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12 Rules For Miata Life

A few days ago I blogged about the “12 Rules” phenomena and I mentioned I thought it would take a while to think about the subject before I could create my own set. So, off an on since then, I have been plugging away at doing just that with a little Miata spin. I had a good start, Rule #1, but then it all fell apart. It ended up more like 12 reasons to buy a Miata, so anyway…

  1. It’s a Convertible – Put the top down as often as possible.
  2. It’s Inexpensive – Until you start adding options, every new Miata is priced below the $34,000 average cost of a vehicle in 2019. Nice 5-7 year old ones can be had for $15-20k. Of course there are cheaper cars to be had, but nothing can touch it on a cost per mile of fun.
  3. It’s Reliable – Well taken car of early models are still going strong at over a quarter of a million miles. And not so well taken care of examples can easily be brought to life without breaking your bank.
  4. It’s a Sports Car – On any giving weekend at SCCA, NASA and autocross events there will more Miatas than practically every other make of car. Even if you just drive on the street, do not buy cheap tires, they limit the fun available.
  5. It’s a Slow Car – And it is leaps and bounds more fun to drive a slow car fast than it is to drive a fast car slow.
  6. It’s a Small Car – Always park at the end of a row so at least one side will be free of large vehicles to make it easier to back out.
  7. It’s a Great First Car – The open cockpit will make your teen driver feel vulnerable, so they will be paying attention to trying not to get crushed by the typically much larger vehicles around them, plus it is small, light-weight and maneuverable making it easy avoid them. As a bonus it is a two-seater thereby reducing the peer pressure to do something stupid by 66% as compared to the typical sedan.
  8. It’s as Good as a Pickup Truck – On a sunny day. With the top down it is amazing what can be carried in the passenger seat sticking up and/or back.
  9. It’s More Fun with Friends – So join a local Miata Club, they’re everywhere.
  10. It’s Infinitely Customizable – While some consider them perfect right out of the box, there is an aftermarket for these things that is staggering, from every possible performance modification you could think of to all manner of cosmetic stuff to nice things that Mazda probably should have put on one to begin with.
  11. It’s Photogenic – Like babies and pets. See above. 😉
  12. It’s not a Collector’s Car – So drive it..

One of 71,000 Missing Memories

Some where in the last week or so the CTBNL passed the 71,000 mile mark and I didn’t notice. I’m guessing it was on the 1st when we took a drive over to Augusta and took some Motoring Challenge photos. But then you think I would have noticed it, no I don’t think it was then. Matter of fact, I have a hazy memory of thinking that we needed just 22 miles to get to that mark when we returned that day. It probably happened on a small trip around town and I meant to blog about it and forgot. Until now.

Portmanteau

This year’s Moss Motoring Challenge has a very clever and sometimes hard to capture category called “Writer’s Road Block (signs or scenes)”
Action verb – 1 pt
Alliteration – 1 pt
Anagram – 4 pts
Assonance – 3 pts
Conflict – 2 pts
Foreshadowing – 5 pts
Malapropism – 4 pts
Metaphor – 1 pt
Needs Editing – 3 pts
Oxymoron – 3 pts
Portmanteau – 3 pts
Simile – 1 pt

The above is a portmanteau: word that is a linguistic blend of words, in which parts of multiple words or their phones (sounds) are combined into a new word, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog, or motel, from motor and hotel.

Georgialina = Georgia + Carolina

Truck Day

Pitchers and catchers report in just 9 days…

12 Rules

The other day on my morning walk, I listened to an episode of the podcast Revisionist History entitled “Malcolm Gladwell’s 12 Rules for Life“. He was reacting to a whole 12 Rules meme that was generated by a book called, surprisingly, “12 Rules for Life” that came out last January. He had an interesting take on the idea and in typical Canadian fashion it ended up being mostly about hockey.

In typical Life of Brian fashion I knew nothing about this meme until after it had been around so long it was already out of fashion so, you just know I’m going to make my own anyway. Trouble with that is, there is no way I can come up with 12 rules without doing a whole lot of cognitating first, so I’m going to take a play from Mr. Gladwell and name only one. His rule is: Pull the Goalie (it has to do with Risk vs, Reward and is worth a listen.)

Here’s mine: Life is too short to drive boring cars.

Brushed Stainless Steel Dash

Stainless Steel Gauge Surround

On the 25th of January, they announced the winners of the 2018 Moss Motoring Challenge and mailed off the $50 Gift Certificates. As expected, we landed in among the top 50 runners-up at the totally respectable level of tied for 8th. Our Gift Certificate arrived on Monday the 28th, on Tuesday I ordered the goodie you see above and it arrived today. A couple hours later and it was in.

We took advantage of mild weather this afternoon and took a drive to do a little work towards another $50 Gift Certificate next year. We snagged 3 photos to go along with the 2 we already have giving us a total of 15 points out of a possible 298.

Pete Bostwick Trail

The bottom sign “To South Boundary” has always been here, the Pete Bostwick Trail part is kind of new.

 

Work on that New Years Resolution is going smoothly, we have now walked in Hitchcock woods more in the month of January 2019, than we have done in the last two years.

We entered at the South Boundary Entrance for the first time in a long time and made our way through Memorial Gate to the Horse Show Ring before heading back. With a little side trip following an unmarked (and as it turned out, dead end) trail we probably covered about 2-1/2 miles. Maybe next time we’ll remember to bring the GPSr so we can get an accurate mileage figure.