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’.
We went out to do some geocaching this morning, back over on the new bike/hike trail along side the new section of I-520 that we covered part of last weekend. That section had 8 caches and this section had one until yesterday evening. The second was published late last night and this morning no one had logged it as found yet. With all the FTF Hounds around here we didn’t expect to be the first, we were sure someone already had and just hadn’t logged it yet. Didn’t matter one way or the other, we didn’t find it and no one has yet either…We did find the other cache though. We just didn’t have our geo-mojo working at all today and ended up with just three finds to go along with our three measly finds.
Now there are three caches on that section as part of our mission was to place a cache along that stretch of trail. It is out in the wild, just not published yet and like the rest of our hides it should be an easy find for folks. We think we are going to head out tomorrow morning and place a couple more out there. We scoped out a couple of likely spots. One of which we eliminated when on my way back down the embankment I slipped on the newly planted grass and did a slo-mo face plant at the bottom.
After giving up on the caching we stopped in downtown Augusta at the Greek Orthodox Church to have some lunch. We had bought a meal ticket last Monday when we ate at the local Greek place. The half chicken meal with sides was just the right size for us to split. On the way home we detoured through North Augusta to get some ice cream at the Pink Dipper, but all I had in my wallet was a buck, so we had to stop at an ATM. As I pulled to a stop at the bank I noticed that the Emperor’s odometer was sitting at exactly 107,000. In honor of that I tried to withdraw $107,000 from the ATM, but apparently that was above my daily withdrawal limit, because it only gave me $40.
Started down, went up, went down, up, down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 619
Donna and I wen back over to the bike/hike trail next to I-520 this morning. We had two more caches to hide, one was one that used to be in Hitchcock Woods before the Great Cache Purge of 2009 and the other probably would have found its way into the woods eventually (if it had remained possibly. We also had a Travel Bug we were going to drop into the cache we had placed yesterday.
We hid the first and then on our way to hide the second cache we walked by yesterdays site and we could see 3 cars parked in the cul-de-sac near the cache. Our hide wasn’t yet published when we left the house this morning, but it must have been since because sure enough cachers were there. One couple had already found it and another was in the wood looking. We chatted a bit and even got nudge for the Gargoyle’s Crypt we missed yesterday. We hid cache#2 and went down and wasted 15 minutes looking and even with the hints couldn’t find it.
Remember yesterday I bent my glasses doing a small tumble when researching today’s possibly cache locations? No I didn’t fall again today, but I did break my temporary crown while eating lunch today. I have been chewing on the good side mostly, but sometimes I slip and chew over there. I didn’t just pull it off the post, but managed to bite down on it and break it into three pieces with the smallest one of never recovered…
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 620
Last Friday when we were having dinner out with friends discussion turned to the “Good Ol’ Days” of the MMC, say back about 9 or 10 years ago. We reminisced on old events and past members. One event that we did 2 years in a row and was deemed fun in the haze of foggy memories was a photo scavenger hunt. I had borrowed the idea from an Australian Miata Club and Americanized it. The Folks were divided into teams, given a disposable camera and tasks to complete of various levels that were worth points. Quest #3 in the first year was:
A picture of a Miata owner (and his/her car) that is not in the Miata Club: 100 points for a picture of them in their car. Bonus 250 points if you get them to join the Club. An additional bonus 500 points if you get them to join in the hunt and come to lunch with you.
One team managed just that feat. I kind of suspect that it really didn’t take too much to get Scott Rushton to be the 850 point man as his boss, the Sales Manager of the local Mercedes/Mazda dealer, was a member of the Green Team that brought him in. Scott sold me the Emperor and we lost touch a few years later when both he and his boss found themselves out of the car business when the dealership dropped the Mazda product line.
Donna and I have never clicked physically with the local Geocaching group, but we signed up in the beginning to their YahooGroups email list and still belong. Occasionally for what ever internal reason someone rubs someone else the wrong way starting a flame war with sides being taken. But it is mostly filled with congratulatory missives once anyone passes any kind find milestone that ends in two zeros (from hundreds to thousands.) The Saturday morning after that dinner I was reading the email digest of the previous day’s email when I spot a familiar looking email address, lowdollar99@xxxxx.com. Could it be who I’m thinking it is? So I scope out the user name on Geocaching.com and sure enough, it is Scott Rushton. How come I never noticed that before?
The day after he comes up in conversation about Miatas, I notice he is into geocaching too. Cue the Twilight Zone music.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 621
I haven’t been posting or a couple reasons, but the main one is I can’t seem to find the time. I’m watching too much TV. On Monday their is House from 8–9. then at ten there is the original Law & Order and Castle which get watched via torrent on Tuesday. Tuesday evening we watch the L&O and Castle before watching TDTVS at 9. Tuesday at 10 is The Good Wife and L&O:CI on USA which get delayed until Wednesday. Wednesday at 10 is In Plain Sight which get watched on Thursday before Flashforward (which sometimes gets delayed until Friday.) And as always there is a Netflix disc with a movie and another disc with a TV show (currently Life) that need watching too.
It has gotten so bad that I haven’t even been listening to the FRS on the internet (which as it turns out is a good thing because they seem to be winning when I’m not listening.)*
I’ve got plenty of stuff to post about, but by the time I get around to it a lot of the details will have leaked out my ears and won’t be available to make the story more than a tweet length. The only reason you are getting this on today is I’m bored at work with a very repetitive job and needed a break before I nodded off in my chair.
*As if to prove my point, the FRS had an afternoon game today and I listened to it at work. They lost 3–2 to Toronto.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 630
Little Bruce and Jenny are only 10 years old, but they know they are in love.
One day they decide that they want to get married, so Bruce goes to Jenny’s father to ask him for her hand.
Bruce bravely walks up to him and says, “Mr. Smith, me and Jenny are in love and I want to ask you for her hand in marriage.”
Thinking that this was just the cutest thing, Mr. Smith replies, “Well Bruce, you are only 10. Where will you two live?”
Without even taking a moment to think about it, Bruce replies, “In Jenny’s room. It’s bigger than mine and we can both fit there nicely.”
Still thinking this is just adorable, Mr. Smith says with a huge grin, “Okay, then how will you live? You’re not old enough to get a job. You’ll need to support Jenny.”
Again, Bruce instantly replies, “Our allowance, Jenny makes five bucks a week and I make 10 bucks a week. That’s about 60 bucks a month, so that should do us just fine.”
Mr. Smith is impressed Bruce has put so much thought into this.
“Well Bruce, it seems like you have everything figured out. I just have one more question. What will you do if the two of you should have little children of your own?”
Bruce just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Well, we’ve been lucky so far.”
It was spent mostly watching Life. We had disc three of season two from Netflix to watch and did. Then got antsy and didn’t want to wait for the last two discs to come in the mail, so off to the back alleys of the internet. I downloaded the four episodes that are on disc 4 while we watched the other red envelope disc, Michael Clayton (which after watching the four simplistic 42 minute TV shows was hard to follow because you had to pay attention, but if you did you were rewarded.) We then watched those four downloaded episodes of Life. The next thing we knew it is past 8:00 PM with the sun is going down.
The last 5 episodes of the short lived show are being torrented as we speak, but those won’t get watched until tomorrow afternoon or night though. We are off to do some geocaching in the morning and possibly see an early showing of IM2.
My last post chronicled all the TV I’ve been watching, well that is about to come to an end, literally and figuratively. Monday is the season-enders for House and Castle. Flashforward didn’t get renewed for next year, so I probably won’t even bother watching how many ever new episodes of that are left. There are only 2 more episodes of Law & Order (the Mothership version) ever. It ends its 20 year run the day after TDTVS finishes its 6 year ride on the 23rd of May. That leaves just a month and a half left of new of L&O:Criminal Intent (although I really miss Goren and Eames) and In Plain Sight to see on USA.
Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 630
My rants about this movie the other week turned out not to be as big an issue as I imagined. The intro to the Stark Expo was still a little long, but taken in context not all that bad. The race scene/suitcase suit grip disappeared because Whiplash didn’t just wait for it watching, he was pinned to the side wall by Happy driving a Rolls Royce. Mickey Rouke makes an awesome villain. I don’t understand why they change the opening bit from the trailer wher Tony jumps out of the plane unless they though it might spoil the the ending bit. I thought it would have been a perfect way to tie that together…
Scarlett Johansson looks good in black hair and her chemistry with RDJ leads me to believe she would have made a good Pepper Potts had not Gwyneth Paltrow already had a lock on that role. But the whole Black Widow bit seemed tossed in as an intro to the character and for the sex appeal of the suit (not that there is anything wrong with that.) But if rumors are correct and the Black Widow gets her own movie, I think I feel a repeat of Cat Woman or Elektra coming on.
There is more action in this one, some dangerously close to being too much (and/or too long), but all and all very satisfying. Man I need one of those suits…
Two important lessons can be learned from this movie, 1) do not ever let a Russian near your computer, both the males and females seem to be trained hackers that can break any encryption thrown at them and 2) (this one I already knew) a convertible is as good as a pick up truck on a sunny day.
Brian gives it 2 thumbs up and Donna says I owe her a Julia Roberts movie.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 631
Two Mexicans are stuck in the desert after crossing into the United States, wandering aimlessly and starving. They are about to just lie down and wait for death, when all of a sudden Luis says.….….
“Hey Pepe, do you smell what I smell. Ees bacon, I theenk.”
“Ees, Luis, eet sure smells like bacon.”
With renewed hope they struggle up the next sand dune, & there, in the distance, is a tree loaded with bacon. There’s raw bacon, there’s fried bacon, back bacon, double smoked bacon … Every imaginable kind of cured pork.
“Pepe, Pepe, we ees saved. Ees a bacon tree.”
“Luis, maybe ees a meerage? We ees in the desert don’t forget.”
“Pepe, since when deed you ever hear of a meerage that smell like bacon…ees no meerage, ees a bacon tree.”
And with that, Luis staggers towards the tree. He gets to within 5 metres, Pepe crawling close behind, when suddenly a machine gun opens up, and Luis drops like a wet sock. Mortally wounded, he warns Pepe with his dying breath,
“Pepe… Go back man, you was right, ees not a bacon tree!”
Some one lent me a copy of Avatar (thanks James) because it won’t be available from Netflix for a few more days and I watched all of 25 minutes of it.* I’m thinking Cameron had a really vivid acid trip back in 1994…
Don’t ask how I can buy into a guy in a metal suit that can fly at supersonic speeds and shoot, like, plasma rays out of his palms and then one day later can’t believe 10 foot tall blue creatures. Probably had to do with what seemed to me like a continuous stream of scenes I’d seen before several times in numerous other movies.
* Edit: While pondering this morning on why I didn’t like this movie, I thought of a better title for this post, GCI’d Disney Movie, but for some reason WordPress won’t let me edit my own titles.
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 632
Its not really a coat either, its a jacket. Aiken’s climate is such that you only need a coat for 3–4 weeks in late January and/or early February and for that I have my trusty US Navy Cold Weather Flight Jacket that “inadvertently” got packed up when I left Japan. A new jacket is a big deal for me because once I find something I like I stick with it (i.e. the 30 year-old flight jacket) and since October of 1999 I have been wearing an MMC jacket. It is forest green with tan accents and has a large embroidered Club logo on the back and my first name in script on the front. This baby has seen a lot of use. It gets worn probably around 275 days a year (sometimes summer mornings can seem cool to me with the top down) and is starting to show it. The tab came off the zipper a while back and was replaced by some string, the lining near the collar in the back is getting frayed, the waist and cuffs are loosing their elasticity, etc.
Instead of the usual Extra Large size I normally get (mostly for the sleeve length) I decided to try and find a Large Tall size. I wanted something similar; lightweight, contrasting light inner lining, water resistant (but not shiny nylon), 2 side slash pockets and elastic waist and cuffs, so off to the internet I went. After an exhaustive search I found just the thing.
Behold, my new outwear of choice, a Tri-Mountain 5300 Panorama in Navy/Khaki/Khaki from the Highland Apparel Company. Hopefully this puppy will hold up for the next ten years as well as the Club jacket did for the past ten. I will still break out the MMC jacket for Club events, but mostly it will be spending a quiet retirement in the hall closet on a hanger.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 634
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again Jim Morrison
It all comes to an end tonight at 11:30PM and quite frankly I think I will be glad it is over. What started as a survival story on a mysterious island has morphed into a battle between good and evil to control the island that no one can find.
Millions of people want answers to the thousands of unanswered questions and mysteries, but I for one don’t care if I find out what happened to Rose, Bernard and Vincent the dog or any of the others.
How will it end? Will we merge the the island time lines with the alt LA universe? My guess is it will be a variation of the first scene of last season’s finale; Jack (the new Jacob) will be sitting on the beach and John Locke (the new MIB) will approach and say, “You know how much I want to kill you?” They will stare out to sea and see a boat approaching. Locke will ask Jack, “You brought them here didn’t you?” The camera zooms in until you see the transom. It reads, “S.S.Minnow” Fade to black.
Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 635
About a month ago I got a letter from (I think) US Air to let me know that I shouldn’t let my 4,213 air miles go to waste. I should buy some magazines. I have no clue if these things are really endorsed by the airlines (probably not), but I do know that I actually have 12,106 that will be forfeited by June 29th if I don’t pay them $100 (probably not.)
So I did what I usually do when I get one of thee offers, I subscribed to a couple magazines: Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly. This makes 3 weekly magazines we get now as the Time subscription from the last similar offer doesn’t run out until August.
Just the other day got one of the same style offers from Delta, but she had over 6,000 miles (just where had she been without me?) So now we will add a fourth weekly magazine to our coffee table with 6 months of People. We will also get another year of Time, a year of Sunset, a year of Money and 2 years of Travel + Leisure.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 635
The KIA Soul is one of those “cute” little cars targeted towards the younger set and their ads for have it have been interesting. I personally think the car is ugly and I’m not a big fan of Hip-Hop music, but I’m smiling now having just watched this latest one.
It hits the all the right notes (pun sort of intended.)
Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 638
One hundred and eight was sort of an adjunct to TDTVS’s famous numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42) because that is what they added up to and that is how many minutes you had between entering them into a computer terminal before bad things happened. 108,000 is probably how many times the number and execute buttons were pushed by Desmond during his little over three years down in the Swan Station hatch when he was doing the entering.
I wonder what I should do with my eight LOST links in the left sidebar now that the show is over, delete them? Yeah, probably. So what would be a proper mourning period before moving them? Simple, 108 days. Guess I’ll add a countdown for it…
One hundred and eight thousand is the number of miles the Emperor had traveled when we got almost to work this morning.
Started down, went up, back down, up again, down once more, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 643
We visited my sister and her husband in Hendersonville, NC yesterday afternoon and today. This morning Donna and I did a little geocaching around the Blue Ridge Community College campus. It was nice modern campus that obviously placed more emphasis on academics than on athletics comparing the buildings that house classrooms and the baseball field.
As we passed through Saluda on our way to Hendersonville on Friday there were several people plaing a passel of tiny American flags in front of a building. Donna said that we should stop on the way home on Saturday and get a picture. Fortunately for us the rain had slowed when we got to Saluda so that we could hop out of the car and get a few photos. On the county library front lawn there were 5485 flags, each one honoring a service member who had lost their lives in the middle east since 2002. Pretty sobering sight (and site.) What is more depressing is that on the left hand lawn there is an area that was empty of flags that someday might get filled in.
Click on the photo above and go to a small gallery of the other photos I took.
Started up, went down, went up, down again, up again, went down, went up, down once more, back up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 655
