Back Into The Woods

Swampy CutToday was the second Glorious Fall Day® in a row and for the first time in about three months we went for a walk in Hitchcock Woods. Took a nice little 3-1/2 mile walk among the falling leaves.

Because the weather was perfect for it as well as walking in the woods, the Emperor got the full spa treatment; bug/tar removal on the nose and rocker panels, a good washing, headlights polished, wax and a window washing. We are now set for the winter.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 471

Is That A Water Tower In Your Pocket?

Water Tower
Or are you just glad to see me?

We took a “little” trip to do some geocaching today. After going 0 for 2 in Hampton County last weekend on the way home from HHI, there was one more left that we wanted to try and it was only 72 miles away (as the crow flies.) We warmed up with a series of 4 ammo cans in a park in Jackson, SC. Then we drove through the bomb plant to get the other half of a multi that we had gotten Stage 1 of last Sunday. We ducked into to Georgia on US 301 to visit the country’s oldest operating Welcome Center (dedicated January 1962) and the grab nearby cache. On the return trip back into SC I took a picture of my state’s Welcome Center. It was closed in 2000.

The drive down was on really back roads passing through only a couple towns and they had populations of less than 3 digits. We made it to the spot where our goal was, at a boat ramp on the Savannah River called Stokes Bluff Landing and we might not have found the cache if we didn’t read the clue. We decided to loop into Georgia and come back on the west side of the river and pass through Augusta before coming home, but when we hit US 301 we turned right. Passed that GA Welcome Center again and retraced our route back.

About 200 miles of driving with the top down on a beautiful fall day. We were 11 of 12 in finding caches for the day and it wasn’t until I got home and logged them online that I realized we really blew it by missing that one, our total cache finds stands now at 249…

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 470

Dead Pixel Society*

Yesterday morning I wiped the dust off my monitor with a damp cloth. A few minutes later I noticed a bright green dot 1/3 over from the right and about half way up while the screen saver was running. I run an adjusted version of Euphoria and the background is mostly black, so that bright green dot was very visible. It doesn’t get any better when I’m working either because I draw in AutoCAD with a black background and that green is the color I use for dimensions.

I Googled “dead pixel” and found a few places that offered methods to fix them. But the first thing I learned is I didn’t have a dead pixel, but I had a stuck pixel. *The title of this post wouldn’t have sounded near as cute if I used stuck instead of dead.

I tried two different software methods and maybe I didn’t let them run long enough, only about 15 minutes, but neither had any success. I then moved onto the more dangerous physical methods. The pencil point directly applied to the stuck pixel insulated by a couple sheets of paper fixed the problem, for about 2 minutes. Then we moved on to the tapping of the screen on the pixel with a Sharpie, with the cap on, this worked too. For about 15 minutes. By the afternoon I was coming to the realization that I was going to have to live with that one bright green spot and maybe change my AutoCAD background to white.

At the 2 o’clock break, with the usual gang gathered in my cube, I was regaling folks with my attempts to fix the stuck pixel. As I was demonstrating the tapping technique that had worked for the relatively longest time, I picked a random spot on the screen and practiced hitting it with the right pressure, just enough to make a nice white halo around the cap of the Sharpie, when my stuck pixel unstuck. I was about 4 or 5 inches away from it, but on the second or third tap it winked off. Hasn’t returned since.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 469

Cabin Air Filter

The Miata cockpit can be a very warm place for various reasons. It is not helped that the outside air vented into the cockpit is heated 15-20 degrees above the ambient outside air.

With Out FilterSeveral years back I decided to try and cool this air down. I used nearly every trick that I could unearth on the Miata Forums, ensure the heater flap closed fully, close holes in hood with tape, stuff a piece of insulation in the seal between cowl and engine compartment and tape over holes in firewall leading to the windshield cowl area, yet I remained defeated. On my own I thought maybe if I removed the big plastic piece over the inlet for the cabin air I might get some outside air directly in the system. This exposed a big opening directly to the vent system’s squirrel fan covered only with a wide mesh appropriately sized to keep out overweight house cats.

With New FilterHaving had to clean small leaves and pieces of pine straw out of that fan from inside the car a few times in my Miata owning career (major milestone approaching) I thought it would be a good idea to cover that up. The only thing I had handy was a spare 20×20 house HVAC filter. So I cut out a piece of the fiberglass mesh roughly the size of the opening, edged it in some maroon duct tape I had left over from covering the holes in the hood and taped it over the opening.

Old FilterI change the “cabin air filter” out each time I change the oil which is about every 3 months. Do I breath cleaner air because of this filter, I doubt it, what with all the time I spend with the top down, but it must be doing something judging by how dirty it looks when I swap it out. If you look in the clean filter picture above you can see a bunch of debris to the right of the filter, I don’t think this would have made it into the fan without the filter because of the 2″ vertical wall of the opening (probably designed that way to keep out water), but stuff has made it in there before, probably due some sort of perfect storm scenario, and since I have been using this filter method nothing has made in there yet.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 467

Tips From The Web

The Art of Being A Miata Passenger
Donna always gets this one right, but sometimes the driver just doesn’t listen – …you must be sure to remind the driver to get gas, and have money on hand in case you want to buy something in one of those small towns that don’t have ATM’s or take credit cards.

100 Things Restaurant Staffers Should Never Do
My favorite – #18. Know before approaching a table who has ordered what. Do not ask, ?Who?s having the shrimp??

50 Amazingly Helpful Time-Tested Tips for the Kitchen
Chalk? Really? – #14. To banish ants from the kitchen, find out where they are coming in and cover the hole with petroleum jelly. Ants won?t trek through the jelly. If they are coming under a door, draw a line on the floor with chalk. The little bugs also won?t cross a line of chalk.

Helpful Hints for Life
No time for a bath? Wrap yourself in masking tape and remove the dirt by simply peeling it off.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 466

Sex, TV & Spam

There were 89 spam messages caught by my spam filter at work this morning and quite a few dealt with trying to sell magic pills to improve my sex life. I am amazed at the creative titles and thought that they could be broken down into which Cable TV channel they would be shown on if they were the titles of infomercials instead of the subject lines of spam.

Release your inside beast! on Animal Planet
African temper in amour on BET
Your prescription for success on Discovery Health
Become arousal athlete! on ESPN
Pumper for pant muscle on Fit TV
Recipe for hot nights on FOOD
Invest in your wang! on CNBC
Be her volcano on National Geographic
Just be a male! on Spike
Right spell for your ‘magic wand’ on SyFy
No sad accidents in bed on Tru TV
Be furious in bed on Versus

I’m not sure what channel these last three belong on, maybe you have some channels I don’t get, let me know what you think:
Be good at humping!
Become a lech instantly
Flaccidity is not for you

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 466

Head To Toe

Yesterday the Emperor had dental surgery. It was November 1st, so the Vampire Teeth came off and went into their plastic bag for the next 11 months.

After nearly 23 months and 27,000 miles the Emperor’s shoes are getting worn out. They are not to the wear bars just yet (close) and are starting to get hard, so yesterday I ordered up some new foot wear. General Exclaim UHPs in 205/50 x 15.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 464