115,000 Sharpies

It started 22 days ago as a white spec Miata racer, $100 worth of Sharpies later and Mighty Mike has a masterpiece of Dude Craft.

On the way home from work today Donna and I stopped in and checked on one of our caches. Someone had DNF’d it on Monday and we wanted to see if it was still there. Even though we knew where we hid it, it still took us 5 minutes to find the thing. Probably because there were around 115,000 pieces of pine straw on the ground since we hid it back in April. Also the GPSr read 18 feet away when I was standing right over it.

A couple miles away from the cache the Emperor passed through the 115,000 mile mark and as if to put an exclamation mark on the event the low fuel light lit simultaneously.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 896

Gaddum Plugin

I deactivated the Page Link Manager plugin last night and when I reactivated it, it didn’t function properly. I have a ton of pages on the blog (as you can see by the long ol’ list that is in the inner sidebar right now) and the plugin allowed me to seperate the pages into groups in multiple widgets. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but nothing would let me have more than one widget. I even tried a couple of other similar plugins and they wouldn’t allow me multiple widgets either. I suspect it is a database issue because when I reinstalled the original plugin and then one of a similar nature they both allowed one instance of the widget and both were prepopulated with the pages of the previously working multiple widgets.

So, the way I see it, I have two options; find a workaround or back up all the post information, delete the existing database and install WordPress from scratch. If I choose the second option things might be a little wonky around here over the weekend.

*UPDATE: I did the workaround. The OEM pages plugin allows multiple instances, I just had to type in every page number (out of 73) I wanted excluded in each widget.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 895

Obituary For A Printer

Friends,

It is with much sadness that I inform you of a beloved co-worker’s passing yesterday.

PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 succumbed to a “50 Service” error. PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 or as his friends called him, LaserJet 4V, was 16 years old and for the first 15 years of his life he was a robust and reliable fellow who printed each and every one of the over a quarter million pages with glee. Last year age finally caught up with him requiring a tricky fuser transplant. Shortly after his full recovery from that ordeal, his 11 x 17 paper tray needed to be amputated because of wear. Three weeks ago with his rare life blood toner running low, it was discovered that supplies of this precious commodity were no longer available through normal channels. Unfortunately the non-FDA approved toner from South America did not arrive in time to save his life.

PRVLAK_DFT_H4V_01 is survived by his big brother PRVLAK_DFT_HDJ800 and his cousin PRVLAK_ENG_HP4650. Funeral services are being handled by Safety Clean and will be private. In lieu of flowers please send Staples gifts cards.

Brian Bogardus
Arts & Crafts Engineer
ASCO Valve Manufacturing
a facility of ASCONUMATICS
part of the Industrial Automation Division of Emerson Electric Corporation
located in beautiful Aiken, SC, USA

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 895

Four Restaurants in Greensboro, GA

After leaving Indian Springs State Park on Saturday we angled our way back northeast to I-20 for the blast back home. When we got to Exit 130 it was time for dinner and there were several chain places to choose from. We picked Zaxby’s as the lesser of 6 evils, but when we got inside and perused the menu board we both knew it was an uninspired choice. There was nothing that either of us really wanted, so we surprised the girl behind the counter by turning on our heels and heading for the door.

While walking back to the car we noticed a large billboard that advertised two downtown restaurants just 3 miles north. This sounded more like it. A downtown eatery that would have something besides a variation on fried chicken parts. The Yesterday Cafe was definitely the place to be on Saturday night in Greensboro as it was hopping. We were greeted promptly by the hostess and offered a booth. We scanned the menu and there were enough options that we each picked something. Several minutes passed and we changed our minds to a different entree. Several more minutes passed and we had yet to get so much as a nod from a wait-person. No water offered. No I’ll be with you in a minute. No nothing. Too make matters worse, from where I was sitting I could see the hostess station and there were two young ladies, dressed in waitress type attire standing there, chatting away with the hostess, where they had been since we entered. Finally the conversation broke up and the waitresses peeled off one by one like B-17’s over their German targets and flew right by us. Needless to say we stood up and left.

Well, I guess we’ll head back 3 miles south to the Interstate. Donna suggested Waffle House next. She said, “I can have their soup” and I said, “I may just get a pecan waffle.” We picked a booth and a waitress came right over and took our drink order. She returned promptly with a coke for me and water for Donna. When Donna asked what the day’s soup was and our waitress had to go ask. She returned and said, “We are out of soup.” We both said, “We’re sorry,” as we stood up and headed for the door.

Right across the street was a Wendy’s. I said out loud, “Spicy Chicken sandwich.” Donna replied with, “Baked potato.” If you already have figured it out with the way the story is going so far, they were out of potatoes.

We still had a couple snacks and half a ham & cheese sandwich in the cooler in the trunk to tide us over for a while. Worse case scenario was the Cracker Barrel in Augusta 64 miles away. It would be closer to 7:00 PM before we ate, but we were pretty sure they would still have both potatoes and soup when we got there.

We didn’t hold out that long though, 40 miles later we were sucked into a Taco Bell in Thompson. Three tacos for me and a chicken flat bread sandwich for her, water to drink, in and out for under 5 bucks.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 894

Sunday Afternoon In The Driveway

Changed the oil and rotated the tires on the Emperor this afternoon. I used the California Duster to remove the road fur from yesterday’s trip and washed all the windows. Sprayed a little Quick Detailer in places to get off some random gunk and treated the tires so they shine. Even vacuumed the interior.

As long as we are doing the Georgia State Park Challenge we might as well do the the GA County and GA Delorme Challenges as well. There are 42 State Park caches, 159 counties and 59 map pages, but you really need 63 caches because this challenge requires you to find a cache on the page inserts too. That would be 264 unique finds, so unlike in South Carolina we are going to take the easy route, any cache found, can and will be, used towards multiple Challenges. So right now we have 4 State Parks, 19 counties and 17 pages.

On yesterday’s trip there were several caches along our route we didn’t even try for because of time and motivational issues and there was one in particular that I’m glad we didn’t get, Cache Across America – Georgia. That’s right, a challenge with the requirement to find a cache in all 50 states and not just any cache, but the 50 picked out just for it.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 893

Saturday By The Numbers


High Falls State Fall State Park

397 miles driven.
13 hours away from home.
6.2 miles walked on 4 different trails.
5 caches found.
4 restaurants in Greensboro, GA that we didn’t get served dinner in.
3 meals out (AKA, The Trifecta.)
3 GA State Parks completed.
2 DNF caches.
1 cache found, but too impatient to sign the log.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 891

Amazing Twinkie Diet

For 10 weeks, Mark Haub, a professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, ate one Twinkie every three hours, instead of meals. His premise: That in weight loss, pure calorie counting is what matters most — not the nutritional value of the food. The premise held up: On his “convenience store diet,” he shed 27 pounds in two months.

Now that’s a diet I can get behind. Read the rest of the article on the CNN web site.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 887