Carpet Of Ferns

Carpet of Ferns

After breakfast at the usual place we went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods. A nice little 3-1/2 mile trek and we had the woods practically to ourselves, only seeing a group of three people walking one trail over and a woman walking what looked like a dozen leash less dogs, some of whom trotted over to give us a closer look. When Donna asked her how many dogs she had with her, she replied, “Too many.”

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1220

Kitchen Before & After Photos

From February 2nd:
Here is our soon to be remodeled kitchen. The cabinets are original to the house. As is the yellow tile counter top and back splash. The floor is currently covered in dark blue commercial grade carpet and there is at least 2 layers of vinyl under that, who knows what is further down. Currently the dishwasher is the old fashioned manual kind.

If all goes according to plan in about a dozen days this will be an empty room, maybe even just a skeleton. D-Day is February 11th.

Here is our newly remodeled kitchen. The cabinets are Shenandoah Breckenridge in Maple Spice. The counter top is Caledonia granite and the back splash is 3 x 6 white tiles in a subway pattern. The floor is 12 x 12 light gray tile laid in a staggered pattern. The dish­washer is a GE Top Control Dishwasher with Steam Cleaning.

If all goes accord­ing to plan we will never remodel another kitchen.

This morning I washed off the Miata car cover to get it clean in the hopes I can sell it for a few bucks. I placed it on top of the Emperor to spray it off then left it on to dry. This afternoon I removed the cover and washed the car underneath. Then I washed rinsed off the Sonata too.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1219

Dish Washer Tries To Escape – Officially Done

Dish Washer Tries To Escape

Earlier this week we agreed, after some bantering back and forth, to a figure for the contractor’s overages. He was to come over this evening to settle up and take some pictures for his business’s facebook page. On Wednesday he emailed to ask if he could do it on Thursday which was fine by us because Wednesday night while emptying the dishwasher, it tried to escape from under the counter top. We wanted it re-restrained.

Contractor guy decided that instead of using the screwed in bracket the counter top installers had mounted to the cabinets it would be nicer to attach a piece of the cabinet trim with construction adhesive to the counter top and screw the dishwasher mounting tabs to it. We agreed because it would look nicer. The adhesive held for 2 weeks.

Contractor guy arrived on Thursday carrying a small tool bag and an idea on how to fix the problem. He would drill at angle through the wood trim piece into the cabinet and use a couple of long wood screws to hold it in place. He drilled one hole and then realized he needed an extension for the drill to get a screwdriver bit in there to tighten the screw. He asked if I had one one and could he borrow it. I went out in the garage and brought it back to him.

Halfway thru screwing in the first screw the battery in his screw driver wound down. “Do you have a driver I could borrow?” Back to the garage for that too. He drills the second hole and then starts rooting around in his bag. “Do you have a longer wood screw than this?” I turn to head to the garage for a third time when he says, “Never mind, found one.” He tests the sturdiness of his work and hands me back my stuff.

Contractor guy takes several pictures with his phone, asks if we are happy with the kitchen (yes we are) and we settle up. He drives off and I go get the vacuum cleaner to suck up all the wood shavings from his drilling. If you just look at the dishwasher standing in the kitchen it looks fine. But if you open the dishwasher door and look up at the workmanship just finished, it looks kind of sloppy.

And that is pretty much a microcosm of the entire kitchen remodel project. No real planning of the project beforehand, borrow the homeowner’s tools, do some satisfactory work, get paid and leave the clean up to someone else.

Social Outcasts

Savannah - 1991 National - Group Photo Small

In yesterday’s post I mentioned that you could run on the track both Friday and Saturday. I only showed you Friday’s results. That is because there were no Saturday results for me.

Back in 1991 the Miata wasn’t the center of our universe, that didn’t happen for a few more years. We were still into bicycling pretty big and the Miata was just a really sporty means to transport our bikes. So on Saturday morning, instead of driving around Roebling Road Raceway, Donna and I met up with the Coastal Bicycle Touring Club and rode 50 miles with a half dozen or so folks. We met at a Park N Ride lot off I-95 northwest of Savannah and rode to Bluffton to eat lunch at the famous Squat & Gobble, then riding back along the same route.

When the 1991 Miata National Event was through on Sunday morning the last thing we did was drive to a closed shopping center where a professional photographer got up on the roof and took a group portrait. I don’t think every car that was at the event made the trip to get photographed, but a vast majority did. I count 100 cars in the picture above. The first row consists of one car of each color the Miata was available in then (they had just added silver and British Racing Green in 1991.) We got to the photo spot fairly early, but they took one look at our car and told us we would have to wait until everyone else arrived before we would be lined up. They didn’t want us to spoil the Miata aesthetic.

Our crime was a bike rack on the back of the car with two bicycles sticking up. Click on the top photo and it will enlarge, where if you look at the last row where the round looking tree is, there is a gap because no one wanted to park right behind our blue car…

Brian Bogardus: Race Car Driver

Roebling Road Lap Times

Our trip to Roebling Road Raceway brought back some memories. We have watched John race here a couple of times in recent years, but we had been here once before a long time ago for a different reason.

In the early days of Miatadom there was a national umbrella club that was the central point of information for the rest of the clubs around the country. The Miata Club of America, along with Mazda’s help, put out a glossy magazine quarterly that went to every member and they planned and put on events around the country at different places with the help of local clubs. The 1991 National Event was in Savannah and we decided to go.

There were lots things to do, poker run, scenic drives, a riverboat cruise, etc, but the big draw was track time at Roebling Road. Each person who wanted would get one session on the track both Friday & Saturday morning. I don’t recall how many laps we got, but my guess is five, a warm up lap, 3 at “speed” and a cool down lap. Your best time of the two days would be counted towards a small bit of prize money or trophy or something. To help keep the speed down some and to keep folks from running right off Turn #1, they placed a cone lined chicane* near the end of the loooong straightaway.

*In the intervening 2 decades they’ve built one into the track.

All you needed by way of safety equipment was a Snell approved helmet and I ate up a significant portion of the Miata’s trunk space on the trip with a borrowed coworker’s motorcycle helmet. Tech inspection consisted of making sure your lug nuts were tightened to the proper specifications. They also opened the hood and looked underneath to check for modifications because they were going to handicap the cars based on any improvements made.

As you can see in the image above, my bone stock 1990 Miata lapped the 2.02 mile track in 2 minutes and 15.19 seconds. John’s best lap time in his race prepped 1990 Miata last Saturday morning was 1 minute and 24.9 seconds. That means if we left the starting line at the same time, he would pass me just I started on lap #3 while he was beginning his 4th lap.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1218

131,000 Letters

Oliver - 30449

On the way back home from today’s road trip the Miata passed through the 131,000 mile mark. Not too long after that we passed by this cute little Post Office in Oliver, GA and just had to stop.

The Emperor visited the racetrack today, but purely as a spectator. We drove down to watch fellow MMC member John Haff of POS Racing ply his trade at Roebling Road Raceway. There were two other cars with us for the breakfast run to the Lake Restaurant in Waynesboro, one continued on with us and one went home. We were met at the track an hour or so later by another member who didn’t want to get up that early for breakfast. Or anything else for that matter.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1217

White Paint

White Paint

Last night the ceiling and tonight the door/window trim got one coat of white paint. For the ceiling that might be all it takes, but the trim is going to need at least one more coat, probably two.

The transition from yellow wall to white ceiling looks dirty, cabinet crown molding to ceiling it looks fine. I’m pretty sure it is just shadow, but Donna is not happy, so we are exploring options. First thought is to paint a 1″ section of the ceiling with the same yellow as the wall. If that looks weird we will go with an idea from cabinet guy, paint the ceiling a lighter shade of the wall color.

We have a busy day tomorrow, but I hope to finish the painting on Sunday, even if it means one coat in the morning and a second coat that night.