Year: 2017

Mini Mini


The Mini parked in the Miata’s usual spot on a rare day a couple of weeks ago when Donna let me drive it into work.

“Blue” Sky


The threatening sky above a storage trailer around the back of the Valve Store while on my morning walk.

Let’s Take A(nother) Drive


So yesterday morning we drove to Columbia in the Mini, essentially a one hundred twenty mile round trip for breakfast. Some people might question this method of purchasing the most important meal of the day, but we could think of no finer way to spend 3 hours on a lovely fall Saturday.

On second thought, we could.

So after a lunch at Subway here in Aiken yesterday, we filled up the Miata, dropped the top and drove to Greenwood, about 60 miles away, to take a photo of a train locomotive. Not just any locomotive, but one worth 10 points in the Moss Motoring Challenge in the category “117 Years of Transportation.” Before we took this drive we still needed 4 of the 12 photos, the decades of 1900, 1910, 1950 & 1980.

On our way into Greenwood I got a fleeting glimpse of a car repair place that had a very interesting old truck parked outside. Because we were going to go back out of town the same way we were coming in I didn’t pull an immediate u-turn. The shop was further back than I thought though and I was just beginning to worry I had imagined it, when it popped up on the left.

The 111-year old train was the big prize, but this auto repair was a nice prize in it’s own right. That old truck was a 1954 or 1955 Chevy 3100 pick up. And in the back was our 1980’s point just sitting there, a nicely preserved Pontiac Fiero. Before we had headed north we cut through a local golf course neighborhood to get a photo for our last point in the “Around the World” category.

Sorry Soda City Minis

A couple of weeks ago, to compliment our MMC membership, we poked around looking for a Mini Club. The nearest group to us was a facebook group called Soda City Minis. They were going to have a meet and greet on Saturday, November 18th. The meet up spot was Sesquicentennial State Park and end up at a Red Robin for lunch. We were back and forth about attending for a while, but opted to go after the Miata Club event that day was going to a breakfast spot we didn’t care for.

The trip to the Soda City1 was two-fold, the Mini Meet-Up and a bagel for breakfast at Bruegger’s. We got up at our usual 6:00 AM to make the hour drive to Irmo to have breakfast. Before we left we checked the Soda City Minis page to double check the 11:00 AM start time and noticed that the event was called off because of lack of participation. There were only 4 people who had responded “Going.” I asked Donna if one of them was her and she said, “No. I don’t like to post on Facebook.”

Sorry about that Soda City Minis. Although I doubt that our one more, making 5 total, would have made the minimum participation level that had been set by the organizer. If it was me it would have been around 10…

Turkey Eating Season Began Today

Working at ASCO still has a few perks and one of which is once every quarter they feed us a meal. In essence, at the Valve Store, there is such a thing as a free lunch. The fourth quarter calendar year meal is always in November and is always a traditional Thanksgiving style meal. That meal was today.

For as long as I can remember the meal has been catered by the same folks who fill the vending machines in our “cafeteria.” By some quirk in our vending contract with them, we were stuck with them supplying all the quarterly meals, and it was not always very good. The last couple of years Donna and I discussed maybe just going out to lunch on the day to avoid it, but never did. This year that company ceased its catering business. So, so far this year we’ve had a couple other vendors for the previous meals and this was to be no exception. A local chicken finger mini-chain place was tapped to do it and for the first time in a while the turkey dinner was pretty darn tasty.

This was just the beginning of the season. The real Thanksgiving is 8 days away where I will once more over-stuff myself at my sister’s neighborhood pot luck turkey day meal.

A little over two weeks later is the Miata Club’s Holiday party where we are having it catered in the manner of a full fledged Thanksgiving feast.

Then 6 days later the Fabrication Department holds their holiday meal which is, you guessed it, a turkey and ham led potluck meal with all that entails.

And the company’s salaried group usually has one of these too, so depending on the date, I’ll get one more crack at turkey, taters, stuffing, green beans, mac & cheese, deviled eggs and enough desserts to kill a couple dozen diabetics before never eating turkey again until November 2018.

17,000 Square Inches of Leather

About a month ago I talked of buying leather seats and since then I have placed a set of them in the shopping cart at GoMiata.com…twice…and couldn’t pull the trigger (or click the buy button.)

The first time I did it, I paused just before clicking. I had looked at the image they have on the site and thought I needed to order the body style, but the ordering page said it was unavailable for my vintage Miata. Unsure what to actually order, I called the folks at GoMiata and asked. Turns out that I needed to order the combo style.

The second time was the next day, now knowing what to order (combo style, black with smoke perforated inserts, black stitching and no piping), I paused just before clicking again. The total, with $75 for shipping, came to a nickle less than $700. And I still needed $30 minimum to get the hog ring pliers with some rings, so it was starting to sound like real money and I just couldn’t drop my forefinger that last inch.

Besides, we could really use that $700 towards something else made of leather. Our just shy of 5-year old living room couch looked like leather when new (its not), but now the faux leather outer layer is separating from the polyester base fabric. We’ve tried to extend its life span some by covering the cracks with some tape. Not silver duct tape like Martin Crane’s recliner on Frasier, but by using some Realistic Red Brown Leather Repair Tape. That repair tape is pretty good looking, but unfortunately it is not flexible enough to withstand being sat on.

Today we got in the Mini and hightailed it over to Augusta to buy us a real leather couch from Ashley Furniture. It is very similar in color and look to our current shedding couch, so it fit right our living room. Plus it will fit right in our horse town because right there in the description it says it has “equestrian style.” We opted to call this our Christmas present and splurged by buying the power reclining model. No more having to awkwardly pull at a handle to pop up the footrests, no more having to forceably push down & back to get it to latch closed and we can stop the recline at any angle we want.

Sometime on Saturday, on a different trip to Augusta, the Landybug, which has Carbon Black Leatherette seating, flew past 17,000 miles on her odometer.

After The Beep

I had just really settled into my desk at work, it was couple minutes after 7:00 AM, and the desk phone rang. I glanced at the display and saw an 803 (SC) area code, followed by an entirely unfamiliar 7 digits, so I ignored it. I figured, wrong number, or if it was for me, they’d leave a message. No message.

Just after I had finished my sandwich at lunchtime, my cell phone started vibrating. I picked it up, flipped it over and saw a 706 (GA) area code, followed by an entirely unfamiliar 7 digits, so I ignored it. I figured, wrong number, or if it was for me, they’d leave a message. A couple seconds later the phone buzzed once, ah, a message. The Cricket visual voice mail app said, “Cannot display message.” I looked at the time the message used up, 1 second, so, no, no message.

I was just putting the cell phone back down when the desk phone rang. I glanced at the display and saw the same 706 number that had just called the cell phone. One ring and it stopped. No message again.

Spam? Scam? or just Shy?