Year: 2003

Trailer Queen

This last Saturday as part of the Peach Festival Parade there were a couple of Plymouth Prowlers as an entry. One was being pulled on a trailer. I guess this guy figured that by not driving this one around it will be worth money someday. It probably hasn’t ever been driven except maybe on and off that trailer, he still had the original window sticker on the windshield.

Prowlers are fairly rare and if he finds just the right collector he may get a few bucks for it, but I think my retirement strategy of buying lottery tickets will pay off sooner than his expected windfall.

CafePress Mess

I guess I really am a glutton for punishment. I ordered several stickers from the CafePress store for this blog and some from the Miata Diaries store as well on the 14th of June. On the 17th their status was “In Production.” One week later they were still In Production, so I called their Customer Service number. After a not too long of a wait the CSR told me that they were having a slight problem with the sticker material not printing right so that everyone’s sticker orders were delayed. She informed me that my order was going out today.

The last time I called about a delayed “In Production” order, I received my original order and then several days later I got a second shirt via UPS second day. They never charged for the 2nd shirt and I never said anything. Maybe I’ll get 2 orders of stickers. If I do I’ll report it here and I’ll give the doubles away.

A Day In The Ho-Hum Life

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged my comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup…

About the only non-standard blip in my day was sitting inside a 2002 Mustang Cobra. A fellow brought in his brother-in-law’s car for the day. Thought it might be fun to park it next to our Director of Operation’s 2003 Cobra. At lunch a few of us went out and oohed and aahed. Boy Howdy I’m glad I didn’t have to drive that thing in the Peach Parade on Saturday, I’d have never made it. I’m not sure I could make it through a long red light with that thing pushed in. Yikes that clutch is a stiff. Not sure how the action is as I didn’t drive it, but a few seconds with the clutch pushed in was a definate quad workout.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $804.88
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127

Shopping Spree

Mazda has changed the diameter of the stock oil filter (rambled on about that back on May 31) Today I decided to buy the new filter wrench to fit them from Finish Line Performance. While I was there I figured I might as well buy a couple of filters too. Total spent here was $$22.96.

I need to replace my cockpit cover. I’ve only had it about a year, but it seems to be deteriorating at a rapid rate. My SWAG is that once I Scotchguarded it started to eat away at the fabric and ever since it has been leaving a fine white powder behind when I take it off. Shopping at Moss Motors cost me $63.40. For that I got a new cockpit cover and the cleaning solution/new oil for K&N air filters. The K&N has been in there for a while and it is probably past due for cleaning.

Purchased Today: $86.38 ca-ching
Money spent since 03/03/03: $804.88
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127

Is That All?

Donna and I went for a hike in Hitchcock Woods this morning. We got in early, 8:00 AM, and it was actually cool in the beginning, because of the hills and trees it was still a little dim as well. After about an hour the sun was penetrating enough that I needed to put on my sunglasses. After about an hour and a half I pushed up the sleeves on my shirt and by the time we exited the woods 15 minutes later I had worked up a nice little sweat. Very pleasant little walk. Probably around 4 miles, but we have stopped keeping track. The only downside was walking though the webs of industrious spiders hoping to catch a morning meal.

The entrance to the woods is probably 2 miles from the house and that is all exercise the Miata got. The drive to and from the walk was about the same amount of miles we covered while in the woods.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $718.52
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127

To Boldly Go…

…where nearly every sci-fi movie has gone before.

We watched Star Trek: Nemesis this afternoon. I think this is supposed to be their (The Next Generations) last movie together. After 4 of these I think they believe it is time to hang up the phasers and tricorders. I second that emotion, its about time.

When watching this movie I couldn’t help but feel that I’d seen this all before. To go along with the bald face copying of other movies: Data walking Picard down the hall as a prisoner – Star Wars. Ditto the jumping down a little chute to escape a laser battle.

We have also lapsed into the standard movie cliches of good guys in white and bad guys in black, even down to drinking from white or black tea cups. The bad guys fire 6,000 laser blasts and only manage to create sparks and charred walls, while the good guys fire 6 shots and kill 12 baddies.

Why is it that we can pick out 6 distinct little pieces of an android from light-years away, but when several bad guys beam aboard our spacecraft we have to grab some guns and search around corridors for them?

I used to be a Trekkie back in the day. I watched the Original Series when they first came on and later lived on reruns. And enjoyed the movies (even the lame-o first one) until about the 6th one. I watched all the ST:TNG episodes and now have semi-enjoyed their movies. But please no more.

Pink Elephants On Parade

Or actually, 8 gaily colored Miatas on parade.

Donna and I misjudged our arrival time to the meeting place, we were 25 minutes too early. After sitting a bit she suggested that we take a little drive to kill some time. We ended up being the last to arrive.

The parade was a short little event that wound its way trough a small section of town and then around the square that the rest of the Peach Festival was being held. There were only like 30 entries in the parade and to make it seem bigger they split us into 2 groups of four. There were also a couple of fire engines, several tractors and of course a half dozen horses, thankfully at the end. To help us have fun and make the kids along the route happy we got to throw candy.

After the parade we all went and did the festival thing. Shopped the craft booths, ate sausage dogs, funnel cakes and of course peach ice cream on top of peach cobbler for desert.

Purchased Today: $13.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $718.52
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127