25,000 Cars A Minute

We pulled off I-95 in near Melbourne, Florida to do a driver change. We turn right and make a u-turn to stop in a spot on the left hand side of the road. This allows Donna to just turn right out of the parking and turn right again to get back going southbound.

At the intersection at the bottom of the off ramp there is a red light. No problem we should be able to go right on red. Ha. It is a very busy road and we watch 25,000 cars go by until a light turns red somewhere back to our left. I zip across 4 lanes to get in one of the two left turn lanes and get caught at another light. We wait for another 25,000 cars to go every which way until it is our turn. Of course to two left turn lanes promptly turn into one lane creating confusion and jockeying for position. After navigating that mess we find ourselves in a giant Target parking lot. I make a left and then another left to head back out to the road where we run into a stop sign and no place to pull over to swap drivers. We do it anyway and rush through the procedure. Only to have to wait at the stop sign for another 25,000 cars to pass by before a big enough gap appears for Donna to pull out and get on the Interstate. What takes 3 minutes on I-95 in SC or GA takes 15 minutes in FL. If Donna’s sister didn’t live in this state we would never get anywhere near it.

On I-95 near Flagler Beach, Florida the Purple Whale passed the 25,000 mile mark. Since we bought the car we have been driving the heck out of it, in the five hundred and fifty eight days of ownership we have averaged 46.5 miles a day. We only live 6 miles from work…

5 Months Later

Back in May we stumbled onto the Google Street View Car on our bike ride home from work. The updated views are now online. If you click on the photo above, you will be taken to the street view in question. Feel free to move the little man along the block of Park Ave between Marlboro and Williamsburg.

To witness an anomaly in the fabric of space and time, start at Williamsburg and work your way east (to the right) and at one point Donna and I, along with the person walking along the street, flash out of the picture for an instant and then pop right back. Where did we go?

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1174

Top Count Placeholder

The top went up on Monday because of a threat of rain and stayed up ever since due to the cold. That same cold didn’t prevent us from riding the tandem to work on Tuesday though because there is a remarkable difference in windchill factor between 15 MPH and 55 MPH. Plus at fifteen you are working, as opposed to just sitting still at fifty-five. Tomorrow it will go down for the way home from work as it is supposed to be back in the low 80’s.

The top is starting to look a little ragged in a couple spots. The tan fabric is worn enough that the black under layer is showing through. Where that is happening is a double layer of material anyway because that is where the top shop repaired it when it was wearing through on the inside a while back. With the advent of Purple Whale ownership the rate of top transitions has decreased to a trickle, so I’m sure we can get a couple more years use out of it, if we can stand the unkempt look that long.

I don’t know if it is that particular Robbins top or the installation of the top or a little of both that is to blame, but the top count stands at about half of the OEM top before it needed replacing. But, I guess you get what you pay for, because the Robbins top was about half the cost of a official Mazda unit…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1173

High Praise Indeed

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Today was the Valve Store’s annual Fun Day and unlike last year the line at the photo booth was very short, so Donna and I had our picture taken…

Way To Convey A Feeling VW

Last October I included a picture of the new New Beetle and more or less made fun of it. They have supposedly butched it up a bit to appeal to more men, I do think they succeeded to a certain extent, but it is not going to loose the “chick car” label. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

The Miata has a chick car label and I certainly like them and truth be told I like the new New Beetle too. VW has released some official photos of the NNB convertible. The above picture shows a woman driving a blue colored copy and a man driving a red one. Click on the picture and you will get a blow up of the red car and it looks like he is not happy to be driving a chick car.

Team Car

Hoping to turn around their lackluster showing on the football field from the last two weeks, today I gave the Purple Whales official team car a bath because everyone knows a clean car is a much happier car. And a happy car just performs better.

Harpooned

Before play this afternoon, the Purple Whales were predicted to score 101 points. By the end of the first quarter of the early games it was down to 87. At around half time it had fallen to 75. Nearing the end of the early games my predicted point total was 64, so I stopped watching both football and my fantasy scoreboard.

I just checked the scoreboard before tonight’s game and my point total is a mere 54. I have one guy going in tonight’s game and that guy is LeSean McCoy for Philadelphia, the preseason #1 running back, my first draft pick, so maybe he’ll go off and get 30 points and I’ll get lucky. More than likely he will pull what Andre Johnson of the Texans did today. Mr. Johnson was the #3 rated wide receiver preseason and my #2 draft pick. Andre scored my first 5 points today by catching 2 of the first three passes thrown in the first drive of the day for 53 (33 + 20) yards. The rest of the game, 1 catch for three yards, so those 5 points were all he got.

I got more tales of woe, but here is a prime example, I picked up the Jets kicker Nick Folk as he was predicted to get 11 points as opposed to 5 for Greg Zuerlein of the Rams. Mr. Zuerlein scored 18 points today, Mr Folk not so much. In the scoring on the web page, if a player doesn’t get any points they put a nice big 0 next to his name, well, Nick Folk got —. Which I assume from the thirty four to nothing victory for the 49ers over the Jets means my kicker never even got on the field.