I wonder just how much this Hyundai Sonata would set me back?
RIDES Magazine & Hyundai (if I’m going to buy one, someday I’m going to have to learn how to spell that right the first time) have teamed up to showcase the new turbo’d Sonata at SEMA. Sure looks good, but I’m betting that the Sonata that might end up in our driveway isn’t going to look much like that. A guy can dream though. Details and more photos available on AutoBlog.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 878
I rarely speak of politics here, even around election time, but this year is an exception because I actually voted in a mid-term election. Usually only picking the Grand Poobah will make me leave my cave and high speed internet connection to mingle with the masses, but this year there was a local issue that I wanted to put my 2¢ into (literally.)
I had high hopes for being able to pick California as the state I wanted to retire in, but my hopes were quashed when the voters there defeated Prop. 19. Oh, well, there are 4 or 5 more elections between now and then. Also as a geocacher I was disappointed that the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco have banned giving away toys with “unhealthy meals.” Most of the cool schwag that I have found in ammo cans came from a kids meal at a fast food restaurant.
Closer to home South Carolina voted in its usual Republican manner and in doing so elected the state’s first woman Govenor (welcome to the 20th century SC) and defeated in the US Senate race, my favorite crackpot candidate, Alvin Greene. But the defeat was actually a victory of sorts, Alvin’s got a new job as a crackpot commentator on of all places, Fox News.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 879
Tonight’s meeting of the MMC was hopefully the last at Little Mexico for a long time. When the President picked this place he had good intentions as it fit the requirements we were looking for in a “permanent” home for our meeting, i.e. central location and visibility of the parking lot from a high traffic street. Trouble was the food is Grade B Mexican, but it was only envisioned as a meeting place with sharing of a couple of hors d’oeuvres over business chat and unfortunately (or fortunately depending which side of the plan you were on) the drive to a restaurant for dinner after the meeting thing never caught on.
Donna had a chicken quesadilla and I had a carnitas dinner in which the pork was fattier and somehow drier than what we normally get at our local Mexican place. Along with the meat and tortillas it came with pico de gallo, refried beans and about 114,000 grains of “spanish” rice. Which is coincidentally, the mileage achievement the Emperor passed on the way there.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 879
Today was our annual trip to the mountains with the MMC to view the fall colors. When I emailed a reminder to the membership, I remarked that Donna and I reserved the right to cancel the event if there weren’t at least two other cars going on the trip. So guess how many showed up? Right, two. Should have picked a larger number. A couple in one of the cars had never been to see the Georgia Guidestones, so we just had to stop.
We had a route planned that went north and west in Georgia ending up in Walhalla, SC for lunch before turning around and returning south and east in South Carolina. Trouble with the plan was that we had too much time built in for rest breaks (it probably would have been just right if we had twice as many cars and the temperatures had been 15° warmer like they were supposed to be), so when we got to I-85 and about 20 minutes from Martha’s Marketplace Cafe, it was only 10:30 AM. An adjustment was made to the route that was to take us on a loop northwest to Franklin, NC before coming back into Walhalla.
We were now in the mountains and the fall colors were nice, but noticeably past peak. At a break in Clayton, GA with traffic on four lane US441 heavy, the clock past noon and the distinct possibility that the scenery would not improve we made another adjustment to the route. Someone pointed at the GA map and said, “What’s that little gray line heading due east towards SC and route 28?” GPS’s and Smarty Pants phones were consulted and it was called Warwoman Rd. I said, “Let’s go. I’ve heard Miata.net chatter about that road. And it was good.” No one complained about the lack of fall color on this stretch of the trip. As one driver put it later, “All I saw was a white line on my right and a double yellow line on my left.” Once we got back in South Carolina on Rte. 28 we hit a sweet spot of altitude and chlorophyll-less-ness making the show out the side windows quite nice for about 15 miles or so.
Lunch in Walhalla at the Brian & Donna Pre-Approved Dining Spot was very good. The only negative was the service was slow, but I got the feeling that everything that happens in Walhalla happens slow. The trip home was uneventful and because we traveled about 50 miles less than we normally do on one of these excursions we got home in daylight and at a decent time for dinner at home.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 881
Last Monday on our way home from work were got stuck behind a shiny silver RAM Heavy Duty Dually. It was 3–1/2 tons of 4x4 manliness. There was testosterone condensate dripping from the 5″ diameter tailpipe that was connected to a 6.7 litter diesel with 650 ft/lbs of torque giving it towing capacity to move small Caribbean islands. The 8′ bed would hold a Miata and it had the load capacity large enough that it could carry two in there with no sweat.
As we traveled down Powderhouse Rd behind this behemoth, it seemed to be having trouble staying in the lane (to be fair, the truck was so wide it didn’t have far to go) and we figured it was because of the usual reason, talking on a cell phone. After watching several of these quick zig-zags there came a particularly harsh swerve that took the outside right tire off the road into the dirt we realized what was going on. The driver of this super truck was dodging the 1/4 to 3/4 inch drops associated with manholes covers on resurfaced roads.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 881
We bought the local paper this morning and Donna pointed out this little bit in the paper’s Talkback section:
Dog Park
The dog park is great, although some safety concerns should be addressed. The metal posts should be wrapped to protect puppies from colliding into them. The sides of the pool are extremely rough and can harm dogs that try to exit the pool from the sides.
At first I thought it might be some sort of joke, but then I remembered just how deeply involved people can get with their pets. But I just couldn’t resist making light of the matter. I hit the reply link which popped up an email window and I wrote:
RE: Dog Park Safety Concerns
Perhaps dogs using the park should be required to wear helmets and protective padding like the folks who use the Skate Park behind the Odell Weeks Center.
About 30 minutes later I got an undeliverable email back. Figuring maybe the paper has something against gmail addresses when I got home I tried again. A short time later:
Failed to deliver to ‘talkback@aikenstandard.com’
SMTP module(domain @10.10.10.57|aikenstandard.com) reports:
host mail.global.frontbridge.com says:
550 5.4.1 talkback@aikenstandard.com: Recipient address rejected: Access Denied
Nice, you can’t talk back to Talkback…
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 882
This looks best in any browser but IE. In Firefox, Chrome, and numerous others there are nice rounded corners. In IE everything has sharp square corners, ugh.
The old clothes, while still in fine shape, were starting to go out of style. The new theme, believe it or not, is the same theme, Atahualpa3.5.3 by BytesForAll, as the old site, which when you think about it is a testament to its customizability.
There are a few of things still on the punch list. First, the random image looks crummy, I’m guessing because it is so big, I’ll probably go back to 4 small ones.Number 2 is I need to make a page to put the blog roll, AKA links to sites I read, because there number was getting out of hand and I still refer to some of them. They are here: Linkage. Also I’d like to find a plug in that organizes the Categories in number of posts order. There may be more.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 886
For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one Twinkie every three hours, instead of meals. His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food. The premise held up: On his “convenience store diet,” he shed 27 pounds in two months.
Now that’s a diet I can get behind. Read the rest of the article on the CNN web site.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 887
397 miles driven.
13 hours away from home.
6.2 miles walked on 4 different trails.
5 caches found. 4 restaurants in Greensboro, GA that we didn’t get served dinner in.
3 meals out (AKA, The Trifecta.)
3 GA State Parks completed.
2 DNF caches.
1 cache found, but too impatient to sign the log.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 891
Changed the oil and rotated the tires on the Emperor this afternoon. I used the California Duster to remove the road fur from yesterday’s trip and washed all the windows. Sprayed a little Quick Detailer in places to get off some random gunk and treated the tires so they shine. Even vacuumed the interior.
As long as we are doing the Georgia State Park Challenge we might as well do the the GA County and GA Delorme Challenges as well. There are 42 State Park caches, 159 counties and 59 map pages, but you really need 63 caches because this challenge requires you to find a cache on the page inserts too. That would be 264 unique finds, so unlike in South Carolina we are going to take the easy route, any cache found, can and will be, used towards multiple Challenges. So right now we have 4 State Parks, 19 counties and 17 pages.
On yesterday’s trip there were several caches along our route we didn’t even try for because of time and motivational issues and there was one in particular that I’m glad we didn’t get, Cache Across America — Georgia. That’s right, a challenge with the requirement to find a cache in all 50 states and not just any cache, but the 50 picked out just for it.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 893
After leaving Indian Springs State Park on Saturday we angled our way back northeast to I-20 for the blast back home. When we got to Exit 130 it was time for dinner and there were several chain places to choose from. We picked Zaxby’s as the lesser of 6 evils, but when we got inside and perused the menu board we both knew it was an uninspired choice. There was nothing that either of us really wanted, so we surprised the girl behind the counter by turning on our heels and heading for the door.
While walking back to the car we noticed a large billboard that advertised two downtown restaurants just 3 miles north. This sounded more like it. A downtown eatery that would have something besides a variation on fried chicken parts. The Yesterday Cafe was definitely the place to be on Saturday night in Greensboro as it was hopping. We were greeted promptly by the hostess and offered a booth. We scanned the menu and there were enough options that we each picked something. Several minutes passed and we changed our minds to a different entree. Several more minutes passed and we had yet to get so much as a nod from a wait-person. No water offered. No I’ll be with you in a minute. No nothing. Too make matters worse, from where I was sitting I could see the hostess station and there were two young ladies, dressed in waitress type attire standing there, chatting away with the hostess, where they had been since we entered. Finally the conversation broke up and the waitresses peeled off one by one like B-17’s over their German targets and flew right by us. Needless to say we stood up and left.
Well, I guess we’ll head back 3 miles south to the Interstate. Donna suggested Waffle House next. She said, “I can have their soup” and I said, “I may just get a pecan waffle.” We picked a booth and a waitress came right over and took our drink order. She returned promptly with a coke for me and water for Donna. When Donna asked what the day’s soup was and our waitress had to go ask. She returned and said, “We are out of soup.” We both said, “We’re sorry,” as we stood up and headed for the door.
Right across the street was a Wendy’s. I said out loud, “Spicy Chicken sandwich.” Donna replied with, “Baked potato.” If you already have figured it out with the way the story is going so far, they were out of potatoes.
We still had a couple snacks and half a ham & cheese sandwich in the cooler in the trunk to tide us over for a while. Worse case scenario was the Cracker Barrel in Augusta 64 miles away. It would be closer to 7:00 PM before we ate, but we were pretty sure they would still have both potatoes and soup when we got there.
We didn’t hold out that long though, 40 miles later we were sucked into a Taco Bell in Thompson. Three tacos for me and a chicken flat bread sandwich for her, water to drink, in and out for under 5 bucks.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 894
It is with much sadness that I inform you of a beloved co-worker’s passing yesterday.
PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 succumbed to a “50 Service” error. PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 or as his friends called him, LaserJet 4V, was 16 years old and for the first 15 years of his life he was a robust and reliable fellow who printed each and every one of the over a quarter million pages with glee. Last year age finally caught up with him requiring a tricky fuser transplant. Shortly after his full recovery from that ordeal, his 11 x 17 paper tray needed to be amputated because of wear. Three weeks ago with his rare life blood toner running low, it was discovered that supplies of this precious commodity were no longer available through normal channels. Unfortunately the non-FDA approved toner from South America did not arrive in time to save his life.
PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 is survived by his big brother PRVLAK_DFT_HDJ800 and his cousin PRVLAK_ENG_HP4650. Funeral services are being handled by Safety Clean and will be private. In lieu of flowers please send Staples gifts cards.
Brian Bogardus
Arts & Crafts Engineer ASCO Valve Manufacturing
a facility of ASCONUMATICS
part of the Industrial Automation Division of Emerson Electric Corporation
located in beautiful Aiken, SC, USA
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 895
I deactivated the Page Link Manager plugin last night and when I reactivated it, it didn’t function properly. I have a ton of pages on the blog (as you can see by the long ol’ list that is in the inner sidebar right now) and the plugin allowed me to seperate the pages into groups in multiple widgets. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but nothing would let me have more than one widget. I even tried a couple of other similar plugins and they wouldn’t allow me multiple widgets either. I suspect it is a database issue because when I reinstalled the original plugin and then one of a similar nature they both allowed one instance of the widget and both were prepopulated with the pages of the previously working multiple widgets.
So, the way I see it, I have two options; find a workaround or back up all the post information, delete the existing database and install WordPress from scratch. If I choose the second option things might be a little wonky around here over the weekend.
*UPDATE: I did the workaround. The OEM pages plugin allows multiple instances, I just had to type in every page number (out of 73) I wanted excluded in each widget.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 895
It started 22 days ago as a white spec Miata racer, $100 worth of Sharpies later and Mighty Mike has a masterpiece of Dude Craft.
On the way home from work today Donna and I stopped in and checked on one of our caches. Someone had DNF’d it on Monday and we wanted to see if it was still there. Even though we knew where we hid it, it still took us 5 minutes to find the thing. Probably because there were around 115,000 pieces of pine straw on the ground since we hid it back in April. Also the GPSr read 18 feet away when I was standing right over it.
A couple miles away from the cache the Emperor passed through the 115,000 mile mark and as if to put an exclamation mark on the event the low fuel light lit simultaneously.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 896
…is my new favorite TV series (and no, it isn’t about dogs.) Terriers is on FX on Wednesday nights at 10PM. I think it is better than Mad Men, but then again I’m a sucker for Private Investigator shows, buddy shows, compelling dramas with smart writing and great acting.
Trouble is that it will be quite possibly a one (season) and done show. We are 10 episodes into the first season run of twelve and the ratings are dismal. I read somewhere that a couple weeks ago the total viewership for an episode was 1/2 million. A 5 year old episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos on the Family Channel probably scored higher. I bet in most places they lost their time slot to the community bulletin board channel on that cable system.
There is already an underground movement to get the show renewed for next year, send an email to user@fxnetworks.com and tell them how much you love it and that you will quite probably curl up and die if it doesn’t get a second season.
I can’t email them. It would be hypocritical of me. Sure I love the show, and look forward to new episodes each week, but I watch them via torrents. I can’t even tell you what kind of lousy commercials they are running during that hour, so why show they even care about my opinion? Even if I did watch the show in “real time”, I wouldn’t matter, I’m a decade past the influential 18–45 age group. And as proof of that I have mentioned the show to several people and no one has even tried it…
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 899
After breakfast with the MMC Donna and I went geocaching. Surprise, surprise. Our goal for the day was 3 GA counties, one GA State Park and the small inset on on Page 31 of the GA DeLorme atlas. Ten caches later we had found nine and were 4 out of 5 for our objectives. The one we missed was the furthest away and our primary objective, Fishing Creek. The Georgia Delorme is less forgiving than the SC one in that you need to find a cache in every square on every page and Fishing Creek is the only cache in square 31B.
It was not for lack of trying either. We spent 45 minutes hunting in a small patch of woods near a boat ramp. The GPSr said we traveled a little over a mile criss-crossing that 150 foot diameter area. It is not as if we were looking for a 35mm film canister well integrated into the environment either, it was a stinking 30cal ammo can! When we got home and read all the logs for this cache it seems like it is very well hidden and the difficulty level should be a bit higher than the 2 it is advertised at. The way most people locate it is by using the hint and poking with a walking stick, listening for a clunk.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 902
This morning I got up and blew the dust off the single bikes and filled their tires with air. Donna and I had decided we were going to see what it felt like not to ride the tandem. At the last minute I realized that the cyclecomputer clocks were one hour ahead. Dang, I forgot about those a couple weeks ago when daylight savings time ended. As I was breaking out the instructions on how to change the clocks, Donna said, “Forget about them, let’s go.” Try as I might I felt slightly askew in the space time continuum the whole time. The weather was so nice that by 10:00 AM (possibly really 9:00 AM) we had our breakfast at an outside table at the Atlanta Bread Company near the end of the ride.
As if the 16 mile bike this morning wasn’t enough, Donna, I and a friend went for a 2–1/2 mile walk in Hitchcock Woods in the afternoon. It was pleasant enough that I walked in shorts. Because of the nice weather the woods were busy, we saw a group of two horse riders and then a group of 4 more as we were standing where the above photo was taken. There were also several people walking their dogs, including one woman who was talking on her cell phone while her dog was checking us out about 50 yards away from her. As we exited the woods a truck slowed and the woman behind the wheel asked if we had seen a muddy border collie. I said no. After she drove off my mind kicked in gear and I remembered something. I should have told her yes, the last time I saw that dog was when he was way ahead of you on trail while you yakked on your phone.
*a photo from an overlook near the Chalk Cliffs in Hitchcock Woods post processed with a filter called Simplifier by AmphiSoft in Paint Shop Pro
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 902
I downloaded all of the videos in full 720p and the desktop PC can’t always keep up with the video, it buffers quite a bit at full screen. The newer laptop on the other hand does a fine job, even via HDMI to the 32″ HDTV. The video itself was broadcast a year ago on Norway’s equivalent of PBS and you can torrent the entire trip without music in a 22 gigabyte or the original 246 GB Apple ProRes file from their site: Download Bergensbanen in HD.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 904
The Emperor got to laze around the garage today as Donna and I took advantage of the nice weather and the reduced traffic of a no-school day to ride the tandem into work. This was the first time in a while that we have ridden on just two days rest and my sit bones were a little tender when we started out this morning, but I forgot all about them by the end of mile one.
Speaking of sore, I am going to have to give up raising the Miata’s top while seated in the drivers seat for a time. Monday morning when putting the top up for the cold drive to work I strained something in my right shoulder and it still hurts a bit when raising it up over my head.
I am one of the lucky ones because I sit with the seat all the way back and my arm length was just right for hoisting the roof up with little effort. Both shorter and taller drivers didn’t line up well for doing the over the shoulder flip up routine. The folks with roll bars or style bars were usually out of luck doing that procedure too. All and all, a lot of Miata owners had to raise the top while standing outside the car. Hopefully after a couple weeks of rest I will be able to return to my previous ways.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 904
We have had a nice big screened porch on the back of the house for a decade now and for at least 4 of them we have had Donna’s family gather here for Thanksgiving. We have always said, wouldn’t it be great if we could have Turkey Day Dinner out on the porch. But each time they were here the weather was always too cold. Too bad we didn’t host them this year because the temperatures were in the upper 70’s today and the porch was a delightful place to be this afternoon.
No one came here and we didn’t go anywhere, so instead of making a Thanksgiving meal for two and all that entails, we opted to go to Aiken’s One Table. It started 5 years ago and is basically a free Thanksgiving meal served in the Alley to anyone who shows up. Billed as “NOT a ‘hand-out’, but more of a ‘hand-shake’.” by the organizers, we have thought of going before, but never did. This was the year. They didn’t charge for the meal, but did ask for anyone who comes to bring some canned goods. Food would be served between the hours of 11 AM and 2 PM and we arrived at a little past eleven thirty and were greeted by a very long line. That didn’t move.
We have very little patience for waiting. For anything. After a couple of minutes of not getting any closer to food we hopped out of line to check out what was going on. The first thing we noticed after passing the music stage was another identical stationary line. Then about halfway down the block we cut into the alley and noticed that there were a lot of empty seats and a lot of volunteers walking around with trays of food. As we completed the loop we arrived back at the point we had left the line and the fireman who were standing behind us were still standing in approximately the same spot.
Plan B was implemented, Fatz Cafe. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce, a slice of pumpkin pie and a drink for $11.99. As a bonus, the servings were large enough that we actually brought home some leftovers.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 904
No it didn’t snow here (it did rain some though.) Donna and I spent exactly zero hours waiting in line for and spent zero dollars on any door buster deals. We didn’t even leave the house until 5:30PM and that was only to go out and get a Firehouse sub for dinner and ice cream for dessert from the Marble Slab. Tomorrow we will also avoid any sort of areas of consumerism by taking to the back roads of rural Georgia hunting the wily tupperware with guile and the aid of multi-million dollar military satellites.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 905
We spent the whole day, and I do mean the whole day, geocaching. We were gone from 6:30 AM until 6:30 PM traveling a total of 250 miles. We had breakfast at Dunkin’ Donuts in Aiken, lunch at McDonalds in Louisville, GA and dinner at Cracker Barrel in Augusta. We found 11 caches, collecting 5 GA Counties, 2 GA DeLorme map pages and 2 GA State Parks, while DNf-ing just one. We walked a total of 6 miles, 3 in one state park, 2 in the other and 1 more chasing the rest of the caches.
There were several memorable finds, including the last one, The Rock House outside of Thomson, Georgia which was built around 1785 and is the oldest stone residence in the state of Georgia. The home is now owned by the Wrightsboro Quaker Foundation and has been rumored to be haunted. The Augusta Paranormal Society visits this location from time to time. Maybe because it was light out we didn’t see any ghosts.
The first find of the day was pretty cool too, but that is a story for another day.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 907
The middle cache on yesterday’s adventure took us to a Revolutionary War cemetery in Louisville, Georgia.
Today was all about Thanksgiving weekend traditions at Domus Bogardi on Boardman Road in Dunbarton Oaks as I blew off the roof and we both then cleaned up the side and front yards of deceased leaves. The afternoon was spent watching 2 of the three Jason Bourne movies and dinner was open faced turkey sandwiches with gravy.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 907
The way we have been going lately, we have missed the first cache we have tried, so this weekend I tried something different, I picked out 3 easy caches as warm ups to find before we got to our real objectives.
Our first cache of the day on Saturday was:
The Augusta-Savannah Series.. Old Road Way
It is a large cache hidden on what use to be a road that crossed over Hwy 25 before they turned it into a four lane road. This cache has plenty of room for trading. There is no theme, but so far the only items in there have to do with traveling, such as old car license plates. Use your stealth when finding this cache because of passer-bys.
Passers-by? Tongue must have been in cheek when the CO wrote that, this section of road is no longer in use so you have to have a reason for traveling it, like geocaching or illegal dumping. You can’t be seen from the four lane so it is practically muggle proof. I know we saw no one the whole time we were there. We left a Santa hat and took a license plate.
In our garage attached to the cross support beam for the door tracks we have tacked up our license plates from every place Donna and I have lived. Except for one, when we moved to Louisiana they would not give me a new plate until I turned in the one that was on the car. It was from Virginia. So guess which license plate we took from the cache?
The collection is now complete.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 907
Donna has been having some second thoughts about a Hyundai Sonata recently. It is big! It has 4 doors which means people might ask us for rides.
A fellow at work recently bought a Mini. It is a red Cooper S with a white roof and red bonnet stripes and it has rekindled our mild infatuation with these cars. We test drove one back in 2003 and came away feeling a little like Dudley Moore did after bedding Bo Derek in the movie 10, i.e. disappointed.
Well, just the other day she says to me, “Maybe we should look at a Mini again?” Coincidentally, that night, I happen to see a commercial on TV about leasing a new Mini for $199 a month. Hey, I could do that, what with keeping the Miata, the Mini would be sharing driving duties, so keeping it below 12,000 miles a year would be easy.
The lease deal has a few roadblocks. I’ll list them in order of magnitude: First it must be well equipped and list at above 23,100 smackers, this shouldn’t be a problem. Second it has to be an automatic, that will be a slight issue. I could get used to driving one, but finding one…the Greenville dealer has 12 on the lot and not a single one is a slushbox. Charleston’s dealer has 11 with the same problem. Of course I have no idea if this is accurate because the price of all 23 Minis range from $20,100 to $27,100 and each and everyone’s description is identical as far as standard equipment and installed options. The third is the final nail in the coffin though, the deal ends on November 30, 2010. Today!
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 909
I rarely speak of politics here, even around election time, but this year is an exception because I actually voted in a mid-term election. Usually only picking the Grand Poobah will make me leave my cave and high speed internet connection to mingle with the masses, but this year there was a local issue that I wanted to put my 2¢ into (literally.)
