Month: May 2022

Et Tu Lands End with the Supply Chain Issues?

I am a freak when it comes to arm length, not full on simian, but my arms are longer than the standard adult long sleeve shirt is made. Admittedly there is a mental component involved as well, I just can’t stand the feeling or look of the long sleeve being above the wrist level.1 After trying to get long sleeve shirts that fit from several online place that sell Big & Tall sizes, I found the my holy grail in the Lands End tall large size.

Because I wear long sleeves even in the summer I end up buying two or three new shirts every other year or so. So when the latest Lands End catalog arrived in the mail with a 40% off offer and I was down to just 2 decent shirts left in the dresser draw, I decided to restock. The two I have are white and a medium blue, so I picked out three darker shirts, a black, a navy blue and a charcoal. When I got to the cart there was a $9 shipping charge and I hate paying shipping (damn you Amazon Prime.) I could get free shipping if the order was over $100 and my total was a few dollars shy, so I went to the sale area to see what was available to put me over the hundred dollar mark.

I found a large tall blue & white striped tee in their “upscale” supima cotton for cheap that would work. Back to the cart and noticed that three of the 4 shirts were on back order. Not just a week or two either, 2 shirts were two months out and the third was 3 months out. The only shirt that was going to be here in the next few days was that throw in from the sale page…

19.8 miles to Home Depot and back the long way.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 24

 

As Threatened

I did change the oil in the Miata today. When I pulled out the dipstick, before I started it up to back it out into the driveway, the oil level read full and it looked pretty clean, but I went ahead and drained it anyway to make room for the new.

That drained oil was put in the car last June at 79,300-ish miles on the odometer. The time before that, I did it the driveway here in June of 2020 with 77,500-ish miles on the odometer. The time before that was in Aiken when the 75,000 mile service was done in July of 2019.

Because it looks like the CTBNL is going to be on a yearly oil change schedule, this time I bought a synthetic blend instead of the usual straight dino oil. I’m going to start with the blend before I put full synthetic in it as a test. Because the last time I tried full synthetic in the previous Miata it started to leave spots on the garage floor. This is because synthetic is thinner and will find places to sneak out easier than the old school oil. Admittedly the previous car had a lot more miles on it than the almost 81k this car has.

1.8 miles of around the block.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 23

 

Impeding Oil Change

The Miata is way due for an oil change. As a matter of fact we are about 2 weeks shy of a year since the oil has been drained out of it. Back then it was done not in my driveway into a collection pan, but along Hwy 140 south of town, in the parking area of a fuel refilling station and on the flat bed of a tow truck.

That length of time shouldn’t be too much of an issue as the car has probably been a total of 1,500 miles since then. And I have tried to go for a drive once a week bringing the car up to operating temperature for a good 15-20 minutes.

Right now I’m shooting for this Saturday or Sunday because the weather is going to be at least in the upper sixties and sunny. The last few days it has been cold and snowy. Not too cold for the snow to accumulate any, it just melted on contact with the ground, but not the kind of weather to lay under a car and change the oil.

11.5 miles of around town running.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 22

 

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Snowy Day in May Edition of SORT
As of Monday, May 9, 2022 at 6:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
Original-Owner
2002 Honda S2000		 2004 Land Rover Discovery II G4 Challenge 2012 Maserati GranTurismo MC
The slightly larger and more expensive alternative to a 10AE Miata, i.e. blue exterior and interior. This has some serious off-road chops and the orange compliments the two blues perfectly. I have always loved the look of these. Do they ride smooth? The name says Turismo, so here’s hoping.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1973 Porsche 914 Sold for $32,914 on 5/6/22
Off-Road: 2019 Ford Ranger XLT Sold for $46,250 on 5/4/22
Touring: 1957 Chevrolet Suburban Bid to $135,000 on 5/6/22

If Your Dish Doesn’t Cut It, You Will Be

One of the streaming services we subscribe to is Discovery+. We use it like humans use their brains, i.e. only 10% of it2, the only thing we watch is the stuff on the Food Network & HGTV. We also use it to watch the current episodes of our favorites using the streaming service to avoid commercials.

For the last year or so we have been watching an episode of Chopped when we sit down and eat. Chopped premiered in 2009 and continues to this day. According to Wikipedia they have filmed 674 (635 + 39 specials) and just last week we finished almost every one of them.

I say almost everyone because we have skipped pretty much all of the special or regular episodes that involved Alton Brown or Bobby Flay because we don’t particularly like either personality. Other shows we mostly avoided were the ones that Martha Stewart was involved in for the same reason, but we did put up with several, because she had wormed her way into becoming a judge for a half dozen seasons or so.

Not having anymore Chopped to watch, we have now switched to watching Guy’s Grocery Games. Wikipedia has not locked in its episode total yet and lists 256 or 270 as the total number of episodes, but they stopped really counting in 2019 and the show is still in production. Needless to say we probably have a years worth of dining entertainment lined up.

That’s Kind of Backwards: Addendum

The optical drive I had came from an HP desktop and just looking at it it seemed like it would slide right into the spot in the Dell’s case. But I never really tried it, I just assumed. So naturally it didn’t fit. Like I mentioned previously, I can’t remember the last time I used an optical drive, so the only thing I lost was a bit of time and $3.99. Both of which are not a problem.

So right now I have a few different options: 1) Buy an official Dell external drive for $40, 2) buy an external case for the HP drive for around half that or 3) buy a random complete drive off Amazon for around the same price as that chancy case. Right now I’m going to take option four, i.e. don’t anything until I actually need an optical and worry about it then.

The Miata was used the last three days for short around town trips. On Tuesday it was sort of spring-like so I took it, top down, on the 2 mile ice cream run to soothe Donna’s sore mouth after a root canal. On Wednesday I took it to my 6-month follow up with the GP, because it was an early morning appointment the trip there was with the top up, but the way home it was down. Today was a rainy midday appointment with my dentist to get my new crowns, so top up the whole way. All three trips are reflected below.

11.6 miles.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 21

 

That’s Kind of Backwards

Last month when we got home from Santa Fe the desktop PC was dead, so we bought a new Dell and that was delivered 2 days later by our friendly FedEx man. I was kind of surprised that a signature wasn’t required, maybe it was under a certain price point because I really didn’t spend that much on it.

When it arrived I did the usual hard drive dance of removing the old ones, plugging in the old main drive to copy stuff that I wanted, removing it and then adding the old second drive that holds all our documents to the new machine.

Because we were in a hurry to get it, I picked one that was in stock, so it wasn’t customized in any way. While swapping around hard drives I noticed that there was a spot for an optical drive. It even had what looked like a precut punch out hole in the front if you wanted to add a drive. Although I can’t remember the last time I actually used an optical drive, there is still a stack of writeable DVDs in a desk draw somewhere around here. I did have the drive that was in the non functional desktop, so I thought why don’t I put it in the new Dell.

I went online and found the right part number for the optical drive cover and found out it was a mere $3.99 and that included the FedEx shipping. While searching I found a couple of Dell community forum posts that lamented the Dell didn’t actually sell optical drives for this model desktop. Which is funny because not only is there the cut out on the front panel there is an obvious spot to slide a drive in the case and the cabling to plug it in right there.

I ordered the optical drive face plate and three days later there was the FedEx guy on my porch again. But if I wanted him to hand me the small box containing my order I had to sign for it! Seems kind of backwards doesn’t it? I didn’t have to sign for the $800 dollar computer, but I did have to sign for the $4 bit of plastic…