Forget Something?

The Emperor’s new shocks are just what his subjects needed. The last few months his majesty had a tendency to wander in his lane. I tried to tighten things up by adjusting the Koni Sport shocks firmer, but that just ended up making the car bouncy. We picked up the car on Tuesday, didn’t drive it on Wednesday, but Thursday and then again Friday we did. On both days, me first, then Donna, noticed a kind of metallic rattle from the left rear when hitting sharp bumps. Wondering if maybe someone didn’t tighten something up during the shock change, I decided to check it out today.

First thing I did was put the front of the car on jack stands. Front? Yeah, I also needed to change out that burnt out fog light bulb. And while it can be done while laying on your back under the car, but it is much easier to jack it up and take off the tires. Even though only one was out I opted to change them both because with my luck if I did just one, the other would fail within week. Seriously Sylvania, fifty-four bucks for a pair of SilverStar Ultra H1 bulbs?!? I went with $7.75 ea Plain Jane H1.

With the front done I jacked up the back end and pulled both of those tires. A visual and shake check revealed nothing loose or out of place under there, so it was time to check in the trunk. My first thought was to just flat out empty everything out of the trunk and take the car for a spin to see if the noise remained. As I pulled out the faux carpet covering the spare I noticed something, a 3/8 drive, 14mm deep socket sitting on top of the rim of the spare tire. That just might be it. Just in case I hunted around for anything else that didn’t belong and found nothing. Buttoned everything back up and did a quick run around the block running over every imperfection and manhole cover. Didn’t hear a rattle.Big test will be the next time we go over some railroad tracks.

I guess I’ll give Steve a call on Monday and see if he wants his socket back.

Hey! Four Eyes!

Three of the pairs of glasses I’m thinking of trying from Warby Parker on the 5 pairs, 5 day deal, I could mock up using their Virtual Try On service. I had to layout the Percy and the Reynolds myself using Paint Shop Pro. I’m still waiting on our local eyeglass place to get me the ones I picked out from them. If I haven’t from them in another week I’ll go online and try these.

We missed out on the usual Friday bike ride to work this morning because when we started loading up the bike I noticed the rear tire was flat, like no air at all. We either picked up something on the way home or I didn’t get the tube in right the other week and it finally failed.

Speaking of failure, the left fog light of the Emperor has burned out. Sounds like a Sunday afternoon project.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1155

We Built A Wall, We Built The Pyramids

Even though the title is one more line from TBBT theme song, I got nothing related to it. As matter of fact the only thing I do have is that the driver’s side fog light on the Emperor is burnt out.

OK, OK, maybe one more thing. It is time for some new glasses and I have been kind of thinking to go retro thanks to TDTVS2. Trouble is there are no frames like that to choose from at any of the local eyeglass places. Then along came Lifehacker the other day who turned me on to Warby Parker, so I may just give that Home Try On (5 Pairs, 5 Days, 100% Free!) a try.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1154

Neanderthals Developed Tools

Finished watching the last episode of TBBT tonight. Kind of schmaltzy. We had stopped watching the show after Season 3 because of the direction it was taking. We then restarted after catching a couple of Season 4 re-runs because we caught ourselves laughing at it anyway. But now I sense another break in watching coming up for Season #6.

I have one brickbat for Dunkin Donuts. They have (re)started a Coffee Club Punch Card, you know, buy 8 cups and get number nine free. The trouble with the card is it is about a 1/16 of an inch to long to fit in my wallet’s credit card slot. Took a couple missed punch opportunities before I took some scissors and trimmed its length enough that it fit right in front of my DD gift card.

To balance things out I have a bouquet for them as well. Donna and my favorite spot for dining at DD is on the bar-like tables with tall chairs that face out towards the parking lot. Breakfast goes so much better with some people watching thrown in. Trouble is, our view is frequently blocked by those opaque giant cups of coffee and breakfast sandwich static clings. Much to our pleasure, last week we sat down, we could see right through them. They finally adopted the kind that are full of holes making them appear solid on the outside and slightly darkly tinted on the inside.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1153

The Autotrophs Began To Drool

Since we last spoke a week ago*:

The Miata has gotten a bath to wash last Saturday’s bugs off only to put some more back on yesterday when we took the MMC to Sardis.

I’ve got the new shocks for the Emperor in the garage which will probably get installed this week some time. Went with the non-adjustable Koni SRTs this time, because why spent twice as much for the adjustable Sport models.

The FRS have won 3 games and lost 4 which is pretty much on par for the way this season is going. Unfortunately the MFY won all seven (now nine in a row for them) putting the Red Sox (who are still in last in their division) 8 games out.

Mad Men is over for another year and we now have absolutely nothing to watch on TV except for The Big Bang Theory and we only have 4 episodes of that to watch before we are all caught up with all the Season 5 shows.

*Where the heck did it go? Seems like yesterday…

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up again, down once more, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1152

19,000 Volts

According to Wikipedia, Chevrolet has sold a little over 15,000 Volts in the US since they started producing them in 2010. The world wide sales numbers are a little hazier, but if I had to guess, the total number of these plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in service today is probably around 19,000.

I saw my first one in the wild today, in white, while not necessarily attractive, it is certainly not ugly either, as it passed by me on I-20 in Columbia.

Somewhere just east of New Holland, the Purple Whale, windshield wipers slapping back and forth, passed the 19,000 mile mark.

Radio Paradise HD

My favorite internet radio station has it own channel on the Roku box. It is called Radio Paradise HD and it streams the same music as the radio stream, but with the addition of photos that compliment the title, artist or lyrics.

Tonight I decided to upload a few of my photos to see if they might use them. The submission form had room for eight files, so that is how many I uploaded for now. Maybe next time I do a few Enchanted Ceiling shots. One of the one tonight was the above image of Carhenge from our 2009 trip out west.

For the first time in about 3 weeks we rode the tandem to work. This is a great time of year for this because now that school is out for the summer traffic on the way to work is almost non-existent and not much more on the way home.

This is going to leave a hour long hole in my Saturday morning – Click & Clack Hang Up Their Microphones