Black Gum Pond

We went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods this morning. I can’t tell you how far we walked because for some reason the GPSr stopped creating a track part way. It was still on when we got home, but the green line only went about a 1/4 of what I perceived we walked. Weird.

After the walk I headed out back to finish pressure washing the deck. I had done about 1/3 of the job on Thursday night and I got another 1/3 done today before the brass nozzle in the end of the plastic wand was spat out and disappeared onto the lawn. I made a short search of where I thought it might have gone before giving up looking. The last time this thing broke it was at the handle and the local Big Box Home Improvement Warehouse had not repair parts, so had to buy the handle, hose and wand assembly online. I had little hope of getting the pressure washer fixed today, but I was pleasantly surprised that the first BBHIW I tried not only had a universal replacement wand for $20, had I needed it they also had hose & handle replacements on the shelf too.

Anticipation

I have a question for all you vending machine designers out there. Why the long wait for change?

You feed 2 bucks into the bill acceptor and punch in the letter C and the number 4 for the 20oz Diet Dr. Pepper. You watch as the as a little bucket on an arm moves smoothly up and over until it stops under the appropriate slot. The row of bottles is pushed forward, forcing the front one off the ledge where it drops the 6″ into the bucket. The arm then glides over to the left and then (in this case) drops down until top edge of the bucket catches on the ledge above the dispensing chute. This allows the Diet Dr. Pepper to slide down into holding area and then rests for a second until the round plexiglass door rotates 180° until the drink is exposed and you can pick it out. With your selected drink now in your hand, the round door rotates back sealing off the dispensing area. A few seconds later 75¢ in change plops down one quarter at a time. Elapsed time between picking a selection and receiving the change is probably 30 seconds.

The only thing I can think of for making you wait is so that your attention is not diverted from watching the nifty dispensing dance.

3 Things

Today at the Valve Store(tm) while heating up my lunch a co-worker asked, “Its been a couple months, have you been surprised by any negatives on the Sonata?” “Things that don’t show up during a short test drive.” Neither Donna nor I could come up with anything. The car is as comfortable after 6 hours and a couple hundred mile trip as it was after the 6 minute, couple mile initial exposure.

It got me thinking, if I could change any of the things I didn’t like about the Sonata, what would they be. I could come up with only three.

1) Chrome Door Handles. The base Sonata GLS has body colored handles, while our SE has chrome. I understand why they are there, most people equate chrome with luxury, but to me the chrome makes them stand out in a bad way. They look mis-aligned because they follow along the curved character line that runs from the wrap around tail lamp to the middle of the front wheel well. So not only are they not parallel to the road, they are not parallel to themselves.

2) Chrome Oval Tail Pipes. They are the right size and shape for the back end of this car and the look still stands up even when you look at them closely and notice that in fact the 3″ x 5″ oval is just an enhancement for the 2-1/4″ round exhaust pipe. Where it does fall apart is in the side view. The length of the enhancement stops slightly short, so that from certain angles it is quite obvious that it is just tacked on.

3) Steering Feel. While the SE feel is much improved over the GLS, it still leaves a bit to be desired when compared to the weight and feedback of the Mazda 6 or the Ki Optima.

Super Heroes

I can’t be the only one who sees irony in Captain America. To do battle with Hitler’s Aryan pure-bred super soldiers we had to create our own special super soldier?

It looks like Mazda has a special promotional tie-in to the Green Lantern movie by launching the Karai special edition in Germany.

Happy 4th

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1042

Gone Fishing

I captured these two people fishing under the I-20 bridge that crosses the Savannah River while we were out fishing on land for ammo cans. It a very hazy morning so that the original was very high key, so I ran it through an HDR program and chose Ultra contrast. Click on the image above to see the original.

Imported From Montgomery

Now that we have a “mid-sized” car, every time we see a car that looks to her to be similar to the Purple Whale Donna will ask, “Is that car bigger (smaller) than we are?” A couple of times in the last few weeks we have come across a Lexus ES350 and when she asks about tone my response has always been that it is a bit larger that the Sonata. Today I checked, and you know what, it is slightly smaller in everything but 2″ longer in length. The big difference between the two automobiles is towards the bottom of the following chart, horsepower, torque and price. All that extra HP is needed to move the 300 extra pounds in weight. I have ridden in a ES350 and the extra weight is in the bigger engine, a smoother suspension and sound deadening. Is it worth 50% more than the Hyundai? Maybe to some.

Sonata SE Lexus ES350
Dims Dims Diff
Wheel Base 110 109.3 -0.7
Length 189.8 191.7 1.9
Width 72.2 71.7 -0.5
Height 57.9 56.3 -1.6
Interior Volume 103.8 95.4 -8.4
Front Leg Room 45.5 42.2 -3.3
Head Room 40 37.4 -2.6
Shoulder Room 57.9 57.3 -0.6
Hip Room 55.2 55.9 0.7
Turning Radius 35.8 36.7 0.9
Weight 3316 3605 289
Horsepower 200 @ 6300 268 @ 6200 68
Torque 186 @ 4250 248 @ 4700 62
Power/Weight 16.6 13.5 3.1
Gas Mileage 22/35 19/27 -3/-8
MSRP $24,027 $36,025 $11,998
Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1042