Cold Cranking Amps

The other day when the Purple Whale had his 45k check-up, the Service Adviser advised me the the battery was getting weak, it had only 300 cold cranking amps instead of the 670 it was rated for and they would be happy to replace it while the car was already there. I politely declined, figuring that the cost of a dealer installed OEM battery would be a darn sight higher than one purchased from a local auto parts palace.

Maybe I’m wrong and the battery wouldn’t have been expensive and things have changed some because they would like the business, but considering what they charged for a glorified oil change and inspection, I doubt it. I’m sure what they lack in volume of batteries sold, they more than make up for it in price.

This afternoon on the way home from lunch we stopped in at an Advanced Auto Parts about a mile from the house and had them test the battery. My cynical side thought that not only would the dealer over-charge me for a battery, he might possibly even over-charge me for a battery I didn’t actually need. The nice woman who tested the Purple Whale’s electrical heart gave me a readout with the very same 300 CCA figure as did the Hyundai dealer.

The car has never hesitated to start, but remembering having to call a friend to rescue us a while back when the Emperor failed to start because of a weak battery with no indications it was going bad either, we figured a $120 was good insurance. Twenty minutes later we had a new 670 cold cranking amp battery installed, the old one disposed of and the hardest thing I had to do was punch in my PIN number after swiping the debit card.

#PocketClaire

Outlander - Claire & Jamie

Well I’ve read the book and I’ve watched the first episode of Outlander and you can color me hooked. The series run technically starts tomorrow night at 9PM on Starz, but Episode 1 has been available as a special Sneak Peek on the official site and on YouTube since last Saturday.

All the way at the bottom of the Extras page at Starz’s official site for the show is a cut out of the lead male character, Jamie, in all his kilted glory. You are supposed to download the PDF, cut it out and carry it with you so you can take it’s picture as it interacts with your life. Tweet it, Instagram it or upload your photo to their Facebook page and Starz just might share it with the Interwebs.

While this sounds like something I might do, after all I did tote a Travelocity Gnome around the northwest a few years back taking its picture, I draw the line at strikingly handsome paper dudes in kilts. There is a PocketJamie, but where is the one of our protagonist? I guess I’ll have to make one. A little Google-fu, some “photoshop” work and I made one up. So after you have downloaded and cut out James Fraser, Laird of Broch Tuarach, why don’t you come back here and download PocketClaire, his favorite Sassenach.

Started down, went up, back down, back up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1401

A Step Back IMHO

Sonatas

The Purple Whale is at a sleepover in Augusta so he can have his 45K service done at the dealer. We drove over after dinner and used the key drop and we’ll go back over tomorrow right after work to pick him back up. Donna found a spot only three away from the Service Department door to park and 2 spots away, right next to the door was a brand new 2015 Sonata.

I knew that they had redesigned it, and from the photos I’ve seen on the net it seemed to me that it lost a little of what made it special. You know what, in person inspection proved that correct, it went way conservative. Looks kind of like a Ford Taurus. If I was car shopping today, it wouldn’t even make the list.

Doll Lane

Doll Lane

For the first time since early spring Donna and I ventured into Hitchcock Woods. We usually stay out of there in the middle of summer, but this morning it was like upper sixties and foggy, so what the heck.

Tonight I’m watching the FRS play the Yankees and this is getting painful. The Sox scored 3 runs in the bottom of the first inning and then gave up three runs right back in the top of the second.

At least with my other eye I’m watching the Giants play the Bills in the NFL Hall of Fame Game so Fantasy Football is getting closer and I need a little sports fantasy about now.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1398

Kindle & Me

Last weekend when we went to Florida I still had a couple hundred pages of “Outlander” to read, so I took the book along, not figuring I would finish it. Well, by mid morning Saturday I had. Facing the all day drive home on Sunday (half of which would be spent in the passenger seat) without anything to read, I asked if they had a used bookstore nearby. BIL Paul said, “You like science fiction, right?” “Sure”, I said. “You can borrow one of my Kindles, I have plenty of books on it.”

Every since Kindles arrived on the scene 5 or 6 years ago I have been curious to see what the reading experience would be like as compared to a physical book. And actually, in the intervening years at birthday or Christmas time when Donna would ask what I’d like as a gift, the thought of buying one would pop up, but I never pulled the trigger though, as I saw no real need.

Up until now my book reading needs have been taken care of by weekly (or so) visits to the local used book store, an occasional visit to the Book Warehouse in Savannah to get last year’s off-lease library hardcover books and the rare current bestseller picked up at Books-A-Million or Barnes & Noble.

That local used book store recently closed down, so the $1.99 and deeply discounted eBooks available for the Kindle could possibly replace that, but owning one of those things would never be able to totally replace the second two of those spots because there is something about holding a physical book and visiting their physical stores that cannot be replicated digitally. Best I can describe it; to me it is like the difference of driving the automatic transmissioned Sonata compared to the Miata’s manual transmission with a clutch, there is more of a connection.

The availability of all the free books out there for the Kindle are no interest to me, as most of them consist of the “classics”, or better known as the books they tried unsuccessfully to get me to read and appreciate in high school. There is one place where they do have free eBooks that I might be interested in…the library. The Aiken Regional library loans ’em out. This is cool for a couple reasons, you never have to worry about losing a book (you may lose the Kindle, but the book isn’t really in there) and no late fees (you can’t forget to return it; they just electronically yank it back.)

Paul’s second generation Kindle with the leather cover gives a pretty good approximation weight-wise of holding a nice hard cover book and the smaller than a page screen size means there is more page “turning”, but the buttons to accomplish that fall easy to your fingers while holding the “book.” While I didn’t think I’d hate using a Kindle, I didn’t think I would like it as much as I do. My birthday is next month and when Donna asks this time, I’ll more than likely buy one.

A Thousand Gross Miles

There really are no gross miles in a Miata, but when I parked the Emperor in the garage tonight after getting home from work there were exactly 144,000 miles on the odometer. Twelve dozen is a gross, so a gross is 144 and that means a 1,000 gross is 144,000.

Speaking of gross, here is an update on the FRS’s pennant push. The Orioles since the break are playing slightly better ball, going 8-4. If they continue on to the end of the season playing like they have played so far, they will finish with a won/loss record of 92-70 or 2 games better that previously noted. Meanwhile the Red Sox have gone 5-8 in the same stretch and they are now 13 games out of first place. To get to 93 wins and end up ahead of the Baltimore club they only have to win 43 of their last 56 or roughly 77% of those games. While not mathematically eliminated, the chances of that happening are statistically impossible.

If the FRS continue playing as they have so far this season, I figure they will give me the gift of divisional elimination on my birthday the 27th of September way before Donna’s birthday in late August.

Are You A Member Of Our Loyalty Club?

Even though we did the weekly grocery shopping on the way home from Florida yesterday, we didn’t get the a menu planning done for tonight. When we couldn’t agree on what we wanted to fix, we opted to do the easy thing and go get something to eat.

Donna has been on a soup kick recently, so she suggested a trip to Atlanta Bread Company just down the street where they do a pretty good French Onion. I agreed, but suggested getting it to go, so we could pretend we weren’t eating out. She ordered a cup of the French Onion soup and a half a cubano panini. I selected a whole NY Hot Pastrami sandwich.

When the cashier asked, “Are you a member of our Loyalty Club?” I said, “Sure.” and gave her our home phone number. She scrunched her nose up and said, “It’s not coming up.” We tried the number again with the same results. So I gave the 9 digits to her again. “That’s funny,you are not showing up.” I say, “That can’t be, we just used it last Thursday night in Statesboro, GA.” Donna chimes in with, “That was a Panera Bread.”

Nice job, that’s like trying to use a your CVS loyalty card at Walgreen’s or your My Lowes card at Home Depot.