Year: 2023

I’ve Been Blogging Too Long

It has been 8,108 days since I wrote my first blog post, Happy 2002, on January 1st of that year. That post consisted of 34 words. Since then there have been, not including this one, 6,047 more posts written with a total word count of 1,401,582 words. The average post word count overall is 232. Some posts have had a lot fewer words, including some with no words, just a picture. Others have been so wordy that you might not want to read the whole thing. The shortest post, That Hosting Company VIII cont., was a mere 4 words and the wordiest post, BMW Ultimate Drive for the Susan G. Komen Foundation was 2,374 words.

One of my and my wife’s favorite features on the blog is the “On This Date” widget in the right column. It is set up to throw a link to a couple of posts from the same date as when you are looking at the page. It is kind of fun to get tossed back into the past and see what was going on it 2002 or 2008 or 2014, etc.

Yesterday’s headliner in the past links was Sorry To Leave You In The Lurch that concerned a nail in the Miata’s tire, Netfix movies and the TV show LOST. There were seven links to other places on the web in the post and not a single one lead me to where they were originally when I wrote the post in 2008 or 15 years in the past.

The first 2 are for Netflix movies and I linked to them using a URL shortener TinyURL and the first movie’s text is just called “this movie” while the second one lists the title and it is called The Good German, but send me to a Netflix error page. The last five are basically just screencaps from the show LOST.

When I take these time jumps to the past me and there are links that don’t work for various reasons, no S at the end of HTTP, the site is no longer there, etc., I will usually try and fix them. This time there are seven and that many caused me to write this post, but because I’ve got nothing else to do and even though these new links may fall by the wayside as well in the coming years, I still went ahead and put my Internet Sleuth Hat on. So if you click on Sorry To Leave You In The Lurch you too can be whisked away to 15 years ago and get a peek into my 2008 mind.

P.S. The word count for this post is an above average 423…

Times Miata Driven since 10/28/22: 9

 

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

My Almost Perfect Edition of SORT
As of Monday, March 13, 2023 at 3:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2003 Mazda Miata 1989 Jeep Cherokee 1987 BMW M6
A lot of times when doing this on Monday I am just picking out interesting cars or ones I think might be cool to own. This week I chose cars that I would really own. The Miata is nearly identical to the previous Miata that Donna and are still carrying a torch for, but with 155,000 fewer miles. With a Miata in the garage we don’t need another convertible, so instead of a Wrangler, the Cherokee fits the bill. I have to admit the BMW is more of a dream because it is the perfect hot rod sleeper and kind of a halo car that probably go for more than 3 times what the other 2 cars combined will go for.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2020 Chevrolet Corvette Bid to $81,500 on 3/11/23
Off-Road: 1995 Land Rover Defender Sold for $91,000 on 3/8/23
Touring: 2012 Porsche Panamera Sold for $74,000 on 3/10/23

Brian Buys A Space Heater

Because I am fond of being warm, and Donna not as much, I like a nice little space heater for when I’m in the “computer room” watching YouTube or writing these sparkling blog posts. A couple of years ago I replaced a heater because it has gotten too noisy. Admittingly the fan is the biggest contributor noise, but I am also fond of feeling the direct heat, so I searched for the quietest room-sized space heater. I ended up with a Lasko 5307 for around $50 and it was noticeably quiet.

Fast forward to today and that quiet heater is no longer nearly as quiet. When it is first turned on it is fine, but after about 10 minutes the sound is quite louder. When that happens I can hear it running even in my over-the-ear headphones. Squeezing or pressing down on the heater will reduce the noise, but that leaves no hands for typing or mousing. I tried adding a foam cushion on the bottom, but that really didn’t help any. I couldn’t stand the noise any longer, so it was time to buy a new one.

Once again I searched for quietest room-sized space heater. The first hit on google was a Consumer Reports article from 5 months ago. Tied at the top was a Vornado VH10 for $90 and that very same $50 Lasko 5307 that I’m trying to replace! Let’s just try that next Google result shall we. The next two hits were called LearnMetrics and Zen Soundproof where the heaters were all over $100 or had no fans.

Google result #4 was you guessed it – Amazon. Even with my search term of quiet spacer heater the total result number was so high that the counter at the top of the results just gave up and said 1-48 of over 1,000 results. I started narrowing the results, must be Prime, higher than 4 stars, coverage size, wattage, his brought it down to 6 to choose from (photo on left.) The prices ranged from $19 to $42. What was entertaining about this is that last item, Eggbert Hopperton Figurine. How did that get in there?

Unwinding my search filters so as to give me more than six to choose from I found a happy medium and started looking at looking a few of the results. One that looked promising was a small Lasko model, but because of my now soured relationship with that brand I hesitated pulling the trigger. While scrolling down on this page I found the Amazon “Compare with similar items” section and there was an Amazon Basics model for around the same price, so I thought, “Okay, how bad can it be?” It looks amazingly similar to the Lasko, so much so that it was probably made by them and just rebranded. Oh well, it will definitely put out more heat than the Eggbert Hopperton figurine, so I ordered the Amazon one.

The Love Boat

We had a 1,000 piece puzzle going and were at least 2/3rds done. We did the main picture part and was left with the just lightly shaded green background. Unfortunately there was one very noticeable piece missing and rather than spend the next 4 days struggling to finish it with the empty spot we tossed it the recycle bin.

So we did this 300 piece one instead. In the second photo you can see what Captain Merrill Stubing did after he retired from Princess Cruises.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

“Marooned” Edition of SORT
As of Monday, March 6, 2023 at 12:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2020 Chevrolet Corvette 1995 Land Rover Defender 2012 Porsche Panamera
I’m too lazy to make up any fancy words for these cars.
Maybe next week’s selections will fare better.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Nothing to see here because last week was all t-shirts and they were priced at either twenty-four or twenty-seven dollars.

Indoor Cycling Update

As predicted back in December in my first post about riding indoors for the winter months I have pretty much worked my way up to a 45 minute session three times a week.

The indoor cycling videos are great, but the only sounds to accompany the visuals is either nothing or a very quiet, unoffensive elevator background music -boring! So I have started to listen to a podcast with the visuals. Right now I ride on Tuesday, Friday & Sunday. I picked the first two days because that is when my favorite car guys from Everyday Driver put out a fresh episodes of their podcast. On Sunday, my standby is something from the 99% Invisible archives.

For the heck of it I have been keeping track of the time I spend on the bike. Midway through I started writing down the mileage figure from the display, although I don’t know for sure how accurate it is in real world measurements. In December and January I rode a dozen times each and in February I rode eleven. I didn’t start the mileage count until the 4th ride in December, but in those 9 “rides” I covered 62.3 miles in 5 hours and 25 minutes. This translates into an average 6.9 miles a ride at an average speed of 11.5 MPH. For January I covered 103.9 miles in 8 hours and 41 minutes for an average ride of 8.7 miles at 11.9 MPH. Everyone of February’s rides were 45 minutes long totaling 8 hours and 15 minutes to go 98.8 miles, so the average was 8.98 miles covered at 11.97 MPH.

When I stop pedaling it has been only a few seconds or tenths of a mile over or under for the last several sessions. But yesterday was the very first time the display said I had ridden exactly 9.0 miles after 45.00 minutes. While not exactly a round number at the end of yesterday the total mileage that Donna and I have put on the exercycle read 700.5 miles.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Blipshift Shirt Edition of SORT
As of Monday, February 27, 2023 at 12:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
Racing Sport Racing Car Stroppe, Drop, and Roll Self Isolation II
The sales for these Blipshift designs have expired, but
there are still some leftovers in various styles & sizes.
Men’s Fitted Tee in L & XL for $22 and Men’s Heavy Duty Tee in XL for $24 Men’s Fitted Tee in S & XL for $22, Men’s Heavy Duty Tee in L, XL & 3XL for $24. Men’s Premium Tri-Blend in L, XL & 2XL for $27. Men’s Fitted Tee in L & XL for $22 and Men’s Heavy Duty Tee in L for $24

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2014 Porsche Boxster S Sold for $27,231 on 2/22/23
Off-Road: 1982 Subaru Brat DL Sold for $20,000 on 2/23/23
Touring: 1993 Mazda RX-7 Touring Bid to $45,500 on 2/22/23