Long and Winding Road

Back at the end of April the badges on the back of the Emperor came off or were removed and I have never done anything about it. I tossed around a couple of ideas, like stickers or custom lettering, but a couple of weeks ago I hit on an idea that seemed just offbeat enough for me to try, Pontiac Solstice badges. I figured with all the Miata enthusiasts taking their badges off, there were bound to be a few Solstice owners doing the same. Off to the nation’s flea market, eBay.

There were no Pontiac Solstice badges for sale, but I did find some old script style badges that say Ford & Deluxe. Hey, Ford owns a controlling interest in Mazda… And for 98¢ plus shipping, how could I go wrong?

Well, shipping was $6.40 for Postal Service Priority Mail 2-3 day delivery and maybe I wouldn’t have taken umbrage with how long it took the items to get to me if the item and shipping prices were reversed:

Auction Ended, 3:16 pm, August 05, 2007
Paypaled Seller, 10:43 am, August 06, 2007
Electronic Shipping Info Received, August 09, 2007
Mailed, August 10, 2007, MURRIETTA, CA 92653
Enroute, August 13, 2007, 11:57 pm, BELL, CA 90201
Enroute, August 18, 2007, 9:28 am, ATLANTA, GA 30369
Package arrived, August 20, 2007 4:30 pm

My new camera is doing some traveling too.

MISSOULA, MT – 8/15/2007
BILLINGS, MT – 8/16/2007
MINNEAPOLIS, MN – 8/17/2007
INDIANAPOLIS, IN – 8/20/2007
LEXINGTON, KY – 8/21/07
GREENSBORO, NC – 8/21/2007
WEST COLUMBIA, SC – 8/21/2007
AIKEN, SC – 8/22/2007

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 339

Infedelity Uncovered

A man returning home a day early from a business trip got into a taxi at the airport. It was after midnight. While en route to his home, he asked the cabby if he would be a witness as he suspected his wife was having an affair and he intended to catch her in the act. For $100, the cabby agreed.

Quietly arriving at the house, the husband and cabby tiptoed into the bedroom. The husband switched on the lights, yanked the blanket back and there was his wife in bed with another man.

The husband put a gun to the naked man’s head.

The wife shouted, “Don’t do it! This man has been very generous! I lied when I told you I inherited money. He paid for the new golf clubs I bought you. He paid for the Corvette I bought for you He paid for our new cabin cruiser. He paid for our house at the lake. He paid for our country club membership, and he even pays the monthly dues!”

Shaking his head from side-to-side, the husband slowly lowered the gun. He looked over at the cab driver and said, “What would you do?”

The cabby said, “I’d cover him up with that blanket before he catches a cold.”

65,000 Cars Backed Up on I-95

Crocketville?We are at 221 South Carolina Post Offices. About half. I say about because when I started this and made up my spreadsheet of all the POs in the state I came up with 460. How accurate that total will turn out to be is not clear. Ther are 9 military bases that I’m not sure I will be allowed to waltz onto to just take a picture. There is a Greenwood Post Office I know exists, but isn’t on the list because it is not listed on USPS.com. How many more are there that I don’t know about? How many are listed and aren’t there anymore?

So far, four are MIA, including the one that is supposed to be at 4708 Sandy Run Road (see attached photo) that we tried to find today. On the USPS web site this is called a Hampton Post Office, with a name of Crocketville. As you can see it doesn’t look much like a Post Office. Probably was one when Crocketville was a real town and not just a marked section on SC63 east of Hampton, but no more.

There are 3 Post Offices listed for Walterboro, two of which are north of town and not too far off I-95, so it was decided to get these two before getting the downtown PO. The best laid plans… We got on I-95 heading north and after a 1/2 mile there were orange signs warning of an accident ahead. Then we got one of those display boards that said there was a detour around the accident at the next exit. Then with three miles to go to the exit, traffic came to a standstill. We crept along with 65,000 other cars to the next exit. Donna suggested we give up on this PO because of the traffic, so we got off the northbound exit, looped right back on the southbound and shelved those Post Offices for another time.

Our other failure this weekend occurred in Beaufort on Lady’s Island. We couldn’t find the address of 10 Sams Point Rd. There was a shopping center with a Publix that might have been it, but there was not any USP signage out front (nor an address either.) There was a shopping center kind of parallel but it was on a different road. We looked there and didn’t find anything either. Now that we are home and see that that road is called Sams Point Parkway it may need another visit. This is not a hardship in any way because this is just a stone’s throw away from the other reason we went south to Beaufort besides Post Offices, Barbara Jean’s crab cakes.

About 10 miles from home the Emperor passed through 65,000 miles.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 337

Miss Me?

Scotia, SC 29939I missed you?

At somewhat the last minute we decided to head south to take some Post Office pictures. Found a HI Express in a town called Yemassee and made a reservation. It wasn’t until we got there that I wondered if they had Internet access in the rooms. If it didn’t I’d be fine with that, I brought a book. Well, it turns out that there was wireless access, but because we were at the end of the hall it was weak as a kitten. After I gave up, Donna got the Weather Channel to load, but it appeared as if we were on a 14.4 modem (and then wouldn’t stay connected.) So we gave up.

Posting this on Sunday, but dating it Saturday for historical top transision data.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 335

End of Summer

End of SummerTechnically we still have over a month and here in Aiken we have more like two months before the summer like weather is gone, but today was the last week day before school starts. Come Monday morning the commute to work be 20x more aggravating as harried moms or dads drive their progeny to the hallowed halls of learning.

To celebrate the last work day of light traffic roads we rode the tandem to work today.

We’ll still ride the bike to work occasionally because we only have to share the school road with cars for about 30 yards (although it is uphill and seems like 50.) But we will now be alternating our car drive to work. On the weeks we go in early we will drive the more rural route because we are earlier than the school traffic, but the other week we will alter the route to include the four lane US 1 avoiding that traffic nightmare.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 333

You Can Dance If You Want To, But I Don’t Have To Watch

Because the FRS have the evening off I had nothing better to do than watch a little tube. We started to watch Fever Pitch and made it a whole 34 minutes before shutting it off. Part of the problem was the whole language problem you see, it was not the Drew Barymore / Jimmy Fallon American version, but the original British movie. Maybe if they had American English sub-titles…

From there I started to watch a Law & Order episode that was about 5 minutes in. I had seen it before, but as usual didn’t remember the ending, so I watched it through. Beautiful thing of it is, that in another year or so if I stumble on that episode again, I’ll have forgotten it again, so the ending will be a surprise. Again.

Right after that, TNT segued right into another L & O episode. This one I hadn’t seen, so I watched it for the first time. It started out with a thinly disguised re-hashing of that poor Cubs fan in 2004 who tried to catch a foul ball and was then subsequently blamed for them not making the playoffs. It later turned into a whole corrupt police officer and DNA clearing a wrongly accused murder, yada, yada, yada. Beautiful thing of it is that in another year or so if I stumble on that episode again, I’ll have forgotten it, so the ending will be a surprise. Again.

Two hours of TV was enough, even when it is “good” TV, so I handed the remote to Donna and picked up a book. She started channel checking while I read with one eye and watched the flashing images with my other. She paused on something I didn’t recognize, (The TV listings say it was Supernatural, but I can’t confirm or deny that because I am not familiar with the show.) and I looked up for a second and said that I thought that a couple of the people in it looked familiar. She tired of whatever it was and clicked to the next channel. Two people were salsa dancing? It was Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance? I made a smart aleck crack like, “There’s something I *don’t* want to be familiar with.” She laughed and changed the channel. Wouldn’t you know it but the next channel was PBS and they were showing Live From Lincoln Center : “Mozart Dances” The Mark Morris Dance Group performs… We both looked at each other and thought the same sarcastic thought, only I voiced it, “Now there is something I *want* to be familiar with.”

Next up, was the Weather Channel. There was a meteorologist in a parking lot in San Antonio standing in a dry parking lot waving his hands vaguely stage left telling us how much water used to be there. Riveting. That’s when I left the room.

With apologies to Men Without Hats: We Can’t Dance If We Want To

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 333

The Koala & The Little Lizard

A koala is sitting up a gum tree smoking a joint when a little lizard walks past and looks up and says “Hey Koala! What are you doing?”

The koala says: “Smoking a joint, come up and have some.”

So the little lizard climbs up and sits next to the koala and they have a few tokes.

After a while the little lizard says his mouth is ‘dry’ and is going to get a drink from the river. The little lizard is so stoned that he leans too far over and falls into the river.

A crocodile sees this, swims over to the little lizard, helps him to the side and asks the little lizard, “What’s the matter with you?”

The little lizard explains to the crocodile that he was sitting smoking a joint with the koala in the tree, got too stoned and then fell into the river while taking a drink.

The crocodile says he has to check this out and walks into the rain forest, finds the tree where the koala is sitting finishing a joint, and he looks up and says, “Hey Koala!”

So the koala looks down at him and says: “Shiiiiiiiiiiit dude……how much water did you drink???”