The Silence Is Deafening

Radios and CD players have always been strictly forbidden at work and when the Internet on our network became available, they added streaming music to the ban too. And over the years there have been periodic reminders that this is a no-no. In spite of this I have always listened to music by storing mp3s on the hard drive and playing them using Winamp (which makes it doubly wrong because loading unauthorized software and using the work PC for anything besides work is forbidden by a different set of rules.) I do play the music at such a level that unless you are in my cube, practically sitting on my lap, you can’t really hear it, so I don’t think any of my neighbors complained.

Last Friday another reminder on the music ban made the rounds via email from Human Resources, for some reason I took this one seriously and deleted several gigs of music and uninstalled Winamp. The last two days have been really quiet in my cubical.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 560

Ides Of March

The Ides of March is the name of March 15 in the Roman calendar. The term ides was used for the 15th day of the months of March, May, July, and October, and the 13th day of the other months. The Ides of March was a festive day dedicated to the god Mars and a military parade was usually held.

In modern times, the term Ides of March is best known as the date that Julius Caesar was killed in 709 AUC or 44 B.C. Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Roman Senate led by Marcus Junius Brutus, Gaius Cassius Longinus and 60 other co-conspirators. According to Plutarch, Caesar was warned by a seer to be on his guard against a great peril on the Ides of March. On his way to the Theatre of Pompey (where he would be assassinated), Caesar saw the seer and joked “Well, the Ides of March have come,” to which the seer replied “Ay, they have come, but they are not gone.”

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 558

Carriage Ride

We were 5 of 7 in geocaching this morning. This afternoon I finally did change the oil and rotate the tires on the Emperor. While I was at it I gave him a bath too. He got quite dirty yesterday when Donna had me drive up and down the local dirt roads trying to catch a glimpse of horse drawn carriages.

Before yesterday’s running of the first “jewel” of Aiken’s Triple Crown (the flat races) there was supposed to be a carriage parade. Seeing as we were not interested in the races and too cheap to spend the $10 a piece to get in and watch the actual parade, we guessed at the start point and cruised the dirt roads looking for it. Alas, there was no external parade, the carriages came to the horse track in there own good time. We stopped near the entrance where Donna jumped out to take a couple photos of the two carriages already inside the grounds and then we drove down a rutty, muddy road looking for more. we did find two more making their way to the track, including these two ladies all dressed in purple.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 557

Dipped Our Toe Back In The Water

On our way to do a little shopping today we decided to see if we could find From Tree To Shining Tree.

On our first attempt we found Stage 1 easy enough (well Donna found it easy), but Stage 2 in spite of being a regular sized container, eluded us. We were not the only ones who couldn’t find it either, several people before us couldn’t find it as well, including some cachers with very large find numbers. The owner checked on the cache and sure enough the final stage was gone.

Four months went by before the owner placed a new second stage in the field. We had the cache on our Watch List, so when it went back live, we went after it the very next weekend. We hadn’t saved the Stage 2 coords from our first attempt, so we went back to the first stage, where this time it was easy even for me, I had been there before. Good thing we did that too, the 2nd stage had been relocated. We knew this because we were lead right by where we were searching on our first try to a spot 25 feet outside the park fence to a barren spot that had no possible place to hide anything without it being in plain sight. We alerted the owner, who was mystified as to the mix up, as she was sure had placed the final hide inside the park, she would check on it hen she got back in town.

Three months go by this time before the cache is reactivated. We don’t get to go looking for it for another month. Two hundred and forty three days after our first DNF we finally get to add this cache to the find database.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 556

The Professional

Finally finished the last ever Spenser novel yesterday. It has taken me a lot longer than normal to finish for a couple of reasons, Donna got sick so I haven’t had the time and for some reason I just couldn’t get interested in the story. Maybe it was subconscious, knowing that it is the last of the line or maybe it really is as the critics have said, the last several Spenser novels were written on autopilot without much thought to plot, but more a gathering of old friends in familiar situations.

I had started reading them all over again and got as far as #4 before the last two books I didn’t own showed up in the mail. They first few were when Robert B. Parker was feeling his way in developing who Spenser would become and the last few, well, see above. Maybe I need to reread the middle group when the series was really cooking. I’ll start at 15, Crimson Joy, and work my way to Sudden Mischief, #25.

The last book held one last Spenser’s Crime Buster Rule – One of Spenser’s Rules For Criminal Investigation: Most things have two ends. i.e. I’d gotten nothing much from Beth’s end, so I decided to try the other end, and went out to JP to visit Boo.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 553

Dr. Buffer

One of my favorite House episodes in on USA right now, the Season 4 opener Alone, where he uses the help of a janitor and Cuddy to solve a case because his team of three years quit on him. But the best part is the sub plot where Wilson “kidnaps” House’s $12k guitar. Which now that I’m re-watching it, was probably inspirational in my having fun with Rob’s dead roach a while back.

Ooooh, an In Plain Sight promo, March 31st. Looks like I need a new countdown.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 551

Way Behind

I am either way behind in blogging about the oil changes on the Emperor or just way behind in actually doing one. My routine has been to change the oil every 3,750 miles, which is exactly twice as often as Mazda recommends and while I’m at it I rotate the tires from front to back. But the last time I mention an oil change was on September 6th, which judging by my Miata Mileage posts would put it at around 95.5K or about 9,000 miles ago!

This Saturday I’m going to do the oil change slash rotate the tires thing. Unless I forget to buy oil or it rains or…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 551