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’.
This morning we did get to the WNC Nature Center and it was interesting destination. I’m sure they are doing good work, but it came off as more of a minor league zoo and is mostly aimed at kids. We left Edward Scissorhands (Allen) at the town home so he could prune, trim and shape the landscaping, while Diane, Donna and I took a pleasant drive north to Asheville and then to the east side of town via the Blueridge Parkway.
There were three caches within a 1/4 mile of the nature center, so after we had our fill of wild animals in captivity, we went out looking for captive containers in the wild. The first one was spotted by Donna as it hovered right over my head in a tree I was standing near. The second one we only gave a half hearted attempt at because it was supposed to be at the edge of a small stream in a small park, but to get to it you had to fight through a large patch of plants with large thorns on them. The third was near a soccer field in the same park, but there was a broom less game of Quidditch taking place, so we didn’t even leave the car.
Lunch was back in Hendersonville at West First wood fired pizza. After eating lunch we went back to the Stricker Mountain Home and packed our bags. We were vacating the place so Allen’s sister and her husband from Charlotte could spend Saturday night in the guest room.
We are back home and while it was fun to see their new place and visit with my sister and Allen, there is no place like home.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 315
Mazda announced its 20th Anniversary Edition of the Miata the other day. Well, actually it is the 20th Anniversary Edition of the Roadster (what the car is called in Japan) because it is only for the home market, not for the US or anywhere else. All it really amounts to is a special white paint, two-tone red & black leather seats and some badges.
I was hoping for a repeat of the 10th Anniversary Edition, a worldwide limited production run of 7500 with a really cool blue with a bunch of special options, a scale model and some other stuff. If it had come in that blue I might have gotten Donna to let me shorten that 484 day countdown some.
Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 319
About a month and a half ago I wrote about a new Star Trek porn parody and how if you looked you could get practically any TV show from any era done in the same way. Now I’m a big Star Trek fan and was slightly tempted to see if I could find a way to download it out of curiosity, but come September I may not be able to resist this one. There is a release from a company called New Sensations that looks mighty intriguing — The X Files: A Dark Parody (announcement on a page that is NSFW or homes with small children.) Never really wanted to Uhura and Spock get it on, but Scully & Mulder, that was a different story, they were the ultimate long tease.
Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 322
Let’s talk porn, in honor of my two recent posts on the subject thanks to io9, the scifi (not syfy) site I read every day. They are part of network of sites that cover various subjects, one of which is about the biggest money maker on the net, porn. So every time there is anything remotely about science fiction over on Fleshbot it gets cross posted on io9.
At my age pornography has lost a lot of its luster. Notice I didn’t say all of it, I’m not above checking out some of the posts on Fleshbot when io9 links them, but I don’t have the site bookmarked or anything. There is nothing like that first thrill of finding your dad’s Playboy at 12 or several years later a friend discovers some black and white 8mm stag films in his basemen. When I was in the Navy there was a co-worker who knew where you could get XXX on VHS. On Saturdays I would carry my VCR over to his house and we would both make a copy a movie. He was trying to amass a collection, I was just using the same tape and copying over last weeks movie.
It was the last six months in the Navy that removed most of the luster off of porn for me. My final duty station was aboard the U.S.S. Iwo Jima as an E6, or Petty Officer First Class. We had a 1st Class Mess, which was basically a small room on the Mess Deck, where we could eat our meals, take a coffee/smoke break or just spend our downtime reading or playing Acey Duecy. There was a TV mounted in high up in one corner of the room, so we could watch Armed Forces TV. The TV also had a VCR attached so we could watch movies. There was a selection of current releases if you were interested, but by far the largest collection of tapes were of the XXX variety.
Who ever the guy was that was in charge of movies really liked the hard core stuff. Every, and any, time you went into the mess that corner of the room was filled with incessant moaning and close ups of genitalia. Try to eat eggs over easy and sausage links at 5 AM or hot dogs at lunch with that going on in the background, it sort of takes the pleasure out of both activities…
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 323
Saturday morning I got up early, quietly dressed, made my lunch, grabbed the dog, and slipped quietly into the garage. I hooked up the boat up to the truck, and proceeded to back out into a torrential downpour. The wind was blowing 50 mph, so I pulled back into the garage, turned on the radio, and discovered that the weather would be bad all day.
I went back into the house, quietly undressed, and slipped back into bed. I cuddled up to my wife’s back, now with a different anticipation, and whispered, “The weather out there is terrible.”
My loving wife of 10 years replied, “Can you believe my stupid husband is out fishing in that?”
After retiring, I went to the Social Security office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind the counter asked me for my driver’s license to verify my age… I looked in my pockets and realized I had left my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later.
The woman said, “Unbutton your shirt.” So I opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She said, “That silver hair on your chest is proof enough for me.” She processed my Social Security application.
When I got home, I excitedly told my wife about my experience at the Social Security office.
She said, “You should have dropped your pants. You might have gotten disability, too.”
My wife and I were sitting at a table at my high school reunion, and I kept staring at a drunken lady swigging her drink as she sat alone at a nearby table.
My wife asked, “Do you know her?”
“Yes,” I sighed, “She’s my old girlfriend. I understand she took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear she hasn’t been sober since.”
“My God!” says my wife, “who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?”
At the MMC monthly meeting tonight everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Most of the time was spent on future event planning, where we hammered out the details for the next couple of month’s. Like what restaurant we would be holding the next 2 meetings at and where we would meet for the monthly breakfast. Then something odd happened, one member had the audacity to suggest a car related event…
When I got home from the meeting I turned on the ballgame and the FRS were beating the MFY 3 to 1 after 3–1/2 innings. The Yankees then scored 8 runs in the bottom of the 4th inning and it has been downhill every since. I wonder if it is too early to call in sick for tomorrow?
Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 324
Now that Hats Off To Caching in SC is in the field, and found, it is time to think about hiding another. My new favorite caching inspiration, Renzo Tobias, has second puzzle for a mystery cache on his site that I think I might imitate called Grocery List. He used it on a cache called Food Glorious Food and it has a way of checking if your coordinates are correct, so this way we would know if the answers we come up with are right and then we can build our own version.
As usual when we went through the questions, I got some right off, Donna got some quickly and we struggled over a couple. Tonight we did our weekly grocery shopping and as well as picking up the stuff we needed, we shopped for the items we solved for on Renzo’s grocery list to find out what number the given ingredient was, so we could solve the puzzle.
Kroger didn’t carry our answer to clue ‘C’: Not a cracker nor will it help change a tire. But a visit to the Cracker Jack’s web site told me that soy lecithin was ingredient number 9.
Clue ‘H’ reads: Curiously the red, blue, and yellow spots make us hand over extra dough? Kroger also doesn’t stock Wonder Bread, so if you are out shopping and your local store carries WB leave the ingredient number niacin is in the comments.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 326
Donna has had her eye on a caching series called Color Code for awhile that is in North Augusta. It is a group of nine micro sized containers, each having a cute title that includes a color name. On the first page of the log of each of them is a word you need to write down. When you find all of the caches those words are used to help you locate a large mystery cache somewhere else in the city.
What started this morning as a simple trip to Georgia to buy a Mega Millions lottery ticket turned into a 4 hour, 100 mile cache-a-thon. It might have been shorter in both time and distance had we planned to do the whole thing, because we would have mapped them out, but it all started as, “Let’s try one or two of these and see how we do.” Then went to, “Hey, that was fun, let’s do another.” To, “Keep going.” To, “Let’s just finish these nine and do the final one another day.” All the way to, “It is only a two mile walk.”
The micro series and the bonus cache gave us ten for the day and it was time past time to go get some lunch, so we started back towards the car. Part way there I serendipitously looked down at the GPSr. Yikes! There’s a little treasure chest looking thing right on the screen near here. Fired up the PDA, read the description, peeked at the clue and proceeded to look about. Found it.
In a totally unrelated note, Big Papi clears the air (in his head) by holding press conference today in New York to explain about his testing positive for steroids in 2003. His answer stuns the world, “I don’t know how it happened.” Mr. Clean swears he didn’t take any steroids, but he might not have been too careful about the supplements he was taking. His teammates, in a stunning show of support, go out and are nearly no-hit against the Yankees. They end up with a whopping total of 4 singles and lose the game 5–0, dropping 5–1/2 games behind the MFY in the AL East.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 327
I received a couple of emails this evening that they are disabling a couple of my geocaches in Hitchcock Woods. I’m not the only one either, there were two other caches that got the same treatment.
The email cited a Hitchcock Woods Foundation rule that there only be three caches in the Woods. At the Aiken Horse Show this past spring I spoke to the Woods Superintendent and he knew of the rule. When I told him that there were already six or seven in place, he shrugged and said he didn’t mind and felt that there could even be more. He wants the woods to be used and geocaching was a good use. His only concern was that when they do controlled burns some caches could get ruined in the process. With out a direct denial that I couldn’t place any more caches in the Woods, I took that as permission to go ahead and do it, but don’t blame him if they got torched.
Cool I thought, as Captain Barbossa said, “The code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”
Well, as it turns out in this case, the rules were just that, rules.
I’m saddened by this development because there are 2,000 acres of forest with plenty of room for more than just 3 caches, but the Woods are the property of the Hitchcock Foundation and they have the right to set rules and limits on the use of their land.
By my count there are currently eleven caches in the woods (my four, plus seven more.) So far there have only been 4 disabled (2 of mine), I hope this is done fairly, so four more are disabled, leaving only three. And the three that stay should be the 3 oldest, even though this means all 4 of the caches I’ve placed have to come out.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 328
A man and his wife were awakened at 3:00 am by a loud pounding on the door. The man gets up and goes to the door where a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, is asking for a push.
“Not a chance,” says the husband, “it is 3:00 in the morning!” He slams the door and returns to bed.
“Who was that?” asked his wife.
“Just some drunk guy asking for a push,” he answers.
“Did you help him?” she asks.
“No, I did not, it is 3:00 in the morning and it is pouring rain out there!”
“Well, you have a short memory,” says his wife. “Can“t you remember about three months ago when we broke down, and those two guys helped us? I think you should help him, and you should be ashamed of yourself!”
The man does as he is told, gets dressed, and goes out into the pounding rain.
He calls out into the dark, “Hello, are you still there?”
“Yes,” comes back the answer.
“Do you still need a push?” calls out the husband.
We re-watched the second X-Files movie (I Want To Believe) the other day. We went to see it in the theaters last July when it came out and in spite of a few flaws thought it was pretty good. With our poor showing in finishing recent Netflix selections I bumped this to the top of the queue. Well, on second watching, the few flaws seemed to have multiplied.
In preparation for the third season of TDTV2 this coming Sunday, this past Sunday we started to re-watch season 2 of Mad Men. after about 4 episodes we agreed that it seemed to be moving too slow. It wasn’t bad by any means, but we didn’t feel compelled to watch the rest of the season’s episodes. Hopefully the new season will rekindle the love.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 332
This last Sunday we went out via bicycle and went caching. We scored 3 for 5. The last one we did was a multi with three stages. Stage 1 was a small magnetic container with the coords inside. I missed it when I first looked, but she spotted it right away and pulled it out so I could enter to coordinates for the next stage in the GPSr. When Donna went to put it back, she realized the magnet had separated from the plastic container and had stayed attached where it was.
Our first thought was to just take it with us, then when we got home I’d epoxy the magnet back on and bring it back later in the evening, so I put it in Donna’s handlebar bag. Stage two coordinates led us to a section of split rail fence so we looked between all the rails and all along the ground near the posts with no success, I backed up about 50′ and made another run at GZ. This time I was about a dozen feet away from the first spot. We looked and looked everywhere, just as we were about to DNF it I reached under something and feeling nothing, I looked under there and AHA! there it was.
On the way to stage 3 we passed by a small pond where we had been warned to watch out for reptile activity. Didn’t see any snakes, but we did see a large spaniel prance across one section of the pond to get away from us. The GPSR pointed into a small patch of woods and Donna ducked in to look. In short order she called, “I got it.” It was a small camoed Lock ‘n’ Lock that for some reason was very wet inside. Our sharpie still managed to let us sign the log book as found, but when we got home we would have to let the cache owner know this one needed some looking after. Seeing as that was the case, the cache owner was going to have to do maintenance on this stage too, we just put the dysfunctional stage 1 container in the Lock ‘n’ Lock making one neat package.
When we got home I logged the find and then created a separate “Needs Maintenance” log. Later that night I noticed the CO had posted that they had just had surgery and would get to it as soon as they could. On Monday I emailed the cache owner and offered to fix the cache. We pass right by that park on our way to and from work everyday, so it wouldn’t be a problem. She gave the OK.
On the way home from work there were plenty of muggles about, so we just drove on by. Tuesday morning on the way in we grabbed it. It is our week to start work early, so it was a little after six and still dark went I popped in to the woods with a flashlight and retrieved the cache.
We wiped the inside of the Lock ‘n’ Lock dry and spread the contents out on a towel in the spare bedroom/recovery ward. We replaced the plastic bag the log was in and then the other one that was for the schwag. When I had the epoxy out to fix the Stage 1 container I also repaired a small rose pin that had come separated from its backing. The lettering on the piece of paper explaining geocaching and what it was people were holding in their hands was gone and the tape was peeling off. I’ll make up another one tomorrow at work and laminate it for some more permanence.
We will put everything back in its place early Saturday morning.
Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 336
Saturday late afternoon a thunderstorm rolled through town. It rained hard for almost an hour before we heard one clap of thunder off in the distance. A minute later while we were in the middle of watching Disc 2 of Season 6 of West Wing the flash and the clap happened nearly instantaneously. The power to the house blinked off quickly, but came back on before any of the digital clocks lost what time it was (except for one which jumped ahead 1 hour exactly.)
The surround receiver was making a steady loud popping sound and the TV would not come back on. Both items were plugged into a surge protector that is for the whole entertainment system. So, one gargantuan tube TV gone and one surround sound receiver toast. Neither of the DVD players were hurt.
Inventoried the rest of the electrical stuff through out the house and came up with a few more items that were wiped out by the EMP. Phone/answering machine was gone, but the plain old still worked. The sprinkler control box, which was wounded in a similar incident in 2002 was now flashing No Power. I checked the transformer and it was putting out the proper voltage, so I figured crispy chip or something.
The severest blow was to the cable modem, horrors, no internet. It was no big deal while the cable was delivering noting but snow to the 13″ TV in the back room. By the time the cable came back and it was confirmed that the modem really was dead, it was too late to buy a replacement. Then the South Carolina blue laws prevented us from buying a replacement until after 1:30 PM. By the time we were back up and running it was almost 22 hours without. How did we live BI (before internet.)
Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 341
Tried to print something this evening and my free for buying a laptop Dell 720 printer wouldn’t print. Wouldn’t turn on. Zippo. I measured the output voltage at the terminals of the transformer, it is supposed to be 30VDC, it read zero.
I can take a chance on some fly by night outfit and buy a new power cord/transformer for around ten bucks with shipping or I could just go ahead and buy a new printer. There is a dealer on Amazon that is selling the same Dell 720, new, for just $39 including shipping.
Or I could get something else in the $50–60 range, but what? Our printing needs are minimal, an occasional receipt for an internet purchase and the Miata Club Treasurer’s Report once a month. Color is not required at all. Anything fancy I do it at work where I have access to everything from a letter sized color laser to a 36 x 48 ink jet plotter…
Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 344
We were up early this morning to ride the tandem to work, but as we started down the drive way something was wrong. The back tire was flat. Seeing as this ride was optional, we just parked the bike and Plan B was implemented, drive the car. Because we were early instead of finishing breakfast and heading right to the Bogardusmobile there was some time for TV watching.
During a break in Sportcenter I surfed the channels until I stumbled on VH1 playing an old Beatles tune, “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Wow, VH1 is back to playing music. They, like their big brother station MTV, seemed to have abandoned playing music videos in favor of other crap, including “reality” shows, nice to see them back to music videos again.
Wait a minute, that’s not the real John, Paul, George & Ringo, its a computer generated facsimile. Turns out it is a video-slash-commercial for something called Rock Band, which as best I can figure is a cross between karaoke, air guitar, your TV and an expensive gaming console. So much for back to reality.
Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 347
Fotoscsketcher is a free windows software program that will turn your photos into a painting or pencil sketches with little effort. It can even put a nice little frame around it. So while we are on the subject of the Beatles…
Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 349
An 80-year-old man went to the doctor for a check-up and the doctor was amazed at what good shape the guy was in. The doctor asked, “To what do you attribute your good health?”
The old timer said, “I’m a turkey hunter and that’s why I’m in such good shape. I’m up well before daylight and out chasing turkeys up and down the mountains.”
The doctor said, “Well, I’m sure that helps, but there’s got to be more to it. How old was your dad when he died?”
The old timer said, “Who said my dad’s dead?”
The doctor said, “You mean you’re 80 years old and your dad’s still alive? How old is he?”
The old timer said, “He’s 100 years old and, in fact, he hunted turkey with me this morning, and that’s why he’s still alive…he’s a turkey hunter.”
The doctor said, “Well, that’s great, but I’m sure there’s more to it. How about your dad’s dad? How old was he when he died?”
The old timer said, “Who said my grandpa’s dead?”
The doctor said, “You mean you’re 80 years old and your grandfather’s still living! How old is he?”
The old timer said, “He’s 118 years old.”
The doctor was getting frustrated at this point and said,“I guess he went turkey hunting with you this morning too?”
The old timer said, “No… Grandpa couldn’t go this morning because he got married.”
The Doctor said in amazement, “Got married! Why would a 118-year-old guy want to get married?”
I have the domain mr-miata.net registered through Yahoo Domains. I signed up with them 3 years ago and the price was $9.95 a year. Well, it is time to renew, and I got an email the other day telling me I would be automatically renewed at their new price of $39.95 a year! That is way too much and I figured I would shop around for another domain register. Trouble with that plan is I misread the auto renewal date as 8/31, when it really said 8/21, i.e. today. Too late.
I have been struggling with producing content for this place the last couple of weeks and had even considering taking a break from blogging, but now that I’m forty bucks into it, I’m going to keep at it even if the content is crap (and after all, what else were you expecting, it’s right there in this blog’s tag line: a proud part of the 90%.)
And while $39.95 sounds like a lot, it is less than 11¢ a day. If you factor in the 10 bucks a month for hosting it still comes out to less that 45¢ a day. Cheap therapy.
And trust me, I need the therapy pretty bad as the FRS are losing to their arch nemesis the Yankees tonight 15 to 4…
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 353
Tonight was the MMC’s Annual Bug Splat Rally. With only five cars in attendance nearly everyone was assured of a prize. From left to right, John Nicholls, Closest to the Dot with his prize of Bullseye BBQ Sauce; Dave Schumacher with the Cleanest Car prize of Bug Stickers to use next year; Donna Bogardus with Bath Time Stickers to wash the Most Bugs off the nose of the Emperor and Denny Smith with the Trophy for Biggest Bug. If you look just to the right of the Big Bug on the Trophy you will see the ghostly apparition of Rudy Wilmoth who was the driver of the only car not to take home a prize. Don’t feel too sorry for Rudy as he and Patti are past winners of the coveted BBT and are just coming off a two year streak of winning the Cleanest Car.
Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 356
We got out this morning to visit the Henderson Heritage Preserve north of town to discover the two caches that are there and scout possible locations for placing our own.
It is in two separate sections and there is one cache in each. The first one, Utorthent, was in the newer of the sections and the more groomed of the two. It was a very nice walk and a nice hide of an ammo can, the GPSr never read closer than 12′, but we found it without too much problem. Round trip hike turned out to be 2.8 miles and we only covered about 1/2 of the marked trails.
We then got in the car and drove the 2 miles to the parking area for the second section. We were looking for a cache called Sandhills in this one. This cache was only a 2 mile round trip, but it was through a more primitive piece of woods and included a small stream crossing and a nearly all uphill walk to the cache. As a bonus, on the way back downhill to the car we spooked a pair of deer. They came from near the road and crossed in front of us going deeper into the preserve in a big hurry.
Both places have a couple possibilities for cache placements, now I just have to figure out who to talk to to get permission. I emailed to both people who have caches in Heritage Preserves in this area and only got one reply and he was no help.
In a total reversal of standard procedure, I washed the Emperor the day after an MMC event. Even went the extra mile, vacuumed the interior and cleaned and preserved the leather seats.
Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 358
I sent an email this afternoon to the SCDNR to see about permission to place caches in Heritage Preserves they manage:
I am an Aiken resident and my wife and I have recently taken up geocaching (sort of a high tech treasure hunt.) We have found caches in a couple of the local Heritage Preserves (Henderson & Savannah River Bluffs) and would like to hide one or two caches in these beautiful areas as well. I am wondering who I should contact or what I need to do to gain permission to do this. I did not see anything in regards to geocaching in the Property Usage regulations on the web site.
Eighteen minutes later I received a reply (edited for brevity):
Currently, Regulation 123–203 (T) prohibits geocaching on any South Carolina Department of Natural Resources property. The majority of SCDNR property was purchased to protect unique and often rare natural resources. SCDNR allows and encourages recreational activities compatible and consistent with the character of the properties…
I am sure that most geocachers would likely be good stewards of SCDNR property, however, in recent years we have just begun to have problems associated with geocaching. Recently, SCDNR staff have found geocaches placed in sensitive areas on at least three Heritage Preserves…
Can you please send me the lat/longs of the Henderson & Savannah caches. I appreciate your help in protecting SC’s natural resources.
I read the Managed Lands Regulations on the SCDNR web site and with a little web searching and came up with a link on the SC government site and could not find any mention of geocaching, positive or negative. I wrote back:
Can you point me to the particular section or paragraph of 123–203 that prohibits caching? Everything I find on the web makes no mention of geocaching. Is the (T) in the parenthesis following the regulation number the revision letter of the regulation and is more up to date than I can find?
It was past quitting time when I sent it, so I wonder what kind of response I’ll receive in the morning? If any.
Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 358
I received a reply from the SCDNR guy this morning:
The regulation is more up-to-date than you can find. Typically, there is a delay from the time of approval to the point the internet regulations are updated.
I do appreciate your interest in the heritage preserve program, and I encourage you to consider use of SCDNR properties through other allowed activities such as hiking or birding. Below is a link to all of the HPs found in SC.
Then a minute later:
I forgot…can you send me the lat/longs for Henderson & Savannah HPs.
He seems kind of anxious to get the lat & long of those caches…In his original email he mentions Regulation 123–203 (T) and at first I though maybe the T was a revision level, but after reading the regs posted on the SC Gov Site I’m thinking the T represents a new section of the code as the current one ends at S. I’m having a hard time believing that geocaching would warrant its own section, but hey what do I know. So I asked him for a copy:
Wow, more up to date than September 26, 2008. Is there anyway I can get a copy of the updated regs? There is a gathering of local geocachers this coming weekend and I would like to let them know about this change.
That was at quarter to 10 this morning. So far no response.
I think I’m going to contact the local cache reviewer and clue him in to my conversation, maybe he can even get a copy of the updated regulations.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 359
Brett M. Moule, Region 3 Heritage Preserve Manager sent me a copy of a bill that was introduced this spring (03/26/09) by Representative C. David Umphlett, Jr. TO AMEND SECTION 50–11-2200, AS AMENDED, CODE OF LAWS OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1976, RELATING TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AREAS, SO AS TO SPECIFY ADDITIONAL PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES;… and signed into law on (6/2/2009) by our Governor in between trips to Argentina.
So while the bill prohibits geocaching and 37 other things, it does leave the door open in the second half of paragraph (30) …the department may promulgate regulations allowing any of the acts or conduct by prescribing acceptable times, locations, means, and other appropriate restrictions…
Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 362
A business man checked into his hotel and was a bit lonely. He thought, maybe he’d call one of those girls you see advertised in phone books under escorts and such. So he picked up the phone book and found an ad for a girl calling herself “Erogonique”, a lovely girl. Bending over in the photo, she had all the right curves in all the right places, beautiful wavy hair, long graceful legs… well, you get the picture! He figured, what the heck, give her a call.
“Hello”, the woman says… God, she sounded sexy already.
Afraid he would lose my nerve if he hesitated, he rushed right in. “Hi, I hear you give a great massage and I’d like you to come to my room and give me one. No, wait, I should be straight with you. I’m in town all alone and what I really want is sex. I want it hard, I want it hot, and I want it now. Bring implements, toys, rubber, leather, whips — everything you’ve got in your bag of tricks. We’ll go hot and heavy all night… you can tie me up, cover me in chocolate syrup and whipped cream, anything and everything goes! Now, how does that sound to you?”
She replied, “That sounds fantastic sir but, if you want an outside line, you need to press 9.”
Just like the last semi-major mileage milestone, this one was past on the way to the Stricker Mountain Home (I’m thinking that may need an acronym.) Only this one was about 50 miles further away in Spartanburg, not right here in Hendersonville.
With what is arguably one of the best bullpens in the American League, why oh why is the back-up shortstop pitching an inning of relief? (I know it is a 9–2 blowout the wrong way, but still…)
Even though there was a lot of rain around the state we made a good proportion of the drive up with the top down. We probably could have made the whole trip with it down, but I chickened out as we came into NC.
Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 366
The day started rainy, but by mid-morning it was just mostly cloudy. We left SMH and went into Hendersonville and did a couple geocaches. We had lunch at, you guessed it, West One. Ordered a large cheese pie with Italian sausage so we’d have leftovers for dinner and we almost didn’t stop in time, only ended up with two pieces left. After lunch we bought a cookie tray and a small pot at the Habitat Resale store in downtown, the tray was so we could heat up the pizza and the pot was for boiling up some pasta for tomorrow.
In the afternoon we dragged the lawnmower up the hill and cut the grass on Diane and Allen’s lot in the same development. I hope he sells it soon, though probably not as much as he does, but with today’s economy it will probably be a while.
This evening we made a run to the shopping center over near the Asheville airport. We bought a light switch for the living room fan at Lowes and some cream cheese at Target for our breakfast bagels. We also went into Office Max and bought a wireless router so that I can surf the web from the living room or the porch or wherever in the SMH.
As change at Target I got Camille’s dollar, while she did write her name on it she forgot to put her phone number on there too so I could call and arrange to give it back.
Started down, went up, down again, up once more, down yet again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 370
Last night the GPSr wouldn’t come on and I figured it was just the rechargeable batteries were weak, so this morning, first thing, we stopped at a store and bought a 4 pack of AA’s for $5. Our plan was to go west of Hendersonville to Jump Off Rock, see the view and then geocache our way back into H-ville.
The drive to Jump Off Rock was a nice windy road through neighborhoods and when we got up there the fog was so thick the view was nothing but gray. I loaded up a pair of new batteries into the GPSr because there is supposed to be a cache right there. It would get part way through the boot up process and shut off. Tried the second set and got the same results. Mmmm, maybe there was nothing wrong with those rechargeables after all.
We then took a walk on a couple of the short trails around the park and the sun was just starting to burn off the fog when we finished. Oh well. we’ll catch the view next time we visit in September.
When we got back to the SMH I plugged in the USB power cable into the GPSr and it exhibited the same symptoms, start to boot, then shut off. Google is my friend and it led me to a few places that gave the super-double-secret buttons to push on start-up to reset the unit to factory defaults. Same results. Guess I’ll be calling Garmin on Monday because there is a one-year warranty and we’ve only had the unit 8 months.
Started down, went up, back down, back up, down once more, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 374
Garmin Tech Support replied to my email cry for help. Step one was to download the latest version of the software for the unit and reinstall it. How was I going to reinstall the software you ask, seeing how the unit won’t fully boot up?
The way they told me to start the GPSr was a lot easier then those four fingered web variations from the other day. They gave me the secret handshake. Press and hold the toggle stick (think mini joystick or more like IBM laptop TrackPoint button) in the up position and power on the unit. You have to keep holding the stick up, double click the updater program on the PC and hold on while the software loads. I tried to load the software three times (just in case I wasn’t holding my tongue right) and all 3 times the process went something like this: erasing, loading, erasing and loading a second time, error message.
I replied to the email with my failure status and now await further instructions. Probably have to box it up and mail it back, I just hope they don’t require the original box, I can’t find it. And I usually keep everything, I mean I have the box this Dell PC came in six years ago…
Today’s title came from a piece of email we received from a friend today, it had been forwarded 16 other times before being forwarded to us.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 376
This morning we did get to the WNC Nature Center and it was interesting destination. I’m sure they are doing good work, but it came off as more of a minor league zoo and is mostly aimed at kids. We left Edward Scissorhands (Allen) at the town home so he could prune, trim and shape the landscaping, while Diane, Donna and I took a pleasant drive north to Asheville and then to the east side of town via the Blueridge Parkway.
