Short post tonight, got to get busy making the round Master’s Miata Club magnets as loaners for tomorrow. The Club is participating the the Peach Festival Parade in Johnston, SC. If you are in the area 🙂 come out and watch us, the parade starts at 10:30 AM.
Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $705.02
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127
My Blogger Shirt arrived today. As a matter of fact I have it on right now. I wanted one a long time ago, way back when I started this blogging gig, but the were closing out the shirts and didn’t have my size. They never re-stocked. I guess flush with some new Google money they made up some more shirts, so I got me one. Kind of ironic though, I just moved one of my blogs over to Movable Type and I’m work on converting the other.
Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $705.02
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 126
Moving all the blogger entries over here was real easy thanks to the folks who wrote MT. I’m now in the process of moving The Miata Diaries over to MT as well. This one will be more time consuming, but just because I’m more anal retentive than most I guess. When importing to MT if you don’t have a title, like an indigent blogger, one will be appointed you (the first five words of the post or something.) For the rant I had been giving each post a title, but no so for the diaries. So instead of just letting it do the work I’m going back and writing titles for all the posts, like 500 (I started on January 1st, 2002)
It was fun pretending to be a newspaper headline editor, then I started picking out possible double entendres for possible high search engine hits then I got bored and cut and pasted random phrases from the text. I’m about a third of the way through and my resolve is fading fast. I am going through and fixing some of the outdated links. I’m going to try and fix the pop up windows for images too. I was using a java script thingie, but want to take advantage of the one built in to MT. Oh, well, it will keep me off the streets….
Went out at lunchtime to walk around the parking lot for a bit of exercise and fresh air. Two steps out of the building it was apparent that it was going to rain big time any minute. As a matter of fact it was raining lightly as we pulled the cockpit cover off and raised the top. Lightning was visible to the south as we walked back in. Smug with the satisfaction of dodging a bullet, we returned inside. Well Mother Nature doesn’t like smugness, so she made it not rain at all over our company’s property all afternoon.
When we left work it still looked like rain in spots so we left the top up. Good thing too as at about the halfway mark on the trip home we ran into literally a wall of water. With the windshield wipers on high a forward speed at 20 MPH was too fast. The lightning was flashing all around us like we were Madonna and Guy Ritchie entering an LA eatery. Then about a block from home it throttled back to just a normal light rain. I bet we had 3″ of rain in the 20 minutes it took us to drive 3 miles.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $705.02
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 125
Movie afternoon here at the Bogardus Estate. Started off, by turning off, Far From Heaven 30 minutes into it. The movie captured the feel of the Fifties too well, so much so that it seemed on the edge of parody to me. I can’t explain it more that I didn’t get interested enough in the characters enough to care about their drama.
The next movie didn’t even get into the DVD player, Don’t Look Now. I originally rented after watching Donald Sutherland talk about the movie on Inside The Actor’s Studio. John Lipton effervesced over the film, plus they talked of rumors that the love scene between Donald and Julie Christie was not acting. But I forgot who was in the movie and when I read this blurb on the DVD sleeve, “John and Laura Baxter just lost their daughter in a tragic drowning accident. While living in Venice, an elderly psychic insists that she sees the spirit of the child. They’re unsure of whether to place their emotional well being in the hands of a stranger, but John begins to have psychic flashes of his own, seeing the child walk the streets of Venice. Is he insane, or is there a deeper meaning to the sightings?”, I just put it back in the envelope.
I did watch 2 movies all the way through. I had rented The Truth About Charlie and when I put it in the player it turns out I put it in upside down, as the movie on which it was based, Charade, was on that side of the disc. So what the heck, let’s watch this one first and then we can compare the two. I think that it was very stupid to include this version on the flip side because by comparison the original is a better movie than the update. Mark Walberg is a stick. Cary Grant just being his usual Cary Grant self has more on screen charisma than Marky Mark will ever have. Of course it could have been very smart to put these movies back-to-back, as it did make me watch “The Truth About Charlie” all the way through. I’m sorry I did, as the ending was muddled and seemed to have been made way different on purpose to differentiate the films.
Took advantage of the frighteningly scarce sunny afternoon weather we had today and went for an aimless drive around the back roads of Aiken County. After about 150 miles of driving, I’m liking these Toyos more and more. Haven’t really had a change to challenge any serious twisties with them, but from the few tight curves locally I’ve attacked, they seem to grip very well. Plus, even pumped up to 35 PSI, the softer side walls smooth out the rough roads nicely. The old Bridgestones were rock hard at 29 PSI and had a tendency to trammel all over the lane at the slightest provocation from any slant in the pavement surface.
Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $705.02
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 124
Washed off the car in the garage using some Mequiars Quick Detailer. Vacuumed the car out. Washed the windshield. Even touched up the scrape marks on the front air dam with some semi-gloss black paint. Why you ask, because we were going over to the Sno-Cap Drive In for a Miata Club gathering. About 15 minutes after we got there the rain started and didn’t quit until about an hour after we got back home.
Money spent today was for a hydraulic jack at Wal-Mart. A 2-ton unit with two jack stands, 2 wheel chocks and a shiny chrome cross lug wrench. According to the instructions on Miata.net I’ll need to put a groove in a length of 2 x 4 so I can lift one whole side of the car at a time. Downside to this is I may have to drive up on some 2 x 6 to get the required clearance to put the jack under. It is a step in the right direction, maybe after 5 or 6 years I’ll be ready to step up to the $200 aluminum race jack.
Purchased Today: $31.55
Money spent since 03/03/03: $705.02
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 123