Didn’t Help

Can you find the Miata in this picture?
school bus

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 474

Blogger’s Block Break

Did you read last night’s post? What was I trying to say? I just looked at my front page, all 7 posts, and there was maybe one there that was really blog worthy. The week before was hardly any better.

I need a break, not a big break, but maybe some short random breaks. So let’s try this, for everyday that the top doesn’t change state, I’m not going to post anything here.

If the weather is accurate tomorrow will be the first day off under this plan.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 473

Photobook

Back in the day we used to take pictures, get them developed and place them in photo albums. When we first went digital, a step was added to the process, upload them to an online service. Somewhere along the line that extra step was eliminated and the consequence of that is now there are no physical images to bore your friends and neighbors. All the photos are mere ones and zeros on a hard drive.

A couple years ago I found an online place that mashes up the photo development and photo album into a full color bound book and we have made several of them from our vacations.

We took a 2 week trip back in April and I just now got around to making a photobook from the pictures. I made it for us to put with the rest of our vacation memories, but you too can own those memories, buy one for yourself for Christmas. Or if you are cheap, just check out the gallery here on mr-miata.net.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 472

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