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Identity Crisis

On our trip down I-95 in Florida on last Thursday I saw a most interesting car. I was in the center of the three lanes when I noticed a small black sedan with dark tinted windows approaching fast. In the center of the grill was a shiny oval badge with a large L in the center. The car was a Lexus. It looked smaller than their smallest cars the IS and as it passed by I didn’t recognize it. Now I’m a car guy, I read practically every major car magazine and check AutoBlog every day, so if Lexus has a car below the IS I would known about it. Once the car was past me I could see the back of the car and right there on the left of the trunk was a chrome Lexus badge, in the center of the rear panel was another oval Lexus logo where they were supposed to be. On the right side of the trunk was the clincher, a chrome IS250. A neighbor used to have an IS250 and this was definitely not one.

I wasn’t real sure what it was, but I had an idea and it was confirmed after I had internet access, it was a Toyota Yaris sedan. Props to the owner for a nearly thoroughly convincing job, he even stayed in the family so to speak. If he had just combined two badges on the back to give the car two letters that weren’t on a known model, like say IC250, I might have actually though I spotted a prototype.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 73

Thanks Axl

Got my letter from the Doctor today. Now I just have to remember to drink it slow.

In spite of my washing the car just 8 days ago, the Emperor got another washing tonight. Had to clean the Florida off him.

There are now two Miatas in the parking lot at work. The Assembly Engineering Supervisor finally pulled the trigger. He really liked the new body style Miatas when they came out in 2005 and has talked about getting one since 2006. Last week he found one he just had to have, a 2006 Grand Touring model in silver with black interior that had 45,000 miles on it.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 73

Pelcan On A Post

Last Monday night Donna and I raked up the front yard. We usually do it on Sunday or Monday because the city comes around and picks up the yard waste the same day as the trash, which in our case is Tuesday. Judging by the leaves left on the trees we still had at least a couple more rounds of raking to go before this season was over.

On last Wednesday a line of thunderstorms passed across the southeast, which we fortunately dodged on the drive down to Florida, but unfortunately it knocked a ton of leaves off the trees in the Aiken area. When we pulled into the driveway last night I felt lucky to be able to pick it out from the rest of the yard, there was a thick blanket of fallen leaves covering everything. So today Donna and I raked the leaves up in the front yard again. The only upside to this is that the storm knocked nearly every remaining leaf off the trees, so we may not have to do this again.

At least not in the front yard…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 69

Mitsuoka Himiko

Believe it or not this is a modified Miata. An enterprising Japanese firm has created this Morgan inspired conversion of a 3rd generation MX-5. You can see it in the interior and the doors. There are a bunch more photos of the $50,000 Himiko (along with links to a couple more interesting cars made by the same company) over on the Jalopnik post where I stumbled on this.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 58

William & Mary

We have been watching a British TV show called William & Mary. Cute little show that is about a widower with two kids that meets a single mom with two kids through a dating service. They have a complicated life full of mirth and pathos, partly because he is a mortician and she is a midwife, party because all the kids are teen aged and partly because, well that’s life.

Netflix has 3 discs available with 4 episodes on each which encompasses 2 seasons. They don’t call them seasons tough, kind of hard to when there are only 6 episodes for each one. They call them series. Trouble is the all that is available from Netflix is Series 1 and 2, not the third and final one, you can get it in England though. I could buy it and have it shipped here, but $30 seems a bit much to spend for something that I will have to rip to remove the region coding and rerecord to a DVD to watch it here. May still do it…

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 56

Creepy Nutcracker

If you have small children it may be best if you don’t let them check the mail for the next few weeks, unless of course, unlike me, you don’t think this year’s Christmas Nutcrackers Stamps are creepy.

We went out this afternoon and cleaned the rest of the leaves off the driveway and sidewalks and such. Afterward I pulled the car out of the garage and gave it a washing. It was pretty dirty from the rains of a couple weeks ago and the drenching it got last Saturday on the trip back from HHI. Maybe tomorrow I’ll pull it back out and give it a wax.

For the first time in a while we went for a bike ride today. At first we were going to ride our single bikes this afternoon, but changed it to the tandem tonight. We went out around 7 PM when it was fully dark and cruised a couple neighborhoods looking at Christmas lights.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 54

Thanks, I Think?

When we got home from work tonight, we noticed that someone had raked the front yard. Didn’t clean the driveway or do the small side strip on the other side of the driveway, just the front part. It is not much because about half the yard is landscaped as a natural area, but it would take a person a half hour or so to do the job. There was a nice neat pile of the raked leaves in the street. Very strange. No other yard on either side of us was clean, nor across the street either. Did someone get that far before realizing they were at the wrong house on the wrong street? Is it like those wash your windshield shakedowns at intersections, is someone going to knock on our door tomorrow and want $20?

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 52