Straps On, Straps Off

We have used a cockpit cover (the grey thing you see above) on the Miata for 15 years now. Not all the same cover, there have been several since the first in 2002. After awhile the car cover fabric that they are made of deteriorates due to sun exposure, and continually being folded and tucked into the side of the trunk, so they need replacing every now and then. The one above is a hold over from The Emperor and is only a couple years old, so it probably still has a couple more years left.

Do you see that black strap hanging down by the front of the door? It has a felt covered hook that is supposed to be hooked into the edge of the wheel well (sort of like the strap on the back.) These straps have a tendency to fall off like this if the cover doesn’t get hooked around the mirrors just so. I’ve tried adjusting them longer or shorter and re-positioned in the wheel well to no avail. Invariably, even though the seem solid when put on in the morning, one or the other will be dangling uselessly by lunch or quitting time.

Today both of them were just hanging by mid-day. This is the straw that broke the camel’s back. I am going to cut them off. They really aren’t needed because the front of the cover gets tucked under the windshield wipers. I’m thinking if the wind is strong enough that it can get under the cover with the wiper arms holding it down and lift it up, it then has to break the velcro bonds around both mirrors to make it flap off. And if this is the case it is way too windy to be using the cover in the first place.

Yooge Pothole

We have been nibbling around the edges at this year’s Moss Motoring and this is the latest example. The other day on our way somewhere we cut through the almost entirely empty Aiken Mall parking lot to avoid dealing with the Whiskey Road traffic and noticed a big old hole in the ground. We both went, “Oooh, we need a ‘huge pothole’ for the Challenge.” I didn’t want to get a picture then because we were on our way to that somewhere. We did make a mental note of it and scheduled a near future evening drive at dusk to get it. That future happened Monday.

I was thinking about maybe trying to photoshop some fish in the water, but gave up after it turned out to be more work than it would have been worth.

Possibly Profitable Shopping Trip

or Why Donna Could Never Be A Politician

Donna had to pick up a prescription at Kroger’s today and while she was there she also opted to pick up literally a couple other items, some bananas and some watermelon. You can pay for other stuff at the Pharmacy counter, but not anything that is sold by the pound – no scale. So after paying there she headed over to the self-checkout. The two purchases came to a whopping $2.75, so instead of check or debit card, cash was called for. She slipped a ten dollar bill into the slot and instead of the expected seven and a quarter, she got $22.25!

Donna called the attendant over and pointed out the error and told him maybe they should shut the machine down and check it out. He took her offered $20 bill and gave her a five back. She was raised right.

Me, I’d have slipped all the change in my pocket and walked slowly out the door, whistling softly to myself. Which makes me a perfect candidate to fill one of the 39 out of 46 top science posts in the Trump administration. I was in the Navy, maybe I could get one of those 48 of a possible 53 Pentagon openings. How about one of those 56 open Ambassadorships? But seriously, with that kind of shady ethics I think I’d be best suited for a job on the board of the Eric Trump Foundation.

Another Mileage Chart

At the beginning of the year I made a quick spreadsheet of the CTBNL’s thousand mile points and created a nifty little chart. Trouble was I neglected to save the file, so I couldn’t just add on to it a month ago when we hit 53,000 mile mark. Instead of just recreating it, maybe I could make it better.

If some data is good, more is better right?! When we bought the silver car I said that it felt like going back in time 10 years, this made me wonder how the mileage we were putting on this car compared to how many we drove The Emperor 10 years ago (August 2006 to May 2007.) As you can see, in 2006 we started a thousand less, but by 8 months later we were 4,000 higher. It is not really a fair comparison though because in 2006-7 we only had the one car while now we have 2 to chose from any time we go for a drive.

Maybe I should chart the Purple Whale’s miles for the same stretch of time, from say 5 years ago, and add that on top of the CTBNL’s mileage to even out the playing field.

Bicycle Sunday


Because on Friday’s we are now riding our single bikes instead of the the tandem, on Sunday we have started riding the double instead of the old usual single bikes. The photo above was taken to answer a question I’ve gotten several times at work in the last couple months since Donna retired. Both by the people who thought I still rode it to work on my own and by those who are just plain curious.

Question: “How hard is it to ride that bike with no one on the back?”
Answer: “Not that hard at all.”

It really didn’t feel that much different than my single bike. It weighs a couple pounds more, so up and down hills would be different and pulling a u-turn takes just a bit more room.

Is There A Doctor In The House?

A couple of months ago I complained of a stuffy head to my PCP. Leaning over to tie my shoes made my head hurt and coughing hurt worse. He said it is probably seasonal allergies and wrote a script for the generic of Singular, said his wife swears by it. I’ve never had an allergy problem before, but there is always a first time for everything. The medicine notes said it might take 3 to 14 days to reach full effect, so I settled in for the long haul. One week, two weeks, three weeks – nothing – I finished the bottle and didn’t refill it.

Another month goes by and I got no better, but I got no worse either. Then, last week about Tuesday I noticed a different sound sensation on the drive home, the wind noise with the top down had a rumble to it. On Wednesday the low frequencies of music were muddy. My stuffy head had migrated to my left ear. I figured it was time to do something about my problem. And I wanted to elevate the issue and just go ahead and get an appointment with an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor. See as I hadn’t yet ever seen an ENT doc, I had my choice, stay local and try one of the two docs in a practice here in Aiken or try and get in and see the same guy as Donna used out of a larger practice in Augusta.

I started with the Aiken ENT. I called their number about 9:30 on Thursday. A very official sounding voice mail system picked up after 2 rings giving the impression that you are dealing with very large, finely-tuned operation instead of a small medical office. I wait thru “call 911 if this is an emergency” instructions and the “your call is very important to us”, then I get “if this is a doctor’s office press 0” followed by “for appointments press 1”, so I do. Now I get the “this call may be recorded, blah, blah, blah, the next available representative will be with you shortly.” Followed by hold music…do, do, do doo, do, do doo. Not long later the phone starts ringing, so I know I’m close, but after 8 rings it is still ringing! I hang up.

The heck with that, I’ll show them, I’ll call Augusta. The drive to the downtown place wasn’t bad and I’ll ask to see Dr. Barfield, he was cool. So I look up their number and call them. IT IS THE SAME EXACT VOICEMAIL SYSTEM (different voice, but same script) AND THE EXACT SAME THING HAPPENS (I hang up after 8 rings.)

About 20 minutes later I tried the Aiken number again. As soon as the voice mail system picks up I hit the number 1, wait through the automated voice until I get the ringing. This time I count to 12 rings before hanging up.

I email home to Donna to say I give up, nobody is answering the phone at either place. She emails back, “You want me to try?” “Go ahead,” I tell her. Not long later my desk phone rings. It is Donna telling me that someone picked up right away when she called. She got me an appointment with her guy, but it wasn’t going to be until the 13th because he was going on vacation the next day…

Bicycle Friday

The bike riding to work on Fridays continues even if only one of us actually rides all the way to the Valve Store. In the morning Donna rides to the halfway point and turns around and heads home on a different route and I continue on pedaling our old standard route to ASCO. At the end of my work day I saddle up and Donna meets me right across the street from the plant having ridden the standard route to within the last tenth of a mile. There is really no reason for her to cross the busiest road on the route only to have cross back 10 minutes later.

People are so used to us riding the tandem in together that you might be surprised to learn how many people wonder how the whole thing works now when I tell them she rides halfway in with me in the morning. “Does she have to walk back home?” “What’s it like to ride that bike with no one on the back seat?” “Ohhh, you have other bikes…”

This morning when a cubicle1 neighbor said, “I didn’t think you were here.”

“It’s Friday,” I reply, “I bike rode in.”

“Oh, I didn’t notice the bike.”

“That’s because it is half as long as the tandem,” I tell him eliciting a chuckle.

This got us talking about cycling and as it turns out he was into mountain biking about the same time as we were back in the middle 1990s. I wonder if we ever crossed paths as we talked of riding some of the same local trails and we both even had ridden the Tsali Trail up in western North Carolina. But I don’t think we were at the same places at the same time because even though it was 20 years ago Donna and I would have been hard to forget. Among all the usual pick up trucks, jeeps, SUVs and big cars, it was hard to miss a Miata with 2 mountain bikes mounted on the trunk at trail head parking areas.

Lick Fork Lake Trailhead