Putting 67,000 Items in Moving Boxes

When we left Robbinsville this morning, instead of heading due south, we headed the other way towards the Gap. When we got to the Gap start point, instead of running through it, we just hung a hard left and turned onto NC28 south to enjoy that very windy road. For the first couple of miles it is as twisty as the Gap, but then the curves straighten out slightly to create a very entertaining drive along the north shore of the Cheoah Lake. NC28 to east on US74, a brief stint on the Blue Ridge Parkway, US276 and then US64 into Hendersonville.

We are headed home tomorrow after an overnight stop here first. My sister and her husband are moving from the Stricker Mountain Home to the new Stricker Golf Course Home a few miles away and we are going to help them get close to finished with the packing up. They close on the new house Wednesday and the quicker they can get moved into the new, the quicker they can get the old staged and for sale.

We were up a couple of weeks ago and spent two days with them packing most of the things from the kitchen, the craft room and the garage along with wrapping in plastic their seemingly 100s of framed prints. Today we helped them finish those rooms up and all that is left is really their clothes and their DVDs.

Somewhere along NC28 last night, between Deals Gap and Fontana Village, the CTBNL ran through the 67,000 mile mark.

Been There, Done That…

…Got the Dragon Sticker.

Hard to believe that it has taken over two years to get the CTBNL onto the Tail of the Dragon’s 318 turns in 11 miles, but it finally happened this morning. We applied our usual trick of an early start to get two full clean passes, both northbound and southbound, from the top of the Deals Gap Motorcycle Resort.

Hot Lazy Cupholder

The other week, on one of the frequent trips to the north for bagels, we both noticed that the center console area of the CTBNL was hotter than normal. From past experience, I know that it is most likely caused by torn shift boots. Under the console are two rubber boots, one that closes the hole from the bottom of the car and one that closes the top of the transmission. I ordered them both from Jeff Bezos.

I’ve had the parts for a while now and yesterday I finally got around to replacing them. Much to my surprise the top boot was not ripped. This is the usual cause and because a torn bottom boot really has nothing to do with heat I was prepared to ship them both back for refunds. But I figured, as I was most of the way there, I’ll check the bottom one. It was ripped to pieces, so I changed it. It might have nothing to do with the extra heat in the cockpit, but the small boot does serve an essential purpose, to keep dirt and crap out of the transmission turret. Mazda hadn’t just put it there willy nilly.

Seeing as I still had half a roll of reflectix left over from my 2006 quest to reduce cockpit heat on the Emperor I thought now might be a good time to do the interior of the CTBNL. The console was out, so I went ahead and removed the two seats. I then pulled out a gazillion of those Christmas tree style fasteners holding the interior carpet in place. I peeled the carpet back and used the rest of the roll on the rear self, under both seats and around the transmission tunnel. I didn’t have enough to cover every square inch, but I hope what I did use helps a little bit.

In between my ordering the two boots and getting around to changing them, I received a second reason to pull the center console, the back cup holder lid wouldn’t snap closed. It closed, but might open from a slight graze of your arm or a sharp bump. I knew right away what the problem was because I had the same issue with the Emperor several years back. The tab that holds the bottom of the cup holder’s tension spring in place has broken off.

To fix it with the console out of the car, was a matter of removing the half dozen screws holding the cup holders to the underside of the console to free them up. The original fix from the Miata Net was drill a small hole to tie the bottom of the spring in place, but I have been using the Mark Booth method (found towards the bottom of this thread) of a washer and small screw into the boss. While I was there, I prophylactically applied the fix to the front cup holder.

Happy Anniversary Spooky & Starbuck

It was 25 years ago today the X-Files premiered. Like every TV show I really like, that usually warrants repeat viewing, I never get in on the ground floor. I always have to catch up, whether it is several episodes or multiple seasons, because I typically do not pay attention to shows until I find them listed on some TV critic’s best shows of the year lists. So I’m guessing that in 1993 I didn’t see the pilot episode when it was originally aired, I think I caught up the next year during summer reruns.

Because today is the 25th anniversary of the shows premier my Google news feed is full of retrospectives and X-Files episodes to watch. Here is a sample:

I have at one time had digital copies of all 201 episodes of the original 9 seasons, a while back I weeded it out to only the shows I like to re-visit. This narrowed it down to a mere 35 shows that come from the first 7 seasons (I’m sorry, but once it was no longer Scully and Mulder…)

Here for your viewing pleasure is Brian’s Top Ten X-Files Episodes in order of their original airing:

1 Season 2 Episode 20 Humbug
2 Season 3 Episode 4 Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose
3 Season 3 Episode 20 Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’
4 Season 4 Episode 20 Small Potatoes
5 Season 5 Episode 5 The Post-Modern Prometheus
6 Season 5 Episode 12 Bad Blood
7 Season 6 Episode 3 Triangle
8 Season 6 Episode 4/5 Dreamland & Dreamland II
9 Season 6 Episode 6 How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
10 Season 7 Episode 8 The Amazing Maleeni

Magically Moosetery Tour

One of the motoring challenges this year is Wild Animal Statue or Sculpture (life-size or larger) and we were going to use one of the fiberglass art horses still scattered around town, but after some discussion we thought that maybe they didn’t fit the wild part, so we have been keeping our eyes open for other possibilities. Three weeks ago when we did our three city deli bagel taste test drive on our way back from North Carolina on US176 South, somewhere we zipped by a large metal sculpture of a moose. We both noticed it, but didn’t stop because we were over carbo-loaded and just wanted to go home.

This past Saturday we decided to take a road trip back up to Greenville to go to Greenfield’s Deli to get some more of our favorite bagels. And seeing as we were nearby, we decided to go and find that moose statue. The both of us could see the statue in our minds eye and knew it was somewhere along US176 between Landrum,SC and Flat Rock, NC. Not that I minded the extra 80 or so miles of driving because fully half of it would be on windy two-lane US176 up and down the mountain between those two towns. We were relatively sure it was just outside either Tryon, NC or Saluda, NC, but as it turned out it was nowhere near them, it was nowhere we could find along that route.

So either we both had the same visual hallucination or it was a real moose grazing in the grass as it migrated back to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

66,000 Roller Skate Bearings

Near Mile Marker 7 on I-20 West heading towards Augusta, Georgia, the CTBNL crossed over the sixty-six thousand mile plateau. We were headed over to the Red Wing Rollerway to try one more time for the elusive Roller Derby Rink photo in the Moss Motoring Challenge. The Augusta Soul City Sirens were going to be holding a try out/boot camp session on both Monday and Tuesday nights. Just like in January, we were foiled again by the lack of any outdoor signage. What is the definition of insanity?

Because it is so hot in the middle of the day we have just been picking away slowly at the motoring challenges. Since we have last spoke on the matter, a month and a half ago, we have captured a marginal Carpentry Shop, a questionable Horse Drawn Carriage, our last Historic Landmark, a Share The Road sign, Lightning, a Mail Carrier, a Scene You Can Smell, the I go Here All The Time, the Disc Golf Course with Players and then a better Disk Golf Course with Players for a total of 17 points.

Chronologically TDTVS

While searching for LOST podcasts I stumbled onto one by two women called “Lost in Order.” Anna & Wendy watched an episode and every week or so dropped a podcast on their thoughts. I can’t listen to it though, it is not their voices or the sound quality, it is in the way they are watching the show.

Not long after the sixth and last season of TDTVS came on on DVD, some genius or madman or possibly Mad Genius, using a timeline found in the Lostpedia re-cut the show in chronological order. Anna & Wendy are podcasting about the results of Mike Maloney’s masterpiece, Chronologically LOST. Mike has taken all 118 aired TV episodes and created 101, roughly forty-five minute long, chronological episodes for a total of 84 hours of LOST watching pleasure.

In a way I wished I’d found out about this a month ago before starting to re-watch the show as I think it would be interesting to see the show in linear time. Would it be more interesting than the non linear original? I’ll let you know someday, I’m a little more than halfway through downloading the torrent. It is going to take about a week to get it all because unlike current popular movies, there aren’t hundreds or thousands sharing it, but each time I’ve looked in on the progress I am connected to anywhere from six to twelve peers.