed his wife, his brother, an aunt and his sister-in-law. His other brother was who I entrusted some of the Miata maintenance to when the warranty expired. In a weird twist of fate, the woman who hit him is the niece of some one else who works at the plant too.
You hug the crying wife and squeeze the shoulder of the red-eyed brothers, but the hardest part of the whole evening was seeing 6′-6″, 250 lb, Robert Turner, a Vietnam Vet who still has a limp from a shrapnel wound and tough as nails, reduced to blubbering at the loss of someone he has worked side by side with for the last 27 years.
So long Wayne, the world is a much worse place now that you are not in it.
Last night on the way home in the loaner Tribute, about 5 miles out, the low fuel light came on. I had just jumped in and didn’t think to look at the gas gage, it still read about an 1/8 of a tank, but nNot knowing which one of these indicators were more correct, I decided to put $5 worth of gas in it. The 3 gallons approximate, sent the needle to just below a 1/4 tank and ought to be enough to get to work and then to Rader the next day. The car/truck is filthy too, I think the last person to borrow it was testing it’s off road capabilities. Not only do they not check to see if there is gas in it, they don’t even take enough pride to wash it off or vacuum it out before some else gets in it.
About 8:15 AM this morning Kelly, my service “advisor”, called to say the car was done. Seems as if the technician finished up just before going home yesterday. I told her I’d be over as soon as I got off work and mentioned she should get five bucks from petty cash to reimburse me for the petrol. I made it over to Rader a little after 5 to get my car. Kelly went off to get someone to bring it around. While we waited I popped upstairs to run the Master’s Miata Club newsletters through the postage meter. When I came back down the car was there, but she didn’t have neither the $5 nor the paperwork. She couldn’t find the paperwork because the tech who did my work was not in today (no wonder he finished up yesterday, he knew he wasn’t coming in.) She also said she would have to talk to the service manager on Monday about getting the money to me. We ran through this routine when I wanted to get reimbursed for the tow charges on the 95 when the timing belt broke. I wonder if it will take nearly two weeks again? Walked over and chatted with Scott, my salesman, for a bit, he’s planning a membership drive for the Club to be held at the dealership in November. He is writing a letter to mail to the 30 or so Miata buyers in the last year and a half at Rader and invite them over to meet the crew.
It was finally time to go, so I got in the Miata, dropped the top and crept out of the dealership lot, the clutch felt real smooth. Hung a right onto busy Washington Road and sped off the 1/2 mile before turning off. A short stretch and then right on Riverwatch Parkway to head home. As I got up to speed and shifted into 5th I looked down to check my speed and discovered I was going ZERO MPH! The speedometer cable is hooked to the transmission, I bet my just finishing up in time to go home technician had forgotten to hook up the cable correctly (or not at all.) Hang a right and then another and pull back into the service area. It is 5:35, they go home at 6, so I figure we can get this done and I’ll be on my way. Wrong. The advisors stay until 6, the techs go home at 5:30, so there is no one there to fix my speedometer. Luckily, they work on Saturday morning, so it should be solved tomorrow. I put the top back up on the Miata and Kelly gives me the keys to the Dark Teal Metallic Tribute, again.
I get 5 miles from home and the low fuel light comes on, again…
Comet Incubation Period: 7 days
When the day started I said what the heck and dumped $15 worth of gas into the Tribute, Rader sure wasn’t. Besides if I was going to have to wait on a reimbursement I might as well make it worthwhile. Service department hours are 8 to 12 on Saturday, so I waited until 9 AM to call. Kellie said the tech got in at 8:30, but hadn’t looked at my car yet. He was going to do a couple others first, because they were there waiting. She said she would call when the car was done. As I’m always a little slow on the uptake, it wasn’t until Donna reminded me that I had been waiting since Thursday for my car, that I got a little upset, after all, it should have been a ten minute fix. Its kind of like getting to the counter in a shop ready to pay or ask a question and the phone rings. The clerk immediately answers the phone and starts to help them, ignoring you. Maybe everyone figures you are content because you have a loaner car.
Kellie calls at 10:45 and says the car is done and I can pick it up anytime. The service department closes at noon (the techs probably go home at 11:30) but she would leave the key to my car with Scott as the sales crew will be there until 5 or 7 depending. Scott is an occasional reader of The Diaries (everybody say, ‘Hi Scott!’) and having noticed my car sitting on the lot all day Thursday, checked in here to see what was up and how bad I was beating up his place of employment. So when Kellie gave him my key he took the car for a little spin, for two reasons; 1) make sure the repairs were really right and 2) fill it up with gas. I needed more than a half a tank and because the car requires premium we are probably even on the gas front. I don’t know what they are paying him over there, but it ain’t enough. Why could Scott do this and Kellie could not? In my entire experience at Rader, Scott has been busy trying to cultivate a long-term relationship while the service department has been trying to sabotage it.
The Miata sits quietly in my garage tonight, home again and happy. I just hope it lasts. I’m sorry, it is my nature. There are stories on Miata.net of folks having to get the TSB done a second time, because the shudder returned. Most of those were early on in the process and Mazda supposedly has an updated disc that seems to do the trick. I’m sure after a while I will forget about the shudder and go about my way, but my subconscious will be worrying on the issue, so if it does return, I won’t be surprised.
Comet Incubation Period: 8 days
Next Sunday is the Rspeed Open House and some of us in the Club will be making the trip over to Marietta for the party. I’ve got a spoiler sitting in the garage that would be nice to have on the car before going. According to the FedEx site my new tires will be delivered tomorrow and it is imperative that I get them installed before the trip.
The tires will get done for sure, I’m just trying to figure out how to work in leaving the Miata overnight at the paint place in between the normal shuffling of the week (Donna’s Mom’s Mon-Wed-Fri afternoon dialysis and Donna’s Mon-Wed evening Pilate’s classes) and the extra this week only specials (5 days of all morning training for me, an afternoon Dr.‘s appointment for me and the Miata Club meeting Thurs night.)
Last word on the clutch shudder issue (unless of course it returns): The transmission is not in the exact same spot or orientation as when it went in. We are talking millimeters I’m sure, but while taking the 30 mile long way to the 3 mile away store this morning the 2 to 3 shift seems a bit long. But the real telling point is when shifting from 3 to 4 straight back, twice I bumped into the neutral area instead of right into 4th. As I said, it is very minor and I’ll adjust, of course it could have been just me…
Comet Incubation Period: 9 days
After nearly 4–1/2 years as a customer of Netflix I’m going to cancel my membership this week. We really haven’t been watching movies at a rate to warrant paying them the $23.31 a month. I have been keeping track of all my rentals over that time in an Excel spreadsheet worksheet. Here are just the highlights:
| 1567 |
Total Days Member |
| 317 |
Total Movies Watched |
| 72 |
Movies Not Finished |
| 22.7% |
Percentage of Movies Not Finished |
| 6.1 |
Average Movies Watched Per Month |
| $3.48 |
Cost per Rental |
| 19 |
Average Days Out |
On the way home from work today we passed through the 16K barrier.
Dropped of the spoiler at the paint shop at lunch today. It will get painted tomorrow and then I’m going to let them do the mounting on Wednesday. I’ll pick the car back up Thursday, just in time to…
Mount the new tires on Friday. Donna and I have the afternoon off so that will be a convenient time for getting them mounted. Even though the FedEx website didn’t say out for delivery this morning, about 5:30 this afternoon a white truck pulled up and out came 4 Toyo T-1S tires.
Comet Incubation Period: 10 days
The regular season is over and now the nail biting starts:
| Game 1 |
BOS @ ANA |
Tue. |
Oct. 5 |
4:00 p.m. |
ESPN |
| Game 2 |
BOS @ ANA |
Wed. |
Oct. 6 |
10:00 p.m. |
ESPN |
| Game 3 |
ANA @ BOS |
Fri. |
Oct. 8 |
4:00 p.m. |
ESPN |
| Game 4* |
ANA @ BOS |
Sat. |
Oct. 9 |
TBD |
TBD |
| Game 5* |
BOS @ ANA |
Sun. |
Oct. 10 |
TBD |
TBD |
| * If Necessary |
I was kind of hoping for Oakland because we pretty much owned them during the regular season, but maybe it is a good thing, because my expectations probably would have turned around and bit me on the butt with an Oakland 3 game sweep or something equally horrible. The Sox took the season series 5–4 from the Angels, but if you believe this article, “Clash has the makings of a classic” the series will be exciting. And at least if games 4 and 5 are needed they will be on the weekend, so for this series there is only one late night, Wednesday.
I tried a variation of something I read on Miata to cure my annoying tick-ticking sound coming from the passenger area. I bought some tan velcro at the store this weekend and glued the fuzzy half onto the edge of the seats where the seatbelts hit them. It was easy to know where to put the velcro because the black seatbelts were leaving black marks on the tan seats. I may have to readjust the positioning downwards some though, the seatbelt hits right in the middle when in use, but it hits the very bottom of the velcro when you first buckle up causing it to lift the velcro off the seat. And get the edge of the belt sticky.
Comet Incubation Period: 11 days
The Bosox won game one of their 5 game series this afternoon against the Angels. Just ten more wins and the thing that has eluded them since 1918 will be theirs, a World Series victory. It would be sweet if we had to beat the Yankees to get there, but with history solidly on their side, I hope Minnesota knocks the Yanks out first.
Of course 3 losses in the next 4 games and I could very well be saying, again, wait until next year.
The Miata is staying overnight at the recovery room/body shop. The instructions say: The vehicle may not be driven in the first 12 hours to the gluing. (wash road at the earliest after 48 hours). And at first, I interpreted that to mean don’t drive it for 12 hours and don’t wash it for 48 hours, but I think they really mean, don’t drive it at all for 12 hours and don’t drive on rough roads for 48 hours. They were supposed to silicone on the spoiler this afternoon and I tried to call and find out the progress, but Liza was apparently too busy to call back, so I’m not sure if they did it or not. I’ll find out tomorrow morning and see if they did get it on. If they don’t glue it on until tomorrow, I might not be able to pick it before Friday as the silicone needs to set. Donna’s mom needs her car back for Friday to go to dialysis, but I guess at worse case I might have to duck out in the AM and drive her.
Comet Incubation Period: 12 days
Donna’s mom took her Civic to the local Honda dealer to get the oil changed today. I asked her while she was there to have them listen to the brakes. For the last month or so they have been making a ticking sound whenever you come to a stop. It is speed dependent. It starts out fast and as you slow the ticking frequency slows, but the noise duration increases slightly. The brake power doesn’t seem to be affected, but the noise is disconcerting. They told her they all do that.
It didn’t do it when she first bought the car back in May. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, a couple of years ago we had this same noise on her previous Civic. It didn’t do it when she came from Washington to here. It started right after they did some brake work on the car. It always stopped fine, but it made a ticking sound. They told us the same thing, “They all do that.” Not as loud as on this car, but it was annoying. Maybe I should call Click & Clack…
Called this morning only to be told that the spoiler would go on today as it was still too tacky to be mounted yesterday afternoon. Liza didn’t say, but I bet it was still too tacky because they didn’t paint it until Tuesday instead of Monday afternoon when I dropped it off.
Arrangements have been made to get Donna’s mom transported tomorrow so we can use the Civic to get to work. The nice neighbor across the street has volunteered to drive her. He is retired and it will be a nice change for him, he said it would get him out of some chores too. So now the plan stands to get off at noon, go get the car from the paint/body place and drive it to the tire place and drop it off so they can mount the tires. Drive home in the Civic and then return to get the Miata later in the afternoon.
Comet Incubation Period: 13 days
Winning 6 to 1 in the 7th and cruising. No, that was not exciting enough, you give up 5 runs to let the Angels tie the game. And then you put me through a couple of innings of struggling relief pitching, before winning it in the bottom of the 10th. I don’t think I can take this for the next 2 weeks…
Please, Chris Berman and any other announcer, don’t ever give me that, “They are only X outs away from winning the series,” shit. Keep your mouth zipped, that phrase is historically the kiss of death for the Red Sox. (As it almost was tonight.)
Which if Babel Fish’s translation is correct, is German for “The Comet Is Installed.”
Picked up the car at lunch today and it was definitely worth the wait:
Had the Toyo’s mounted this morning and what a difference. Smoother and grippier. Russ’s old Michelins were pretty hard as well as worn out. We are going to call this a mod for now, mainly because I forced the issue. Next time I replace the tires, in about 18 months, it will fall under service.
My wife will be happy to know that I’m almost finished modifying the car, there are just two things left to do. 1) Tint the windows. That’ll wait until next spring. And 2) the Mazda OEM small side sills. Those will have to wait until she figures I have suffered enough for this recent rash of purchases, probably sometime next summer…
The car got washed this morning. It really wasn’t dirty, as much as it was dusty, from sitting a couple days in a body shop’s garage while the spoiler was mounted and drying.
For all you crazy Red Sox fans who wanted to play the Yankees to get to the World Series, you got your wish. NY won tonight beating the Twins 3 games to 1 setting up a rematch of last years American League Championship Series.
| Game 1 |
BOS @ NYY |
Tue. |
Oct. 12 |
8:00 p.m. |
FOX |
| Game 2 |
BOS @ NYY |
Wed. |
Oct. 13 |
8:00 p.m. |
FOX |
| Game 3 |
NYY @ BOS |
Fri. |
Oct. 15 |
8:00 p.m. |
FOX |
| Game 4 |
NYY @ BOS |
Sat. |
Oct. 16 |
7:30 p.m. |
FOX |
| Game 5* |
NYY @ BOS |
Sun. |
Oct. 17 |
4:00 p.m. |
FOX |
| Game 6* |
BOS @ NYY |
Tue. |
Oct. 19 |
8:00 p.m. |
FOX |
| Game 7* |
BOS @ NYY |
Wed. |
Oct. 20 |
8:00 p.m. |
FOX |
| * If Necessary |
Well, I say be careful what you wish for. The Sox won the season series, but in the last 2 weekends of the season they played a home and home set of three games. Each team won 2 of 3 at their home parks. If that holds true, game seven of this series will be in New York and we will have to hope for a win in the Bronx.
On the way to Atlanta on Sunday Donna and I were in the middle of the pack, with us, the lead car and the caboose all having CBs. After clearing the Augusta area and getting into the part of the Interstate where there are 10 miles between exits, John in the lead car calls out, “How fast are you going? I’m showing 72 MPH.” To which I replied, “Seventy-five.” Rudy from the back said he was showing 72 as well. John said he would bump the cruise up to 75. After settling in at that speed (the limit is posted as 70) he asked for another check. Once again Rudy was right in line with John at an indicated 75 MPH. My speedo read 80. Why the difference? I’m riding on the same size wheels and have the exact same tire model as John, while Rudy has 17″ wheels & tires. Was my speedometer calibrated differently because my car came from the factory with 16″ wheels while John’s 99 came with 15″ wheels and Rudy’s did come with the 17 inchers?
Yesterday I asked Russ to bring in his GPS so we could take a lunchtime run and see how far off my speedometer is. Back towards the end of last year when Russ first got his GPS he brought it along on a lunch trip to Hardee’s while I drove. He showed me one of its neat tricks was that it could calculate your speed when moving. Over a portion of road that is marked at 55 and my speedometer was reading 60, his GPS said I was going 57 MPH. Today’s drive produced some interesting results. Just like last year on the stock tires when the speedometer read 60, the GPS said 57. We then got on the Interstate from our secondary road. At 70 indicated the GPS told us I was actually traveling at 66 MPH. And just like Saturday, 80 MPH on the speedo translated into 75 MPH. To get an actual 80 MPH ground speed the speedometer was reading 85. While we where going that fast I put the pedal to the floor just to see what it would do. Unfortunately it was up a slight grade to our fast approaching exit, so the GPS reported a max speed of 96.2 MPH. At that level the speedometer was one tick over 100 or 102.5 indicated.
Using today’s figures I show that my speedometer is reading about 6.5% low. If I use the Miata.net Tire Size Calculator, going from 205/45 x 16 (tire diameter of 23.3in) to a 195/50 x 15 (tire diameter of 22.7in) results in a 2.5% low reading. Was the GPS accurate? Are my 195/50 x 15 tires actually 22.7 in diameter? Did Mazda calibrate the speedometer differently for different wheel sizes? What is their tolerance on the speedometer readings from the factory? Does anybody really know what time it is?
*An unprofessional driver on an open course. Don’t try this at home!
I used to have a team I followed closely in each major sport. Almost all were centered in Boston.
The Bruins lost my love when the Hartford Whalers joined the NHL a lot closer to my home, but now the Whalers are gone from there. Moved to somewhere in North Carolina, possibly Charlotte (ironically closer to my now home), but hockey lost its appeal in it’s ever growing expansion into the southern states in search of the dollar. Plus how can you follow a team you can’t see on TV? The Celtics fell on hard times after Larry Bird left, but I hung in for a few more years. The game has changed from one of finesse to one of in-your-face one upmanship and it lost its appeal to me. Same thing with football where self-congratulations of grandiose proportions now occurs after the routine play. I was a LA Rams fan for some reason, not the Patriots as expected and followed them until they moved to St. Louis.
Maybe it was summer evenings listening to the games on the radio while growing up that has made my affection for baseball last. Well, the real baseball playoffs start in just a few minutes. Red Sox — Yankees and I’ll be glued to the tube hoping that this is the year.
I don’t know which is worse, watching the Red Sox lose the first two games of the series to the Yankees or watching it on Fox.
Their announcing crew is hurting my ears. Somebody named Joe or Jack Buck sounds like the most intelligent of the three, but he doesn’t have to go far. Tim McCarver doesn’t seem to be watching the same game as I am, he consistently gets names of the players wrong and is out of step with the action. And Al Leiter is so quiet that the only time you know he is there is when they show him on camera explaining how to throw a certain pitch and for a former pitcher he does that badly. They talk when they sound be quiet and when they should be talking there is silence. We see every pitch four times, first when it happens and three replays including one from a camera buried in the dirt near home plate. Please an important pitch in an important situation, but not every single one. The direction is herky-jerky. It is all over the place and makes MTV jump cuts seem sedate. Whenever they switch to the camera down the first base line the sound jumps 10 decibels louder too. They have a very annoying animated baseball that is used once a game to explain some facet of the game, I think, I turn the sound off. Fox is inserting an extra bit of promoing in between innings, we get back to the game just in time to see the pitcher release his first pitch of the inning. No lead in at all, if a pinch hitter is in or a new pitcher, you don’t know until after the action (if they tell you.)
I know this might not be Fox’s fault (although it probably is) but what is up with the ameriquest blimp? We get some nice aerial shots of the stadium and then they flash a little box telling us that it is coming from the ameriquest blimp with a nice illustration of a red, white & blue blimp. We never see the blimp. I’m betting if it is not a helicopter, and in fact a real blimp, it is not painted that way, but something in plain white hired for the occasion from the ACME Blimp Co. in Lakehurst, NJ.
The Miata is kinda dirty because we actually had some rain this last week. The Peachtree Miata Club is coming into town for the weekend, but Donna and I will only be spending a bit of time on Saturday afternoon with them. Should I do the whole wash thing? Or should I just use the Californina Car Duster and some Meguiar’s Quik Detailer ?
I can still sense that the car feels slightly quicker and lighter on it’s feet because of the smaller, lighter wheels and their new rubber. I know my Budget Director might disagree, but I think the swap and money spent was definately worth it…
As my co-worker Brian remarked this afternoon, “The spoiler is still on there.”
This is our year. We are going to win the World Series. It just wouldn’t mean as much unless we beat the Yankees to get there. The road to the World Series goes through New York.
It is the top of the 5th in game 3 and the Red Sox are losing 13 to 6. They must have taken a wrong turn trying to get through NY. One time twenty-odd years ago I decided to drive through New York City on I-95 on my way back home to Connecticut from Tennessee. Not smart. Somehow I ended up in Coney Island. In trying to correct my error I some how ended up crossing the George Washington Bridge back into NJ. Ever since that fateful night, I have gone way around the Big Apple to the west on my way home to CT. I learned my lesson, apparently the Red Sox have not.
Went for a walk in the woods this morning. We haven’t been on a hike in Hitchcock Woods in so long I can’t remember when, but finally getting back in there will hopefully get us back on the every weekend Sunday morning hike. It is definitely becoming fall, as the morning was crisp and cool, but not many leaves have changed color, so it still looks very green.
Off to Augusta Regional Airport (Fly Here Fly Home TM) in the MSV to pick up Aunt Mary. She flys direct from Newark to Augusta and vice versa on Continental Express and seeing as they are ceasing operations in Augusta at the end of this month, Mary returned for one last visit while the non-stop flights fly.
This afternoon Donna and I ran some errands and stumbled on a low-key car show in downtown Aiken put on by the Aiken Horsepower Association. We wandered up the street , stopped in for ice cream and then wandered back.
Tonight I’m listening to what could be the last Red Sox game of the year on MLB.com.
The miserable bastards pulled it off last night by winning on an Ortiz homer in the bottom of the twelfth. I quit listening in the fourth and went to bed. The way I found out they won was when the weather channel OCM this morning gave me a forecast for game five in Boston. Seeing as they are playing this afternoon, I can’t use the going to bed excuse, so I’m listening to it on Internet radio. Once today’s game is over and they have lost, I’ll be able to forget about this painful period in my life…
Walking back to the car, with the way the sun was hitting it, it made Donna notice the black lower body pinch seam and it looked ugly to her. It kind of does to me too, there is a spot where the flat black protective paint was kind of globbed on, so it is shiny, and a spot where the seam is bent slightly from sitting on jack stands, so it doesn’t look at all even under there. When I said that I could fix that by getting some side sills, she just collapsed from the weight of all the hints and said, “Buy them.” Called Trussville this morning and they will be here within the week.
It took about 5 years of modifying for me to get the ’95 Laguna Blue customized to my liking (and I was still tweaking it when I traded it in.) With this last modification it will have taken me just 11 months to get this car right where I want it.
I can’t stop rooting for the Red Sox just yet. I listened to the game on MLB.com until the 9th inning last night. Then I watched innings 10 through 13 on Fox. I turned it off about 10:30 thinking that they just might be at it all night. I’m watching or listening as long as it is convenient, I can seem to turn off the game and not worry about the out come. Maybe that is why the Red Sox keep hanging in there, they feel the same way, like they have nothing to lose, so what the heck. Of course it could be their master plan to fight back, forcing a 7th game, just so they can rip my heart out with a tragic loss on a walk-off homer by the unlikeliest Yankee (ala, Bucky Fucking Dent.)
Game seven is tonight. So will this be the last game of the Red Sox 2004 season? If we go by past history, they will lose in some spectacularly unexpected way. If for some miracle the do win, I still won’t able to celebrate because the only possibly reason for advancement would be to lose the World Series to who ever. I know most of you are hoping the Sox lose so I will shut up about them and get back to my usually witty repartee. My wife is hoping they lose so we can get to back going to bed at a normal hour again. Blogging early so I can watch the game on TV. I’m sure I will have something to say either way tomorrow.
For once in my lifetime the roles were reversed between these two teams that most sports shows claim to be the best rivalry in baseball, maybe all sports. The Red Sox looked confident in games 6 and 7 in Yankee Stadium. The Yanks looked scared. They made the inopportune errors. The breaks went our way. Has the Curse been reversed?
We’ll see about that starting Saturday in Fenway.
At noon on Friday when we got home from work Donna & I and her Mom and Aunt piled into the MSV and headed north, destination Cherokee, NC. After dinner in our favorite little Italian place in north Georgia we arrived at the Holiday Inn in Cherokee. Right after Breakfast on Saturday we dropped off the ladies at Harrah’s so they could spend a chunk of the day feeding the one armed bandits. Donna & I went back to the hotel and packed the car and checked out. We then drove 5 miles the other way to go for a walk in the woods. She had picked a nice little 1–1/2 one way walk to a waterfall.
The leaves are at near peak and the morning, though cloudy, was crisp and in the lower 60’s. The walk was basically all uphill to a nice waterfall, who’s name I have forgotten already, but worth the walk. We then came back down the same way we went up. What a great way to spend the morning. After hiking we drove into Bryson City to find some lunch. We stumbled onto the 4th Annual Chili Cookoff, so guess what we had? For $5 you got a bowl, a spoon and a napkin and could sample any of the chili’s you would like. It started at 10:00 AM so by the time we got there a few had already run out and we missed voting for the people’s choice, but we got our fill of some very interesting tastes. After about 7 or 8 different half ladles of chili Donna and had had enough and took a little walk around downtown Bryson City. On the way back to the car we ducked into an ice cream shop, Donna got a scoop of chocolate, but I only got a small coke, as I was still full of chili. Turns out she was too, as she could only finish 1/2 the ice cream.
Then we went back to the casino to pick up Mom and Mary. Cell phones don’t work inside the casino and they won’t page anybody, so your only option is to wander around looking for who you want. Amazing how hard it is to find two particular little old ladies amongst the thousand or so people hunched over all those machines. It was pure luck we stumbled on Donna’s aunt. We then split the casino in halves and made another loop before we found Mom sitting in one corner. I can’t imagine how the atmospheres we each spent our mornings in coul be any further apart. Donna and I out in the clean air of nature and Mom & aunt in the closed, dark, smoke filled, beer in the carpet smelling room. Next time, they have a certain time to meet us outside.
The UPS man had left the side sills from Trussville on the back deck as I asked. I was going to install them today, but realized that I need to mail a Master’s Miata Club newsletter out on Thursday and I haven’t even started it. So today will be spent working on that little item, maybe next Sunday I can get them installed.
Did a female fan flash a tittie on TV during a Red Sox playoff game? An awful lot of people think so, because I’m getting a ton of search engine hits looking for “red sox fan boobie.” And of course the fact that I have this little referrer thingie on the right of the page makes it self perpetuate. Maybe the camera showed some fat guy shirtless for a second as it panned the crowd and somebody got confused (or wishful.)
Or do they mean to be searching for “red sox fan baby”?
I don’t have any Red Sox fans flashing, but so you don’t go away totally disappointed, here is a 4 year old video from the Today Show where a female on the street exposes herself for the panning camera: 2.2Meg Today Show Flasher Flick.
I bought the side sills from Trussville Mazda. They are a regular sponsor of Miata.net and they have real good prices on Mazda parts and accessories. Cheaper even than the local dealer who gives us Master’s Miata Club members 20% off. Still with all that discounting, the sills were more than twice the price, quasi-regular reader, Ernest wanted for a set of used one he had. I was scared off by Ernest’s for two reasons, first was they needed painting in my color and second he had no fasteners for mounting them. Ernest got them from a Mazda recycler in a trade that was as complicated as the Nomar Garciaparra deal because he was going to add them to his new Mazdaspeed MX-5. Ernest was selling them because he found out to mount them you had to drill holes in your car. Seven holes on each side that your mid $20k car didn’t come from the factory with. Well, Ernest, after reading the 12 page instruction book that came with my factory fresh sills, I can say you are wrong about needing seven holes, you need 9 or 18 total.
Painting Ernest’s side sills didn’t scare me as the front spoiler painting came out top notch, so they would have done just as good a job again, but the no fasteners thing really scared me. Turns out I had good reason, there are like 4 bits each per those 18 holes, plus a half dozen other screws, clips, etc per side. There is a mounting strip to hook the top front edge of each sills to. There are four different paper templates for locating the parts. There is a tube of some adhesive stuff. The bag of stuff you get is worth $100 easy.
For funsies I scanned all 12 pages and then combined them into one big ol’ 2–1/2 megabyte pdf file. So if you would like to see why I want to set aside a whole day for this project and have a fat pipe to the net: Genuine Side Air Dam Instruction (Installation) Manual
Just got this at my gmail account:
Hello,
I was browsing through the results from a search engine when I came across your site. It has a lot of good information and I was hoping that we could exchange links. Doing so would not only help our regular visitors find other useful pages, but it would also make our sites rank higher in search engines like Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. Exchanging links would be free and beneficial for both of our sites.
The site has links at the top of every NBA team page including the Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs giving you access to local clients.
My web page is over 4 years old and receives more than 2,000 visitors a day. I try to offer the best information available on any topic I think my visitors would appreciate.
If you’d like to exchange links for our mutual benefit, I’d be happy to discuss it with you over email.
Sincerely,
Jeremy
Just NBA Players
2215 West Lindsey
Suite 102
Norman, Ok 73071
4053212922 (please no phone calls)
What website of the half dozen I am responsible for? None are remotely connected to sports. I went to the link in the email, which I haven’t posted here for obvious reasons, there is no place to trade links. The return email is not from the same domain either. So what is this one all about? Another email address harvest? Hoping to get a higher Google ranking because the Gmen are secretly indexing all the mail sent through Gmail?
Came via email (and I edited it a little):
Recently I was checking my 401k account and thinking about retirement, I saw an article about nursing homes, care facilities and retirement homes and ALL the expenses. Then it hit me. No nursing home for me! Here is my plan: I’m checking into A Holiday Inn. WHY?
With the average cost for a nursing home reaching $188 per day, there is a better way when we get old and feeble. I have already checked on reservations at the Holiday Inn. For a combined long-term stay discount and senior discount, it’s $49.23 per night. That leaves $138.77 a day for breakfast, lunch, dinner in any restaurant I want, or room service. It also will leave enough for laundry, gratuities, and special TV movies.
Plus, I’ll get a swimming pool, a workout room, a lounge, and washer and dryer. I’ll also get free toothpaste, razors, shampoo and soap. And I’ll be treated like a customer, not a patient.
Five dollars worth of tips a day will have the entire staff scrambling. There is a city bus stop out front, and seniors ride free. The handicap bus will also pick me up if I fake a decent limp. Ride the church bus free on Sundays. For a change of scenery, take the airport shuttle bus and eat at one of the nice restaurants there. While you’re at the airport, fly somewhere. Meanwhile, the cash keeps building up. It takes months to get into decent nursing homes. On the other hand, Holiday Inn will take your reservation today. And you are not stuck in one place forever — you can move from Inn to Inn, or even from city to city. Want to see Hawaii? They have a Holiday Inn there, too. TV broken? Light bulbs need changing? Need a mattress replaced? No problem. They fix everything and apologize for the inconvenience.
The Holiday Inn has a night security person and daily room service. The maid checks to see if you are OK. If not, they will call the undertaker or an ambulance. If you fall and break a hip, Medicare will pay for the hip & Holiday Inn will upgrade you to a suite for the rest of your life. And no worries about visits from family. They will always be glad to visit you & probably check in for a mini-vacation.
Most standard rooms have coffee makers, reclining chairs, and satellite TV — all you need to enjoy a cozy afternoon. After a movie and a good nap, you can check on your children (free local phone calls), then take a stroll to the lounge or restaurant where you meet new and exotic people every day. Many Holiday Inns even feature live entertainment on the weekends. Often they have special offers, too, like the Kids Eat Free program. You can invite your grandkids over after school to have a free dinner with you. Just tell them not to bring more than three friends.
NO electric bills, no water & sewer bills, No Cable TV bills, No Trash bills in fact some one each days comes and empties ALL your waste baskets, does the beds… straightens up the living room, bath room, kitchen and bed room along with making up the beds. There is no charge for a daily newspaper or for 24 hour security and SEVEN day a week maid service. Meals are from a REAL menu and there is 24 hour coffee shops, guests services, business room with Fax, copier and the like. Uh, did I mention most now offer FREE internet. Free towels at the Pool, Jacuzzi, spa and workout facilities.
Those of you worried about savings… forget about a horrendous Maintenance bill that looks like what rent use to be. Save your money when it comes to property taxes, school taxes, lawn care, house up-keep as in gardening and landscaping. Parking is FREE and secure and convenient especially if you are handicapped and are a LONG term resident customer. You can greet guests in the Lobby, reading area, party or function rooms and later take them out to eat without Going Back Out. Valet parking makes everyone feel special and on vacation. Everyone there greets you with a smile and by name within one week of staying there. You feel welcomed and that you belong to a Team and one of the staff. Everyone ALWAYS treats you with dignity and respect you will NEVER see at an institution.
Pick a Holiday Inn where they allow pets, and your best friend can keep you company as well. If you want to travel, but are a bit skittish about unfamiliar surroundings, you’ll always feel at home because wherever you go, the rooms all look the same. And if you’re getting a little absent-minded in your old days, you never have to worry about not finding your room — your electronic key fits only one door and the helpful bellman or desk clerk is on duty 24/7.
Being natural skeptics, we called a Holiday Inn to check out this idea of my plan. I’m happy to report that they were positively giddy at the idea of us checking in for a year or more. They even offered to negotiate the rate to $35 a night !
If you have special medical needs, just like if you were home… the nurses can visit you daily at the Holiday Inn, so can the podiatrist, the personal aid and assistant and even the PT therapist. On an extended stay for months, you can personalize your quarters with your own books, pictures and decorations.
Dial ZERO and you have a live voice only a few steps away that can respond to a request or offer assistance. The more I think about this and the thousands that can be saved and invested… why in two years you could be living FREE with a simple investment in Tax Free muni’s where the principle is never touched… You could have a 6 digit estate to hand down to your children in less than 10 years.
Now THAT is called LIVING… Seen any of the dozen Hawaiian Holiday Inns.. You would think you are in Heaven…
Unlike last year I waited, even though I so wanted one of those Curt Schilling shirts that read “Why Not Us” I waited. My reward came this morning when I ordered:
I’ll be here in a week or so and I can hardly wait.
Passed through 17k on the way home from work tonight. Because there is a Master’s Miata Club event with an early start tomorrow I broke out the Quik Detailer and “washed” the car in the driveway before parking for the night. We meet at 8:00AM for the drive to Newberry Street to see the inaugural Aiken Exotic Car Festival. There were supposed to be over a hundred cars, but this morning’s paper said just over 50 are registered. You have got to start somewhere, so I hope there is enough attendance to prompt another one next year.
All the hoopla over the swing states, has left those of us in the states that pollsters say are solid for candidate X, just a little out of the loop. Because it has been determined by polling that South Carolina is going to be won by Bush, neither candidate feels any real reason to spend any money here. We are not even going to get a brief airport runway rally while their plane refuels on its way to Ohio or Florida. If this sort of thing gets much worse, Asimov may have been spot on with a story he wrote in 1955 called Franchise. In the then future, polls and the giant computer Multivac will winnow out all the unnecessary people who they have determined to vote one way or the other and pick just one individual to choose the next president.
It only took me 3–1/2 hours to get one side sill on. To be fair, some of that time was taking the front mud flaps off. A big chunk of that time spent, even though I pre-read the directions, was reading and re-reading the instructions. They are not exactly clear in a lot of ways. I’m sure that comes from them being originally in Japanese and then translated into English. And you definitely want to make sure you understand exactly how things are supposed to go when you are drilling holes into you car.
Speaking of drilling you were supposed to use a 1/8 drill for a pilot hole and then a 21/64 for the finish hole. Raise your hand if you have a 21/64 drill bit handy. I didn’t. I did have a 5/16, which is close enough for my shade tree mechanicing. Trouble was it was kinda dull making it slow going drilling out the 10 holes. That’s right 10 holes, it was supposed to be 9, but for some reason I insisted on drilling out a perfectly good threaded hole. No wonder I broke my 1/8 drill bit…
Tomorrow morning I’ll do the other side. Should only take about an hour and a half now that I know what I’m doing.
Saves the day. I went to the Aiken Exotic Car Festival this morning and took a bunch of pictures. Tonight when I stuck the card in the reader it showed that I had used 40 Meg of the 128, but listed no files in the directory. Crap. So for the second time in about a year I fired up PC Inspector Smart Recovery and within minutes I had all 50 pictures. If you don’t have this program in your tool kit, you should. The price is even right, FREE!
Jacked up one side of the car this morning and mounted the other side sill. Amazing how quickly the whole process goes when you know how to do it and have a nice sharp drill bit. I sprayed each hole drilled with some flat black rustoleum I had laying around. I’m sure some folks would have gone out and bought some nice zinc based primer (and still some people might have had the proper stuff to begin with) but because we don’t live in a state that has salted roads in the winter and my tenure with each Miata is about 7 years, I’m definitely not going to be worried about any rust. The effect is subtle, but in my humble opinion a nice improvement on the looks of the car.
If things were as they should be, tonight would be game seven of the 2004 World Series where the Red Sox would lose and once again have been mere outs from being Champions. My whole world is upside down.
Thanks:
Bronson Arroyo
Mark Bellhorn
Orlando Cabrera
Johnny Damon
Alan Embree
Keith Foulke
Gabe Kapler
Curtis Leskanic
Derek Lowe
Pedro Martinez
Doug Mientkiewicz
Kevin Millar
Doug Mirabelli
Bill Mueller
Mike Myers
Trot Nixon
David Ortiz
Manny Ramirez
Pokey Reese
Dave Roberts
Curt Schilling
Mike Timlin
Jason Varitek
Tim Wakefield
Kevin Youkilis
And of course manager Terry Francona and coaches Ron Jackson, Lynn Jones, Brad Mills, Euclides Rojas, Dale Sveum, Dave Wallace.
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