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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Want to broaden your musical horizons, but not too far? I’ve got just the thing, well I don’t have it, the internet has it and it is called Pandora.You create your own personal radio stations based on music you already like. I typed in “The Cranberries” and I been listening to some pretty decent music for the last hour or so. Occasionally they serve a clunker and all you have to do is click the thumbs down button, the song will stop and another is offered up.
I think I’ll try and conjure up a Hawaiian music station…
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 31
 I’ve been dealing with acid reflux & heart burn for a couple of years now. Medicine has helped, but I kept moving up the food chain in strength and prescription. A couple weeks ago I had heartburn so bad I made an appointment with a gastro guy. He thought it might be a good idea to have a look-see inside to see if he could find a reason for the escalation of symptoms, so this morning I had an Esophagogastroduodenoscopy done.
Having the EGD done was very similar to the colonoscopy of a couple a years ago, except there is no nasty prep work to be done the day before. You get an IV started and they wheel you into a room. You get rolled on your side, someone sticks a needle in the IV and you wake up later in a different room. Feeling mighty fine, I might add. The wheelchair ride out to the parking lot is worth the price of admission, the floor tiles rush between your feet sparkling with a sort of a visual doppler effect. Weeee.
I sort of remember the doctor saying that he saw nothing abnormal, but you better ask my wife, everything was very liquid for a couple hours after the procedure. I have to call and make a follow up appointment with the doc for next week, maybe by then he won’t look like the T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 31
Our usual breakfast spot and our usual breakfast, except we went hog wild and bought an O.J. to split instead of water. Hardee’s Biscuits and Gravy for her, Sausage and Egg Biscuit for him.
Meal Cost: $5.38
Tip: None
For lunch, it was pizza at home, but for dinner we have a Papa Russ’s Big Platter that we are taking over to the Butler’s house for the MMC monthly meeting and game night. Chopped brisket & pulled pork with sides of baked beans & hash brown casserole. Corn bread muffins to mop up the plate.
Meal Cost: $12.71
Tip: None
Spent Today: $18.09
Year to Date: $245.91
 Instead of Life of Brian maybe it should be called Eating With Brian?
We had Sunday lunch out with the usual suspects, but tried someplace different — Quiznos. We have had two previous experience with the chain, one that was good, we bought a sub onboard our flight to Seattle last year and it hit the spot, while second was not so good here in Aiken when we were seduced by a sign about a featured sub. Today’s experience was right about in the middle of those first two. Large Honey Bourbon Chicken with chips and a small Sierra Mist. We have vowed to give them at least one more chance before crossing them completely off our list.
Meal Cost: $10.68
Tip: None
Spent Today: $10.68
Year to Date: $256.59
After lunch we braved the elements and went outdoors. For the first time in a while it was actually nice enough to entice our fair-weather attituded selves into Hitchcock Woods. When we came out it was also nice enough still for us to drop the top on the Emperor for the drive home.
We are not even watching the Super Bowl for the commercials, although we have passed through CBS a few times to keep track of the score.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 32
 When I went for my esophagogastroduodenoscopy (I just love that word, I can’t say it, but boy does it look impressive written down) on Friday, I had a hospital arrival time of 7:30 and a procedure time of 8:30. Donna dropped me off about 7:15 so she could get to work at her normal hour. The patient registration clerks were ready and efficient, so when I entered the Endoscopy Lab where I was to have my procedure, I was very early. All the nurses were sitting in a big circle drinking coffee, cutting up and laughing. When I was noticed, everyone quieted down and one of the nurses directed me to the waiting room and told me they would call me when they were ready for me. They were probably having a morning staff meeting or something, but they sure were a happy bunch with all that laughing.
What ever the feel good juice is that they give you before the scoping, it is awesome. One of the nurses stuck the needle in the IV and said this will take about 5 minutes to kick in. I looked up at the clock and saw that it was 9:05 and I thought that I better remind the doctor that I wanted a picture of my insides, when the next thing I knew I was in the recovery area and a nurse asked if I wanted a Coke to drink. Memories of the next hour or two are very scattered, for me. My wife will tell you different. Apparently I babbled on and on, repeating everything I said two or three times. Donna even tells me I was tormenting the other patients, particularly a woman who was in for a colonoscopy. I have zero recall of any of this. I wonder what else I was saying?
Over the weekend I figured out what all those nurses were laughing at when I walked in on them Friday morning and why they went so silent so fast. They were probably comparing notes on how their patients had acted and what they said while under the influence of the anesthesia the day before.
I expect they all had a pretty good laugh about me at this morning’s meeting.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 33
 This afternoon I had the sudden urge to get a bag of chips or something from the gedunk machines in the cafeteria. I usually don’t need a snack, but today for some reason I just had to have something. This unnatural craving must have come from some leftover subliminal suggestion implanted during my watching of Super Bowl commercials.
Mixed in between the three soft drink machines, the coffee machine, the change machine and a sandwich machine are two snack machines filled with a selection of salty or sweet or salty/sweet choices. Even though the 2 machines have a nearly identical mix of products, before choosing an item you have to look over every item in each machine before buying something. Almost everything is a national brand, but there are usually a couple of regional selections. Today, if I wanted (and I didn’t) I could have had a bag of Danny’s Pork Bits, AKA pork rinds, AKA the skin of a pig with a layer of fat still attached that has been deep fried to a crunchy consistency. The nutritional information proudly displayed on the front said that a serving of this snack would have 7.5 grams of fat and 70 calories.
I opted for something I thought might be a healtier, a 1–1/2 ounce bag of Lay’s Sour Cream & Chive Potato Chips cooked in sunflower oil and advertising no trans fats. As I sat at my desk enjoying my chips, I read the back panel’s nutrition label and discovered that one serving of these chips had 15 grams of total fat and 240 calories. Wait a minute, how could this bag of chips have twice the fat and 3 times the calories of a larger 2oz bag of pork rinds (which are essentially fat fried in fat?)
I went back over to the machine and re-read the pork skin’s nutrition label again. Yep, 7.5 fat and 70 calories. Oh, here it is, serving size 1/2 oz, servings per bag 4, so if you ate the whole bag yourself, not sharing with 3 of your buddies as expected, you’d get 30 grams of fat and 280 calories.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 33
We had a coupon to buy one, get one free as long as you bought two large drinks. Donna ordered a Billy Barou that looked big enough to split, so we did. I’ll have my Joey Bag of Donuts for lunch tomorrow. It was still nice enough at 6:30 that we ate outside on the patio and watched the traffic go by on Whiskey Road (although by the end of the meal I wished I had a jacket on.)
Meal Cost: $9.08
Tip: None
Spent Today: $9.08
Year to Date: $265.67
There was pine pollen on the car when we got off of work this afternoon, but I ain’t complaining, it was 69° outside. So I went rollerblading when we got home, had to. I did my usual 3 mile circuit and it felt pretty good to stretch it out, but I bet tomorrow morning I’ll feel it in my lower back and legs. The high temps are headed back towards fifty again by the weekend, so I’ll be back to hibernating ’til spring, but it can’t be far away now.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 34
 We are planning a dip into Canada in May when we next visit the Pacific northwest in May. Donna has a long lost cousin that lives near Vancouver and we, along with her big brother and his wife, are going to say hello. As of January 23, 2007 you need a passport to get into Canada (and more importantly, back into the US) if you are traveling by boat or plane. If you are driving you won’t need one until next January. We are taking a ferry, so are we driving or boating in? We are not going to take any chances, so tomorrow we are going to the post office to get some new passports.
We already have passports, but they are a little out of date, they expired almost 24 years ago. To get a new one you need proof of US citizenship and our old passports fit that bill. When I filled out the application I checked the box saying that we would surrender our old passports. Everything was fine until tonight and besides having a hard time finding where we put them last, Donna got a little misty eyed about them as souvenirs of our honeymoon. Almost didn’t want to give them up. I got her to grudging agree to turn them in, but to make nice, I scanned all the pages into the PC.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 36
 Our neighbors across the street are a charming old retired couple that we have come to know well in our 18 years here in Aiken. During the 5 years that Donna’s mom lived with us we had Oliver and Nancy over for dinner several times. Oliver is the talker of the two and he would regale us with tales of early life in Aiken and all manner of subjects. They moved into Dunbarton Oaks in the middle 50’s when the subdivision was first built. Oliver was an engineer that came to town to work at the newly opened top secret bomb plant south of town and Nancy taught school. Both have long since retired.
But in all the time we’ve known him, he never once mentioned his acting days with the local playhouse, so we were quite surprised to see this picture in the Aiken Standard’s “Portrait’s of the Past” section this week. I cut it out and laminated it for him. When I gave him the picture I told Oliver that the next time I come visit his house I’d like to see his award. He told me it is probably in the attic somewhere gathering dust. I’m sure 38 years ago it held a place of prominence on his mantle though.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 37
This afternoon was our half day off for working 9 hours for the last 4 days. Our intention was to go to the Stoplight Deli, but we ended up at Ferrando’s for pizza instead. 14″ pie with pepperoni, sausage, onions, green peppers and banana (pepper) rings. Two garden salads a Sprite and a water. Plus a little cup of marinara sauce for crust dipping. The good thing abut this meal is that we only eat half the pie, so Sunday’s lunch is already taken care of…
Meal Cost: $19.08
Tip: $3.92
Spent Today: $23.00
Year to Date: $288.67
According to the idiots who started me on this quest, there are 367 Post Offices in South Carolina. After today’s 160 mile, seven PO trip we are 13% of the way towards the goal of getting a picture of everyone.
We stopped in Greenwood after getting both Post Offices there for some lunch at a place called T.W. Boon’s. We split a Shrimp Po-boy, Onion Rings and a Sierra Mist.
Meal Cost: $8.56
Tip: $1.44
So Far Today: $10.00
The Postal Gallery Database site says 367, but I can not get a definitive list from the US Postal Service site. If I search from Columbia (which is pretty much in the center of the state) with a hundred mile radius I get 488 results. This probably isn’t accurate because it may include surrounding states, when I search from Aiken for a 100 miles it starts to list Augusta, Georgia POs.
Wikipedia lists 541 Zip Codes in the state. When I went through that list and removed the ones that said PO Box after the name I end up with 404. But I know that isn’t right because there are only 2 Post Offices in Aiken and I was left with 4 zips. Plus there were 5 or 6 names I removed that I recognized as having buildings (because I have pictures of them), so I’m thinking that the PO Box designation means there is no carrier service in those locations.
The USPS site may not even be 100% accurate as to how many it has either. When we first started this quest it listed a Post Office in the micro-town of Snelling, SC and no amount of driving the few streets in that town using the USPS site’s map resulted in a find. Same thing happened in Hilton Head where we could only find two of the four the site had listed for there. Searching today lists no P.O. for Snelling and 3 for Hilton Head.
Anyway, we may never know if we get all of them, but we sure are going to try.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 39
Tonight we had dinner out with friends at Olive Oils right here in Aiken. Grilled Chicken Breast topped with Proscuito and Cheese for him. Seafood Ravioli for her. Water to drink. All the salad and breadsticks you can eat included.
Meal Cost: $29.68
Tip: $5.32
Spent This Meal: $35.00
Spent Today: $45.00
Year to Date: $333.67
10:00AM — Sports Reporters on ESPN
10:30AM — end of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on AMC
11:00AM — Sunday Morning Shootout on AMC
11:30AM — Inside the Actors Studio on Bravo
3:00PM — come up for air to go to the grocery store
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 40
 This sign sits on the Island Ford Road near the site of the town of Ninety Six around the time of the Revolutionary War. We took a break from Post Office hunting on Saturday to tour the Ninety Six National Historic Site.We had been here once before a long time ago with the Aiken Bicycle Club (we rode here and back from Edgefield.)
Big news is that I’ve added a little plugin to take advantage of a nifty javascript called Lightbox, so now when you click on an image in the post you don’t get the plain view, you get a pop-up kind of thing that is much more elegant. Go ahead, try it. Now I wonder if there is a way to retroactively add it to all the previous images? For now I’ve done all the ones I’ve uploaded this year…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 42
 When I stepped up to the refrigerator, as I went about my usual after work business of fixing of chilled drinks for us, my foot made a squish sound. It was water. There was a nice wet spot surrounding the fridge. I pulled it away from the wall to see water leaking from the coupler connecting the ice maker input line to the supply line. Dang. I hate plumbing.
I headed out to the garage and my tool box to get a couple of wrenches. I was not to be so lucky, just tightening the fitting had no effect on the leak. So outside I went to shut off water to the house. I really hate plumbing. With a trip to my local home warehouse store imminent and the water to the house off, I figured now was time to take a look at the kitchen faucet that had developed a drip. You could get it to stop by turning it off and then moving the handle a touch. Move it too little or too much and the leak stayed or even get worse, but I had mastered this shut off maneuver. On the other hand the major faucet user was not to happy with the arraignment. What the heck, Valentine’s Day is coming up.
At the store I bought the new washers and springs for the faucet and also the little ball on a stick thing controls the water flow. I bought a new coupling and as a extra precaution bought some of those little white plastic crush rings (or whatever they are really called.)
Back home I put all the new faucet pieces in and buttoned it up. Next I put the new coupling on the water line. I went outside and turned the water to the house back on. The faucet worked like a charm and was an instant hit with the spousal unit. The coupling on the ice maker water line was spraying a fine mist of water all over the place behind the fridge. And just like the first time, tightening it a little more with the wrench had zero effect. Back outside to turn off the whole house line again. Have I mentioned I hate plumbing?
I took the new coupling off and put the old one back on using two of the new white sleeve things. Success, no leaks (he writes, as he simultaneously knocks on wood.) Pushed the refrigerator back against the wall, but coiled the ice maker water line in such a manner as to leave the coupling easily visible for frequent checks.
By the time everything was tidied up and the tools put away it was much too late to cook dinner at home. Acropolis, here we come. Large Greek salad to split and a gyro each. Water for her and iced tea for me.
Meal Cost: $18.50
Tip: $3.00
Spent Today: $21.50
Year to Date: $355.17
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 43
 They are remodeling the Product Engineering & Document Control room next door to me at work. To make room for an additional employee they are removing the old flat file cabinets that hold all our old large paper drawings. While almost all of the drawings are already in computer form, there are still a few old drawings on paper that are useful history and will be kept. When they were going through deciding what to keep today one of the engineers brought over something that he found he thought I might like. A blueprint of the second Constellation Class Starship built, the Enterprise NCC-1701.
Way back in the 80’s, not long before Al Gore invented the Internet, I talked the powers that be at ASCO into getting me a Compuserve account so I could stay up to date on computer drafting through an AutoCAD area they had. A 300 baud modem with a login name of something like brian237 and I was off exploring the outside world. Soon I was downloading AutoLisp programs to help me automate my daily chores, instead of painstakingly retyping the macros and code snippets from my monthly AutoCAD magazines. But as you can imagine, it was not all seriousness out there in cyber space. Someone with a lot more talent, free time and dedication than I had drawn up some plans of the Enterprise in AutoCAD with a fancy title block and everything. Probably 30 minutes of downloading later, I opened the drawing and sent it to our D-sized pen plotter. I hung it on my cubical wall. Once word got around I bet I printed out another half dozen or so fr the rest of the Trekkies in the building.
I went looking to see if I could find that drawing again now that the Internet is 6.0x1032 bigger that it was then. So guess what, I couldn’t find the exact one that I have a plot of, but I did find about 6.0x1032 different Star Trek related blueprints here: The Star Trek LCARS Blueprints Database
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 43
Here are 6 pictures from our January 27th visit to HHI that weren’t taken inside of a condo at the Hilton Head Beach & Tennis Resort:
Once You’ve opened the first image if you hover your mouse over one half or the other of the picture you will get some navigation tabs.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 43
I got my reminder email from BMW today. The Ultimate Drive® for Susan G. Komen for the Cure is coming to town again this year. The Drive will be in Augusta on Thursday, March 15th and I’m thinking we will be taking a 1/2 day off from work to go over to there to participate. They always have refreshments and most times local food places will have donated lunch of some kind. You can drive any or all (if you have the time) of the different cars in BMW’s lineup and BMW will donate a buck a mile traveled to help fight breast cancer. You need to do this. Go to the site and sign up. Don’t even finish reading this post, go NOW.
Unlike last year, for 2007, they have a route map on the site so you can see where they will be on any given day. This makes it easy to find other locations close by in case you want to do it more than once. Two weeks after Augusta, they will be in Columbia, SC which is not too much further away (60 miles), but it is another Thursday. But they will be around the area on a couple of Saturdays, Macon, GA (140 miles) on the 10th and in Greenville, SC (110 miles) on the 17th. Might be nice to go somewhere else and drive too.
Until then, to quell (or maybe increase) your excitement, you can read about last year’s fun here and look at the peektures here.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 45
 Well, Newberry, SC is in America. This morning was the first of a monthly event called Miatas for Breakfast where the MMC will go for early morning eats. It will take place on the 3rd Saturday of the month at a place that is near or far and may involve a drive before or after.
Today we drove to Bill & Fran’s for eggs in the Milk and Egg Capital, Newberry. Capitol of what, county, state, country, or world the egg shaped water tower isn’t saying. One egg scrambled with bacon, grits and toast for her, one egg scrambled with sausage, grits and biscuits for him. Order of hash browns to split, coffee for him and water for her.
Meal Cost: $11.67
Tip: $2.33
Spent Today: $14.00
Year to Date: $369.17
After dining, I convinced the other Miatas to follow me to the Newberry Post Office so I could take PO Picture #50 with 5 Miatas filling the parking lot. From there we went into the heart of the small town and looked for early morning places that were open so we could get out of the wind and cold. Apparently when the sign on the doors of the downtown antique places say they open at 10:00 AM on Saturday, it is only a guideline.
One place that was open on Main St made $3 off of us, they had a selection of Girl Scout cookies, mmmm, Caramel deLites. They then directed us to another place that was open just one block over, a real live throw back of a hardware store. Very interesting place, stuff stuffed into every nook and cranny, everything from ax handles to bear traps, light switches to cylinders of welding gases, from snowboards (WTF?) to keys made, from spittoons near the wood stove to a Nobel Prize. Well, actually it is a bronze replica of William F. Shull’s (the owner of the store) grandfather’s prize. Clifford G. Shull was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in neutron scattering, a technique that involves directing a beam of particles produced by a nuclear reactor at a sample of material.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 45
 While hunting up cool backgrounds for at work I stumbled on this little thing, but it is too small for wallpaper. I am a draftsman by trade and I’m not sure just what they mean by “Enjoy a Real Job in Industry.” I searched Google Images for draftsman and did find one that is big enough that came from a US Government site. I’m using it now for two reasons, it is drafting related and it is Black History month. See, the image came from a collection about African Americans and the Second World War effort. Download it.
Second day in a row we have gone out for breakfast. This time instead of driving 60 miles, we drove just 2 and went to the New Moon Cafe. Everything bagel toast with butter and cream cheese for her. Warmed up Cranberry Pecan muffin with butter for him. Bottled water to split.
Meal Cost: $3.99
Tip Jar: $1.01
Spent Today: $5.00
Year to Date: $374.17
 Forgot to mention this yesterday — Somewhere not too long after we left the Food Lion parking lot yesterday on the way to Newberry, the Emperor turned over 54,000 miles. This works out to an average of over 45 miles a day since we brought it home back in November of 2003, or about 1,380 miles a month.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 45
 My good “buddy” Rick has tagged me. I am supposed to write 5 things you don’t know about me and then tag 5 other folks, so they’ll do the same.
He stopped after 3 because, as he put it, “After looking around it appears that everyone else has already been tagged…” How far did he look? Are you allowed to tag anyone? Or just folks you are linked to? Because he only did three, can I get away with posting just 3 things you don’t know about me? Just what are the rules here? How could he have tagged me if he didn’t tell me? I had to find out about it by reading his blog…
Anyway, let’s see if I can come up with five things you don’t already know about me, might be tough if you have been reading this for awhile:
1. I used to go by the nickname Bo, because it is so hard to pronounce Bogardus. There are probably some cousins of Donna’s that I met early on, that still think of me by that name, although I haven’t gone by it since the 70’s.
2. The nickname of the athletic teams of the high school I attended was Hurricanes, even though there have only been 8 categorized hurricanes to hit Connecticut since 1851.
3. At 16 I stole my mother’s cigarette’s for a couple weeks so I could learn to inhale in preparation for my first marijuana encounter that a friend had promised was imminent.
4. The first car I ever bought was a bright orange Datsun B210 “Honeybee.“
5. I saw Roger Clemens pitch the New Britain AA Red Sox to the 1983 Eastern League championship.
I’m tagging these following 5 blogs that I searched out on the net that mentioned the word Miata in a recent post: 1) Angst & Giggles 2) Live Free or Die! 3) Casa De Morrill 4) ZOOM-zoom-ZOOM & 5) Aubr3y. How the heck these people are going to know they are tagged is beyond me.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 47
 Taste of America with Mark DeCarlo on the Travel Channel in is my old home town, New Britain, CT talking Kielbasa. He said that the city is affectionately called Little Poland because of the large Polish population, we just called it New Britski when growing up, but I guess that would have not been very politically correct for 2007 & TV. I like to refer to New Britain as the “Ex Hardware Capital of the World.” What attracted all those Polish folks to the town in the first place was the plethora of jobs at all the factories that made locks, bearings, hinges, tools, etc. It is the “Ex” because all the factories are closed down as the manufacturing jobs moved south. The only company that still has any presence in town is Stanley Tools, but they only have white collar jobs left at their World HQ. You can get a brief glimpse of Broad St, NB, CT by watching the repeat of this episode at 11:00PM tonight or at 2:00PM on Saturday afternoon.
 The skies have been very interesting around here lately, which means spring can’t be too far away. Also for the first time in a couple weeks we were near the average (low sixties) for us this time a year instead of 10 degrees below it. I’ve got my fingers crossed that this heralds the end of winter for us. For the next 10 days we will be 5–10 degrees above normal temps. Sunday calls for rain, but Saturday looks very promising for a Post Office photo expedition.
I meant to put this link in my post the other day about draftsmen: MUSEUM of OBSOLETE DRAFTING TECHNOLOGY.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 48
I have completed the “Best Of” pages with the addition of 2002 & 2003. One post from each month and boy did I have a hard time with some of them. And I think my blogging is lame now.…all I can say is, good thing I wasn’t blogging in 2001 or 2000.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 49
On July 1, 2005, Life of Brian was granted a license by the Federal Internet Transmission Commission to serve the public interest as a public trustee.
Our license will expire on July 1, 2007. We must file an application for license renewal with the FITC, March 1, 2007. When filed, a copy of this application will be available for public inspection during our regular business hours. It contains information concerning this blog’s performance during the last license term of 2 years.
Individuals who wish to advise the FITC of facts relating to our renewal application and to whether this blog has operated in the public interest should file comments and petitions with the Commission by June 1, 2007. Further information concerning the Commission’s blogger’s license renewal process is available at 123 Main St, Aiken, SC 29801 or may be obtained from the FITC, 1001 Connecticut Ave, Washington DC 20554.
As a public service to my friends in cyberspace (and you know who you are) next time you run into conception congestion and have nothing to write about in your blog…
A few year’s ago (2003) I subscribed to an email service that was going to provide a daily note with blog fodder in it. They apparently ran into their own issues with blogger’s block, because it flowed from January 1st consecutively until May 23rd before it started to hiccup. It then limped along until it totally ran out of steam in October. The archives are still up and are good for a couple hundred brain barricade breakers: Blog Fodder. (the original)
For once a week cranial constipations: Blog Fodder — Every Monday a new topic is posted to kick start your brain.
For anytime clogged cerebellums: Imagination Prompt Generator — Still blank? Hit the Next Prompt button for another.
If none of these work for you you can always Google “blogger’s block” and plagiarize someone else’s post on the subject.…
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 50
Lunch at the Stoplight Deli. We split a California Pita and a bowl of chili with two waters to wash it down.
Meal Cost: $10.87
Tip Jar: 13¢
Spent on Lunch: 11.00
Year to Date: $385.17
Ate diner out with friends at the Patagonia Grill, a new South American restaurant in Evans, GA. I had an Americanized version of Anticuchos, marinated pork on a skewer. Donna had Anticuchos de Camaron, grilled shrimp on skewers and covered with a white wine sauce. Again, waters to drink. Good food that definitely warrants a return visit..
Meal Cost: $33.87
Forced Tip: $6.00
Spent on Dinner: $39.87
Year to Date: $425.04
The Emperor got a sponge bath (Meguiar’s Quik Detailer and a towel) this afternoon in preparation for tomorrow’s nine city Post Office Road Trip. Prosperity, Little Mountain, Chapin, White Rock, Ballentine, Lexington, Gilbert, Leesville & Wagener.
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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 53
 Here is an outtake from today’s Postal shoot for my sister-in-law-in-law. Hi Beth We left the house at 8:00 AM and followed two-lane blacktop, except for a brief stint in Lexington, on a couple hundred mile loop through rural South Carolina gathering 10 new additions to the Postal Gallery, the nine listed yesterday and a last minute addition, home of the Annual South Carolina Peanut Party, Pelion.
Would have been more, but we only snapped one of the three reported post offices in Lexington, because when we got there around noon the traffic was thick as molasses. About the only thing Lexington was good for today was lunch. We stopped and ate at a Maurice’s BBQ there. One Little Joe basket, one Sauci-Chick, sweet tea for me and water for her.
Meal Cost: $14.62
Tip: None
Spent Today: $14.62
Year to Date: $439.66
It was around 40 when we started the trip this morning, so the top stayed up until White Rock. I’ve got all ten photos uploaded, but I have yet to write blurbs for them, so for tonight, you can easily figure out which ones are fresh (I wish there was a way to highlight the new entries into this photo album thing…). For an extra hint, they are all on the front page, except for the above mentioned White Rock.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 54
 Courtesy of Uncle Sam’s Cruise Lines I had the chance to visit the land down under back in 1977. The U.S.S. Midway made port in the town of Perth in southwestern Australia for 7 days. Perth is about the same size as Columbia, SC, that is to say a big city, but small town compared to the big cities in the US. From what I remember of it, it was very clean and there were blond-haired blue-eyed people who spoke English, which was a rarity compared to most ports of call in the western Pacific.
 To let everyone know I visiting such a far away land I sent out postcards. This one was to Donna’s younger brother Scott. It was mailed from the ship, hence the 13¢ US postage. Even then I cracked me up. Of course then, like now, I’m the only one who gets my sense of humor. “I have to walk around with my hands in my pockets so I don’t lose my change.” You see? I was down under, on the bottom of the world, I was upside down. If my hands weren’t in them, stuff would have fallen out the top…sigh, oh well.
This postcard surfaced today as Donna was going through another box of photos and such trying to sort out the wheat from the chaff in the big ol’ pile of Morrison Memories her mom left behind. The back room still has a couple of tables scattered full with images from 1890 to 1990 and she wants to try and get it sorted by sibling and down to a manageable level. I’ve told her that I don’t envy the task, I can’t even throw out a blurry, underexposed digital image of the Aiken High School Marching Band from the local 2003 Christmas parade, I don’t know how she can make the decision to toss a family photo in the waste basket no matter what it’s condition.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 55
 I noticed that there were several people with those tell tale boxes at work today and sure enough, the girl down the street visited us this evening. Donna bought 10 boxes. Hey, its for a good cause.
We had a box of Tagalongs for dessert. There were 15 cookies in a box, which means that one of us had eight while the other had seven. I’m not sure which was which because I lost track after 4…
Serving Size 7.5 cookies (101g)
Servings Per Container about 2
Amount Per Serving
Calories 563 Calories from Fat 338
%Daily Value
Total Fat 38g 56%
Saturated Fat 15g 75%
Trans Fat 0g
Cholesterol 0mg 0%
Sodium 375mg 15%
Total Carbohydrate 53g 19%
Dietary Fiber 4g 15%
Sugars 30g
Protein 8g
Vitamin A 0% · Vitamin C 0%
Calcium 0% · Iron 8%
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 56
 Tonight’s dessert was a box of Do-Si-Dos®. Round, bumpy perforated oatmeal cookie top and bottom surrounding a peanut butter-flavored layer inside and come in an orange box. Do-Si-Dos® used to be called Gauchos.
Donna and I did not watch the Oscar telecast because we don’t feel we need to have our movie choices validated anymore, but in honor of that fine Hollywood tradition, this week is Oscar week at the Bogardus homestead. Sunday we watched a movie that should have won a statuette, “World’s Fastest Indian.” Tonight we watched “Little Miss Sunshine” and tomorrow night it will be “The Departed.” Thursday we will watch a movie, that didn’t win an Oscar, but it did get nominated for a couple of those prestigious Teen Choice Awards, “Failure to Launch.”
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 58
 Tonight, for our appetizer we polished off a box of Samoas. Mmm, tasty. Now I know why all those south Pacific islanders are so big in stature. with these cookies as their diet staple…
Do not watch The Departed if you are having spaghetti and red sauce for dinner. Very good movie otherwise.
We are getting a professional baseball team right here in Aiken. Don’t look for the name Aiken in the standings of your sports page though, we ain’t that big time, we are going to have a team in the South Coast League. Its short season ball, starting towards the end of May and finishing up in August. The team will not be affiliated with Major or Minor League Baseball, sort of the equivalent of off-off-broadway.
Last year when the South Coast League decided to put a franchise here in Aiken, they asked for team name suggestions from the general public. There were over a thousand of them. The league picked 5 and voting was opened up to pick the team name, your choices were: Blueticks, Boots, Chukkers, Foxhounds and Horseflies. Foxhounds came up the winner.
Now we are naming the mascot, can’t they just pick one? If this is all in an effort to curry goodwill with a locals, it might work for people who suggested the winning names, but it is just as likely to turn off the folks that vote for the “losing” names.
Anyway, if you would like to vote for the name of the person and their dog suit, go to the team’s home page by clicking the Foxhounds link in the paragraph above and choose between Ace, Fritter, “Hitch“cock, Hunter and Southpaw.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 60
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