Year: 2023

Another Minute and a Half of Internet Fame

The Everyday Driver podcast has been a must listen ever since 2018 when I started listening to it while I did my daily walk when Donna was at the gym swimming. Now a days it is my audio companion while riding the exercise bike 2 of the 3 times a week I do so. They actually do 3 episodes a week, but one of them is just the audio of something off their Test Drive channel on YouTube and I’ve already watched the video.

For the two original podcasts they do each week they post a note on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter asking for questions that someone might want answered. They can’t answer every one of them, so they cherry pick the ones they are interested in answering. Back in May of 2019 they actually answered one of mine. Well, it happened again.

The photo above was yesterday’s Bing Wallpaper, it is of Park City, Utah which happens to be where our intrepid Everyday Driver guys reside. So, yesterday when I saw their anybody got questions post on Instagram, with tongue firmly in cheek, I added this to their list, “Park City is the Bing wallpaper of the day and I’m trying to find your houses on there…”

Here is the audio of them answering my “question.”

Magnetic Miracle

About twenty years ago we discovered Easyclip glasses as a replacement for having a pair of sunglasses and a pair of glasses. Somewhere around a decade ago I moved to photochromatic lenses because I was tired of having to put the clips on and off. Donna still uses the magnetic Easyclip style because she hates the time lag when when moving from shade to sun and vice versa.

Two weeks ago when Donna went to put her magnetic clip-on sunglasses that came as a set with her regular glasses they weren’t where she expected them to be.

We looked everywhere for them. All her jacket pockets, her purse and the knapsack that acts her alternate purse. We checked in all the nooks and crannies in the interiors of the Miata and the Mini. We looked on the floor and every horizontal surface around the house, from the dresser in her closet to desk in the living room. We asked at our favorite coffee shop where we were the day before if anyone had turned them into their lost & found. They were just gone.

We hightailed down to Rite Aid to get an aftermarket set of clip-on sunglasses. They are spring loaded instead of the magnetic, but the fit is pretty good and were a darn sight cheaper than getting a real replacement. The only thing we could figure as they fell out of her pocket getting in or out of the car somewhere during our running around the day before.

While doing laundry today, what did I find at the bottom of the dryer after pulling out all the clothes? Right, her Easyclip sunglasses!

Had they been in a piece of clothing that got washed two weeks ago and the magnetic part stuck to somewhere inside the dryer drum? I find that that hard to believe, we do a load of laundry almost everyday and a couple times a week we two loads, those clip-ons would have appeared before now.

This was eerily reminiscent of the Easter Miracle of 2018.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Super Wildcard Weekend Edition of SORT
As of Monday, January 16, 2023 at 3:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2006 Caterham
Super Seven SV		 2012 Ford F-150
Raptor SuperCrew		 2012 Bentley Continental Supersports ISR
What used to be Wildcard weekend in the NFL has now become Super Wildcard Weekend. What makes it super? Who does besides the National Football League? So is this upcoming weekend’s slate of games being elevated from plain old Divisional Round to Super as well? Inquiring minds want to know.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 1985 Porsche 911 Sold for $90,000 on 1/10/23
Off-Road: 2022 Ford Bronco Bid to $53,000 on 1/15/23
Touring: 1969 Citroen ID19 Sold for $19,269 on 1/12/23

30,000 Jigsaw Puzzle Pieces

Out running around this afternoon because we had a few things to take care of. We needed to find a new dentist (possibly another separate blog post.) We stopped at Goodwill to restock our shelves with jigsaw puzzles. We have done 3 so far this year and only had about 4 left in the queue. So we picked up another eight. Seven of them had green tags which meant they were half off the $4.29 regular price. The eighth one we gladly paid full price for because it still had the factory seals intact, so we are sure to have one puzzle with all its pieces.

Those eight puzzles don’t total to 30,000 pieces, but on our way to our last stop, Wendy’s for Jr Frostys, the Mini rolled past thirty thousand miles.

On last Saturday the Miata got driven twice. Firstly I went and just randomly drive around for 6 or so miles because the poor car hadn’t moved for a couple weeks. Then later that day it was time to head down to the local cannabis stock to stock up on our “sleep” medicine – Wyld Elderberry Gummies.

Times Miata Driven since 10/28/22: 5

 

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

College Football Playoff National Championship Edition of SORT
As of Monday, January 9, 2023 at 12:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1985 Porsche 911 2022 Ford Bronco 1969 Citroen ID19
When it comes to a 911 I’d prefer something a decade older, but this was just too pretty to pass up. This is the 99th 2022 Bronco BAT has listed. Are people buying them and not liking them. Perfectly quirky enough to confuse the heck out of any non-car person who happens to see this thing.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to (if the reserve was not met):
Sports: 2010 Alfa Romeo 8C Spider Sold for $325,000 on 1/4/23
Off-Road: Desert Dynamics Buggy Sold for $58,000 on 1/4/23
Touring: 1957 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud Touring Limousine Bid to $47,000 on 1/5/23

Bottle Drop

Because I love a fun with figures post, here is another one.

We dropped off a total 16 Green Bags at the local Bottle drop in 2022. Those bags contained a whopping 1,451 bottles or cans. The most bottles or cans in a bag was 101 and the lowest figure was 720, so each bag contained on average of around 91 cans or bottles.

Without the fees that would have netted us a total of $145.10 back. But with fees those 16 bags returned $135.50 into our account. They charge 40¢ per bag to count them (AKA run them through a machine) and 20¢ for the bag itself (they come in boxes of ten for two bucks.) This meant we got about 93.3% back of all those dime deposits we paid at the store. We consider that 6.7% money well spent on not standing in a line and feed the counting machines on our own.

We just got a letter from the Bottle Drop folks to let us know that the flat forty cent bag processing fee was going up to 8% of the bag contents. Tack on the twenty cents per bag and our return will probably end up falling to close to 90%.

Probably still worth it. Especially if you use the money in your bottle drop account at a participating BottleDrop Plus retailers because they offer 20% more for your refund value. Meaning your hundred bucks is worth $120 at that store (mostly supermarkets.)

Best Nine Redux

Its that time of year again – time to show off your most liked Instagram pictures. I posted about this two years ago when I used an app called Best Nine, but for some reason I didn’t do it last year. Maybe because that particular app is no longer available…

There is an app called Top Nine, but that is iPhone only. Searching the Google Play Store for “top nine” or “best nine” lands you on an app called Nine Grid Photo – Grid Maker which does basically the same thing. The app has a stunningly low rating of 1.2 out of 5 with reviews complaining about everything from not working at all to returning bogus results to too many ads.

I agree with the ad thing, but it worked flawlessly for me. It also let me go back all the way to 2018, so below are the last five years of my most like Instagram posts:

Update: I just tried the Nine Grid Photo – Grid Maker again and it wouldn’t do anything but show me the two images I have posted so far this year with a heading of 2022. Maybe it warrants those low ratings. I’ve deleted the app and we’ll see what happens next year.