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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Thanks to Rick for this idea. In alphabetical order, my list of the
Top 10 15 Albums of Rock & Roll:
- Allman Brothers Band — At Fillmore East — 1971 A live double record set. Almost every night of my junior year of high school I would fall asleep to to side three which consisted of “Hot ‘Lanta” (5:17) & “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed” (13:04)
- America — America — 1972 Three guys, three guitars, three voices. Awsome headphone music, a guitar and voice in each ear and one in the center of your brain.
- Beatles — Hard Days Night — 1964 Quintessential British invasion rock. Plus I’ll bet every scene from the movie of the same name has influence at least a dozen MTV era music videos.
- Blue Oyster Cult — On Your Feet or on Your Knees — 1975 Another live double record set. Included maybe their biggest hit “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper”, but my favorite track was “Then Came the Last Days of May”.
- The Cranberries — Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We — 1993 A perfect blend of dreamy Celtic music and rock and roll. Dolores O’Riordan singing Dreams did and always will raise goosebumps on my arms.
- Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — 4 Way Street — 1971 Four extremely gifted musicians with enormous egos to match came together to create lighting in a bottle and went their separate ways even before the album was released.
- Deep Purple — Made in Japan — 1973 Four words: “Smoke on the Water”
- Eagles — Hell Freezes Over — 1994 There were four new songs written for this album that were basically throwaways while the meat was a re imaging of 11 of the bands biggest hits in a mash up MTV unplugged style & an orchestra.
- Guns n’ Roses — Appetite For Destruction — 1987 If you say name the greatest hard rock album of all time I would say this is it. “Welcome to the Jungle” my friends.
- Nirvana — Unplugged in New York — 1994 Know for their grunge style music this acoustic album of mostly cover songs released after Curt Cobain’s suicide was one of the groups best selling discs.
- No Doubt — No Doubt — 1992 A Ska influenced sound and while there are several other good tunes on the album, Gwen Stefani in a simple blue polka dot dress signing “Don’t Speak” is what got this on the list.
- Pink Floyd — Dark Side Of The Moon — 1973 This one really doesn’t need any words, but what other rock album could be played in sync with the Wizard of Oz and actually enhance each other?
- R.E.M. — Automatic for the People — 1992 The kings of alternative music in the early 90s brought the mandolin to rock with the help of the string arrangements of Led Zeplin’s John Paul Jones.
- Stray Cats — Rock This Town — 1990 OK, so it is more Rockabilly than Rock & Rock, but this album started a whole trend of copycat bands and people dressing up in like Zoot Suits and stuff.
- U2 — Joshua Tree — 1987 They could have stopped after the first three songs and this album would still be on the list. “Where the Streets Have No Name”, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” and “With or Without You”
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 134
Fox has a special 2-hour episode of 24 on tonight so there is no new episode of House. The adventures of Drs House, Cuddy, Wilson, Foreman, Thirteen, Kutner & Taub will have to wait a another week.
House: “Lies are like children: they’re hard work, but it’s worth it because the future depends on them.”
So instead I’ll be watching Free Anime! Are you enjoying your Time of Eve? The first four of six 15 minute chapters or online now. Chapter 5 will be released next month.
Or maybe I’ll read some more of Bitter Truth by William Lasher. I’ve read a couple of books by him that center around a Philadelphia lawyer named Victor Carl and have enjoyed them, this book is a little stranger than most, but sometimes when a person has a way with words that you enjoy so you would read anything they wrote, even if it was a restaurant menu.
I know people who look at the stars and say the night sky makes them feel insignificant, but I don’t believe them when they say it. When I look at the stars I don’t shrink but grow, filled with the perverse certainty that the whole of the universe has been put here solely for my amusement and enlightenment. But face to face with the grinning mask of death I know the truth. I am a randomly formed strand of DNA no more significant than random strands of DNA that define the leaf of grass upon which I tread or the cow whose charred muscle I gnaw. I eat Chinese food and crap corn and sweat through my socks and stink and the same DNA that gave me this nose and this chin and my ten fingers and ten toes has also sentenced me to oblivion. It directs my arteries to clog themselves with calcified fat, it directs my liver to wither, my kidneys to weaken, my lungs to spew bits of itself with every cough. And in the face of this utter randomness and planned obsolescence I can’t even imagine mustering enough energy to get out of bed and to walk the streets, to dry clean my suits, to return my library books, to vote for judges whose names I can’t pronounce, to act my part as if any of it really matters.
Or what I should do is balance the MMC checkbook and produce the Treasurer’s Report for the Club meeting this Thursday…sigh.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 134
Way back in January I converted the PAL DVDs of all three series of William & Mary I had bought from across the pond to NTSC for watching here. Donna and I had already seen the first two series via Netflix, so we just watched Series 3 and put the box away.
Last week I asked my manager at work, who is actually from Jolly O’l England, if he was interested in seeing the show. He said yeah, he already had it in his Netflix queue, but why wait. I brought him the boxed set. Sunday was a cold and rainy day so he and his wife, lit a fire in the fireplace and settled in on the couch to watch the show. He popped in Disc 1 that contained the first three episodes and nothing happened, the DVD player just sat there. To say they were a bit disappointed was an understatement.
He brought me the discs back on Monday and told be it wouldn’t play. I said I was sorry, I reminded him I told him it might not work because I couldn’t get past the intro stuff on my Sony DVD player before it stopped and told me it was the wrong Region Code for that player. He said his was a Daewoo and that it would do anything.
I brought the discs home and tried the first in my DVD players, the JVC, the Sony, the PC, the laptop, nothing. The PCs didn’t say no disc, but didn’t show any VOB files or any files for that matter. I tried the second disc and it worked as expected in all four places.
Can you guess what the problem was? Yup, that’s right I had labeled the DVD,but neglected to actually burn the files to it. DOH!
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 134
My email to Geocities on Saturday, much to my surprise, generated a reply. They told me to call their Account Verification Department at 866–850-4303. After 5 minutes on hold I got a live one. The fellow who answered the phone was probably in India, but his English was excellent. To verify my status as web site owner the first question he asked me was my birthday, the very first question that the web site asked, and I told him I wasn’t sure.
I mean who doesn’t know their birthday right? Well, I know mine, but I don’t remember which one I used when I opened the account. I figured that one day I’d pass along the reigns of the web site to someone else and should use a date that means something to the bike club. The bike club was formed in 1980, so I thought I picked January 1, 1980. I was wrong.
When I guessed wrong the guy basically said that is as far as he could go and shipped me off to another department. More time on hold, but this time after 5 minutes I hung up. Somehow I’m figuring the whole birthday issue is going to be a problem.
I tried logging in again about a half dozen times trying various bicycling related terms as the password, I know the login: aikenbikeclub, but I have no recollection of what the password might be. after giving that up in frustration, I thought maybe I would try Plan B, I would report the ABC site for violated the Geocities Term of Service. After poking around a bit I managed to find the form for report this egregious violation. After filling out the form and hitting the submit button I ended up at a Page Not Found error page. Nice. I tried a couple more times with the same results.
Looks like I’m just going to have to change my home phone number…
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 135
 Idea stolen from ted is preposterous:
To Do This
1 — Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 — Go to “Random quotations“
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 — Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 — Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.
5 — The original number five was to post the album cover to Face Book and tag others, but I’m still just an anti-social blogger, so the buck stops here.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 138
I hope after 458 geocaches we are as good at finding them as we are Post Offices. The Beaufort and St. Helena Island POs were crossed off the list in short order, but neither of the caches I picked out in Beaufort for us to find were found. I know we found the correct spots from the descriptions and or titles, but locating the actual item we were looking for didn’t happen.
What kept us slightly above the 50% find rate today was a second look at finding the cache in Hopeland Gardens right in Aiken. This time, like the first attempt, we zeroed in on where the cache was and even though we both had ideas where it might be hidden and now knew exactly what the cache looked like (thanks to looking at the online comments) we still couldn’t locate it. That was until I decided to check the underside of a small birdhouse, the cache wasn’t there, but while leaning down to look I noticed that the hole didn’t actually go through the wood, it wasn’t a bird house, it was a cache house. The side panel was hinged. Ingenious.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 140
 The main reason for ferrying over to this small barrier island off the South Carolina coast was to take a picture of the Post Office, we also wanted to enjoy a place that the primary mode of transportation is a golf cart. There are cars & trucks on the island, but only the full time residents, of which there are only around 200, are allowed to keep one. We also wanted to try and find the one and only cache there, Life of Leisure. It is a micro, which we aren’t having too much luck with, but listed as “not at all hard to find.”
I’m sure we were right on it and with the clue given as eye level, it should have been easy, but we couldn’t find it. The location is right near the 18th fairway of one of the Daufuskie Island Resort’s golf courses, so we had to dodge golfers and balls. There was a dead tree right on the spot that looked like it was a woodpecker buffet line with lots of holes that a micro could have fit in, but I didn’t see one, nor did I find one hidden under all the chips. Dang.
We were now 0 for 3 on micro caches this trip with the two failure to finds in Beaufort yesterday. Not only didn’t we find this cache, but we didn’t find a full size one on Hilton Head that we tried before boarding the ferry. We suck at this. But we aren’t about to give this up yet, instead of being discouraged by the failures we are now more set in our resolve not to be defeated.
The round trip ferry ride is $23 a person and a 3 hour rental of a golf cart is $50, so we crammed quite a bit of traveling into our day. The boat arrived on the island at 11:00 AM and we covered a bunch of ground before heading back to the landing for lunch at the Old Daufuskie Crab company. After lunch with not much time left until our return trip, we decided to stay until the 5:15 ferry, if we could keep the golf cart. We I asked if it was alright if we kept it over the 3 hour limit the fellow told me usually they charge an additional twenty bucks, but he said don’t worry about it, just be back by 4:00 PM. I’m sure his answer would have been different had it been high season, but I thanked him and we set back out to poke around in some places we hadn’t been yet.
Most of the roads in the resorts and planned to be resorts were paved, but all of the internal main island roads are dirt. Donna, who is normally driving averse, actually loved driving the golf cart around the island because with traffic being almost non existent and with a top speed of 14 MPH down hill, piloting the cart is a blast. We will definitely be visiting again, may not be for another year, but a return trip is going to happen sometime. There are lots of little stories to tell, but my fingers are getting tired from typing, so maybe another time. The island is only 2.5 miles wide by 5 miles long, so just look up at the attached picture and note the green line, that is our track from the GPS and some of those routes we traveled more than once. We covered some ground.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 142
 We moved the clocks ahead last night, somehow apparently stealing an hour of my time. Unfortunately for both of us, the now missing time was blogging time, so you will have to hope that I can somehow squeeze in an extra post this week so you can read all about today’s events. And trust me when I say this, they were doozies.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143
The doctor that had been seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her.
As the young doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized she had a prescription for birth control pills.
“Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are BIRTH CONTROL pills?
“Yes, they help me sleep at night.”
“Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that could possibly help you sleep!”
She reached out and patted the young Doctor’s knee. “Yes, dear, I know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of orange juice that my 16 year old granddaughter drinks…and believe me, it helps me sleep at night.”
 Remember Photofunia? You know that Russian site where you uplaod yor photo and the site does some magic in the background and integrates that photo into a scene? Well here is another one for you, WriteOnIt. Their selection of images is not as diverse as Photofunia, but they do have a couple of other options that make it worth a peek — magazine covers and adding captions to some of there own photos.
 Via io9:
Cartoonist Chris Gine has decided that he’ll draw three new robots (with… stuff) each week for a year, giving you a glimpse into just how much variety there is in the robot world. He is up to sixteen with 149 to go. Bots with Stuff. My favorite so far: #11, a robot with a really cool jetpack, but no friends to show it to. Although the very first one, a robot with a delicious groundhog is a close second.
 Via Techdirt:
Sita Sings The Blues. Because the cost of obtaining the of copyrights on songs from the 1920’s, a weird mashup movie of that eras jazz vocals, the epic Indian tale of Ramayana and sumptuous animation couldn’t be released as a for profit movie, so instead, the filmmaker has decided to press 4,999 copies on DVD (just below a level to keep the royalty fees at the $50k she has already put up) and make promotional copies available for downloading from several web venues. These promotional copies are not subject to royalty fees or something. The filmmaker is going to rely on other ways of making money on the project instead of the whole find distributor Hollywood route, one of which is the “pay what you want” model by accepting donations. I’ve probably got a few details of this whole thing wrong, more info can be found on the filmmaker’s blog, Rogert Ebert’s blog and the films site. I’m downloading the torrent now and plan on kicking a few bucks Nina Paley’s way.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143
 We took advantage of the early summer weather today to ride the tandem into work under the full moon. It was so nice that there were only a couple places on the way to work that a jacket was required and on the way home it would have been perfect for not a 10–12 mile an hour headwind on a 1/4 of the journey. It may not be officially spring yet, but it is starting to look it, as the Bradford Pear trees are blooming. Tomorrow, for one day, it is going to feel like summer with a high in the upper 80’s before return to the more normal 60’s on Thursday.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143
Susie Lee done fell in love, she planned to marry Joe.
She was so happy ‘bout it all, she told her pappy so.
Pappy told her, Susie gal, you’ll have to find another.
I’d just as soon yo’ ma don’t know, but Joe is yo’ half brother.
So Susie put aside her Joe and planned to marry Will.
But after telling pappy this, he said, there’s trouble still.
You can’t marry Will, my gal, and please don’t tell yo’ mother,
but Will and Joe, and several more I know is yo’ half brothers.
But mama knew and said, my child, just do what makes yo’ happy.
Marry Will or marry Joe; you ain’t no kin to pappy.
(Kinda brings a tear to yer eye, don’t it?)
 It has been 1870 days (5 years, 1 month, 12 days) since taking the first Post Office picture of Summerall Station in Aiken to this one, the last, from Daufuskie Island last Saturday. In that time frame I have taken pictures of 453 Post Offices with the Emperor (or some portion of him) or his Mini-Me somewhere in the frame.
I started out with at least six more to do, those on the military bases in the state, but have decided that if I couldn’t get them all I wouldn’t do any of them. My out is that although the bases are physically located inside the state’s borders they really are on U.S. Government property. The two Marine Corp bases near Beaufort have no problem with visitors as long as they get a visitor’s pass. Fort Jackson in Columbia probably wouldn’t have been an issue either as it is a boot camp for the Army and they are used to visitors. The two Air Force bases are stricter and I would have needed to have been escorted on base by someone stationed there (only one of which I would have had someone to do that for me.) The Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek was going to be the deal breaker anyway. Just the name of the place doesn’t sound like the kind of place they let civilians wander about, with a camera no less. Plus they used to keep the nukes for the subs at the Charleston Navy Base before it closed down and for all I know they still house the ones the Air Force needs.
There is still a slight controversy as to whether to include the second Hampton PO. It looks for all the world like a backwoods county home with pickups out front and it has no outward indications of any postal activity, no blue box and no signage. All I have is one small photo I snapped from inside the car because Donna didn’t want me to get out. So when we got home from that trip I wrote to the Postmaster of that zip code. A couple weeks later I received a reply stating that it is a Community Post Office, but I’m still not so sure I should include it.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143
 On our little tour of Daufuskie Island there were several historic sites and a couple of art “galleries” that were highlighted for us to stop at.
When we left the General Store and Cart Rental place we started out following the recommended tour route. The first stop was a spot that held two historic places, an old church and an old school. Of course there were two other golf carts stopped there too, so we hung around until they left and instead of continuing on the “tour” we took the first left we could. From then on we almost never saw any of our ferry mates again. Hey we came here to get away from people.
We eventually rode on most of the tour route just backwards or coming at it sideways. There were a couple of historic cemeteries that we wanted to check out and in spite of traveling down the roads they were on, never did see any. We did find one of the artist galleries, The Iron Fish, and parked our golf cart under the tree in the side yard. It is a 100 year-old original island house that has a front porch that serves as the gallery and the front wall is covered with funky, yet appealing schools of metal fish. The are also metal crabs and mermaids mixed in. There was a note on the front door with purchase instructions: If you see something you like take it and slip your money under the door. For credit card purchases, leave a note saying what you bought and your phone number. A nice school of four small fish would be an awesome decoration on a living room or bed room wall, but at $85 per fish they were a bit rich for our blood.
As we got back into the cart to leave we both noticed several large metal squirrels stuck to the trunk of the tree and both of us went, “Coool.” I checked the price and they were $45 a piece and both of us went, “Naaah.” Just before turning the key to start the cart Donna said, “You sure?” I hesitated and then said, “Why not?” Chase, the artist, was in his backyard, so I walked over and gave him the cash. He offered to wrap it up, but we declined just sticking it in the bottom of our black travel bag.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143
I just can’t do books any other way than holding bound paper in my hands. I’ve tried audio books, fortunately I didn’t buy any, only to be disappointed, but I’ve sampled some free choices from the corners of the web (LibriVox, LearnOutLoud, etc.) and it is just not for me. I can barely pay attention sitting, listening in front of the PC, let alone try and listen while driving. Another reason is I haven’t found a voice I enjoy listening to.
A couple times in the last week my daily dose of SciFi site directed me to some free electronic books, one was Suvudu Free Book Library with pdf files that look like a scan of a book (other formats are available) and today’s site was Baen Free Library which has been around since 2002 and offers downloads in various formats including HTML. So far none of the formats I’ve tried have been comfortable to me. The second place offers books in a Microsoft Reader format, but I’m not sure I even want to install the software for it.
Guess I’m going to keep patronizing the local used book store…
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 144
 Taken just outside the restaurant the MMC was meeting at a couple of Thursdays ago. The frugal owners of the this dining establishment have taken to illuminating alternate words on their sign each night, tomorrow BUFFET will be lit and ASIAN will be dark.
OK, you got me, I just made that up. All the neon has probably leaked out of the bottom word or a transformer is bad or whatever.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 144
We made the trip east this morning for Breakfast With Laurie. For grins I decided to look for an easy geocache in Florence somewhere near the Cracker Barrel where we meet to maybe entertain us after eating Pecan Pancakes and Eggs in a Basket. Much to my surprise there was one real close, like so close it was actually at the Cracker Barrel. Q is for Quackers. How did I know? For one, its location on the map placed it right at the intersection of I-95 & US52 and secondly this phrase from the description: No rocking chairs were injured during the making of this cache. Looks like we wouldn’t even need the GPS for this one.
And it was a good thing we didn’t need it, as for some reason this morning I couldn’t download the data from the web site to the unit. I tried from both geocaching.com and the Garmin site with no luck. I tested the plugin and it said it was fine. I rebooted the PC. I turned off the GPS a couple of times and it still didn’t work. When we got home from breakfast I finally got it to work by reinstalling the firmware on the Venture HC.
About 4 miles east of the thriving metropolis of Salley, SC the Emperor crossed the 89k miles in service mark.
Oh, yeah, about that cache, we found it no problem. Thanks to the clue — Let this not wash you up for the day, the description of the cache — You are looking for a black magnetic key holder and the logs — I had to get over my shyness about sticking my butt up in the air. It was under an old timely washing bucket with a mechanical wringer in between two rocking chairs on the porch of the restaurant.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 144
 I spent most of the evening erasing all traces of Ubuntu Linux off the laptop (I never did get the wireless card to work) and reinstalling XP. Then coincidentally I had trouble getting the wireless to work under Windows as well. But that was just a security issue and semi-easily solved. This left little or no time and motivation to blog, so here, enjoy a sunrise from our HHI weekend a couple weeks ago.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 144
 I have been hunting Mr. Pace on ebay for the longest time, but my $15 was never enough. In frustration I went hog wild and upped the limit by a buck and a half — we have a winner.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 145
WTF? The SciFi Channel is changing its name to SyFy. I’s must be out and Y’s are now the it vowel. I guess I’ll change the name of this place to “Lyfe of Bryan.” (looks vaguely Gaelic)
And because TDTVS is about to come on, in leiu of me writting something, Some scifi goodness from around the web:
Via io9 — Alien vs. Predator Game night — the chess game image is my new wallpaper.
Via Vimeo — Building the LEGO Millennium Falcon — sometimes obsession and too much time on your hands can be a good thing.
Via Trek core — Genuine Tribbles — literally “As Seen On TV”, these babies appeared on an episode of Deep Space 9.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 145
Our laundry room is in the garage and every time you go in or out during the night time you have to reach up and away to pull down on a chain to get the light on. After almost 20 years, my patience has worn thin and felt it was time to get a light that would turn on by itself.
We went to Lowe’s over the weekend and searched and searched and they had all manner of “on at dusk, off at dawn” devices and plenty of outdoor spotlight motion sensing lights, but no indoor types. I was just looking for something I know I’ve seen somewhere, one side screws into a socket and the bulb screws into the other side, but no dice.
When I was complaining about my inability to find this motion sensing light socket thingie to my cubical neighbor Jim on Monday he said he was in Home Depot on Sunday and had seen just what I was describing. On Tuesday Donna and I made the short trip to HD and looked all up and down their lighting section…twice…and couldn’t find anything.
Beginning to doubt the existence of such a fixture, when we got home I searched the interweb and found several places that sold them for around twenty bucks. I saved a link to place and contemplated whether or not I wanted to pay $7 to ship it.
This morning my cube neighbor said he was in Home Depot again yesterday buying some rabbit fencing to keep the hungry from his garden, saw the motion sensor fixture again and thought of me. I told him I had searched high and low and couldn’t find it. He offered to buy one for me, but I said if it was in the store, I’d find it myself. He told me it was not where I first looked, but over by the junction boxes and light switches.
Tonight Donna and I made a return trip to get one of these elusive objects. We looked up and down the aisle Jim described and didn’t see anything. We expanded our search parameters buy going slowly up and down the aisles on either side…twice…and still so no such thing.
I broke down and asked. The customer service rep behind the counter said they were at the end of aisle 4 on the right. Shazam! There they were.
First thing I did when we got home was unscrew the bulb, screw it into the motion sensor base and screw the whole thing into the wall socket. Pulled the chain to turn on the electricity, waved my hand wildly in front of the sensor and was rewarded by nothing. Crap. Unscrewed the bulb from the base, the base from the wall and put the bulb back in and it lit up pretty as could be.
All that effort and the thing doesn’t work. Now, it means a return trip to the store. Should I chance it on another cheap unit or just get my money back and just keep yanking the chain? I tried it a second time with little hope of any change and for whatever reason, it worked.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 147
We rode the tandem in to work today, and with Wednesday’s trip on it as well, this is the first time we have commuted by bike twice in one week in a looong time.
That bike ride was the highlight of my day. I managed to only finish half of the front brake job I had planned for the Emperor this afternoon. The left front went fairly easy. I say fairly because after 6–1/2 years and nearly 90,000 miles the brake rotor and wheel hub become very fast friends. The folks who make cars know this and they put a nice threaded hole through the disc so you can separate them by cranking down on a bolt screwed in there. But, it takes a scary lot of torque on that bolt before you hear that satisfying pop when the two pieces of metal finally separate. Also one of the caliper slider pins took a bit of coaxing to go back in because with the lube spread on it, the little noise abating rubber sleeve tended to slide out of it’s groove, preventing the pin from fitting in the hole.
On the driver’s side I got the pads off, pulled the caliper and then the bracket off, the second rotor came off easier than first, but then I hit a snag. The top caliper pin was frozen solid in the bracket with corrosion. I sprayed some penetrating fluid on it. Cleaned and lubed the other pin while I waited for the magic. I hammered on the pin and tried backing it out with a 17mm wrench with as much force as I felt comfortable with to no avail. I might have upped the force level by 50% or more, but I didn’t want to break the pin or bracket because we are a one car family and I needed to at least be able to put the car back together and have it operational.
Calls to the Augusta Mazda place, a Miata.net sponsor dealer and Advanced Auto asking about a replacement caliper netted me quotes of from “Can’t Get It” to $185 and we can order it. I then tried the Mazda dealer in Columbia where they still have to order it, but they will sell me just the bracket and pin for less than half the other guys wanted for a re-manufactured caliper and bracket.
I reinstalled the old parts back on the right side and took a drive around the neighborhood to set in the new stuff on the left. The car stops fine, but there is about 4″ more pedal travel. I’m attributing this to the increased travel the left caliper needs to make up for the nearly worn out pads on that side. Still I’ll be taking it easy though until I can get the new bracket and pin on Tuesday.
If that wasn’t bad enough, the motion sensing light quit working again. 
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 147
 For the second month in a row we combined the MMC breakfast event and some geocaching. We ate at a place that Donna and I have driven by hundreds of times since living here, but never ever thought to go in, the Hard Hat Cafe which sits on the hill going west out of Graniteville, SC. It is the sort of place that is just where one should eat breakfast and is what the originator of this idea for the club had in mind — Mom & Pop places with bottomless coffee for less than a buck (it was good too.) This one was a little different in that not only could you order off the menu, but they had a buffet and that is where the nine of us ate from.
After chow when everyone went their separate ways Donna and I went back down into downtown Graniteville to hopefully find a puzzle geocache — “Milling” Around Town which is sort of like the one we didn’t get in Waynesboro last month.
This one had 6 stages and at each one you had to read a sign or count something that gave a number that needed to be plugged into a spot in the coordinates for finding the next stage. We misinterpreted the very first clue, but didn’t find out until the very end because we had the instructions and are familiar enough with the town to know all the landmarks that the stages ended at. We got to stage 5 (pictured above) and solved the math problem giving us the last numbers for the coordinates, they turned out to tell us that the spot where the actual cache was 1.9 miles to the west. All the other clues were within a 1/4 mile of each other, so that just had to be wrong.
As we walked back to the car Donna was reading all the log notes that I printed out and noticed that someone a couple months back had missed the same clue as we did and sort of gave us the answer. Amazing how if you figure wrong on a clue and then reuse that clue in the addition or subtraction math of another clue, the check sum still comes out correct even when your numbers are off…
After refiguring out the math using this new information we were less than a quarter of a mile away, much better. When we got to the final coordinates, it was intimately familiar, we were just there. We walked around awhile looking for the described 6″ long cylindrical cache in frustration, then as we sat on a bench deciding whether to give up this whole geocaching thing entirely, I noticed in the bush behind us a green tube. Eureka!
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 149
 There are 5 geocaches inside the boundary of Hitchcock Woods and we had found only one of them so far. Today we thought we might try and get the remaining four. That goal took a severe hit when we couldn’t find the first one we came to — Cuthbert Cache. It is shown as a regular sized cache, meaning we were looking for something the size of a box of Kleenex at least, and the clue limited the search zone to between the trail and a stream, but we couldn’t find it. We moved on vowing to give it another shot on the way out of the woods.
Next objective was Hitchcock’s Mystery which was the one we were 1/4 mile away from once before, but it was 1/4 mile of swamp called Barton’s Pond. Ahhh, an ammo can, we are good with these and because the bushes are still somewhat barren of leaves this was a halfway easy spot for Donna. We left behind the small rubber chicken travel bug we found in yesterday’s Graniteville cache and took out a Blue’s Clues coin purse.
From here we headed over to The Cliffs of Cache.* But now that we were, where we were, getting there, was going to be a long walk because of that pesky Barton Pond again. This time we had already decided to make the long walk, so off we went. We came at this cache from the correct direction according to the clue given, but couldn’t find it. We then figured that when it said approach from the left, they must have meant our other “left”, so we tried from the other side of the cliffs. Followed the GPS to right back where we were the first time and found the cache. TNLNSL.
*This cache was made famous when 2 college kids from USCA were hunting for it one day several years back. They found bones of a body instead. A mystery was solved that day and a family now knows answers.
Next up furtim unus meaning “The Stealthy One.” This one was different from all the others in the woods because it was off the trail a bit, about 100′ into an area that was sparsely treed with pines. We almost gave up on this one, but I spotted after walking in a big circle and getting a different angle on it. This one had another travel bug in it, a green beanie baby bear, so we took it and left behind that coin purse from 2 caches back.
That left our one miss of the day for the walk out. We came at it coming from the opposite direction and the GPS said I was right on it again, but I was 40 feet further up the trail this time. The find zone was even slightly narrower, because the trail and the stream were closer together, but it didn’t help, we came away empty handed. Maybe next time.
According to the GPS that green loop you see above is 6.1 miles long and we spent a little over three hours in the woods. Partly because we were in there so long and partly because it was a glorious spring day we crossed paths with the most people ever, 20 or so horseback riders and and a little more than half that many people walking their dogs.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 149
It was autumn, and the Indians asked their New Chief if the winter was going to be cold or mild. Since he was an Indian Chief in a modern society, he couldn’t tell what the weather was going to be.
Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he replied to his Tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village should collect wood to be prepared.
But also being a practical leader, after several days he got an idea. He went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and asked, “Is the coming winter going to be cold?”
“It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold indeed,” the weather man responded.
So the Chief went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood. A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. “Is it going to be a very cold winter?”
“Yes,” the man at National Weather Service again replied, “It’s definitely going to be a very cold winter.”
The Chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect every scrap of wood they could find. Two weeks later, he called the National Weather Service again. “Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?”
“Absolutely,” The man replied. “It’s going to be one of the coldest winters ever.”
“How can you be so sure?” the Chief asked.
The weatherman replied, “The Indians are collecting wood like crazy.”
This is how the Stock Market works!
Muldoon lived alone in the Irish countryside with only a pet dog for company. One day the dog died, and Muldoon went to the parish priest and asked, “Father, my dog is dead. Could ya’ be saying’ a mass for the poor creature?”
Father Patrick replied, “I’m afraid not; we cannot have services for an animal in the church. But there are some Baptists down the lane, and there’s no tellin’ what they believe. Maybe they’ll do something for the creature.”
Muldoon said, “I’ll go right away Father. Do ya ‘think $5,000 is enough to donate to them for the service?”
Father Patrick exclaimed, “Sweet Mary, Mother of Jesus! Why didn’t ya tell me the dog was Catholic?”
A married Irishman went into the confessional and said to his priest, “I almost had an affair with another woman.”
The priest said, “What do you mean, almost?”
The Irishman said, “Well, we got undressed and rubbed together, but then I stopped.”
The priest said, “Rubbing together is the same as putting it in. You’re not to see that woman again. For your penance, say five Hail Mary’s and put $50 in the poor box.”
The Irishman left the confessional, said his prayers, and then walked over to the poor box. He paused for a moment and then started to leave.
The priest, who was watching, quickly ran over to him saying, “I saw that. You didn’t put any money in the poor box!”
The Irishman replied, “Yeah, but I rubbed the $50 on the box, and according to you, that’s the same as putting it in!”
 My previous digital camera used to annoy me by always forgetting my settings. Because I usually favor one way of shooting, every time I turned it on I would have to change the same series of settings to my liking. My current camera remembers everything and starts up right where I left off. Even the zoom if I want.
The last photos I took were last Tuesday of Charlie Pace while monkeying around on the floor indoors. I had the white balance set for incandescent and the exposure set 1–1/2 f-stops open so I could turn off the flash. The ever helpful Panasonic TZ3 started right up that way Saturday in Hitchcock Woods which is why the dozen or so photos I took of trail name signs look like the one above, washed out and kind of blue. I thought the image in the LCD screen looked a little off while snapping away, but chalked that up to the very bright sun I was in.
Now I’m kind of wishing this one would forget sometimes.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 151
..and I’m ready.
Although technically I’m not eliminated from the office March Madness contest (to win it #1 seed Louisville has to lose to #12 seed Arizona and my other remaining 14 picks have to be correct), I am ready for the tourney to be over and get to the start of the baseball season. Right now I’m listening to a pre-season baseball game between the Sox and the Yanks (it’s tied 1–1 in the 8th) and it is going to be great to have something to listen to each evening.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 151
…for baseball season. At least the FRS may not be. Last night I posted that they were tied with the MFY 1 to 1 in the 8th inning, well in the bottom of the inning the Yankees scored 6 runs, unearned runs mind you, to win the game 7–1.
I am ready for tonight’s episode of TDTVS.
I am also ready to get the brakes fixed, but that ain’t happening until at least Friday night now. The parts got to the dealer on Tuesday, but I decided I didn’t want to deal with driving 60 miles with the last 8–10 in hectic capital city traffic, so I had them ship the stuff to me. Parts arrived today and wouldn’t you know it, they were the wrong ones. I called the part’s guy back and he said, “Oh yeah, there are two kinds of brakes for your year car, you must have the hard suspension. I’ll get the right parts and ship them right to you and they should get there Friday.”
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 152
Tonight’s Final Jeopardy category is “16th Century Thinkers” and I think the odds are pretty good the answer question will also be the name of a character on TDTVS.*
The title of last night’s LOST episode was ” He’s Our You” which is how Saywer described to Sayid who they were bringing him to, the Dharma Initiative’s very own “torturer”, a fellow named Oldham. Both Donna and I felt he looked eerily familiar. My initial thought was Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, but knew that wasn’t even remotely possible.
It wasn’t until I read something today that gave it away — “Hi, I’m Larry, this is my brother Daryl and this is my other brother Daryl.” That’s right, William Sanderson. Probably what really kicked him from the depths of my addled brain to near remembrance was that he played a character named J.F.Sebastian in Bladerunner and he seemed to be wearing the eyeglasses of anothe Bladerunner character, Edlon Tyrell.
*It wasn’t, it was Martin Luther.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 154
The correct parts for the Emperor’s brakes arrived at work this morning and within an hour and a half after getting home, major stopping power was returned. The first time I stepped on the pedal during a circuit of the block for testing, it was eerily reminiscent of the first time I drove a car with power brakes, an unexpected demonstration of Newton’s First Law of Motion.
More madcap ways to place a photo of you inside different images — Fun Box Photo.
My favorite:
Although this one is more appropriate because the photo I used is from my 1978 passport:
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 156
More Fun Box Photo
Who Is The Iron Man?
Morning Paper
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 157
 Where yesterday was gray and rainy, today was blue and sunny. If it weren’t for a very stiff breeze it would have been a picture perfect spring day. Where yesterday we spent much of it indoors, today was spent mostly outdoors.
We had a 5 for 5 day geocaching. Last Saturday in Graniteville we picked up a Travel Bug who’s goal was to travel to state parks (why it got to Graniteville is a mystery) and we planned on dropping it in the Aiken State Natural Area. After reading the logs for that cache, Donna and I agreed there was a low probability of us finding it. It also wasn’t a high traffic cache, so it might be a while before it got picked up again.
A change of plans resulted in our deciding to go to Barnwell State Park instead. The park itself is closer to Blackville than Barnewll, so I found a couple easy caches in and around that town to give us some other things to hunt. There was even a Virtual Cache that was so easy that you didn’t even need a GPS — The Healing Springs.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 158
 Every spring the lawnmower doesn’t start. Every year we buy a $2.50 spark plug and that fixes it. This year it didn’t.
In our continuing effort to drag America’s economy out of its doldrums, we bought a new lawnmower. And once again proved that on a sunny day a Miata is as good as a pickup truck.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 160
I’m stealing this sort of from Joe Posnanski’s blog. I’ll change the wording up a bit to shorten it and remove the baseball content.
You are a contestant on “Let’s Make A Deal.” OK, so, there are three curtains. Behind one is new car and behind the other two are goats.
You choose your curtain — for simplicity, we’ll say that you choose what’s behind Curtain No. 1. And Monty goes, “Well, before we see what’s behind your curtain, let’s show you what’s behind Curtain No. 3!” They pull back the curtain and there is a goat grazing on a square of sod held on a leash by a model.
Now, Monty gives you an option. He says that you can stay with Curtain No. 1 or switch to Curtain No. 2.
So what do you do?
A: Stick with Curtain No. 1.
B: Switch to Curtain No. 2
C: It doesn’t matter because there is an equal chance the prize is behind either curtain.
The correct answer is B. You ALWAYS switch. If you switch, you are twice as likely to get the big prize.
I thought C, there are two curtains, one has the prize, so you have a 50–50 shot. I read his original post, and the next day’s about it, and still couldn’t see my way to believe that switching doubled the odds. Then I got to reading the comments on the second post and somewhere in the101 of them that there, are I became a believer.
If you remain unconvinced that B is the right answer, go read for your self — A Brilliant Reader Question.
If you are a smarty pants know-it-all, what the heck are you doing here reading my blog?
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 160
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