Year: 2020

Track, Daily, Crush

The 70th Anniversary Edition. Yesterday was the 70th anniversary of the production of the first Volkswagen Type 2, the Micro Bus. I was hoping to find 3 of them for sale today, but no such luck. The only one that was there was newer Westfalia camper that was ripe for crushing, because, to paraphrase Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, “It ain’t a real bus unless it was built before 1969.” As of Monday, March 9, 2020 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Track Daily Crush
1956 Cooper-Climax T39 2007 Porsche Cayman 1990 VW Westfalia
If you are going to go racing, go in style. It was either this car or
this other one.		 I know there is a market for this, but IMHO, yuk.

Track 15 – Souvenirs

Growing up, if my mom wasn’t listening to the Red Sox baseball game on the radio, she had it tuned to the local Country Music station. So naturally, as soon as I had a radio of my own, I vowed to never listen to country music again. It was second on my list of hated music genres, right behind opera. Sure enough, as I hit adulthood, I discovered that it wasn’t that bad after all.

It never made it into a “What’s kind of music do you listen to” conversation, but occasionally after a few months of a steady rock and roll diet, a week of country was a nice palette cleanser. And even sometimes when I got bored with the videos on MTV, I would watch CMT for a bit1. Which is where I discovered this voice.

I’ve Got A Screw Loose

Because yesterday afternoon was sunny and lower 60’s, when we headed out to run some errands, we opted to do them in the Miata. About 2 blocks down the road a fairly loud rumbling started and the front end of the car was doing a small wobble. Donna went, “What’s that?” I answered, “Might have a flat.” A couple of seconds later I said, “I know what it is,” and did a quick u-turn to head back home.

This post should really have been titled “I’ve Got A Few Lug Nuts Loose.” For what has to be at least the sixth or seventh time in my career I have not fully tightened down the lug nuts on a wheel or two (or four) after rotating the tires or doing some brake maintenance. Including one time in the early 80’s that happened with Donna driving and having to stop at a place to have them diagnose the rumbling sound the car was making.

This is why I was getting the stink-eye from her as we returned to the Pacific Terrace driveway. Because just before turning around I had said, “I forgot to tighten the lug nuts.” On Wednesday afternoon I installed the new front license plate mount, which had caused me to remove the front wheels and I missed the final step.

About the second time this happened in Aiken, I devised a way to make sure not to forget this step by taking the torque wrench and placing it right at the entrance to the garage. There was no way for me to miss it and I sure as heck couldn’t drive the low clearance Miata over the wrench. To my credit, I did something similar here too, but because I was working close to the garage opening, the torque wrench was mixed in with all the other tools I was using, so it got put away with everything else. I think a new safeguard is required. Possibly I should buy a baseball cap from the Lansing Michigan minor league baseball team to wear when working on the car. Or, perhaps putting the torque wrench on the driver’s seat might work.

77,000 Shades of Green

When I parked the Miata in the garage this afternoon after we were finished running around, the CTBNL’s odometer read 77001.

For grins, I looked back at what I blogged about when the previous Miata hit 77,000 miles. The post was entitled 77,000 Lumens. The first part was about having an eye exam where my eyes are dilated and how afterwards, even dim lighting seems way to bright to look at. There was a thumbnail picture at the top that related to the second part of the post. It was of our freshly remodeled bathroom in Aiken and I talked how I was putting up the new towel racks, etc.

I was struck by the synchronicity of how nearly 12 years earlier the 77,000 mile marker for the Emperor happened around the time I was doing something similar as I was doing now and both bathrooms were shades of green. Very different shades, but green none the less.

Weekly Wrap

First up is a picture from last Sunday and if you follow me on Instagram you will have seen part of this before:

Monday we walked downtown and did some geocaching on the way. We DNF’d the first two. Number one is in a small park we walk right by every time we do walk downtown. Number two was a caboose at the county museum and not finding it was expected, we never seem to get these. We found the third and then promptly DNF’d number four. We did find the next four we hunted for, but three of them were virtual, so there wasn’t an actual container to look for.

Tuesday we walked downtown and had pizza for dinner at Rodeos Pizza and Saladeria. A medium The Boss pie, six slices consumed on site, two taken home for my lunch the following day. This is the first time we have eaten here for dinner and have decided that the lunch cook does it more to our liking. This one had a touch too much sauce and came out of the oven a minute or two early making the crust not as crisp.

Wednesday I prepped the master bath for painting by removing the shower curtain rod, towel racks and patched the holes with spackling. Then I masked off everything. It was also our biannual visit to the dentist for teeth cleaning.

Thursday was painting the master bath.

Friday was pulling down the tape in the bathroom and putting it up in the master bedroom.

Saturday was supposed to bring wet winter weather so we had planned not to even leave the house. The weather never materialized, but we still didn’t leave the house. I painted the bedroom, which took most of the day, and Donna spent just as much time in the family room downstairs sorting the jumbo cache of Morrison memories. She is trying to go through all this and separate the stuff that belongs to each of her three brothers, so as to pass it along to them.

Today I put up the old shower curtain rod, new towel racks and TP holder in the master bath. Put the master bedroom back the way it belongs, but we probably won’t sleep in it for a couple more days so as to let the paint smell totally dissipate.