Year: 2005

Japanese Backdrop

After a visit to Kroger’s to pick up tomorrow morning’s breakfast essentials I cruised by the 2 Japanese restaurants in town checking for photography backgrounds. I figure if I’m going to take a couple of photos of the car with the Japanese license plate and then remove it, I might as well try something a little more artsy than backing it out of the garage and snapping away in the driveway. A night shot might be cool, I wonder if they leave the lights on after they have closed up shop for the day?

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 17

1,832 Hours To Go

We have three lights in front of the house that we leave on all the time. One to light the house number and stairs, one bug light to light the door and one at the end of the driveway. It seems like these burn out way too often and all 3 will go about a day or so apart, so it seems like I am always complaining about burnt out light bulbs. My mother-in-law found some 2,000 hour bulbs in a catalog so she ordered me a six pack.

Last Friday I changed out the one at the end of the driveway with a long lasting bulb. I can see why they last that long, these suckers are dim. I guess it is expending 60 watts of power and giving off 30 watts of light and 30 watts of heat. I’ll let you know it lasts 76 more days.

20,000 Miles

Just notched over the 20k mark on the drive home from work. Once home there was just time enough to unpack the lunch buckets and change clothes before heading back out. Tonight being the first Thursday of the month meant Master’s Miata Club business meeting.

Donna is thrilled. It looked good when I saw it on someone else’s Miata. It looked cool when I looked at the pictures of some. It looked neat when I did a Photoshop mock-up. But somehow it lost something it the translation to real life. Maybe if I had a lighter colored car? Oh, well, I’m keeping it on until at least this weekend so I can take a picture or two of it on the front, but after that its coming off. Anyone want a replica Japanese license plate?

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 17

Tokyo Taxi

Got the Japanese front license plate mounted this evening. A friend at work made up a mount out of 1/8 aluminum and bent it according to my fancy-schmancy AutoCAD drawing. According to Tim, he doesn’t do holes or windows, so I spent my lunchtime drilling the 4 mounting holes and the 2 plate mounting holes (both in the bracket and the plate.)

Tonight when I got home I painted the bare aluminum with some flat black paint that I last used to cover up the stock muffler, which for whatever reason, was plainly visible in the rear view of the car.

Although there are four holes in the mount, there are only three used to bolt it to the car. Because I didn’t want to have to disassemble nearly the entire front underbody plastic cladding to have unfettered access to the mounting points, I managed to only get two bolts in. After once again dropping the 3rd bolt on the third attempt, I gave up. Believe me when I say that 2 is more than sufficient to hold this little license plate and it’s bracket to the car. The things I took out were there to tie down the car to the deck of the ship that brought it over from Japan, one bolt would probably be enough…

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 17

Caught A Break

Today at the tire place they pulled a nail out of my, less than 3 month old, left rear tire and patched it up. Last time this happened to me I wasn’t so lucky. In July of 2003 I picked up a nail in my less than 2 month old Toyos, but that time it was too close to the sidewall for patching, so I had to buy a whole new tire.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 17

Mailbag

Over the weekend the Spam Index here at bbogardus@asco.com dipped back into the sixties, with 66, 63 & 64 received. This morning we were back up to 78.

I wonder if I can get a restraining order against [no sender] because he keeps pestering me about [no subject].

arcosar@superonline.com was right, I just couldn’t ignore an email with the subject line that read, Just can’t ignore this email. I didn’t open it, but I couldn’t help writing about it here.

Thanks to CrawfordKWwqs@msn.com I now know where to get help if I’m ever bit by a radioactive archnid, the Spiderman Pharmacy.

Sssssssssssslow Leak?

This morning as I loaded the truck for the drive to work I noticed that the left rear tire was low, very low. Maybe single digit low. I plugged in my cheapo air compressor and topped it off. 29 PSI. I felt all around the tire, but did not feel anything. Today at lunch it measured 28 PSI. Did it lose a pound or was it just because it was colder outside on the parking lot that it was in my garage? I’ll check it tomorrow and if it is down again, I may have to actually jack up the car and take a real look for something.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 17