10 Run Mercy Rule

Kind of wish they had the 10 run mercy rule in the major leagues tonight. The FRS are down 12 to 2 in the 7th inning against the MFY. The official scorer at Fenway did take some mercy on them just now, ruling an obvious 6th error of the night a fielders choice.

The Emperor got a bath tonight. We are headed up to North Carolina to do the Foothills Photo Rally 4 and he needed to look a little less grungy around all the other cars. I was going to take the cheater’s way out and dust him off, then touch up the real dirty areas with some Quick Detailer, but realized I really needed to break out the hose and bucket. After last Saturday’s trip to Atlanta and back in the constant light rain/mist mix he was dirty enough to warrant the royal treatment.

Started down went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1313

MLB.TV Takes Its Toll

mlb.tv

Previously on “Life of Brian” it was nothing for me to listen to the FRS game on the internet and blog away, but now that I’ve spent the big bucks to watch the game, it is really hard to minimize the game to write about some inane bit of my day.

Black Is Back & I Need A Beer

While the entire episode one of season two was exciting and worth the 10 month wait, it wasn’t until in the final two minutes that we got something that sent a simultaneous shiver & cheer racing throughout the Clone Club – “Excuse me…my sistre shot me.” – Helena lives! (barely)

Brewery
I could see the gentleman in the photo as he walked towards us on the empty downtown sidewalk. He got right near us and looked at me strange, so by explanation I said, “Photo scavenger hunt and we needed a brewery.” He grumbled, “You could say so.” Editorial comment or professional opinion?

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1310

The King’s Donuts

The King's Donuts

Took a 400 mile road trip to Fairburn, GA today to go get a doughnut. And to see a friend who recently bailed from working at the Valve Store(tm) to become the COO and head baker of a Christian doughnut shop called The King’s Donuts. Yesterday was their soft opening and they sold out of doughnuts by mid-afternoon. We were there for about an hour and there was a steady stream of customers the whole time. Just before we left at 4:30 he gave us a tour of the kitchen and there were only 3 mostly filled trays of wares left to sell.

We took the long way there on the back roads to get a couple more of our Moss Motoring Challenge objectives:

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1309

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