Ja Man, I Be Listnin To Da Music

My never listening to terrestrial radio has bit me in the butt. Turns out there has been a reggae radio station here in Portland all along. Only stumbled on it because of the GTI. Unlike the ND Miata, Android Auto is wired, and sometimes when taking a short trip to the store, it isn’t worth the “hassle” of going through hooking it up, so I scanned the FM band and found it.

It appears to be a pirate radio station based right across the Columbia River in Vancouver, WA. The good news is that it is just non-stop music, no commercials, nothing, and it also hits the sweet spot of just classic reggae and ska. The downside is it is a low-power station, so it can’t be heard very far away, but that is not a problem for my usage.

Now, excuse me while I go read the owner’s manual to figure out how to set a preset on the radio.

Halloween Miata & GTI Mods

Two Dummies


 
The Mt. Hood Miata Club is doing a “Spooktacular Cemetery Crawl” tomorrow, and I’m going. There are supposed to be prizes for best costume in 4 categories: male, female, couple, and car decorations. I figure I got a shot in 2 of them, male and couple.

I installed some aftermarket headlights on the GTI. They are supposed to make the front end of the car look like the newer MK8. Those running lights turn flashing yellow when they become your turn signals. Let’s just say, like with the Miata, you have to remove the front bumper. And removing the front on the GTI was leaps and bounds harder than on the Miata. I hope to write about the ordeal in the future, and it is not only just the bumper removal; the lights have a big chapter in the story as well.

I also added the OEM carpeted mats. And they look so good I almost took them back out. The rubber mats the car came with would probably be the better choice for the upcoming four months of raining every day, but they’ll stay in. If they get sloppy, I’ll buy another pair because they are a third of what I spent on the Coco Mats for the ND Miata.

I May Have Been Premature

West Salish Pond


 
After my morning walk around the Salish Ponds, I swapped the two cars from front to back. I’ve got my first real mod for the GTI coming, so I wanted it in the back near the workshop for tool availability, and also I needed the Miata out front because there is a club event Saturday. While the Miata was out, I opted to take a quick drive to the store to pick up a couple things. I took the long way home, and I may have been premature yesterday; I can’t get rid of it. Even with a bit of traffic in the first half of the drive and with the top up because it was sprinkling, it was still a fun car to be in.

End of the Line?

I was going to title this post “The End Of An Era?” but swapped it to the current one. Why, you might ask? When I opened WordPress, the song Radio Paradise was playing was by the Travelling Wilburys, called “End of the Line.”

I took the GTI to the local VW dealer to have them run the system checks they normally do when someone comes in for service. I also had them do an oil change because, for all I knew, it was the original 5-year-old oil. The car has only 14,000 miles on it, and that is below the synthetic oil lifespan. An hour and a half later, with a clean bill of health, we headed home. I’m really liking this car, and I’ll be driving it almost exclusively for the next 5 months. The Miata will get limited attention until late March.

Do I really need two cars? This led to a dark corner of my mind; maybe it’s time to get rid of the Miata. I know, sacrilege! I’ve owned a Miata for 35 years, and they are still a blast, but the GTI is 80% a blast. I hate the idea of it just sitting around; it should be blasting around winding roads, not staring at the backside of a Golf.

Ask me again in a week.

Old Guys in GTIs Club

Old Guys in GTIs Club

Saturday morning before starting out on the Mt. Hood drive, I headed over to Stomping Grounds to get my usual Salted Caramel Latte. My timing was great; there was a car backing out of the spot right in front of the door. As I got out, I noticed in a spot a couple slots away was a Black GTI. Same black wheels, same black color. What are the odds?

As I walk into the place, I notice a table right there with a couple of old guys, AKA my peers, drinking coffee and chatting. Two steps later the fellow facing me and the outside says, “Nice car, what year?” I instantly clock that he must be the other black GTI owner and say, “2020, thanks. What year is yours?” “2024,” he replies, “the last year with a manual. It is the S trim, meaning no sunroof and the Clark plaid seats.” “I searched for that spec specifically. Had to be manual with the plaid seats,” I tell him. The rest of the conversation revolves around wanting one back in the early 80s when they first came out. So he asks, “How old are you?” “Seventy, you?” I say. “76,” he says.

By now my latte is ready, so I grab it and give him a wave on the way out. I’d like to think that maybe if he was alone I would have asked if I could have sat with him and chatted some more. Probably not, but while ruminating on the missed connection, I came up with the idea of a club for old guys in GTIs. I spent 30 minutes on ChatGPT trying to get the right image, and this is the best I could do.

Coastal Postal Drive

Three Arch Rocks


 
After yesterday’s 150-mile drive to the Mt. Hood area and back and the predicted rain today, I almost didn’t go for the drive. But after living in this part of Oregon for a couple of years, I know that a 100% chance of rain means it will rain, but not 100% of the time. On the whole 270-mile trip over 7 1/2 hours, it probably rained 2 hours. But another 2 hours were sunshine, with the rest just misty or plain cloudy. I photographed 9 post offices, and in only one was it actually raining while I took the shot.

The GTI was a competent corner carver, and it felt very Miata-like. Its power-to-weight ratio is similar to the Miata’s, but the turbo engine brings on the torque lower in the rev band, so it does feel more powerful. I guess I should look up their respective 0-60 times and see.
BRB…
The GTI takes 5.9 seconds to get to 60 mph, and the Miata takes 5.7-5.9, so what do you know, they’re very similar.

Mt Hood Day Trip

Mt Hood From OR-35


 
I went for my daily walk, and as I was finishing up, I looked at the weather and realized it was going to be a good day. Instead of going home, I headed over to Stomping Grounds to get a Salted Caramel Latte and jumped on I-84 east. Plan was to get a photo of the GTI with Mt. Hood in the background. Bingo, see above.

After taking some more Mt. Hood photos, I opted to return home on the Washington side of the Columbia River. So I crossed the Hood River Bridge to get on WA-14. This bridge has a toll, but it doesn’t have booths; it takes photos of the license plate of the car, and they mail you a bill to get their $3.50. I don’t have plates on the GTI yet; all that I have are the paper CarMax ones. So will CarMax get that toll bill in the mail?