Month: April 2025

April Fools

Because I’ll be on the road June 1st I needed to set up a post with an article from the 3rd issue of the Miata Club of America magazine that I have doing doing on the first day of the even numbered months. When I reach on the top of the stack to get the June/July issue I came up with the April/May issue. Ooops, I forgot to do one on April Fools Day. What a fool I am.

I reached down and grabbed the June/July issue too. I picked an article from each, scanned the pages and went online to OCR the images. I formatted them both and I set the June/July post to publish on 6/1/25 and backdated the April/May post to have been published on 4/1/25. So go back and read it.

Well, That Was Different

For the first time in a year and a half I risked life and limb this afternoon and I went for a bicycle ride outdoors.

Since moving to Fairview back in October of 2023 the only riding I have done is on an indoor stationary bike. Because I’m a fair weather cyclist right after we moved here the weather was either too wet or too cold. Then last year when the weather cooperated Donna was needing a lot more help around the house, so I just continued riding indoors. Then of course once she passed away in September and it was once again too cold or wet for my delicate constitution.

Once the weather improved this year it still felt marginal for outdoor riding and I had become used to just watch a cycling video and listen to a podcast while literally spinning my wheel(s). Well, last weekend the weather was warm enough for me to think about once again riding a real bike. Saturday I pumped up the tires and lubed the chain and planned on going for an afternoon spin on Sunday. I did the post office safari in the morning, made lunch and turned on the TV. Never made it out. I blame it on a tradition like no other. That’s right, a non-golfer sat glued to the couch watching the Masters Tournament.

Today was the day. What they say is right, you never forget how to ride a bike. I planned a ride to the Post Office to mail a postcard. It is about a mile and a half away, so at least I’d get in 3 miles. But, once on the bike I realized how fun it is and futzed around in the residential areas of town and tacked on a couple more miles with out thinking about it. I don’t have a cycle computer on the bike, so 5 miles is just an estimate. Actually, the worst part of the ride was the 3/4 mile of Sandy Blvd both getting to town and back. The speed limit is 40MPH, but that is more of a guideline than an actual rule and combined with the narrow cycle lane it was almost scary.

There are plenty of paved and unpaved cycling trails nearby, but riding to get to them does seem risky. I might have to see if the Bone car rack I have will fit on the new Miata. I will try one more local ride before I head out on Brian’s Big Adventure at the end of the week.

I Return To The Scene Of The Goose

Now, just where did I park my airplane?

So, I drove back to McMinnville today, this time I ponied up a Andrew Jackson and went inside. Wow, this place is amazing if you are anyway interested in aviation. I mean, the Spruce Goose may bring them in, but there are a ton of interesting things to see and do besides that one oversized aircraft. There are two buildings jammed with airplanes, rockets and memorabilia. There are planes from the early 1900’s up to the Vietnam era stuff in the one with the Goose in it and the second is all space race stuff and modern warplanes. In total I spent almost 2-1/2 hours there and I can see a return visit in a few months.

The only thing I had a complaint about is that somehow the Spruce Goose seemed diminished by the shear amount of small (and they all weren’t all that small) aircraft crowded around it. I understand that they probably couldn’t build a third giant building just for the Goose alone and they have an awesome collection and want to display as much as possible, but, I don’t know, maybe it is just me.

I took a couple dozen pictures and here are a sample:

Half Dozen More

Today was Sunday, so that means Post Offices. My first stop was to get the Hillsboro DCU, because for some reason 3 weeks ago when I got the regular Hillsboro PO photo, I didn’t take this one. I think I remember circling the block looking for it and giving up.

From there my thoughts were to get the two Newberg POs and maybe Dundee, just a little south of Newberg, to make it an even four. But when I got to Dundee I realized I could two more, Dayton and McMinnville, for a little over 20 extra miles. On my way into McMinnville, I saw a 747 on the right side of the road with the words EVERGREEN in green on the side and just past it was a building that had a 747 on its roof. My curiosity was satisfied a second later when I saw sign that read, “Aviation Museum Next Right.” I pulled in.

The place seemed deserted, so I pulled over by a static MIG-29 and looked up their web page. The museum was about to open up in a few minutes and now there was a steady trickle of cars coming in the driveway. I decided, that I’d come back another day and spend a few hours here. When I arrived home, I looked a little more closely at their website and found out that the museum is the home of Howard Hughes’ folly, the Spruce Goose. If you look in the glass walled hanger behind the Miata in the photo above, it was right there!

As I was mulling about the Spruce Goose while heading home, I’d swear I’ve had a conversation with someone recently about that plane being in my neck of the woods. It thought it might have been Santa Fe Sally, but during our evening chat today, she swore it wasn’t her. So, who?

And as further proof of my diminishing recall, on my way back towards I-5, I passed right by a Post Office I didn’t see on my to-do list. So I circled the block and got out and took a photo. It wasn’t until I got back home that I realized I did have a photo of it already, it was taken on that same photo trip 3 weeks ago.

Mojo

Way back in the early 90’s Donna and I added mountain biking to our cycling CV and we both bought a Bridgestone MB-4. As you can tell if you’ve hung around here long enough, you know I like the modify things I own to express my me-ness. The first things I did to the bike is I threw a bright pink seat and matching handlebar tape on it. I also glued a little blue and pink gecko to my top tube in what was referred to as a Mojo in the mountain biking community.

A decade or so later I added a Mojo to Miata #3, that we named The Emperor because compared to the high mileage Miata #2 we traded in on it, this car was Regal. It was the LS or top of the Miata lineup and came with leather seats and a cloth top. The maroon-ish color with tan interior added to its high class feel as well. I bought a little Hasbro Emperor Palpatine figure and double stick taped it to the car’s dash.

Fast forward 2-1/2 decades later and now I own Miata #6 that has earned the nickname Bucky for two reasons which you can read about it here. The other day in Klamath Falls I wanted to wash the road gunk off Miata #5, so I went over to the local Dollar Tree looking for some small towels to use at the hand car wash. I found a couple of “Microfiber” ones for a dollar (and a quarter) each. Whenever I’m in one of these stores I always check out the miniature action figures to see if they have anything cool.

Surprisingly, they still had a bunch of The Incredible figures on the hooks because I bought a set of all 5 characters way back 5 years ago when we lived in K-Falls. I found a DC Comics figure of Black Adam that I opted to buy for Bucky’s Mojo. When I got back home, I shrunk down the logo for that gas station place and glued it to Black Adam’s chest. Tomorrow I’ll stick Buc-ee Man on the dash.

Lien On Me

I took out a loan for the New Blue Miata, made three payments (Oct,Nov,Dec) and two days after the December payment I paid off the rest of it. And I waited for my Title to show up in the mail. By the end of January, it still hadn’t arrived. I decided to check the loan account online to make sure it said paid in full, and it did. At the bottom of the page, I noticed a small line of text, “To request a lien removal letter, click here.” And I did. On the next page I was told the letter would take 5 to 7 business days to get to me. Huh? Any other time I had financed a vehicle they just sent it to you automatically.

I promptly went on a month-long adventure to Santa Fe and Hammond, LA with a friend and forgot all about Oregon and the Miata and the lien letter thing. Somewhere around the middle of February I went back online and clicked the link again. I gave it 2 weeks in regular days and still no letter. This time I dialed up Chase Auto Finance and got on a phone conversation with a human.

We ran through the details only to find that the dealer who sold me the car left off the ‘Unit 1’ part of the end of 21100 NE Sandy Blvd. While on the phone with me the CSR steered me to the right place to correct the address. I thanked him and hung up. I had to delete the incorrect address and add the correct one. I gave it a few days to get inside their system and clicked the link asking for the lien letter for the third time.

On business day eleven with no letter in my mail box, I call again. Same routine with a CSR as last time, check details and it turns out when I entered my own address in the account, I entered 2110 instead of the 21100. Duh! This time the CSR changed it for me and made me repeat my address a couple times just to make sure I knew what my address is. She told me that I didn’t need to click the link she would get one out in the mail today so it would get to me right away, well, 5 to 7 business days away.

The elusive lien letter arrived today via FedEx. When I opened up the envelope there were two lien letters in there, one dated 12/30/24 and another dated 2/27/25. I thought they would spit out a digital copy of what was on file, but no, someone dug around in a physical file cabinet in Monroe, Louisiana and sent me the actual 2 letters they tried to send me, but got returned.

I’m A Poker Player

A few weeks ago, at the Coffee and Donuts thing at the Community Center one of the residents told me that they were starting a friendly $5 buy in poker game on Wednesdays and she asked me if I was interested. I think she was trying to mother me a bit, because not long after Donna died, she said maybe I should start a widower club and meet for coffee once a week somewhere. She even had a couple names of fellows that found themselves in my situation recently.

I said maybe I’ll try and make it to her invitation for poker. The following Wednesday I thought about and didn’t think I would be interested, so didn’t go. She asked me again at the next Friday Social and I said I had forgotten, so I asked for the details again and actually put Wednesday, 2:00 PM in my calendar in front of her. And I was going to go play, but the Amazon delivery of my laptop got shifted from Tuesday to Wednesday. It was coming via UPS and a signature was required. So, of course the time frame I got was 12:45PM to 4:45PM. If it arrived early, I’d go. At a little before 2 o’clock I walked up to the Community Center to tell them why I wouldn’t be able to play. Delivery finally happened at 5:45.

So today, I walked up and paid my $5 and spent a little over an hour playing poker. And this was actually the first time I have played. In the Navy it was always Hearts or some form of Rummy. I’m sure there was poker being played somewhere on the ship, but I never got in a game. The $5 thing is just to start you off and you get four denominations of chips, half dollar, quarter, dime and nickel, but if you feel frisky you can pull bills out of your pocket. Nobody ever threw a five spot in as a bet but, they did get used to be thrown in and then 3-4 dollars in chips taken back out. At one point I won a big pot with a portrait of Honest Abe in it, I promptly put it in my pocket.

When I did finally lose all my chips, I said I was done and left the game. So, I broke even for the day and have next week’s buy in all set.