Year: 2022

There’s a New Jack in Town

I’ve written here before about being a big Jack Reacher book fan and now there is going be an Amazon adaptation. It will be based on the the first book, The Killing Floor.

And if it does well they will probably make more. There is plenty of source material to draw from, 26 and counting novels and over a dozen short stories or novellas. The series will start on February 4th so I’ve just finished reading the Killing Floor again to get ready for it.

There is a lot familiar about the trailer and there are also some things that I don’t recognize in there too. I know there are always compromises made when adapting a book into a movie/show, so I should be able to get over most of them. Mainly because I am already beginning to visualize Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher just from the trailer. Unlike the previous person how played him in a couple of Hollywood productions, Mr. Ritchson is the right size.

I guess if you had never read any of the books maybe those movies aren’t bad, but I have steadfastly not watched the 2012 Reacher, nor 2016’s Never Go Back because of my size bias against the lead actor. Maybe after I see this Amazon adaptation I may go back and give them a try if I can find them free somewhere, because the first movie is based on the book One Shot which was my first discovery of the character and the second film is based on one of my favorite of the series, Never Go Back.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

VW Van Edition of SORT
As of Monday, January 10, 2022 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1964 Volkswagen Type 2 Panel Van 1983 Volkswagen Vanagon Camper 4-Speed 1965 Volkswagen Type 2 Deluxe 21-Window
This is a big stretch for the category as the only thing sporty here is the Porsche name on the side. This is a slight stretch because it has been lifted with some knobby tires, but it is not 4-wheel drive. This one is only a stretch because usually I pick something fast for my touring needs.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: Supercharged 1961 MG MGA Roadster Sold for $40,517 on 1/8/22
Off-Road: Supercharged 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser Sold for $52,777 on 1/8/22
Touring: Supercharged 1951 Ford Victoria Sold for $33,000 on 1/7/22

Moore Park Monday

We try and go for a walk everyday and we usually shoot for 2 or 3 miles, but sometimes when it is really cold we might just get a mile in. There are a couple of different walks we like to every week and one of them is to drive over to Moore Park to do a loop of the paved interior road on winter days like today (other times of the year we use the extensive park trail system.)

Today it was not too cold, but we had to limit our loop because of the snow cover still on the park roads, so we ended up only walking a mile and two thirds. The regular surface streets in town are free of snow, so we drove over in the CTBNL.

7 miles, Moore Park and back for our afternoon walk.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 2

 

Wow, That’s A Coincidence

One of my favorite things I have going on the ol’ blog here is the “On This Date” widget over there in the right column. It is kind of fun to look back at what I wrote about back in the random years it, but it also shows that some of my best writing seems to have been done in the past…sigh.

On Monday while I was proofreading my latest Sports, Off-Road, Touring dream garage I noticed a post from 2008 with the headline Juror #6… and thought, “Wow, that’s a coincidence.” What did that have to do with lusting after unobtainable cars you ask? Nothing, but earlier that day I had spent an hour in the Klamath County Circuit Court Building doing juror orientation.

For County Circuit Court in Oregon you are selected as a juror and serve for a period of one month. You get assigned a number at random and then when there is a case requiring a jury they select a group from a block of the several hundred numbered people to show up.

I have a fairly high number, so if there aren’t that many court cases between now and February 4th I may not even get called. But if I do, it will be an interesting break from my current mostly empty retirement schedule. I just hope that they don’t find out about my stint on a jury in the Aiken City court back in 2015 and figure that seeing as I have experience they make me Jury Foreman.

Top Transitions

I bought a Miata in part because it is a convertible. For the first 20 years of owning one, it was our only car, so it was a daily driver and a weekend toy. Because of Aiken, South Carolina’s weather we would frequently put the top down for the drive to work, have to put it up while at work only to put it down for the drive home. We’d go to the store with the top down and if the sky looked iffy we’d put it back up. Sometimes the top would go up or down a half dozen times in a day. The Miata’s vinyl tops became like sticky tires, they were consumables. We probably averaged a new top every 4 years.

Back in 2005 I decided to keep track of how often I put the top up or down in a given year for fun. Each day when I blogged, at the end of the post, I add a little entry at the bottom that looked like below:

Started up, went down, went up, went back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 27

 
In 2005 the top moved one direction or another almost 400 times, in 2006 524 times, in 2007 a little over 500 times. In 2008 it changed status nearly 400 times before it was replaced in October. I did a little interpolation and figured that the cloth top on the 2003 transitioned 2,235 times until it was replaced. I started counting again from there and kept the count rolling until I quit counting inexplicably at the end of September 2013 at 1262 transitions.

Now that we are retired and living in the less temperate climate of southern Oregon the Mini has become our primary car and the Miata gets taken out only occasionally. And until then, it sits in the garage with the top down practically always, so counting top transitions would not be worth it.

Instead, for 2022, I’ve decided to just count the times the Miata gets driven. From now on when it does go somewhere, I’ll be adding a footnote to the post. Today, with the roads finally cleared of snow from our last storm, I unhooked the trickle charger and picked up our to go lunch order.

8.1 mile trip to Jimmy Johns and back.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 1

 

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Twenty Twenty-Two Is Going To Be Super Edition of SORT
As of Monday, January 3, 2022 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
Supercharged
1961 MG MGA Roadster		 Supercharged
1997 Toyota Land Cruiser		 Supercharged
1951 Ford Victoria
The very essence of sports car; small, English and red. Dual personality truck, a snorkel for river crossings with leather seats inside. An undercover cop car for Dick Tracy.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1972 Porsche 911T Coupe Sold for $90,000 on 12/28/21
Off-Road: 1978 International Harvester Scout II Sold for $30,500 on 12/28/21
Touring: 1979 Austin Mini Sold for $16,500 on 1/2/22