Month: July 2014

New Look & On Again, Off Again Rain

With what should be self evident, I am pleased to announce that there is a new look here at mr-miata.net. It is the same theme, Atahualpa, just with a new shirt. And because of what the topics have been during this past week’s posts you would have thought I would have gone with a Hawaiian theme, but to tell you the truth, I just thought of that right this minute, or I might have.

Last night I gave the Emperor a sponge bath in the garage and I put the top boot on in preparation for today’s MMC Breakfast run. Got up this morning and it was raining! On Friday when I checked the weather they were calling for 30% chance of afternoon showers. This morning the 30% had changed from afternoon to all day and we were apparently in the middle of that percentage. So, off came the boot and the top went up.

By the time we got to the meeting place the cloud cover was still there, but the light rain had stopped, so we put the top back down. The rest of the cars either arrived with their tops down or put them down once they arrived. We were at a gas station off Exit 1 of I-20 and we were going to a small cafe off Exit 22. Most folks would get on the Interstate, go 21 miles and get off, but we drive Miatas. I mapped out a convoluted 30 mile trip with 12 turns and crossed over or under I-20 five times.

The rain held out for the whole drive and the whole time we were in eating breakfast. It didn’t start raining again here in Aiken again until the late afternoon.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1396

Invitation

Last Friday when I asked my former boss and now a manager for another department how come he never wore a Hawaiian shirt on Fridays. He replied, “I was never invited.”

As the unofficial Valve Store(TM) Arts & Crafts Engineer I took this as a challenge being issued, so I got busy with some Google-fu, photoshopping and Microsoft Word work.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1394

44,000 Teary Eyed Fans

Tonight is the MLB All-Star Game and I considered tuning in just to see all 44,000 teary eyed fans at Target Field watching Derek Jeter’s final tip of the hat. But then I realized that Atlantic Broadband, in their continuing efforts to force a cable box on me, has removed the HD feed for FOX from my available channels, so I didn’t turn it on.

It wasn’t until the 4th inning that I realized I could watch it in HD using my MLB.TV package. This turned out to be a good thing as Jeter was already out of the game so I didn’t have to listen to the FOX announcers lavish praise on him. That reminds me, I have been lax in keeping up with Grantland.com’s fictional Derek Jeter Diary, The Captain’s Log.

I was also very lucky and missed the FRS’s “all-star” pitcher John Lester give up a single and two doubles, allowing two runs in his 2nd inning appearance.

The Purple Whale swam past the 44,000 mile mark on the way to DD this morning.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1391

Disappearing Hawaiian

When I posted that picture of three folks in Hawaiian shirts the other day I could have sworn that I had done it in the past somewhere, but a search of the site using the little search function in the left sidebar didn’t come up with anything, so…

Well, wouldn’t you know it, but a search for “Hawaiian” today still turns up nothing, even though I have posted two entries with the word Hawaiian in the title. Search for just the word “shirt” and the two recent posts show up along with a couple others, including one from 2006 with the picture. Search using Google for Hawaiian site:mr-miata.net and they show up too.

On a whim I tried searching Life of Brian using an uncapitalized hawaiian and I got results. So I used the back button on the browser and noticed that the url for the empty search looked like this:
http://www.mr-miata.net/?s=Hawai%C2%ADian&submit.x=10&submit.y=6
What is with the extra crap in there? No wonder there were no results.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1390

Friday Is Hawaiian Shirt Day II

Hawiian Shirt Friday
August 2006 – from the left, Greg Morgan, Fabrication Engineer, me, Chris Green, Industrial Engineer

About 8 years ago I started to wear Hawaiian Shirts to work on Fridays, Probably right after I saw Office Space for the first time. I probably badgered all my co-workers to do the same, but could only get a couple others to do with any regularity. One day the 3 of us came in with similar hues shirts so I got someone to take our photo.

Greg stuck with it up until a few years ago when he left for a job in Quality at the Bomb Plant making a lot more money. I doubt he is is still wearing the Hawaiian shirts on Fridays. Chris quit them wearing about 2 years later when he moved over to a supervisory position in Assembly, then PIC. For the last month or so he has threatened to start back up again, today he did, wearing the very same shirt that he is wearing in the photo.

My collection of Hawaiian shirts started with two (now up to five), the one I’m wearing in the photo and an identical print in a salmon color, which I wore today. When I moved to the back of the plant a couple years ago I got the CNC Programmer (Hi Mark!) to join in the fun and he really got into it. I bet he’s got 10 or 12 Hawaiian shirts that he scours the thrift stores and flea markets for, rarely paying more than $5 bucks for one.