See You in 2026

On Sunday the Emperor got an oil change and as always, I rotated his tires as well. When I checked over the right rear tire before putting it back on the front, I spotted something shiny, looked like some sort of a spike. I didn’t want to pull it out for fear that it would go flat, so I decided to take it to a LTS to let them pull it out.

I tossed the tire in the trunk of the Sonata and headed over to a small shop around the corner. They were of course closed, so I tried a second locally owned store not too much further away. They too were closed on Sunday. This left me no other option but to pay a visit to the big name brand chain place that had I swore never to visit again after they scratched the heck out of my aftermarket rims installing tires on the previous Miata.

I rolled the tire up to the desk and asked the guy behind the cash register if could they fix it. The fellow asked if I’d been there before and I said sure, but a long time ago. So I gave him my phone number and he asked, “Brian?” I said, “Yep, I guess I’m still in there.” “When was the last time I was here?” “2002,” he replied.

He said, “I’ll have to get someone to see if it can be fixed.” And about that time some moke who worked there was passing by on his way somewhere, so the fellow asked him. This guy eyeballed the tire and said, “I don’t think that goes all the way through.” He spun 180° and went back to get a pair of pliers. Then straddling the tire, grabbed the spike and pulled. He was right, it didn’t go all the way through. It was a small screw embedded in a tire block almost perpendicular to the tire. It looked like a spike because the screw had been worn in half so I was seeing almost a cross section of it.

The guy in the work shirt with his name over the pocket handed me the screw piece, slipped the pliers into his back pocket and continued in the direction he was headed before we interrupted him. I looked over at the cashier and asked, “What do I owe you?” He said, “Nothing, don’t worry about it, we’ll get you next time”

I said, “Thanks. See you in 2026.”

That Looks Familiar

After the evening news I like lighten the mood a bit with a bit of sophomoric & crass comedy. Back to back episodes of old Two and a Half Men on the local FOX affiliate. Recently they have added the Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail of Alabama as a sponsor and I get to see two of their commercials in each half hour. Tonight I really noticed their logo at the end the ad and it looked very familiar. It reminded me of another logo, one I designed about 14 years ago. I wonder which was first and who influenced who.

RTJ GolfLogoMMC Logo

Saturday Drive

Car Show 01

We “photobombed” the Aiken Horsepower Association’s big spring car show on the way out of town. I’m not sure if it will count towards the Moss Motoring Challenge though, because we weren’t actually entered in the show. But the legal team here at Life of Brian Inc thinks it should, based on their interpretation of this rule found in the official guidelines: To earn points at car shows, your photos must clearly show the Challenge Guide, your car and either 1) a banner with the car show name or 2) at least 6 additional cars in the show field. Clearly number two’s requirement is met here.

We were headed down to the old US301 multi-use trail near the Savannah River to check on our eight caches hidden there. We had a some logs about a couple of them that they might need some maintenance. One was fine and the second was missing entirely. Donna had made up a replacement in case, so it was a simple matter of piling some sticks on it and One Point Oh was ready to go again. The rest of the caches were just fine, including one we had placed on a bamboo stalk in the middle of a stand of the stuff. As we approached the hide, we both thought that it had to be missing as more than 75% of the stalks were bent over and broken from the ice storm of two months ago, but we had picked one of the lucky 25% of still standing stalks.

While on the road we snagged a couple more challenges, a laboratory sign on the Savannah River Site and the Georgia Welcome Center on US301. Nation’s oldest welcome center relic of bygone travel era

Only Nine More Days

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjnwweTyOPw

Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1308

So That’s Where I Got That Idea

A month or so I picked up a well used copy of The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book at a used book sale. It was an interesting read as not only did it have hundreds of C & H comic strips, but it was filled with Bill Waterson’s insights on his making of the strip. About 2/3rds of the way through the book there is a series strips where Calvin kidnaps Susie’s doll (sort of her version of Hobbes):

Kidnapping Binky Betsy 1
Kidnapping Binky Betsy 2
Kidnapping Binky Betsy 3

In that third strip Calvin has his kidnap victim tied to a chair…so that is where I got the idea for the video in Part IV of the Great Roach Kidnapping Caper of 2010

There Are 137,000 Stories In The City

SkyscraperThese are 25 of them.

We drove up to the state capitol this morning with the intentions of getting about a half dozen of the Destinations listed for the Moss Motoring Challenge. We struck out on 2 different WWI monuments/memorials. Our Main Street photos from downtown Columbia were crummy and the Brewery that was on that Main Street had no real sign, so we missed those opportunities as well.

We made it to the Riverbanks Zoo, but opted not to drive to the main entrance to photograph the main sign there as there was a line to get in because it was about opening time on a sunny spring Saturday. Instead we looped a quick u-turn and stopped at a smaller sign at the corner. I got out, backed up a few steps, took a photo and when I got back the car to show Donna the results a cop car pulled up right next to us and asked if we were OK. I said yes and he zoomed off. When I got back in the car to leave I noticed that right behind me was another patrol car. Yikes, but he just sat there as I drove off. The picture was kind of crappy, so an early Sunday morning return trip is needed. The botanical gardens sign at the other entrance to the zoo wasn’t very photogenic either.

The trip wasn’t a total wash as we did get the Skyscraper photo. The Capitol Center, at 25 stories barely qualifying for the Challenge, is the tallest office building in the whole state of South Carolina. I can’t be sure, but that may be the tallest gamecock in the state too. We photographed the Tunnelvision mural and are going to use that for the Tunnel destination. On the drive home we took a picture of the sign for the thriving metropolis of Gilbert and just because we happened to be passing by, the Aiken County Farmer’s Market here in our fair city.

Sometime before the little town of Gilbert the Emperor passed the 137,000 mile mark.