Morning Bike Ride
Rode my usual loop to get a muffin and a latte at Stomping Grounds; 10 miles ridden and 10 dollars spent. Since that early morning ride I have been ensconced in front of the TV. I’ve watched part of a baseball game, a whole baseball game, part of one football game, and part of another football game, and I’m currently watching a third football game, which I will finish. That is if you think just having the game on while blogging on a laptop counts…
Looking West—the Columbia River From the Maryhill Museum
I bailed kind of early and made a stop at a Roadside America attraction, the Maryhill Stonehenge, just down the street from where the car show was before getting on I-84 to head home.
Maryhill Stonehenge
Lick Fork Lake Trailhead
I started going through our photo albums and scanning the images so I can toss them out. Why do this? They are just sitting there gathering dust, and they can be ignored in an online album just as easily as in a physical album. These are all from the early 90s; gosh, we were so cute. The last three were from the organized tours we took with Elk River Inn & Cabins. The first time was just a weekend, but the second one was a week-long adventure.
This is the date that I would have normally reprinted an article from the bi-monthly Miata Club of America magazine, only there wasn’t one this time. There wasn’t one again in December either. This is what becomes the end of both the national club and the magazine.
Here is an excerpt from the Masters Miata Club’s October meeting that sort of explains the situation:
We held the General Discussion portion of the meeting while we ate. We generally talked about the state of affairs between the Miata Club of America (MCA) and Mediasource Publishing Group (MPG,) the publishers of Miata Magazine. Now that MCA has stopped sending money to MPG and is withholding the member database, MPG will not send the Miata Magazine to MCA members after this issue. The MCA has been promising that members would receive a different magazine from them. MPG then filed a restraining order against the MCA from publishing a competing magazine (something that is forbidden in the contract between them, when MCA sold the Miata Magazine to MPG several years ago.)
Here is another look at the Miata Magazine problems. It comes from the St. Louis area Miata Club’s newsletter:
Recently, Vince and Norm sold the magazine to Barbara Beach. She went into “hock” to buy it, and N & V agreed to give her $6 per year per member to support the venture. (What the other $23 per member per year goes for is your guess). Due to a dispute over her wanting to take the magazine to the newsstand, they have been refusing to pay even the $6 for some time. Barb has been using her own resources to continue to publish. She has been sending the magazine to the printer, and MCA has been sending the mailing list names to the printer, where they are merged. Now, N & V have an issue with some of the editorial content in the up-coming issue (remember, Barb OWNS the magazine) and they are refusing to send the mailing list to the printer.
Off-Road?
Day before yesterday was the one-year anniversary of owning the new Miata. Yesterday the car rolled past 19,000 miles on the odometer. This almost got close to the 22,000 miles I put on the first Miata thirty-five years ago. If I hadn’t taken the 10,500-mile Jumbo Road Trip the new car would have been under the total miles you can use on a low-mileage lease.
Only 500 of those twenty-two thousand miles back in 1989-90 were because of one road trip to New Orleans. The rest were mostly because I think I drove it every day on my lunch hour, for that whole hour. I just wandered the backroads nearby to the plant. One of the engineers noticed what I was doing every day and said to me once, “I know where you’re going.” “You are driving through downtown so you can see your reflection in the shop windows.” He was way off; I rarely went near downtown on the drives; mine were more therapeutic in nature. He meant it as a joke, so I applauded him for that.
Buckie
Two months ago I went to the DMV to register the 2001 Miata, and I wanted to give it personalized plates. Because the car had the infamous clutch chatter issue that made 1st gear buck until it was fully warmed up, I wanted something to reflect that. Plus, Santa Fe Sally and her fascination with Buc-ees had already started calling it Bucky even before I realized it had that issue.
You are allowed 6 letters with an additional space or hyphen in there somewhere. Because the regular state plate has a large fir tree right in the middle, that is where I opted for my space. On the form you get 2 options, so I wrote in BUC KEY and then BUC KIE.
I mentioned to a few people that if I got KEY, I would consider that a male name, and if I received KIE, that would be female, so the car’s pronoun would going forward reflect that. Today I found out which one I got. Congratulations Mr. Bogardus, it’s a girl.
Avery Gloss Dark Green
I am tempted to wrap Buckey in some Avery Gloss Dark Green vinyl. Somebody please talk me out of it. This is my half-arsed photoshop of what it might be like. This looks a little too chrome, so I’ve ordered a sample piece of vinyl in that color to get an IRL evaluation.