Month: March 2007

Mural, Mural on the Wall

Mural, Mural on the WallDonna felt good enough to go out to eat lunch and grocery shop. Chick-Fil-A Sandwich combo meal for me and a Kiddie 4 Nugget meal combo for her. Because we had a coupon the Kiddie Meal was free.

Meal Cost: $5.08
Tip: None
Spent On This Meal: $5.08

After the shopping she was still feeling alright, but didn’t really want to go to Anderson as we had planned, so she asked me to cancel the room reservation. When I went to the Holiday Inn site to cancel, there was some red lettering at the bottom of the page warning me that even if I canceled I would not be getting my money back. Ooops, I guess when I made the reservation I selected a room with a low rate that was non-refundable. So we packed a change of clothes, our tooth brushes and got in the car. Of course we packed some Post Office maps too. We hit 4 towns on the way up, we will do the 4 in Anderson in the morning and will try and get 4 more on the way home tomorrow.

The mural above was on a building right next door to the Post Office in Donalds. Clever use of perspective. And the tree as utility hook-up is genius.

Right next door to our hotel in Anderson is a place called Buffalo’s Southwest Cafe, where we have eaten before, which was calling our name for dinner. We split the Navajo Chops (two 6oz pork chops topped with bourbon, roasted apples and brown sugar butter, served with loaded mashed potatoes and steamed veggies) and a large dinner salad. Water for her and iced tea for me.

Meal Cost: $18.76
Tip: $2.74
Spent on This Meal: $21.50
Spent Today: $26.58
Year to Date: $654.83

It is unseasonably cold here this weekend, not news to most on the east coast, so the top will be up in the dozen or so photos in the Post Office Gallery that we take, but unlike those in the northeast there will not be any snow in the background.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 85

Sky Lights

Sky LightsDonna and I took 129 pictures at the BMW Ultimate Drive yesterday and would have taken more, if the battery didn’t give out. I don’t know if it was fully charged or not, but it will be for the 29th when we go to Columbia to do it again. Tonight I sat down to separate the wheat from the chaff. I’m going to whittle it down to 24 because that is how many photos I put on a gallery page. I’m almost there. Maybe by tomorrow I’ll have them posted and on Sunday I’ll have some words to go with the pictures.

Of course that depends on whether or not we got on a Postal Safari or not. Right now we are taking the weekend off because Donna caught a bit of a bug and has felt like crap all day. We were supposed to go to Road Atlanta to watch the POS Racing Team take on the world in the NASA Time Trials there, but we scratched those plans when she felt poorly enough that she asked for Chicken Noodle Soup with Saltines for supper tonight. I kidded here that she had a reaction to that “New Car Smell” in the nine BMWs.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 85

Boy, Is My Left Foot Bored

Big GrinWe drove a ton of BMWs today and not a single one had a manual transmission. One of the workers said they quit a couple years ago because they were burning up too many clutches…

It is probably easier to name the models I didn’t drive (6 series convertible, 5 series wagon & a 3 series 4-door), but let me list the ones I drove and the order we drove them before I forget.

  1. Z4 Coupe
  2. 335i Convertible (the new hardtop model)
  3. X3
  4. 550i Sedan
  5. X5
  6. 750 Li
  7. 335i Coupe
  8. 650i Coupe
  9. Z4 Roadster

Because the BMW dealer had moved a couple miles further out on Washington Rd we had a whole new loop this year. It was a mile shorter than the previous one at 14 miles and a little more suburban. It wasn’t too bad until school let out as it passed three different institutes of education. Maybe because it was a nicer day than last year, there seemed to be a lot more folks out driving today, so we didn’t do any double loops. We drove each car once for a total of 125 miles. For you math majors, I know that nine times fourteen would be 126, but a slight navigational error on the first loop brought us in a mile too soon.

Highlights: The 335i Coupe with enough horsepower to achieve earth orbit if you could get a ramp of the right angle. The 5 series sedan and the X5 had a HUD speed display that hovered just above and in front of the hood on the driver’s side.

Lowlights: I-Drive and the abrupt throttle response from the drive by wire system. (I’m sure both of these would turn into highlights or at least invisible if I had more than 14 miles to figure them out.)

My navigator missed a turn call out on the first loop, but I had my own oops moment when we got in the X5. The rep got us in the car, I got it started and he reset the odometer and marked down the mileage. He then asked if I had any questions and being as this was our fifth loop and I’d driven aN X5 last year, I said, “Nope.” I hit the window up button, bzzzzzzzit. He walked away and I grabbed the shifter and pulled back to put it in drive, it didn’t move and nothing happened. Pushed it forward with the same result. Pushed a button on the side and then tried to move the shifter, still nothing. Bzzzzzzzit, I hit the down button for the window. “Excuse me,” I say, “Just how do I put this thing in drive?” The nice rep leans in the window and points at the button I pushed earlier and said, “Hold that in while pulling back.” “Ahhh,” I said, “I tried each separately, but didn’t try the combination.”

Even though we knew there would be food at the BMW dealer, we weren’t sure what and Donna wanted a fish sandwich, so we stopped at McDonald’s before heading over to drive cars. Fillet-O-Fish for her and a Southern Chicken Sandwich for me. We split a small drink and fries.

Meal Cost: $6.61
Tip: None
Spent Today: $6.61
Year to Date: $628.25

Turns out he food that was available was good, so we had half sandwiches and wraps with some pasta salad at the end of the day that we called dinner. The brownies were so awesome I ate two.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 84

Let’s Go Swimming

Mt CroghanA lot of places will charge you for this kind of advice, but here you get it for free. This is a guaranteed winning entry, or double your money back, for your office NCAA March Madness Pool and I know your office pool is just like ours, there is no prize money, just the bragging rights that go with being supreme college hoops prognosticator of the year. Wink. Wink.

Round One
Florida
Purdue
Butler
Maryland
Winthrop
Oregon
UNLV
Wisconsin
Kansas
Villanova
Illinois
Southern Illinois
Duke
Pittsburgh
Indiana
UCLA
North Carolina
Michigan State
USC
Texas
George Washington
Washington State
Boston College
Georgetown
Ohio State
Xavier
Tennessee
Albany
Stanford
Texas A & M
Creighton
Memphis
Round Two
Florida
Butler
Oregon
Wisconsin
Kansas
Southern Illinois
Pittsburgh
UCLA
North Carolina
USC
Washington State
Georgetown
Ohio State
Tennessee
Texas A & M
Memphis
Regionals
Florida
Wisconsin
Kansas
Pittsburgh
North Carolina
Georgetown
Tennessee
Texas A & M
Regional Finals
Wisconsin
Kansas
North Carolina
Texas A & M
Semi Finals
Kansas
North Carolina
Final
Kansas

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 82

Mr. Zip

Mr. ZipIf it wasn’t for the fact that today was my bi-annual dental visit for a teeth cleaning, I would barely have anything to write about. Look Ma! No cavities.

Well, anything new to write about. I’ve got the usual. I added captions to the new Post Office photos.

We went out to eat lunch. The Emperor meets the King. A junior Whopper w/o mayo for each and we split a 6 pack of Cheesy Tots and a small Sprite.

Meal Cost: $4.65
Tip: None
Spent Today: $4.65
Year to Date: $621.64

I’ve finished another Spenser book. Promised Land:

Pam Shepard said, “No. Rose, believe me, you can trust him. He is not dishonest.”

“Pam, almost everyone’s dishonest. He’s as dishonest as everyone else. I don’t want to do business with him.”

“That’s dumb,” I said. “It’s the kind of dumb smart people get because they think they’re smart.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jane said.

“It means that if everyone’s dishonest you aren’t going to do better elsewhere. And the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t know. I got one character witness. Where you going to find a gun that has that many.”

I’m kind of kicking myself. In the last Spenser book he said mentioned something like, Spenser’s Crimestoppers Tip #X, “Blah, blah, blah…” I didn’t write it down at the time and when I thought that maybe I should copy them down into a web page or something, I couldn’t find it in the book again without reading all over. No loss I figured, somebody on the big wide internet must have already done it. Turns out, nobody has. I searched. I even looked over at Bullets and Beer with no luck. So what do I do? Go back and read the book? Just wait until the next time I run across a crimestopper tip? Life is full of hard choices.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 82

Postal Express

RubyAll aboard the Postal Express with stops in,Elgin, Lugoff, Camden, Cassat, Bethune, McBee, Chesterfield, Ruby, Mount Croghan, Pageland, Jefferson and Kershaw.

Another outtake from yesterday. The city name is on the building, but someone wanted to make sure you knew you were at the right spot as you came up the street. I have all new the pictures, bringing the new total to 81, in the Gallery, now I just have to add a little story for each one.

Up until either last weekend or this, I could remember exactly which town the Post Office was in, without seeing the title, just by the photo. Not only that, but I could tell you how to get there. Unfortunately I have exceeded the storage limit that I can set aside for Post Office matters and still be able to remember important stuff like my name and how to tie my shoes. I can still do it for a bunch of them, but unless there is something truly unique about it, any new Post Office is apt to be confused with other ones that look like it.

This is starting to turn into something and maybe it is time to upgrade the Postal Gallery to a higher level. I may have to break down and figure out how to do that modrewrite thing so the photos have a nicer URL than https://www.mr-miata.net/galleries/sp_index.php?file=./Post%20Offices/x.jpg, maybe something like https://mr-miata.net/postal/x.jpg. If I hit the Powerball jackpot on Wednesday I might even buy it it’s own domain name, postalgallery.com & goingpostal.com is taken, but sc-post-offices.com & post-office-photos.com are open…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 80

13

29101 - McBeeMy favorite outtake from today’s Post Office Photo Safari, I like the way the raised letters toss shadows on the brick wall.

Yesterday evening I used Google maps and printed out how to get to nearly every Post Office in a rectangle with the lower left corner being the outskirts of northeast Columbia and the upper right corner being at Wallace because today we were going up to Chesterfield, SC to visit Donna’s cousin Laurie and her husband Ted. Depending on which route we took we could probably snag a bunch of fresh Post Offices. We took photographs of seven on the way up.

I was taking photos of the one in Chesterfield while Donna called Laurie for directions to her house. We had been there once before and I was only sure that they lived north of town, but little else. If we needed to find any of 16 Post Offices in north central South Carolina, I was ready with full color street level maps, but when we needed to know how to get to Laurie & Ted’s house for lunch, I was no help. Guess I should have printed out that map.

Because it was such a beautiful day, we took a different way home and added 5 more Post Offices to our trophy case, for a total today of thirteen. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have enough time to add them to the gallery.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 78