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 early to do some geocaching today. We always go early to avoid you muggles out there, but today, I guess it being a holiday and all, there was little traffic or people about late into the morning. We had a real good day too. Found a new personal best for a single day at 15. We missed a FTF by about an hour and we only had one DNF. We had DNF’d it before, but we got cocky because we had already found 4 so far that we had previously not found and the cache owner was one that had been giving us fits with their tricky hides and we had found four of hers so far today. Knocked us right back down a peg.
We ended up in Augusta visiting Borders to spend the $40 gift card that came as a Christmas gift from my sister and brother-in-law. We spent about an hour wandering the racks and stack contemplating our purchases. Seven items, total spent, 4¢.
The top was down from yesterday and we managed to keep it down the whole time we were out and about. It was a little cool in the morning, warming up during the day and we got home about 4 o’clock just before the rains came.
Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 922
Yesterday evening while searching for something to watch on TV rather than a bowl game that I had picked the wrong team in, I stumbled on Superbad on FX. If you’ve seen the movie, it was the Home Ec scene and there was Emma Stone. Hey, I don’t remember her in this movie. I instantly thought, Wichita! I watched the movie for a bit, but restlessly, so when the next commercial showed up I surfed up one channel to Comedy. They were showing Little Miss Sunshine with Abigail Breslin. Little Rock! It took everything I had not to fire up Netflix and start watching Zombieland.
Today’s movie in a red envelope for dinner entertainment was appropriately enough Easy A starring Emma Stone. She narrates the movie sort of like Jesse Eisenberg did in Zombieland. The credits are made of 3D letters superimposed into the scenes like they were in Zombieland. The first hour of Easy A was better than the last half hour, just like Zombieland. All and all it would have been preferable to have watched Zombieland than Easy A, but Donna couldn’t sit through the gory parts of MNFMTMWHS.
In a somewhat related and circular reference, Abigail Breslin’s character’s name in Little Miss Sunshine was Olive and Emma Stone’s character’s name in Easy A is Olive.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 924
While cleaning up my office for the move to the new digs in the back of the plant I came across my litter of Taco Bell chihuahuas (all two of them.) In trying to keep with management’s policy of not making our new cubicles into Shrine’s to Ourselves and maintaining a businesslike atmosphere I opted to bring the dogs home.
Not knowing what else to do with them Donna and I have decided to make them into geocaching Travel Bugs. The first dog to be returned to the wild is called I Think I’m In Love after the phrase it says when you squeeze it’s stomach. I’m guessing it was a special promotional item for Valentine’s Day in 1998, 1999 or 2000. After a dozen years or so the voice box still works.
Look for it in a cache near you. Or go your own on eBay.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
A fellow named Lawrence Harvey Luckham who worked in a Bell Labs Data Center in the 60’s posted some photos he took at work one day on his website. He even had the nerve to post the above picture of himself…
In the 60’s I was somewhere between the ages of 5 and 15 and I don’t have any photos of myself in that time frame. I do have one that would fit the Double Jeopardy category of Bad 70’s Hairstyles, my 1973 high school yearbook photo:
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
I’ve expanded the search for the new car. The list from last month is still in play:
I’ve hunted down every other two-door car I could find in our price range except for a Mustang and then tossed in the Sonata’s younger brother, the Elantra, just for giggles. Here is the spec chart for these cars:
Again, all numbers reflect the difference between the Emperor and the new car (except interior volume.)
Let’s take each one at a time and discuss their relative merits and demerits. They are priced typically using the base model with mats and an Ip-odd adapter. New Miatas Known quantity. Not real enamored with the look and fairly expensive compared the rest of the list. Mini Fun to drive, cute as a button and fits in the garage. Quirky interior. Genesis Sporty, with love it or hate it styling. Sonata Best looking car of the group. But four doors and will probably be a dime a dozen by the time we get around to getting one. Accord Positively sinister looking in black, but it is huge and will be hard to find priced in the lower 20’s. Civic I’ve always liked the looks of the Civic Coupes, but haven’t had any looking being comfortable driving one. Mazda RX-8 Sporty look and the chops to back it up, so it would an engaging drive. Most expensive on the list, lousy gas mileage and no blue. Altima Has a little Infinity G37 Coupe look, but not nearly enough, so it comes off sort of dowdy. New Beetle They aren’t making anymore of this model and if the spyshots I’ve seen accurately reflect the new New Beetle, ick, it looks like a squashed bug Elantra I like the looks of this car, but it has four doors. This is the stuffed model to get it equipped like the Sonata, but it ends up being just 3 grand less than the larger car. tC It’s got 2 doors. It is unexciting looking. Hope it is hoot to drive… Focus This is the last year for this model and the 2012 model looks awesome compared to this car, but it won’t come in a coupe. Who knows, by the time we actually buy a car, if the new one is out, it may warrant a look. Forte As with all the Korean cars, you get a lot for your money. We saw one in person this past weekend and I liked it, Donna not so much. Points off for trying to be different with the spelling of the word coupe. CR-Z I seriously considered the CRX back in ’89 before I knew of the Miata’s existence and we were Honda drivers for a dozen years before Mazda won us over. Trouble is, this is a hybrid with all its faults (battery replacement costs) and hardly any of the benefits (gas mileage.)
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
We had big plans to go geocaching this morning, but they fell through when we opted to sleep in and just stick around the house. We did go out later with a friend and grabbed 2 caches that were real close by, one in Hopeland Gardens (where the photo was taken) and one in the Aiken County Museum.
Right now Donna is in the other room on the laptop making big plans to go caching tomorrow morning. We’ll see how that goes, it is supposed to be 22° at sunrise.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
Fair weather cachers no more. Admittedly, we slept in an hour later, until 7:00AM, and lounged around DD reading the Sunday paper until almost nine, so it was a bit warmer than it would have been at sunrise, but it was still cold enough to require hats, gloves and a warm coat. We did a few caches (6 total) that were between here and Augusta. After a lunch break we headed off into Hitchcock Woods to check on possible locations for our first legal hide there.
While we were way out west in South Carolina looking for a couple caches we ended up close to a couple of car dealers, so we stopped in and walked around the lots looking at possible new vehicles. First up was a Toyota dealer and even though I had no Toyotas on the short list, I wanted Donna to take a look to see if there was anything there she liked. The only thing that caught her eye was a Yaris. They’re kinda cute, but too small in a non-premium way.
Across the street was the Nissan dealer. The first thing to catch both our eyes was a bright blue 370Z. Wow, at 33K, more than we were looking at spending. They did have a couple of Altima Coupes, one in gray and another in very dark red. They did have a 4 door in the blue, but it was an uninspiring shade of navy. On the way back of the lot we passed right by one of those new mini-SUVs, the Juke. Donna commented that it looked like it had been in fight and lost. You have to admit its funky profile has a passing resemblance to a recently pummeled head with knots on it. Her next words were, “Juke, they should have called it Joke.” Next week, maybe we will cruise a Hyundai dealer.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
It was coming down slowly when we went to bed last night and it was still coming down this morning when we woke up, there was probably 1 to 1–1/2 inches of snow on the ground. We checked the local news channel’s web site and there amongst the school closings was a note that ASCO was opening with a two hour delay. We promptly went back to bed for 2 hours. When we got up a second time Donna packed lunches, we had breakfast and I went outside and swept the snow off the tarp covered car port, so it wouldn’t collapse like it did last February.
After first saying no I wouldn’t drive to work, I relented and said I’d give it a try. I put 3 cinder blocks in the trunk for traction (for reference purposes I could have fit 4 if I didn’t have the CD changer back there) and we set off slowly down the street. We made it out to the main road without too much trouble, but we were driving on virgin snow. When we got to a main artery the traction was much dicier because there had been some traffic through it, but not enough to clean anything off, just rearrange it. After a block or so of slipping around we decided to head back to the barn.
Donna could do a lot of work from home, so she monopolized the PC most of the day and I read a book. We’ll see how tomorrow goes. Tonight it is supposed to go back below freezing and traction will possibly be even more elusive on the resulting ice.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
After yesterday’s failed attempt at driving to work in the Miata, Donna decided to ensure we would make it to work on Tuesday. She called friend & coworker Mark (Hi Mark!), who has a 4 wheel drive pickup truck and passes near Casa de Bogardus on his commute, to ask for a ride in. Because Mark goes to work about an hour before us, we set our mental clocks back an hour and physically set our alarm clock back by the like amount.
Mark called around six this morning and said he checked his road, it was solid ice and with discretion being the better part of valor, he was not going to attempt the trip right now. Mark is south and rural from us in a very hilly part of the county and I told him don’t risk it on our account. I said I’d go outside and see what my road looked like, if it didn’t look too bad, we might try it in the Miata. We left it at that, you call me or I’ll call you.
I walked outside and our driveway was still very icy, but the road in front of the house was spotty; dry, then icy, then dry, and so on. I told Donna, “Let’s give it a shot. If we only get as far as we did yesterday, so be it.” Today was the exact opposite of yesterday’s drive, our street was the tricky part, but manageable. When we got to the main artery, Whiskey Road, it was almost entirely clean. So were the rest of the roads, until we made it to work. The 5 lanes in front of the plant had two clean lanes on either side of a very crunchy center turn lane. Fortunately traffic was nearly non-existent so I could slow to 10 MPH in the 55 zone and get into the plant’s driveway without being rear ended. The driveway and the parking were very slippery and did require some extra care navigating, but we made it to work safe and sound.
When I got to my desk I called Mark, to call him a wimp and let him know if he did make the trip in, not to stop at our place, we weren’t there. Mark did make it into work several hours later. He took it slowly for a couple miles until he got to Petticoat Junction (see, I told you rural and yes, that is the actual name of that crossroads area) and then the roads were pretty much clear the rest of the way in.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
The North American Autoshow just finished up in Detroit and my new favorite car company debuted a new production car there, the Veloster. I have praised their recent designs, the Tucson, the Elantra and my love for the Sonata’s looks knows no bounds, but what were they thinking with this:
That is a face only a mother could live… Every picture I see of this thing does not make me like it any more, it just reaffirms the ugliness of it. Then I saw it in action:
Doesn’t look too bad in motion. Some folks have called it the CRX that Honda should have built, so maybe I should put it on the possible new car list, after all I was considering a CRX before I got sidetracked with this whole Miata thing. I’ll need a different color choice or two, then I will have to figure how to make it look like it is moving while parked…
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
This morning there came the sound of laughter from the cubical next door. A pause. More laughter. Then #9 read out loud. Laughter. Number 11 out loud. Now laughter in two cubicles.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren’t going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 925
I assume this is a statue of a little girl, but it could be a boy because it was so cold out here this morning that my junk had sought refuge internally too and I wasn’t even standing thigh deep in ice.
It was 24 degrees out when we left the house headed to Augusta for an MMC breakfast, but first we wanted to do some geocaching. Close to the breakfast joint was a huge baptist church that had 6 caches scattered around its very large grounds. It was Saturday morning at 7 AM, so we figured we’d have the place to ourselves…wrong. They must have had a Christian Men’s Breakfast because not long after we pulled into the parking lot several cars came zipping in after us. We ended up only getting 3 of the more far flung caches before leaving because we were getting eyeballed by the new arrivals.
The church also happened to be right next door to the Hyundai dealer, so we wandered over and eyeballed some vehicles. It was confirmed that the Genesis Coupe has too big a butt for our liking.The good news is Donna approves of the Sonata in Pacific Blue which is my first pick. We both like the looks of the Accent as well. Now it comes down to some test driving, waiting until the slush fund has enough money for a decent down payment and doing the bullshit car dealer price dicker dance. Their web site listed a blue SE at $23,450, but the two they had on the lot had stickers of 26 and change and then the dealer added paint protection scam for $800, so the price for the car ended up in the high twenty seven thousand range!
After breakfast we did a bit more geocaching at a park in Augusta and then a couple more in North Augusta along the Greenway. Ended up with an even dozen finds and no DNFs, although we were close to not finding the one entitled The Secret Garden where the above photo was taken.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 926
Donna always had to have popcorn when we went to the movies, even if it was normally crappy and way over priced, and most times on weekends when we watched a DVD too. Unfortunately she can’t eat popcorn anymore because of the UC, so we don’t keep it in the house anymore. Every once in a while she would offer to buy some just for me because she felt I was being deprived. But I’m not a real popcorn lover. I don’t have to have any to enjoy a movie. I don’t dislike it and would never turn it down when offered at the movies or at home, but haven’t missed it all.
Until this morning. I was up front of the plant to go with Donna for our morning break walk and I could smell that someone in the cafeteria had just popped some. The lure of the Siren’s song was too great. After the walk, on my way back to my cube, I broke down and bought some microwave popcorn. I ate about a third of the bag before I couldn’t eat anymore, so I placed the bag on the conference room table as the 10:30 NCMR meeting was just starting.
Next time you pop up a bag of Pop Secret Movie Butter microwave popcorn take a peek at the “Nutritional Facts.” They are broken down into two separate type of servings, 1 Cup Popped and 2 Tbsp Unpopped. Raise your hand if you eat unpopped popcorn.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 927
Having recently discovered the joy of dessert TV in the form of Two And A Men reruns I was unpleasantly surprised by how much I didn’t enjoy a first run episode. After House last night I was surfing for a background show while blogged and ended up watching a new this season episode. It stuck to its basic formula, but everyone seemed to be trying to hard. All TV shows have an expiration date and last night both House and 2–1/2 Men last night confirmed that they are past theirs.
If I still owned a first gen Miata I might still be running the Barndoor Fan Club and I would definitely be sporting one of these NA-Culture Tees.
The other week I came into work and there was a Sno-Ball on my desk. This morning the perpretrator of that crime had a small Hostess Truck on his desk.
The Hostess truck from TDZM was easier than making a mini-me. The truck was held together by tabs glued to panels, but this had tabs going into slots and while the head was kind of easy the body was tricky and the “legs” were a real pain. And even though I used a metal ruler for a straight edge, cutting parallel and perpendicular was equally important as straight. As you can see I had to resort to clear tape to keep me together.
It took UPS two days to move my Pacific Playland T-shirt from Groveport, Ohio 530 miles to Atlanta, GA. It has taken the USPS two days to get it from Atlanta, GA 150 miles to Augusta GA. I wonder how long it will take them to go the last 25 miles? Two days?
Little Rock: Have you heard about Pacific Playland? There are no zombies there. Columbus: The amusement park? Little Rock: Yep! Tallahassee: That place totally blows!
[Little Rock and Wichita shoot Tallahassee angry looks] Tallahassee: … my mind. Just fun for the whole family.
My current car insurance is with State Farm and after watching Two and a Half Men this evening I think I can get 21st Century insurance to pay me to be insured with them. First, switching to Geico will save me 15%, then switching to Allstate from Geico will save me an additional $396. Changing to Progressive from Allstate will save me $474. Then converting to 21st Century from Progressive saves me another $550.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 929
My latest fixation, started in the usual manner, a random blog post on a random web page. Now I just can’t help myself, I just have to cut something out of card stock and glue, insert tab into slot or press it together to create “art.”
Today’s papercraft piece, Minimimmo, is from Italy and hopes to colonize the world. These boogers are just so cute, I might just make a hundred of them, starting a southeastern US outpost. Good thing there is a video on the web site as the downloadable instructions were only available in Italian.
No package in today’s mail. No failed attempted delivery notice. Some rat bastard postal worker is wearing my Pacific Playland T-shirt.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 930
Today’s art project is so simple a caveman could do it. No tape, no glue, no tabs and no xacto knife needed, just scissors and a steady hand. Desktop Gremlins
Mark wore his new Zombieland T-shirt to work today and took every chance he got to show off his sartorial splendor and rub in the fact that I was wearing nothing but a plain green shirt. Of course, wouldn’t you know it, the shirt I ordered several hours before he ordered his, was in the mailbox when I got home tonight.
So what did I do, you might ask, well, I didn’t even open it up, I wrote return to sender in big red letters and stuffed the overstuffed envelope back in the mailbox.
OK, not really, I eagerly ripped open the bag and I’m wearing it now and plan on not taking it off. Ever.
Truthfully, I put it in the hamper to be washed. I have this phobia about wearing anything brand new, it has to be washed first.* Amateur psychologists, feel free to pipe in with a diagnosis.
*Actually, that would make a nice Z-Land rule. #33. Always wash new clothes. Because you never know if a zombie has tried it on before you.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 931
This model is recognizable by the Hostess logo on the back and the rearview mirrors that I didn’t have time to put on the first version. I’m thinking for Version 3.0 I might have the rear door open with hundreds of tiny Sno-Balls tumbling out of it. I did this one at home using Elmer’s Glue and I’m not that happy with the results. At work I have a glue stick that works a lot better, but more importantly I have a very well lit area that makes it easier to see the cut /fold lines. The glue stick is an easy fix, but I’m not sure what to do about the lighting.
First up today was the usual Saturday breakfast at DD while reading the Weekend Edition of the WSJ they get. We enjoy reading it so much we thought about getting it home delivered, but you can only get the weekend paper if you subscribe to the Monday through Friday editions as well. Those we probably wouldn’t read, so it would be a terrible waste of paper, plus the cost was more than we wanted to spend for a newspaper for one day a week ($119 a year.)
Then we went out in the 27° morning and did a few local and semi-local caches. We found the first two we looked for and then it went down hill from there, ending up finding just three of the next seven. We were about due a few DNFs as we hadn’t had one in three weeks and 30 caches.
We finished out the day at Olive Garden with friends. We always go out to eat early to avoid the crowds, but that plan didn’t work tonight. We arrived at 5:15 and ended up with a 50 minute wait for a table. If it was just Donna and I we would have just walked next door to Wendy’s, but we had Rudy and Patti to share stories with while we waited, so while the wait was long, it was pleasant.
Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 931
A slight break from the papercraft madness, at least picture-wise, as today’s photo is of Donna and friend Joan taking a brief rest at Hawk Field in Hitchcock Woods. We had two purposes in the woods today, one was a nice walk on a nice winter afternoon (~4.5 miles) and two was scouting a geocache placement. Mission accomplished.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 932
This bit of folded paper is kind of crude compared to the cute Minimimmo and not nearly as slick as The Alien, but the Star Wars geek in me just had to make it. Trouble is, it is not so recognizable as to what it is. My wife who has seen A New Hope as many times as I have, thought it might be from Firefly. Of course when she said that I thought, “Oooh, oooh, maybe somebody has done a papercraft Serenity.” Sure enough, someone has, and the plans are on the God-blessed Internet. Unfortunately what I have been doing so far in no way prepares me to make that model. I’m just graduating from Papercraft Pre-school and this project is Graduate School level. It is approximately 80 pieces cut from thirteen 8–1/2 x 11 sheets with instructions consisting of 14 jpeg images.
From IMDB’s trivia page for Star Wars:
While George Lucas was filming on location in Tunisia, the Libyan government became worried about a massive military vehicle parked near the Libyan border. Consequently, the Tunisian government, receiving threats of military mobilization, politely asked Lucas to move his Jawa sandcrawler farther away from the border.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 933
Fourteen months ago I had a root canal done. Yesterday was Donna’s turn to go under the drill. Last week she had a bad headache that nagged her for a couple days and then over the weekend a tooth started to pain her. The headache was her body trying to tell her she had an infection in the tooth. On Monday she called the dentist and got an appointment for Tuesday and an antibiotic prescription because her face was starting to get swollen on one side. Monday after work we got the script filled and she took one as soon as we got home. Then we read the sheet of side effects and precautions only to find out that persons with Crohns or Colitis shouldn’t take that medication.
On Tuesday she saw our regular dentist and he immediately sent her down the hall to the specialist. The infection was so bad that there was a possibility that she might have to take antibiotics for 10 days before the root canal could be done, but they ended up doing it right then. They sent her home with a prescription for an antibiotic she could take, Amoxicillin. After a root canal your mouth is sore because they have been in there working, but the pain is minimal. For Donna’s root canal they had to give her two shoots to kill the pain and lance part of her gum because of the infection. She hurt pretty bad and neither one of us got a lot of sleep. Around 3:00 Am this morning we contemplated going to the emergency room for help. But Donna the trooper gutted it out, but called the dentist for some pain meds today. She now has 15 Lortab (7.5/500) to take every 4 to 6 hours, the pills do a good job of knocking the pain back, but only seem to last, at most, a couple hours. Hopefully the antibiotics will kill the infection and that will make the pain go away without having to keep taking the pain pills.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 933
The photo above is submission #27 to the EnchantedCeiling web site and my last.
Dear devoted friends and readers,
Thank you for these seven long years of support and contributions to the EnchantedCeiling project. It has been fantastic to see what you all see from both near and far.
As of the end of this month, January, 2011, I will be closing down the upload feature of the site. The archive of photos you have collected and shared will be maintained for as long as possible (and since hosting is cheap, that should be for a long, long time!)
I know you will all find other wonderful ways to share you view of the world. Thank you for coming here for such a wonderfully long time.
–DH.
I’m not going to really miss the site that much, most of my submissions were in the first three years of its existence, in the last three I’ve only added 7 and those were basically prompted by a reminder email from the site owner. I have those submissions and 20 more posted in a gallery on LOB.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 933
I know what you’re thinking, “He’s gone off the deep end.” Sorry already been off for quite a while.
These little fellows are a cute as puppy dogs and I couldn’t help but make more than one. Then I thought maybe they needed a momma to show them the way of the world, so I made one twice as large grafting two pieces of card stock together. If I made 6 of the small guys every weekend, how long would it take to fill up my 9′ x 9′ x 3–1/2′ high cubical?
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 936
We went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods this afternoon and finally placed the new cache. We had hoped to get it placed yesterday, so it would be published this morning, but life intervened. I’m waiting to send it to the reviewer ’til a little later this evening so that no one will be tempted to go hunting it, against the rules and all common sense, tonight.
In the recent past I’m sure I have complained here about how cold it has been here, so in the interest of fairness I shall now commence to whining about today’s weather. The high was nearly 15 degrees above normal„ so that when we went walking in the woods this afternoon the trails were crowded with dog walkers, horseback riders and a few just plain walkers such as ourselves. Worse yet was that I actually broke a sweat on our three and a half mile trek. All that traffic did have a side benefit, it spooked a group of deer so that we caught sight of five good sized does streaking across our path about 50 yards ahead at one point.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 936
No it’s not the 4th generation Miata, but an odd take on the current 3rd gen car. I found this on Autoblog, take a side view of a car, import it into your favorite image editor program, cut the roof of the car off, turn it around and paste it back on. Tah Dah! Backwards Cars.
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Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 937
