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Potpouri

Got a primer coat on the bathroom and painted all the trim in the hallway today, doesn’t sound like a lot, but that hallway is mostly trim. It spans from one bedroom to another with the bathroom in the middle. There is an entrance from the dining room and three separate closets. I don’t think that any of the six doors in this hallway had the same style doorknob on it, there were silver knobs and brass knobs, both polished and antique and there was even a “crystal” knob.

To make it easier to paint the trim and the doors I pulled all the doors off the walls and then stripped off the mis-mash of hardware. At first I thought maybe I would just clean all the different layers of paint off the hinges and knobs then re-install them, but decided that if we were going to all the trouble to freshly paint everything maybe we should just get some new hardware. Because of all the new shiny chrome fixtures in the bathroom I was thinking maybe we would do chrome hinges and such. Nope, one chrome hinge (1/2 of the hinges required to hang a door) was $8 and we needed 10 big ones and 4 small ones. Opted for brushed stainless steel at two bucks each. For what it would have cost in just chrome hinges we came back from the big box home improvement store with hinges, screws, a couple knobs and 5 new door knob sets.

Started down, went up, back down, up once more, down yet again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 152

Working Vacation

We have taken next week off from work and unlike the past few years we are not flying or driving off to the opposing corners of the lower 48 states — we are staying home. When asked where we are going, I have been half kiddingly telling everyone at work that we are going nowhere because we spent all our money on remodeling the bathrooms.

The truth is we are going nowhere, we’re staying home, but it won’t be all pina coladas by the pool for me, mainly because we don’t have a pool, but because I have rooms to paint, the two “new” bathrooms, two bedrooms and the hallway between them.

Plus the outside of the house needs a spring cleaning. I need to blow all the oak pollen clusters off the roof and the siding needs to be pressure washed. I’ve got a bottom-of-the-line pressure washer that I’ve used the last couple of years on the deck and when I mentioned I might even do my driveway, buddy Mark volunteered to lend me his gas powered 4.5 HP Troy Built pressure washer so as to speed up the process. He gave me 2 pieces of advice for using his washer compared to my wimpy unit; 1} don’t spray anywhere near your window screens because you’ll cut right through them like a hot knife though butter (don’t ask him how he knows) and 2} if you have no shoes on and see a spider, poisonous or not, walking across your foot, do not try to spray him off with the washer, trust him, the spider bite would be immensely less painful.

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 148

The Good Ol’ Days

I’ve had a lot of complaints about my uninteresting posts for the last couple of days, well just one complaint (Hi Mark), but with my single digit readership, one is a lot comparatively, so I’ve decided that tonight I will repeat a post from the glory days. I’d link to the post, but it is short enough to just quote it here.

Happy 2002
New Year?s Day. Cold, maybe mid forties. The Miata sits in the garage all day. The farthest I venture is around the block on rollerblades. Donna goes to the store, but uses the MSV.

That was my first blog post on January 1st, 2002. Now that was quality.

While moving from one bedroom to the other a couple of weeks ago Donna was going through some boxes and stumbled on the bill of sale from our first Miata purchased on November 7, 1989 for list price, $16,639. It was a middle range ‘A’ package car with the only options added being air conditioning and floor mats. We financed the car at an interest rate of 12.5%, so we ended up with 60 payments of $344.63.

Funny thing though, fourteen years later when we bought the Emperor, a top of the line LS, because it had sat on the dealer’s lot for nearly a year they were willing to deal for a below invoice price and with interest rates at 4% we ended up with 60 payments of $311.25.

So maybe the good ol’ days, in both blogging and Miata buying, weren’t so good after all.

Started down, still down.
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Matching Funds

Donna and I have decided to double the contribution to our retirement fund. From now on when we travel to Georgia we are going to pick up a 5 week play on the Mega Millions to go along with our usual multi-week Big Game quick pick here in South Carolina.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 144

Light Out

On the way home from work I noticed that the left fog light was burnt out. This is the third bulb that I’ve had to change. I can’t remember which ones in which order, but I could swear it wasn’t too long ago I changed this same bulb.

There is a 70% chance of rain in Blue Ridge, GA for Saturday, but we are prepared. Stopped at the local Movie Gallery and picked up my guaranteed great movie for everyone. Of the movies recommended the other day all I could find was one, but I’m sure it will be crowd pleaser. Because we were renting from the gallery section (AKA older movies) if we rented 3 @ $1.99 we would get two free. For our rainy day viewing pleasure we have:
Thomas Crown Affair
My Cousin Vinny
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
The Italian Job
Fargo

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 137

Nearing The Finish

Almost finished. The contractor has a couple spots to touch up and the mirror to hang and he is done in the second bath. Now it is up to me to finish up with painting, etc. We think we are going to go with a green in here on a similar note to the blue in the other bathroom. The existing border is coming down and the bright green on the window frame will be painted over in white.

Donna and I are off this weekend to the GA mountains. We are sharing a cabin with two other couples we know from the Miata Club. If we are back in the cabin on Saturday evening early enough we are going to watch a movie. Even though I think it will be nearly impossible to pick a movie that everyone will like, I volunteered to try. I asked everyone to send me a list of two movies that were either their favorite movie or something that if they stumbled on it on TV they would watch it the rest of the way no matter what they were watching or doing before. So far all three ladies have complied. One guy (me) has offered up his two picks, one only gave me one movie title and number three has been not submitted anything yet. Here is the list so far (in no particular order):

  1. My Cousin Vinny
  2. Dirty Dancing
  3. The Fugitive
  4. Something’s Gotta Give
  5. Titanic
  6. Ocean’s 11, 12 or 13
  7. Pirates of the Caribbean
  8. Pretty Woman
  9. Bullit

I have asked a couple folks at work for suggestions of movies that have some action, some comedy, a bunch of romance with a car or boat chase. Here are the their and my suggestions (once again in no particular order):

  1. For Love of the Game
  2. Bonnie & Clyde
  3. Milk Money
  4. Out of Sight

Any other ideas?

I searched the internet for movie recommendation sites, but they all required rating a ton of movies before spitting out personal recommendations. What I really need is something along the lines of Pandora radio for movies. Maybe I should open a new Netflix account and just rate these 9 movies and see what it recommends…

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