On The Move Again

After spending a little more than 2 days hanging out at UPS’s Greensboro, NC hub, the grill left there this afternoon and as I write this it is in West Columbia, SC. This means it will get to Aiken at around 4 AM and be on the truck for delivery, exactly as predicted, on December 5th. I called the 800 number and spoke with someone who could see a location scan at 12:15 PM today that was not on the web site. Maybe the grill has relatives nearby and slipped out for a quick visit?

I guess I’m going to have to get busy and yank the baby teeth tomorrow or Saturday so I can install the grill. They weren’t too much of a hassle in my ’95 IIRC, but from reading on Miata.net, this generation car can be a bear to get one of the out. We’ll see.

Washing Machine Woes

Our washing machine doesn’t spin so well anymore. Been deteriorating for a couple of months now. It works OK some times, but others it leaves a sopping wet mass of clothes in the bottom. For some reason it just isn’t getting the contents spread out well enough to get itself balanced to do a good spin. I’m sure it can probably be repaired, but Donna and I will probably go out and buy a new washer/dryer set. We want to help keep the economy rolling and these things are about 15 years old, so it is time.

It’s All Better (I Hope)

When we got home tonight there was a message on the answering machine that my car was ready. I called the salesman back to let him know that tonight and tomorrow was bad for me and I would come get it on Friday afternoon. Besides the convince factor I want to get a good look at the repair in the daylight. When I asked what was done the reply was, “A little touch up and a lot of buffing.”

My UPS delivery of the grill, according to their web site, is exactly where it was yesterday at this time. There are a couple of possibilities; 1) they estimated a delivery of December 5th, and there is no sense delivering until then. Or 2) it is lost in the warehouse. Or maybe 3) it is on a truck to be delivered tomorrow and the web site hasn’t been updated yet. I’ll call their 800 number tomorrow and see what is what.

Where Does The Time Go?

This week is one of those work an extra hour Mon-Thurs to get Friday afternoon off – 9 hours. Painting kitchen cabinets, a light color over dark requiring 3 coats. Can only do half of the cabinets at a time to maintain working kitchen – 1.5 hours. Eat (breakfast & dinner) – 1 hour. String lights on Christmas tree (wife hangs ornaments.) – 1 hour. Blog – 1 hour. Read Miata.net forum – 1/2 hour. Shower – 1/2 hour. Sleep – 6 hours. 3.5 hours left over? Doesn’t seem like that. I must be forgetting something. Oh yeah, deleting spam – 3 hours. 😉

Mods Roll On In (soon I hope)

Last Monday, the night we picked up the new car, I ordered it’s first non-hand-me-down modification, a black mesh grill. I ordered it from a place in California and they are shipping it via Conestoga Wagon and it should arrive on this Friday according to the UPS site. I suspect it might make it here tomorrow as it was in Greensboro, NC at 12:35 PM today, check the progress for yourself. A mesh grill serves two purposes, 1) it protects your expensive A/C condenser from damage when the low slung mouth of a Miata eats road debris. And 2) it looks good in there, hiding that A/C plumbing.

Mod #1 is not even here and today I ordered #2, mudflaps. On my pervious Miatas I never did get any and towards the end of their lives with me I regretted it. After 100K miles the paint and finish behind the wheel wells starts to really became ugly looking with chips of paint missing and tar spots that don’t come off. On the last one I even got some white paint specks from some where that never came off. A front and rear set, pre-painted in Garnet Red were a little over $100. Money I hope will be well spent.

Post Thanksgiving Stuff

Did everybody get enough to eat? I was a good boy in keeping my servings small so that with even having seconds, I had enough room for a slice of pie and didn’t explode.

Visiting Donna’s sister and her husband was nice, but the 550 mile trip, one-way, was a killer. No need to mention that there are too many people traveling on I-95 and they are all going too fast and driving too close together. On our 10 hour trip down we passed on accident and in the 11 hours homeward we passed two. One of those was a 6 car chain reaction cause by just such behavior. All three caused us to travel at least 2 miles at walking or slower pace.

The car is back at the dealer awaiting Wednesday’s arrival of the “paint guy.” Who I guess is like Thursday’s “dent guy”, traveling shamans who visit dealers to fix what ails new cars. Kind of puts me in mind of Mr. Haney from Green Acres or Professor Marvel from the Wizard of OZ. I remain skeptical that it can be fixed with anything less than a repainted door, but we shall see.

Six Days and It Is Gone Already

Dropped the Miata off at the dealer last night. They are going to look at it Wednesday when the “paint guy” comes in. Here is why.

Got as many pictures as I could gathered up for the Master’s Miata Club 2004 Calendar and uploaded them to Shutterfly. We got 16 submissions with a couple of folks having more than one choice. I also uploaded a copy of the Club Logo for the cover. If you want one you don’t have to join the Club, but you will have to join Shutterfly! Here are all the pictures, check them out.