Making It Mine

First order of business was to wash the dirty car. It crossed the country, probably three quarters of it along I-80 in January, on an open car carrier and then spent a month in a car mechanic shop.

Next up were a couple of quick and easy modifications that I waited to do until I got the car home. I changed out the stock one-piece sun visors with a set of the old school folding ones for the 1st generation car. This is one of the first things I did to the 2003 when purchased new. Also back then, I put the Voodoo shift knob on the car in the dealer’s lot, but this time I did it half way home from Eugene. I wasn’t going to, but I think I will add the matching e-brake handle.

Then I put in this nifty phone holder that goes into an eyeball vent from Etsy.

I pulled out the OEM floor mats because they were filthy and the script Miata was faded to nothing. I’m not sure if I’ll buy Coco Mats for the car, but I will get some new mats.

I was originally thinking that I would pull the stock stereo out and send it off to have a guy to put a Bluetooth module internally, so you can keep the stock head unit. Now I’m thinking not. I bought a little gizmo that plugs into the cigarette lighter and transmits to the radio. I’m sure the audio is crappy, but I’m riding in a convertible listening to mostly all familiar music so all I need is 50% data recognition factor and my brain fills in the rest.

I put a RevLimiter’s Retro Shift Plate on. The stock knob has the pattern on it, while the Voodoo does not. I would say the odds of this being actually needed an almost infinitesimal, but it came in handy for the fellow who drove the open car carrier that brought the CTBNL from Aiken to Klamath Falls because that car also had a Voodoo knob.

My last mod of the day was adding an official third generation Mazda Miata Club Badge on the front left fender. The parts guy at the dealer gave it to me. He said his manager wanted him to toss it out, but he thought it was too cool to do that to it. I had been purchasing a bunch of OEM parts from him for the Blue Miata so he offered it to me. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with it, but I thought it was cool too.

I’m Member Number 476

There probably aren’t 476 current members, this is probably all time and the club has been around since October 14, 1990. I think the leader of the run I did when I joined the club said there are still over 200 folks on the roll.

That badge says 2024 Blue for my car, but there is an addition Miata in the family that there have only been brief glances of so far, that changes tomorrow. I drive down to FTW Tuning in a rental car and return home to Fairview in a black 2001 Miata LS.

Now I’m going to be going back to having one car too many for the parking I have. From last September until just last month I had two cars and one parking spot. The Miata got the primo spot in the driveway under the awning while the Mini was outside up in a spot near the Community Center. After the Vertical Platform lift was removed both cars fit in the driveway under the awning, but now I will have two Miatas and the Mini will be back up by the Community Center. The rule here is that if you own a car, you must have a spot to park it. They kind of let me break that rule for a while because of my predicament, i.e. wife dying, but this time they might not be so lenient.

Aloha, Beaverton, Portland, Tanasbourne, What’s The Difference?

Today I took the Mini in for some service it needed after the last visit back in October of 2024 when I had a new battery put in and an oil change. They noticed that there was a leak in a timing cover that was dripping down on a motor mount which would eventually ruin that mount. Plus the front brakes were getting pretty worn, The back brakes were changed back in April of that year and now it was time to do the fronts.

I had one of the first appointments of the day, 8:00AM, which is when they roll the doors up for service customers because it was going to take several hours for the job. I arrived at the dealer earlier than expected, 7:30AM, even though I had a 6 mile creep coming into Portland on I-84 before getting on US26 to Beaverton.

There was a post office right around the corner from the Mini place, so I backed out and went over to grab a photo. So, the dealer is in Beaverton, the post office is right there, but the Postal Service classified it as in Portland. Still with some time left on the clock I drove a couple miles south and west to get an actual Beaverton post office. Turns out just 3.5 miles further west there is a second Beaverton post office, in the census-designated place of Aloha. I’ll get that one when I get the very last post office labeled as Portland which is located in a neighborhood called Tanasbourne in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Hello, My Name Is Brian And I’m A Reacheraholic.

It has been fourteen months since I last wrote here of Jack Reacher, but it is time now because I’ve got two and a half different Reacher things to talk about.

1) After swearing I wouldn’t buy any more Reacher novels for most of the 2020s, in 2023 I did enjoy #28, The Secret and was looking forward to #29 in 2024. Well, I finally did buy that book in November and really struggled with it. There was a team of bad guys trying to do something and half of them didn’t trust the other half and somehow Reacher got involved on one of the sides and in the end, everyone was dead except Reacher. I didn’t help that I could never get a clear idea of who was who and what the end game of the bad guys was. I’d tell here again that I won’t buy the next Reacher novel in fall of 2025, but we all no better don’t we.

2) Season 3 of the Amazon TV show premiered a couple of weeks ago. It is based on Book #7, Persuader, where Reacher goes undercover to help the FBI rescue a missing undercover informant inside the home of the owner of a shady rug import company. I’ve gotten used to the fact that they do change several things from each book and so far, I’m 4 episodes in the 8 planned, they are doing a okay keeping it close to the book. The one downside is the woman FBI agent has a terrible Boston accent. It’s a little like the actors in the Jesse Stone movies from a decade ago, those that try for it never get it right. Because of *my* shoddy memory I don’t remember how this ends, but I’ll bet, if this is like the other 2 Amazon productions, there is going to be a lot more shooting than in the book.

1/2) I bought a copy of Lee Child’s book of short stories called, Safe Enough. There are 20 stories that don’t have anything to do with Jack Reacher, but so far most could have been Reacher stories or segments from a Reacher book. I have a few left to finish, who knows maybe one of them will inspire book #30.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Just Another Monday Edition of SORT
As of Monday, March 3, 2025 at 7:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2005 Cadillac XLR 1968 Ford Bronco 2000 Mercedes CLK430
Like yesterday’s post on a deja vu feeling, I had one today too. While scrolling through the auctions on Bring-a-Trailer, I could swear these we the same vehicles from last week, even the very odd-ball looking ones were familiar.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sport: 2002 Chevrolet Corvette Bid to USD $72,000 on 2/27/25
Off-Road: 1973 Mohs SafariKar Sold for USD $72,500 on 2/26/25
Touring: 1996 Renault Twingo Sold for USD $8,569 on 2/26/25

I Could Swear I’ve Been Here Before

Went out and took several somewhat local post office photos today. I had been out in this neck of the woods gathering post offices back in November and snagged a bunch, there were still several to get. The first 3 were west of the Willamette River and the last four were east of it and on the way back home.

The first post office in Lake Oswego was easy. The second post office was a little more challenging, Google Maps couldn’t direct me to my final destination. It is on the campus of what was once Marylhurst University and I could see the roads I needed to get there, but it was kinda hard driving and following the blue dot along on the phone at the same time. Luckily it was early Sunday morning and I was the only car driving around.

The 3rd of the day in West Linn (top photo) was the weird one. As I was driving to it, the closer I got, the more familiar the roads seemed. I was having the strangest sense of Déjà vu. When I got to the Post Office, it was in a shopping center and I swore I’d been here before. I remember it because it was a very rainy day and the parking lot was mirrorlike with water. But there was a lingering feeling that maybe I hadn’t been here before, so I took a couple pictures while I was there anyway.

The last four Post Offices were easy finds in smallish rural towns and when I got home, I looked through all the post office photos looking for that West Linn image. It wasn’t there, the one I thought was it, was actually Keizer outside of Salem. I looked to see if I posted West Linn on Instagram or maybe a random post on the blog here. Nope.

Mystery #1 was solved when I started to mark off the captured Post Offices in the master spreadsheet. The address I had for the West Linn Post Office was listed as 5665 Hood St. Wait a minute the post office I found today was at 22220 Salamo Rd. I typed the 5665 Hood address into Google Maps and it dumped me into a shopping center area. When I looked at the street view, I recognized it. The memory was of me driving around looking for the post office in the parking lot was solid.

Back in November I must have realized that the Post Office used to be there and looked up on the phone to get the new address. The reason the route to the West Linn Post Office seemed so familiar is that because back in November I must have driven to the new location. Mystery #2 remains unsolved, why the heck didn’t I take any pictures of the post office back then?