Mechanically Induced Coma

The CTBNL is very sick. Right now it is sitting at a local auto repair shop in a mechanically induced coma for the next week or two while awaiting an opening.

A week ago today on the way home from a shopping trip over in Medford we were only a couple of miles from home when calamity struck. Cruising along at 50 MPH behind a BMW 3 Series when what should appear from right underneath the back of this car, but a softball sized chunk of concrete! With zero chance to avoid it, I held my breath.

Boom Bang Crunch Clang! I looked in the rearview mirror and could see the chunk tumbling behind me, along with a trail of smoke leading back to it. I instantly knew what had happened. A busted oil pan.

We were in the left lane preparing to turn off towards home in about 100 yards anyway, so I eased on over into the turn lane right behind the BMW. We both pulled into an unmanned fuel center. I immediately shut off the car and we had been leaking oil for only maybe 10-12 seconds.

The BMW driver got out and looked under his car. I don’t know whether the concrete piece actually hit anything under the BMW, but if it did, it was just incidental contact because he got back in his car and drove off (he did ask if we needed any help first.) I looked under our car even though I already knew what I’d see and I wasn’t disappointed, it looked like I had removed the drain plug. Our only option was to call a tow truck.

After the BMW drove off I got out and pushed the Miata several feet forward because where I stopped I wasn’t totally into the lot. The CTBNL had left a nice sized oil spot behind and oil was still slowly leaking. I called a local shop that had done some work on the Mini for us and they said they could do the work, but it wouldn’t be until June sometime.

I then called for a tow and about 30 minutes later the truck showed up. Once the car was on the flatbed, there was another slightly smaller spot left behind there too. I thought for sure that was all 4 quarts of oil, but when the car was offloaded at Emmett’s there was a small slick of oil on the flatbed.

Now we wait to see just how much it is going to cost to fix the CTBNL. Trying to determine what the breaking point is where we say, @%#! it, and save that money for the Wrangler.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Porsche Edition of SORT
As of Monday, May 24, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1975 Porsche 914 2.0 2004 Porsche Cayenne 2018 Porsche 911
These are Miata-like while driving, except for the very long shift throw. A Transsyberia Tribute from Canadian which is Siberia-like. It is a GT3 Touring with no monster wing on the back, so it is sleeper-like.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1968 Ferrari 330 GTC Sold for $575,000 on 5/19/21
Off-Road: 2004 Mini Cooper S Sold for $16,500 on 5/19/21
Touring: 2003 BMW M5 Sold for $53,250 on 5/19/21

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Quintessential Edition of SORT
As of Monday, May 17, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1968 Ferrari 330 GTC 2004 Mini Cooper S 2003 BMW M5
If I never do this SORT thing again I would be happy to have these 3 cars in my garage and would not be envious of anything else that is put up for auction on Bring a Trailer.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 2008 Lotus Elise SC Sold for $57,100
Off-Road: 1977 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ43 Sold for $72,000
Touring: 2017 Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio Sold for $52,517

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Wait Until Next Week Edition of SORT
As of Monday, May 10, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2008 Lotus Elise SC 1977 Toyota
Land Cruiser FJ43		 2017 Alfa Romeo
Giulia Quadrifoglio
This is arguably the hardest core sports car for the street, good thing I get to pick something else next week. Beautifully restored and really too nice to take off-roading, good thing I get to pick something else next week. These cars are either wonderful or very unreliable, good thing I get to pick something else next week.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 2007 Porsche Cayman Sold for $30,000
Off-Road: 1968 Jeep Gladiator Sold for $23,000
Touring: 1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe Sold for $60,000

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Hooray for May Edition of SORT
As of Monday, May 2, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2007 Porsche Cayman 1968 Jeep Gladiator 1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe
The Porsche for the People and I’m a people. A much nicer choice that today’s new Gladiator. The perfect car for when I take up bootlegging.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1988 Ferrari 328 GTS Sold for $88,000
Off-Road: 1962 International Harvester Scout 80 Sold for $18,000
Touring: 2017 BMW M6 Coupe Sold for $81,000

Jigsaw Puzzle Madness

It all started back in early December when we were at a local bookstore and Donna bought a jigsaw puzzle. We thought it might be a nice way to while away the hours during the cold winter days. If you follow my Instagram, you have noticed that it has become an addiction. I will usually post a photo of the completed puzzle or sometimes the work in progress. For the heck of it, I just went back and counted the puzzles we have done since December and came up with 55!

We have bought eight or nine new puzzles for ourselves, but most of the puzzles have come from scouring the three Klamath Falls thrift stores where we can get a used jigsaw puzzle for a dollar or three. If we didn’t shop frugally I don’t think there would be anyway to afford our puzzle habit.

You take your chances with used puzzles because sometimes they are missing a piece or two. This has happed maybe 25% of the time, so we just shrug it off as the cost of business, but this last spate of puzzles has changed our minds. It all started innocently enough when we bought 4 puzzles at one place and started doing them. The first one we started was a smaller 500 piece puzzle of a display of colorful magic markers. When we finished the puzzle it turned out to be missing one of its pieces.

While sorting pieces to find the border of the colorful marker puzzle, we found four pieces that didn’t belong at all, they looked like they came from a puzzle with hot air balloons as the theme. Well, as it turns out, one of the four puzzles we bought at the same time was a 1000 piece puzzle of hot air balloons. Maybe that is where those extra pieces go and if we are very lucky, the missing colorful marker piece might be in the hot air balloon box.

Hmmm, now what. Before starting either of the 2 puzzles we still had left from that store, we went back there to look for a hot air balloon puzzle. Sure enough, there was a 500 piece one, so we picked it up. There were also two more different 500 piece puzzles from the same company and series, chocolate candy and a street scene, so we bought them too, just in case. And here is where it gets really interesting.

We, of course, did the hot air balloon puzzle first. Those 4 extra pieces fit right in like they belonged, because they did. But the puzzle was missing three different pieces. And, as a “bonus”, there were four different dark brown pieces that didn’t belong at all. We thought we knew just where they would go too.
 
 

So we did the “Life is a Box Chocolates” puzzle next. Sure enough, those four extra pieces in the hot air balloon box belonged right here. As Forrest Gump’s mom said, you ‘never know what you were going to get’, but if you are following this, you can guess what we got, two more missing pieces and, surprise, one that didn’t belong.
 
 
So we started the last of our trio of puzzles hoping that this extra extra piece might go into our street scene one. While also hoping to possibly find any of the other missing pieces from the previous 2 puzzles and maybe even the one from the puzzle that started it all, Colorful Makers. Yippee, that last extra piece did go into this puzzle, but unfortunately, there was a totally different piece missing.

As usual though, it did have two extra pieces that didn’t belong in the puzzle, or anything else we have here right now…

42,000 Grains of Salt on 7,000 French Fires

This morning we drove the Mini over the Cascades to Medford to have our leaky water pump fixed and a few miles from home the Lady Bug passed 42,000 miles on the odometer. The 75 mile drive was pleasant and didn’t take as long as the Google maps estimate, but that was because even though the speed limit is posted as 55 MPH I cruised along without an issue at 65 most of the way. I wasn’t worried about a speeding ticket because I was passed by several cars and pickups along the route like I was standing still.

I told the car place I’d be there a little after 10 and had the rental car reserved for noon. We pulled into John’s Auto Care Center right at 9 AM. Instead of our planned leisurely 1 mile walk over to the airport to pick up the car, the folks at John’s said they’d give us a ride over there, as crossing the street to get to the airport was kind of tricky/busy1, so we excepted. This put us at the rental counter by 9:15, way earlier than expected. The lady manning the desk said, “No worries, we’ll fix you right up.” and true to her word, by 9:30 we were exiting the airport in a 2020 Audi Q5.

So far, our being early had not been an issue, but because we planned to eat lunch in Medford, we needed to waste a couple of hours. We didn’t want to head right back because we wanted to eat at a fast food spot that we missed from Aiken and didn’t have in Klamath Falls. At first I drove around aimlessly, then we said lets drive into downtown and see if there was anything to see, Somehow I didn’t really make it. Then we thought, let’s find a donut place. We found a place, but you could only use the drive up and because we like to look before making a choice we got back on the move again. We then reconnoitered where our lunch choices were, but it was still too early to eat or for them to even be open. To kill some time I said let’s go check out the town of Jacksonville. It is a little town east of Medford that has a lot of historic buildings. We drove over, circled the center of town, went hmmm, and drove back to Medford and had our lunch.

There was a Chick-Fil-A and a Five Guys in the same little strip shopping center and these were two of the places we wanted to get food from. A plan was devised that I would go to Chick-Fil-A and get the sandwich portion of the meal and Donna would go to Five Guys and get an order of fries and we would have the best of both restaurants. But you could only get the chicken by going through the drive-up, so we said forget it. We’ll do Five Guys now and save Chick-Fil-A for the return trip when we get the Mini back. While we certainly enjoyed the salty abundant fries we so missed, but it turns out they just didn’t measure up to what our memories made them out to be. Certainly not a 150 mile round trip for.

A few miles out of Medford on the way home the Q5’s odometer changed from 6,999 to 7,000.