Month: February 2007

Blogger’s License Pre-Renewal Announcemnet

On July 1, 2005, Life of Brian was granted a license by the Federal Internet Transmission Commission to serve the public interest as a public trustee.

Our license will expire on July 1, 2007. We must file an application for license renewal with the FITC, March 1, 2007. When filed, a copy of this application will be available for public inspection during our regular business hours. It contains information concerning this blog?s performance during the last license term of 2 years.

Individuals who wish to advise the FITC of facts relating to our renewal application and to whether this blog has operated in the public interest should file comments and petitions with the Commission by June 1, 2007. Further information concerning the Commission?s blogger’s license renewal process is available at 123 Main St, Aiken, SC 29801 or may be obtained from the FITC, 1001 Connecticut Ave, Washington DC 20554.

Best Of?

I have completed the “Best Of” pages with the addition of 2002 & 2003. One post from each month and boy did I have a hard time with some of them. And I think my blogging is lame now….all I can say is, good thing I wasn’t blogging in 2001 or 2000.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 49

Two For Tuesday

Enchanted Ceiling - Oh MyTaste of America with Mark DeCarlo on the Travel Channel in is my old home town, New Britain, CT talking Kielbasa. He said that the city is affectionately called Little Poland because of the large Polish population, we just called it New Britski when growing up, but I guess that would have not been very politically correct for 2007 & TV. I like to refer to New Britain as the “Ex Hardware Capital of the World.” What attracted all those Polish folks to the town in the first place was the plethora of jobs at all the factories that made locks, bearings, hinges, tools, etc. It is the “Ex” because all the factories are closed down as the manufacturing jobs moved south. The only company that still has any presence in town is Stanley Tools, but they only have white collar jobs left at their World HQ. You can get a brief glimpse of Broad St, NB, CT by watching the repeat of this episode at 11:00PM tonight or at 2:00PM on Saturday afternoon.

 

Wispy The skies have been very interesting around here lately, which means spring can’t be too far away. Also for the first time in a couple weeks we were near the average (low sixties) for us this time a year instead of 10 degrees below it. I’ve got my fingers crossed that this heralds the end of winter for us. For the next 10 days we will be 5-10 degrees above normal temps. Sunday calls for rain, but Saturday looks very promising for a Post Office photo expedition.

I meant to put this link in my post the other day about draftsmen: MUSEUM of OBSOLETE DRAFTING TECHNOLOGY.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 48

I Wish I Knew the Protocol

Enchanted Ceiling - Parking Lot My good “buddy” Rick has tagged me. I am supposed to write 5 things you don’t know about me and then tag 5 other folks, so they’ll do the same.

He stopped after 3 because, as he put it, “After looking around it appears that everyone else has already been tagged…” How far did he look? Are you allowed to tag anyone? Or just folks you are linked to? Because he only did three, can I get away with posting just 3 things you don’t know about me? Just what are the rules here? How could he have tagged me if he didn’t tell me? I had to find out about it by reading his blog…

Anyway, let’s see if I can come up with five things you don’t already know about me, might be tough if you have been reading this for awhile:
1. I used to go by the nickname Bo, because it is so hard to pronounce Bogardus. There are probably some cousins of Donna’s that I met early on, that still think of me by that name, although I haven’t gone by it since the 70’s.
2. The nickname of the athletic teams of the high school I attended was Hurricanes, even though there have only been 8 categorized hurricanes to hit Connecticut since 1851.
3. At 16 I stole my mother’s cigarette’s for a couple weeks so I could learn to inhale in preparation for my first marijuana encounter that a friend had promised was imminent.
4. The first car I ever bought was a bright orange Datsun B210 “Honeybee.”
5. I saw Roger Clemens pitch the New Britain AA Red Sox to the 1983 Eastern League championship.

I’m tagging these following 5 blogs that I searched out on the net that mentioned the word Miata in a recent post: 1) Angst & Giggles 2) Live Free or Die! 3) Casa De Morrill 4) ZOOM-zoom-ZOOM & 5) Aubr3y. How the heck these people are going to know they are tagged is beyond me.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 47

54,000 Pieces of Hardware

54,000 Pieces of HardwareForgot to mention this yesterday – Somewhere not too long after we left the Food Lion parking lot yesterday on the way to Newberry, the Emperor turned over 54,000 miles. This works out to an average of over 45 miles a day since we brought it home back in November of 2003, or about 1,380 miles a month.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 45

Become a Draftsman

Become a DraftsmanWhile hunting up cool backgrounds for at work I stumbled on this little thing, but it is too small for wallpaper. I am a draftsman by trade and I’m not sure just what they mean by “Enjoy a Real Job in Industry.” I searched Google Images for draftsman and did find one that is big enough that came from a US Government site. I’m using it now for two reasons, it is drafting related and it is Black History month. See, the image came from a collection about African Americans and the Second World War effort. Download it.

Second day in a row we have gone out for breakfast. This time instead of driving 60 miles, we drove just 2 and went to the New Moon Cafe. Everything bagel toast with butter and cream cheese for her. Warmed up Cranberry Pecan muffin with butter for him. Bottled water to split.

Meal Cost: $3.99
Tip Jar: $1.01
Spent Today: $5.00
Year to Date: $374.17

Breakfast in America

Breakfast in NewberryWell, Newberry, SC is in America. This morning was the first of a monthly event called Miatas for Breakfast where the MMC will go for early morning eats. It will take place on the 3rd Saturday of the month at a place that is near or far and may involve a drive before or after.

Today we drove to Bill & Fran’s for eggs in the Milk and Egg Capital, Newberry. Capitol of what, county, state, country, or world the egg shaped water tower isn’t saying. One egg scrambled with bacon, grits and toast for her, one egg scrambled with sausage, grits and biscuits for him. Order of hash browns to split, coffee for him and water for her.

Meal Cost: $11.67
Tip: $2.33
Spent Today: $14.00
Year to Date: $369.17

After dining, I convinced the other Miatas to follow me to the Newberry Post Office so I could take PO Picture #50 with 5 Miatas filling the parking lot. From there we went into the heart of the small town and looked for early morning places that were open so we could get out of the wind and cold. Apparently when the sign on the doors of the downtown antique places say they open at 10:00 AM on Saturday, it is only a guideline.

One place that was open on Main St made $3 off of us, they had a selection of Girl Scout cookies, mmmm, Caramel deLites. They then directed us to another place that was open just one block over, a real live throw back of a hardware store. Very interesting place, stuff stuffed into every nook and cranny, everything from ax handles to bear traps, light switches to cylinders of welding gases, from snowboards (WTF?) to keys made, from spittoons near the wood stove to a Nobel Prize. Well, actually it is a bronze replica of William F. Shull’s (the owner of the store) grandfather’s prize. Clifford G. Shull was awarded the 1994 Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in neutron scattering, a technique that involves directing a beam of particles produced by a nuclear reactor at a sample of material.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 45