The Other Half Rotated

The folks at the neighborhood tire store were nice enough when I stopped in after work with my problem. I had to wait about an hour to get them to fix the cross threaded lug nut. When they tried to remove the seized one, the lug busted off, so we had to wait for them to get a new lug delivered. No charge.

Of course when I got home and finished the rotation job I had to use a breaker bar on two of the four lugs on the wheel they just worked on. Next time I go in there I will ask them if they know what the torque specs are for the lug nuts on a Miata. The answer is 66-86 foot/pounds.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 92

Recent Is A Relative Term

If you look to the right, just under Sturgeon’s Law, you will see a new addition – a list of Radio Paradise‘s Recently Played Songs. Some helpful soul over on the RP forums created a file that scrapes the recently played page and turns it into a feed. Now all that was needed was a way to display that info on my page.

First I tried the RSSFeed plugin. After a bit wrestling I got it to work, with one bugaboo, the only time it updated (read the feed) was when I rebuilt the index page. Not refreshed, rebuilt, as in posting an entry. This meant if you checked my blog in the afternoon, the songs listed as recently played would have been heard about 20 hours before. I guess if you are a rock, that is real recent, but in human terms that is like so yesterday. And in Internet terms, with recent meaning milliseconds, that is unacceptable.

The second attempt is using another plugin, GETXML that looked promising. It took a little more monkeying that the previous plugin to get going, but I persevered. Unfortunately it exhibits the same behavior as RSSFeed.

Some Movable Type forum searching turned up another plugin that might help either of the first by forcing a rebuild of the index file at predetermined intervals. That would keep the file list updated and recent. But I can’t seem to find it listed in the Plugins Directory and quite frankly, I’m getting tired of messing with this thing that probably has no redeeming value to anyone.*

Half Rotated

Decided to go ahead and do my own 22,500 mile service today at 22,204. The Owner’s Manual lists 3 items for this interval, replace oil, replace oil filter and lubricate locks and hinges. Done, well all except for the lock lubrication, I don’t have the correct lube for them, so they will just wait until next time.

As I usually do, I rotated the tires while changing the oil. Well I got them half rotated. One of the lug nut nuts on the right rear tire must be stripped. I got about 5 or 6 turns out and it started to be hard to turn. I applied a little muscle, but after about another turn I feared for breaking something, so I stopped. Tried to spin it back on, but it wasn’t going that way either. Funny thing about that wheel, that is the one I thought I had a slow leak in about 6 weeks ago, and my friendly neighborhood tire store had it off and on a couple of times during that visit. The ever cynical me figures they mucked up the stud and/or lug nut, so guess where I’m going during lunch tomorrow?

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 90

Put The Lime In The Coke, You Nut

About 2 weeks ago I got a really sharp pain when eating some pop corn. The next day I called the dentist to set up an appointment to have him look at it. The appointment was for the next week, but before it came around I got a hacking cough that would have made dental work nigh impossible, so I put it off for another week. Besides it only hurt a little if I chewed on that side.

The appointment was for this coming Thursday. Apparently the big pain was me cracking a tooth, as yesterday while munching on some peanut M&M’s (the Jedi mix) I completed the destruction and cracked off about 1/4 of ol’ #3. I thought that bite was kind of crunchy.

Although once the tooth is broke the pain goes away and I told them I could wait until my original Thursday appointment, they had a cancellation this afternoon, so in I went. The temporary is in place and I had to swear on a stack of bibles that there would not be a repeat of last August before they would let me out the door.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 87

Watch Where You Point That Thing

This morning Donna and I went to Columbia, SC to watch some friend’s kid play in a baseball tournament. He plays on an 11 & under “traveling” team that seems to play in these tournaments every other weekend all over the state.

Gotta run into bucks. They have two different complete uniforms, there is an entrance fee for the team to get in, meals and if it is more than 100 miles away there are hotel rooms. The place we went to today charged $5 a head to get in. The players get in for free (if you don’t count the entrance fee,) but parents and sibling have to pay to watch. Priced an aluminum bat recently, the $20 bat from Wal-Mart won’t cut it, the bat they want costs about a hundred and a half. Most of them have their own custom air brushed batting helmets.

I don’t know if the team picked up the tab for it, or a parent bought it, but both teams seemed to have a small radar gun that they used to track the opposing team’s pitcher’s speed. I’m sure the level of microwave energy coming from these things is low, but if my kid was a pitcher, he’d have a metal lined cup for his jockstrap. Wouldn’t want to take any chances with his still developing family jewels. 🙂

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 87

Impressive Junk Mail

This happened yesterday morning and then when blogging time rolled around in the evening I had forgot all about it (why I remembered tonight is a mystery.)

Donna was in the kitchen when a UPS truck pulled into our driveway. Sarcastically she said, “Go ahead Mr. UPS Truck, feel free to use our driveway to turn around.” Whenever they delivery stuff to us they just park in the street and traipse across the front lawn. She then said to me, “Go to the door he is brining something to us. Are we expecting anything?” As I headed to the door I replied, “Who knows?” At any given time there is a pretty good chance we expecting something and it turns out we are, just not what he had for us this morning.

As I opened the door he handed me a large envelope and promptly spun around back to his truck. As I walked back towards the kitchen Donna asked, “Well, what is it?” “An envelope and it is from CitiMortgage,” I answered. Our mortgage had changed hands to Citi several months back so we both wondered what this might be about, they were selling our note again, they decided to call in the note, we were late on a payment, what?

Well inside that UPS delivered envelope was a come-on to refinance our mortgage with them! They were offering 6.05 vs. our current 6.5%. As an incentive they were also offering $500 off our closing costs. They were promising about a hundred buck a month saving, before figuring in the closing costs remaining after they chipped in their portion. Thanks, but no thanks. Gotta give it to them, sure was impressive to have it UPS delivered.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 85

Johhny Lightning Miata

I’ve had a white Johnny Lightning 2000 Miata with brown interior sitting near a speaker on my computer desk for about 6 months now. Today I drilled out the rivets on the bottom that hold it together. I’m going to paint it Garnet Red. Going to try and mask off the lights and grill and such. Don’t know how well I’ll do, those are tiny little decals and I would like to save them. If I’m going to all that trouble to do the outside, I probably should paint the interior too, make it more light tan in color. If it comes out OK I’ll post pictures. If I screw it up you’ll never see mention of it here again. 🙂

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 85