Had a pattern going there…but not anymore. Just started raining and is supposed to go most of tonight and all tomorrow. I hope it rains hard so as to knock all the remaining pine pollen out of the trees. The parking lot at work has a yellow tint and when the wind blows it makes little yellow clouds fly across the asphalt.
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 60
No fog for the first time in a while, but the clouds were not pretty looking, forcing the top to be put up while at work, just in case. Good thing too, didn’t rain, but saved the interior from a major dusting of pine pollen. The car was covered with the stuff at the end of the day. The top went back down and we drove the 20 miles of our 6 mile commute home.
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 58
Donna’s Mom has a 1997 Honda Civic DX. It is an official Miata Support Vehicle and as such every time the 3 of us go anywhere I get to drive the Civic. The one thing that always bothers me is the location of the gas gage. It is an automatic and there is no tachometer. The instrument cluster consists of three circles. The biggest one is the speedometer in the center which also has the odo and trip odo in it. To the right of the center circle in a slightly smaller circle is the gas gage to the far right, while the gear indicator lights are to the left in that same circle. To the left of the center circle is another slightly smaller circle with the temp gage to the left and to the right are the words, “Unleaded Fuel Only.” Why didn’t the verbiage about unleaded fuel go in the same circle as the gas gage? To logical?
Watched it again last night. I could have sworn last week John Doggett was in a coma. This week he is just fine, but in the intro his partner Monica Reyes is in a car accident and guess what, ends up in a coma. The show is becoming like a daytime soap opera in fast forward. Next week is Agent Scully’s turn? They are calling for the return of Fox Mulder to end the series with a bang, I’m sure when we first see him he will be in a coma….
Oh, yeah, this episode reminded me of something, I could swear I saw the same plot in an old Twilight Zone episode.
Put the top up to wash the car this morning. Back down for the drive over to the GA Welcome Center to meet the gang. Today was Tech Day for the Master’s Miata Club. We meet there and drove over to Kurt’s house because he has a two car attached garage, a place for four cars in the drive, a single car un-attached garage with workshop and he lives at the end of a dead end road where more cars can go. First we made a “quick” stop at the local Mazda dealer, they just got in a new 2002 Titanium Gray SE and we wanted to peep at it.
Today’s Tech Special was brake bleeding. Rudy bought a Forced Induction device called a speed bleeder. You pressurize the brake system and open the bleed valves and whoosh, out with the old and in with the new. No need to pump the pedal. Supposedly this allows you to do the job by yourself, of course it took 4 of us to do it. 🙂 They did 4 cars (I think including clutch systems too) and Rudy changed over to some new Axxis brake pads. I didn’t do the brake thing as I was busy installing toggle switches to replace the hazard & pop-up buttons. Now that I got them in there, I’m not sure I like it.
I’ll give it a couple weeks to see if it grows on me. Needs a little refinement as well. The outside plate I made was a little too small and I need a backing plate or something as the switches move around when used as I couldn’t get them tight to the console.
When we went in for our pizza lunch I put the top up as there were some gray clouds hovering about. Cleared up a bit after lunch so the top went back down. Jim Creer brought his polishing wheel and magic goo so he could show me how to shave the lettering off the side makers. It is an old hot rodders trick from way back, to polish off the raised lettering on the red and yellow lights to keep from getting unsightly dried wax build up. He did one and then part of another, which I then finished. Borrowed the stuff from him so I can do the tail lights evenings this week.
Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 54
Below are a couple of quotes from their email a week ago….
“This transition period will begin Sunday @ 8:00am PST, March 10th, 2002. And will require approximately 5 days to complete.”
It has now been 6-1/2 days and they are not finished. I know this because…
“During this transition period you may experience unexpected downtimes.”
They didn’t need to pluralize it because it has been *downtime* since about 4 AM Tuesday morning. Nothing. My site, my friend’s site, their own site…..n o t h i n g .
I think the 5 day thing was just to let them get a head start before we sent the Internet Police after them.
It is March Madness time and I’ve entered the office pool. In a couple of weeks that $7 will be lining some one else’s pocket. I have never come close to winning the NCAA Tourney pool. I take that back, I came close 4 years ago when my cubical neighbor didn’t know what to pick so I told him to just go with the highest seed and for the final four take them on the order of their year end poll position. He won! and he gave me $10 for my help.
We also have a Football Bowl pool that I fare much better in, 2 years ago I won and a year ago I finished second. For football the point spread counts, so I have a Excel spreadsheet that generate a random number, which is then used to pick the winner. This past January it failed miserably and I came in dead-last. But that is OK too, because the last place person gets the booby prize of his or her money back.
This year instead of grappling with trying to pick the upsets right in the NCAAs, I went back to that highest seed thing – I’ll let you know.