Can I See Your Visa Please?

Not the credit card kind either.

We are coming up on our two week vacation and while filling up our pill containers there were four prescriptions that didn’t even have enough pills in them to put in all slots of both of containers. I entered the script numbers into the pharmacy’s web site and two went through fine, but the other two came back as being too soon the be refilled. No problem, we have done it before, I just call and ask for a vacation over ride. The pharmacist who answered, said he’d call the insurance company and call me back if there was any problem.

Ten minutes later the phone rings. Its the pharmacist. There’s a problem.

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Alabama wanted to know what day I was leaving on and where I was going on my vacation! I told him we were leaving Saturday on a driving trip though 20 states. BCBS of AL needed to know if I was staying in the U.S. or going out of the country. Seems that their rules have changed, if you are staying in the country, you would need to have the prescription transferred to a pharmacy local to where you were going. Only if you were leaving the U.S. would they refill a script early. I asked, “How would they know?” He said, “I have to ask for your itinerary.” “Just take the pill bottles with you and get a pharmacist to call us and I can give him all the information he needs.”

Donna asked me to go back and check to see where the two that we couldn’t get refilled ran out. We got lucky, in one of them there were enough to make it through the second Friday evening when are planning on being back anyway. The other only had enough to make it until the second Thursday evening, but seeing as it was the same acid reflux stuff that I take, I had enough extra to front her the one needed.

Next year if we take another two week vacation, I’m telling them we are going on a hiking trip in Swiss Alps or something. I just hope Blue Cross/Blue Shield doesn’t make the pharmacist ask to see my passport to check for the proper visas.

Draft Day For The EZEFFL

After work today, 10 team owners gathered around to projection screen in the Valve Store’s(tm) Human Resources Conference Room to pick their players for the 2015 season.

After our offline draft is completed, I get home and upload the results to ESPN, they are posted on the League’s web site. In a sub-basment some 300′ below ground in Bristol, CT the ESPN super computer, code named Rasmussen, tabulates 6.8 million simulated seasons for our league and generates a Report Card to let the team owners know how they did. Here it is:

EZEFFL 2015 Draft Report Card

Now, you might be a tad suspicious because my team is at the top with an A+, but I assure you, I did not tamper with the letter grades at all. And if the caparison of past Draft Report Cards to past seasons results are any indication, my spot at the top here guarantee’s nothing more than a Top 10 finish in our ten team league.

Anyway, for grins, here is how I drafted:

Draft# Player Pos. Team
3 Le’Veon Bell RB Pit
18 Calvin Johnson WR Det
23 Rob Gronkowski TE NE
38 Andre Ellington RB Ari
43 Julian Edelman WR NE
58 Tony Romo QB Dal
63 Jordan Matthews WR Phi
78 Giovani Bernard RB Cin
83 Dwayne Allen TE Ind
98 Matt Bryant K Atl
103 Broncos D/ST Den
118 Colin Kaepernick QB SF
123 Allen Robinson WR Jac
138 Austin Seferian-Jenkins TE TB
Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 50

It Rained All Day & Its My Fault

Not only did I wash the Emperor yesterday, but later in the evening we went out for some ice cream and on the way there ran the Purple Whale thru LuLu’s.

No real post here tonight because I used up all my words writing the Rally Wrap Up of last week’s Bug Splat with the Masters Miata Club.

NO to ND

Last weekend at the finish of the Bug Splat (which I really need to write about over on the Club site) Donna and I noticed one couple’s car had nice new shiny leather seats in their 2001 Miata. We asked where they had them done and they said a little place called Evans Upholstery over in Georgia, $800 installed. This is a pretty good deal as the seats themselves from leatherseats.com would be anywhere from $700-750, then you’d have to install them yourself or pay someone a couple hundred more to do it.

This morning when we got up, with the practically fall-like weather decided to drive over and check the shop out. Most places like this aren’t open weekends, but the Internet’s know-it-all Google said that they were open from 8 ’til noon. Because the GPS was giving Donna fits when she was trying to enter in their address we opted to see if we could find it using my hazy memory of the Google map I looked at for 45 seconds yesterday. Predictably, that didn’t work out so well.

I pulled into a quick-stop and while Donna was inside I tried the GPS again. This time, it magically knew where to go. When we pulled up front Donna said, “Looks dark. They’re closed.” I said, “Nah. There’s an OPEN sign in the window.” When I pulled on the door, it didn’t open. Donna handed me the phone and I dialed the number on the door. After each ring in my ear I could hear the muffled ring in the shop. When the answering machine clicked on, I clicked off the phone. Turns out that Google is just like every other know-it-all I’ve ever known, they just think they know it all.

Another thing we learned at last week’s Bug Splat was that Andy Gerald Jones Mazda over in Augusta had a couple of the 4th generation cars, AKA the ND, in stock. Seeing as we were over this way anyway we thought we’d go check and see if they were still there. One was, a Ceramic Metallic GT. It was right out front with the top down. As we parked and started walking towards it a salesman who was walking around the lot plotted an intercept course and headed that way too. Donna and I arrived first and popped open the doors and sat right down.

It’s still a Miata, just updated. Kinda like your living room if you painted the walls a shade brighter color and bought new furniture. The good news is that the passenger leg room has returned from its absence in the 3rd gen car, the bad news is the 4 x 6 x 1-1/2″ high hump adjacent to the transmission tunnel is still there. The good news is that it doesn’t feel like sitting in a bathtub as much as the 3rd gen car did, the bad news is it still feels a lot more enclosed than our car. The good news is that as everyone on the Miata.net has said, it is much nicer looking in person than it is in pictures, the bad news is that Donna is still not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling from its appearance.1 While I give it 4 out of 5 stars and Donna gives it about 2-1/2, I’m pretty sure the Emperor’s reign over the Bogardus household is safe for the next several years.

When the salesman asked if we wanted to take it for spin we said, “No thanks, it’s an automatic.” When he asked if we wanted a call when they got a six-speed in, I said sure and gave him my work phone. And depending on if it is not too inconvenient when he calls, we just might go over.

I spent the rest of the day pampering the Emperor in preparation for our big trip. Rotated the tires and changed the oil. Checked all the fluid levels and air pressures. Then washed and waxed (with actual paste wax) the car. Couple items left to do, clean the inside glass and top off the air in the spare, these will happen tomorrow in the garage while it rains outside.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 48

1. I think that if the car had been a nice bright blue instead of a semi-gloss grayish white it would have gone a long way towards improving the car’s curb appeal.

Has It Really Been Five Days?

I’ve got a few things that happened this week I wanted to blog about, but because I write sooo slooowly I just haven’t had the actual time to do so. Trouble is, like missed sleep, you never really can catch up blogging.

All I’ve really had time for is wondering the interwebs, I’d like to say totally aimlessly, but that would be a lie, so it was maybe more like somewhat aimlessly, because there is always an undercurrent of Miata-ism to it. To wit, my current wallpapers on the laptop and desktop (plus a bonus one) are:

Comment Spam Of The Week: A person automatically assist to make drastically blogposts I’d state win at onloine roulette. This is the beginer I actually seen your internet webpage and for that reason considerably? We amazed together with the evaluation you have made to create that upload wonderful. Impressive course of action!

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down again, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 47

All Over The Map

Car Show - Mustangs, Music & More

We were all over the map yesterday in the Miata. Driving somewhere over 300 miles, like the last two Saturday’s trips to Savannah & then Athens that involved something like 300 miles of driving, we are considering it training for our driving vacation that is coming up.

For breakfast we drove to Lexington to the closest to us Bruegger’ Bagels. The reason for this destination was two-fold, one, breakfast, and two, bagels for breakfast for the next couple of Fridays when we bike ride to work.

We then killed a couple hours at home before heading back out to go to M3, a fund raiser for the band at Midland Valley High School in Graniteville. The M3 was for Mustangs/Music & More with part of the more being why we were there, a car show (see above.) Another part of the more was food vendors and we thought we might get a bite to eat, but there wasn’t any shade available to get out of the heat, if we did buy something there.

In what turned out to be my biggest misstep of the day, when Donna suggested Firehouse subs for lunch, I thought we should just continue a little further west to go to the one in North Augusta instead of heading back to Aiken.

That Firehouse Subs was very busy and it was taking so long to even get our order placed that both of us separately, to ourselves, though maybe it was time to find another lunch spot. Just about the time one of us was going to say something aloud, I got to the cashier.

After eating we walked down a couple stores in the strip shopping center to a Dollar Tree to get the three alternate prizes for the MMC’s Bug Splat later that night. We shopped a bit, picking out some cheesy prizes somewhat related to the name of the award and headed to the check out. There we were greeted with another long line, anchored by a woman with a cart full to the brim. This time when we thought to ourselves maybe it was time to go, we both took action simultaneously and headed for the door.

On the way home we made a quick stop at the Dollar Tree in Aiken, right next to the Firehouse Subs I should have driven to, where we got those same cheesy items and were in and out in less than 3 minutes. We then had a couple hours to hang out at home, have some dinner before driving back over to North Augusta to drive the 40 mile loop to Edgefield and back swatting bags out of the night air with the nose of the Emperor.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 41

Motoring Challenge Points 1, Approx Miles Driven 30
Totals So Far: 80 points & 3385 miles

Car Shopping

No, not me.

A woman from the Miata Club has a silver 1991 with 218,000 miles on it and it is no longer quiet (as she put it) and no longer trusts it to take long trips. She asked me and a couple of other long term Club members what her options might be. My response:

Anita,

You’ve certainly had a long run and maybe it is time to get something a little newer.

And while I like the looks of the new one, Donna does not, but neither one of us want to buy a new one and incur a $30k new car loan. The new model is supposed to be more back to the Miata’s roots, it still looks like a smaller sized person might be swallowed by the slightly higher sides and rear end.

Even if you liked the look of the 3rd generation (2006-2015), I’m sure you would get the sitting in a bath tub feel because even I did a little when we test drove one back when they first came out.

I have no idea what your criteria might be for a newer car, so I’m just guessing here by sort of imagining what I’d do if someone stole our car or it was totaled. Here we go…

Buy a 2nd generation car, I know, I know, I’m biased but hear me out. Most of the 1st gen cars like yours are getting a little long in the tooth, so unless you get lucky and find a low mileage one (under 80k miles) you might as well kick it up a notch. Skip the 1999 to 2000 ones, look for something from the 2001-2005 range because the seats are more comfortable, the center console is more usable and the headlights are a tremendous improvement. A quick search of Cars.com within 150 miles turns up 8 cars between $6,500 to 10,500. http://tinyurl.com/my7xm7h The bottom three in price are probably of the most interest to you, I don’t see you in red or yellow or a real dark color. The one you’d probably like best, the silver, is actually an automatic once you look at the pictures.

You know, now that I’ve actually shopped around a little, I think for $6,000 I would get a rebuilt motor put in, some new shocks and springs, a new top, maybe recover the seats with leather and buy some new floor mats.

Good luck,
Brian

Right after I sent that, I thought what if I went out 200 miles? I found nothing different for her, but if I was looking to replace The Emperor for some reason:

Never mind what I just said, I bumped the mileage to 200 from my house and found a car just like my current car for sale in Myrtle Beach.

http://tinyurl.com/q86wmf4

Even if the 41k miles is correct, $9,300 is still too much, I’d pay maybe 8,500…

Happy shopping,
Brian

Wait a minute, I really only checked Cars.com, there are a couple more resources I should try:

Damn it Anita, now see what you got me doing. 😉

Here is a silver 2001 with 75k miles in Claxton for a paltry $5,300 from a private seller on Autotrader.com.

There were only a couple on ebay within 200 miles, but both are automatics.

I will not check Craigslist. I will not check Craigslist. I will not check Craigslist. OK, just a peek…

Oooh, a silver 2003 with 100k in Spartanburg for $5,500.

Alright, I’m finished – Brian