Extra Extra

For my morning coffee I use Dunkin’ K-Cups sweetened with Dunkin’ Creamer Extra Extra to as closely mimic the Dunkin’ experience as possible. Sometime early on in our lives here in Fairview, our go-to grocery store, Fred Meyer, stopped carrying Extra Extra. This meant that about once a month I would have to drive to the Safeway a mile or so further than the Fred Meyers, and buy two 32oz bottles of the Dunkin’ creamer. I could also get it at an Albertson’s about the same distance away as Safeway, just in the exact opposite direction.

This morning after fixing my normal cup of coffee I knew that I wouldn’t have enough Extra Extra to last me until the end of the week. I headed over to Safeway and there weren’t any bottles of Dunkin’ creamer. There weren’t any open slots where the Extra Extra would have gone. Hmmmm, did they stop carrying it too? Was it worth it to even try Albertsons seeing as they are the same company as Safeway? In the end, I thought it might be worth it. It wasn’t. This store had the same set up as Safeway, no Extra Extra and no empty spot for it.

Now I have a vague recollection of buying some Extra Extra at a Walmart. Maybe here, maybe Klamath Falls or maybe my imagination. The closest Walmart is all the way back over near the Safeway I left a while back. Another hazy communication bubbled to the surface from the depths of my mind, “Use the Walmart App Luke.” Dang, could have used it before driving over to Albertson’s. All that Walmart had for Dunkin’ creamer was the seasonal Pumpkin Spice.

Now I’m worried, have they stopped making it? The horrors! So, I head back home in a funk. What’s a guy to do? Give up coffee? Drive over to Stomping Grounds and buy a $6 latte every morning? I google, “Has Dunkin’ stopped making Extra Extra creamer?” The answer returns in milliseconds, “No they have not stopped making it and is available at several retailers like Target, Walgreen’s…” SHIT!!

There is a Target store three quarters of a mile closer to me than even Fred Meyer. I know this because I pass right by it once a week on my loop to get that $6 latte at Stomping Grounds. I guess I’ll take the short drive over in the morning to see. I they don’t I’ll guess that I’ll buy one of those Stomping Grounds lattes to drown my sorrows.

I thought I’d be nice and not put this at the top of the post like I first thought, because every time I say, or even think about, this post’s title I hear it in the voice of the Little Caesars cartoon guy saying, “Pizza Pizza.” I was trying to avoid you catching that little ear worm of mine. You probably only did that once here instead of the other eight times in the body of the post.

Drafts Folder

Sometimes when I have an idea for a post, but don’t want to actually write something just then I’ll save it for later. Sometimes when I don’t have an idea for a post just then, I’ll just go to the Drafts folder and get one.


1) The Big Leagues post has zero tags. So, what was I thinking there? Fortunately inside the draft there is text. It is almost a complete post that starts out like this, “Really hard is an understatement when it came to the…” I’ll probably get back to that one.
2) Next down, Almost Did It Again, is tagged TV. Inside the post body is one word, “Travelers.” Its dated almost 5 weeks ago and there is absolutely no way I know what I meant there. Marked for deletion.
3) Artificial Intelligence. Look at all those tags. I think I was going to complain about something timing-wise on the dryer or the haptic buttons, but I can’t get enthused with this topic anymore it will be deleted too.
4) Lastly is Boom! and it has neither tags nor any text in the body. To top it off, the Draft was saved 233 weeks and 5 days ago (7/6/2020.) But this one is so memorable that all I’ll ever need is the title. I will definitely write this one next year. Real soon too, look for it in January.

Podcast Listening

I have been a big fan of podcasts since long before everyone in the world had one. I listen to them when walking, riding the exercycle and now that I have Android Auto I can listen on some longer drives too. Being the end of the year, both of the podcast platforms I used for my daily talking(s) to send me my listening history for 2024.

The platform that is my go-to for podcasts is Pocket Casts and they were the first to let me know about the accounting they did on my account. According to them I listened to 153 episodes from 11 different shows. This churned up 117 hours and 7 minutes of my life over the last year. Sounds like a lot, until you consider there are 8,760 hours in those 365 days. My most listened to podcast was Armchair Expert at 25 of those 153 episodes. The rest don’t have a total of episodes listened to, but I’m not sure if they are all that accurate. Everyday Driver came in 4th and they do 2 episodes a week, so that number should have been at least over 50, double the Armchair Expert total.

The host of Armchair is a Hollywood famous comedian, actor, producer and director, but maybe even more recognizably famous being the husband of Kristin Bell. His voice is very distinctive and his takes at the introduction to the commercials and some times in the commercials too made me want to stop listening to it. After 25 episodes I broken down and got a 3-week trial to the Wondery podcast platform where the Armchair Expert is home. The trail period expired on the 23rd and I let it. He does along with his co-host/producer/editor, Monica Padman, 3 shows a week and there are a total of 835 episodes. I started by scrolling though and cherry picking the famous Hollywood actors, but at least one day a week they have an Expert on Expert on the show do discuss everything from AI to any malady of the human brain.

Wondery let me know that I watched 44 episodes which took 79 hours and 7 minutes. My top four shows I listened to were #1, Armchair Expert, second was Killer Psyche, #3 was Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums and last was 10% Happier. Their counting obviously doesn’t take in whether you finished the episode because on those last three shows, I know I didn’t finish any episode of those three. I’m willing to bet that the Killer Psyche was just because I fat fingered selecting an Armchair Expert episode. Lastly, I was labeled “You’re A Early Bird” because the majority of my listening is between 5AM to 12PM.

Adding the two times from both platforms I spent 196 hours and 14 minutes with earbuds in listening, while that sounds like a lot, but my podcast listening was a mere 2.2% of 2024.

2000 Cars In A Minute

On Sunday I drove up to Granite Falls, WA to visit the other family that makes up the Pacific North West Chapter of the Morrison/Bogardus Club. On the way up I noticed a very interesting town name and filed it away for the drive back.

Vader, WA – 98593

“Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy.”

This morning, while returning home along I-405 going south, if I could have pulled over and counted cars going by every second, I would have tallied 33-1/3, or 2,000 a minute. The New Miata rolled by 2,000 miles just after crossing back into Oregon.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

One Foggy Christmas Night Edition of SORT
As of Monday, December 23, 2024 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2017 McLaren 570S 1987 Land Rover 110 2013 Chevrolet Caprice
Rudolf, the Red Nosed Reindeer Jingle Bell Rock Christmas in Jail

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sport: 1960 Ford Galaxie Starliner Bid to $21,000 on 12/19/24
Off-Road: 1951 Dodge Power Wagon Sold for $42,250 on 12/19/24
Touring: 1949 Ford F-1 Panel Truck Sold for $39,750 on 12/18/24

My Car Is Instagram Famous

 About a month ago the folks that did the wrap on the car posted a video that had a couple seconds worth them working on the car, a teaser if you will. I took a screen grab of it to make a post for here.

Yesterday (12/20) PDX Wraps released a story on Instagram that was just of my car as a promo for doing a color change wrap on a vehicle.

And 3 days later (12/23) they also added a seven image post on Instagram.

Non-Christmas Lights Fun

I installed a red LED strip between the tail lights and the very next day I dopped the car off to have it wrapped. When I got it back, a Brake Light Malfunction warning showed in the left-hand dial on the dash. Hitting the INFO button dismissed the warning. Trouble is now at every start up; I have hit that INFO button.

Step one in troubleshooting was to back up to some shop windows to see if both tail and brake lights were working properly. They were, so what’s wrong? This led me to that red LED strip. I had purchased it from CravenSpeed. They are local to me, so I drove to their shop in Tigard which is southeast of Portland to save on shipping. All in all, the cost of gas used might have been more than shipping, but a Miata drive is a Miata drive.

CravenSpeed doesn’t make that kit it is produced by someone called MX5Things. So, I used the contact us link on the website wondering if the product still worked well in the 2024 models because that is model year that went full CAN Bus. Turns out it is a one man show and Sergey has the same 2024 GT soft top as mine. He said first check to make sure I had the correct wiring jumper harness. I did, so he said if the LED strip lights up, the only thing left is the harness. He suggested I return to CravenSpeed and try a new harness. When there we swapped the jumper harness and that didn’t fix it.

When I got home there was one thing I hadn’t yet tried yet, unhook the jumper and take the LED strip out of the circuit entirely. Unfortunately, the brake light malfunction warning was still there. It was time to punt. I went to the dealer last Friday to see if they could fix this issue. They wanted to keep the car for 2 to 3 days to troubleshoot it because if it wasn’t a simple fix they would have to do a deep dive. I said, “I’ll let you know.” When I got home, I put the LED strip jumper back in. I’d just keep hitting the INFO button on the steering wheel to dismiss the warning.

I knew they took the tail lights out to wrap the car and I’ve got the LED strip jumper plugged in on the driver’s side, but I’ve never messed with the passenger side tail light connection, so I unplugged and replugged in that tail light to see if that might be it. That wasn’t it, but doing this caused a tail light malfunction warning in addition to the brake light warning. Crap. So now I’d have to hit the INFO button 2 times to clear the warnings.

Using a long broom stick to depress the brake pedal, I checked the tail lights again and everything appears to work normally, even the blinkers. I called the dealer and set up an appointment to take it in and Monday I took it in. They asked if I wanted a ride home? I said, “I was just going to call an Uber.” The Service Rep’s reply was, “We’ll get you a Lyft. They’ll pick you up out front.”

The car was in their possession for about 24 hours. They cleared some codes, then started and shut off a car a couple times to check and the light warning did not reappear. The next morning, they did the start-stop thing a couple more times and called it fixed. They did have one code that couldn’t be cleared, the one for a missing satellite antenna. That’s because I removed the antenna and vinyled over the hole on the trunk lid. At least that particular error code is silent and does not cover over any of the dash displays.

Cost all of $100 for the tech’s time. But I recouped a 1/3 of it back when they replaced both windshield wipers, even though they aren’t a warrantied part, when I mentioned there were several fine streaks left after each swipe from day one.

Whatever they are paying that Service Rep is not enough. The simple offer of those wipers caused me to do something I absolutely hate to do; I filled out a ‘how was my service’ survey. Not only that, I give a 5 star review and actually left a really nice comment.