One Down, Maybe Three More To Go

Jerry the Condo King called me about a week ago to ask advice about buying a bicycle. Not for him, but for his mid-30’s daughter. She is mostly a runner, but has enjoyed borrowing his balloon tired bike and speeding around the bike paths on HHI. She mentioned graduating to a road bike and he said if you join the local bike club he’d buy her a bike. Little did he know. He check a local bike store and was flabergasted that an entry level hybrid/cross bike was $750. I suggested he check with the local Club and see if anyone had a used bike for sale. Once you get into it, it is like anything, you keep upgrading equipment until you can’t afford it any more, usually long eclipsing your competency level.

When I told Donna about Jerry’s call, she said, “What about my old road bike?” I didn’t even think about that. We both have fairly decent road bikes that were near top of the line about a dozen years ago that we don’t really ride anymore. I called Jerry back and asked how tall his daughter was. Five foot three. Bingo, Donna is 5′-2″, the bike would fit. I emailed him pictures and told him it she was interested, for $200 he could have it. Last Saturday he drove up from Hilton Head with two crisp Ben Franklins and drove home with a 1994 Bridgestone RB-1/7 with upgrade STI shifting. I tried to foist my road bike off on the daughter’s boyfriend, but he wasn’t biting. If you know anyone who might be interested in a 12 or 13 year-old Bianchi with full Ultegra 600 stuff and a cool dark purple/silver paint job let me know. I don’t know the frame size off the top of my head, but if you are 5′-9 to 6′-0 it should fit. $200 +shipping if you can’t drive here to get it.

We have two older (from the early 80s) bikes that we used to use as commuter bikes that we haven’t used for 5 or 6 years now. Each spring we think, maybe we’ll start back to riding to work and never do. Trouble is that they are so old (even though they have seen some upgrades over the years) that they are hardly worth much at all, but they are perfectly serviceable as commuters, but talk about a limited market. If I could get a hundred dollars a piece for them I can’t say as I’d be happy but it would be better than them hanging in my garage serving as spider homes.

We really have found a home on the tandem. Went for a little 11 mile ride this evening at dusk and it was very enjoyable. We are even concocting a plan on how to commute on the bike for two. I bought a front low rack for panniers and some extenders to retro fit an older rear rack off the internet last night from JANDD Mountaineering. When they get here we will be able to carry two sets of bags, one set each and then add a trunk bag for lunches.

Oh yeah, we had the breakfast of bicycle champions this morning too. Hardee’s Biscuit and Gravy for her and 2 Sausage and Egg Biscuit for me. We shared a water and order of Hash Rounds.

Meal Cost: $4.64
Tip: None
Spent Today: $4.64
Year to Date: $927.67

I posted another email joke forwarded from Mark (I think that needs an acronym – EJFFM), so if you like quasi-dirty humor, click on the Joke category for a look at it.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 137

First Dance

A wedding took place just outside St. John’s, Newfoundland. In keeping with tradition, everyone got extremely drunk and the bride’s and groom’s families had a storming row. They began wrecking the reception room and generally kicking the living daylights out of each other.

The police got called in to break up the fight and the following week, all members of both families appeared in St. John’s court. The fight continued in the courtroom until the Judge finally brought calm with the use of his gavel, shouting, “Silence in the Court!”.

The courtroom goes silent and Paddy, the Best Man, stood up and says, “Your Honour, I was the Best Man at the wedding and I think I should explain what happened”.

The Judge agrees and asks Paddy to take the stand.

Paddy began his explanation by telling the court that it is tradition at a St. John’s wedding that the Best Man gets the first dance with the bride.

The judge says, “Okay. Continue.”

“Well, said Paddy, “after I had finished the first dance, the music kept going, so I danced to the second song, and after that the music kept going and I was dancing to the third song when all of a sudden – the groom leapt over the table, ran towards us and gave the bride an unmerciful kick right between her legs.”

Shocked, the judge instantly responded, “Lord Jesus that must have hurt!”

HURT?” Paddy replies, “HE BROKE THREE OF MY FINGERS !!!!!!”

Spontaneous Debadging

The Emperor has been surviving on sponge baths, AKA Meguiars Quik Detailer, for a while now, but today after work I gave him a proper washing. Then I decided to lay a coat of wax on there too. I used some Meguiars paste cleaning wax I had under the cabinet. Looks a whole lot better now, but the finish doesn’t feel baby butt smooth. Maybe tomorrow when I get home from work I’ll put another layer of wax on. I have a bottle of something else under there, I think it is called Black Magic and maybe that is what I used last time. If one layer is good, two have got to be better. Right?

While I was taking off the wax, getting it off around the edges of the chrome Mazda logo on the back end, it came loose and one side fell down. The badge is held on by 2 pins and one was broke, so I pulled the badge off the car. There are usually these fancy one way push washers on the pins, but there wasn’t one on the non broken pin and there was some adhesive behind the lettering holding the badge on. What the heck, I might as well take off the MX-5 Miata badge on the other side too. On my ’95 the Mazda was held on by two pins, like this one, and the Miata was just held on by double stick tape. I went in the house and got a piece of dental floss to “saw” through the adhesive. The floss broke three times in about the same spot. That is when I realized on the ’03 the MX-5 Miata badge was held on by two pins as well. I wrapped a screwdriver in a rag and pried off the badge. Turns out it was held on by no adhesive and only one push on washer.

I now have 2 small holes on both sides of the license plate. With the dark color car they are hardly noticeable, but I think I may fill them in with something and then use touch up paint to hide them better. When I debadged the rear on the ’95 I replaced both badges with hand cut replicas made of blue reflective vinyl. The blue on blue was very subtle in the day but really stood out at night when headlights hit them.

Now, as I write this, I know why the badges were held on so haphazardly. The body shop weasels did it when they repaired my little trunk bender from last year. The adjuster put in the cost of new badges when he did the estimate. Satcher Ford’s Body Shop reused the old badges and charged the insurance company for new ones.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 135

Mmmm Mmmuffins

Miataless Post OfficeWe bought this morning’s breakfast from the New Moon Cafe after yesterday’s hike, a low fat Blueberry muffin for her and a Raspberry Coconut muffin for him (which we ended up splitting 50-50.)

Meal Cost: $2.65
Tip: 35¢
Spent This Meal: $3.00

After breakfast we tried to make up for the last 3 weeks on non-activity in the Post Office quest by heading to the capital city of the Great State of South Carolina and getting a photo of all 13 POs. Mission accomplished. The only Post Office not accounted for that lists Columbia as the city is the one on the Army base, Fort Jackson. (They have an Open House on the 18 & 19 of May for Armed Forces Day so we might try and sneak in then.)

A few years back a favored Sunday lunch spot was an Italian fast food chain called Fazoli’s, but they closed up shop here in Aiken and we have missed eating their food quite often since then. Well, Columbia has two Fazoli’s and both are close to some of our destination Post Offices, so we thought it might be a treat to eat there for lunch. I guess our memories have been colored by time (or maybe it was this particular restaurant) because it didn’t seem worth the trip. The Twice Baked Ziti with Hearty Meat Sauce was good and the bread sticks were practically dripping in butter, but the salad and the dressing left a lot to be desired. I had a fountain Coke and Donna had water.

Meal Cost: $10.76
Tip: None
Spent This Meal: $10.76
Spent Today: $13.38
Year to Date: $923.03

Five out of six isn’t half bad. As a matter of fact it is 83% good. After looking lackluster on Fox yesterday the FRS came out swinging against the dreaded Yankees today and came out on top of a 7 to 4 score. Big Papi contributed a homer, as did the coming out of his funk Manny Rameriz, but those guys are expected to smack the long ball. A nice bonus was a homer from our utility infielder Alex Cora. Now we have 19 warm up games until we come back to the “House That Ruth Built” on the 21st of May.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 133

57,000 Little Purple Flowers

FlowerWe went for a hike in the Woods this morning. In our quest to walk on all the trails in there we entered in a different spot than usual and purposely walked on some trails that really didn’t go anywhere special, just looped and/or spurred out along the edges. We did stumble on the big field that was full of these little purple wildflowers (botanists feel free to let me know what they might be.)

For lunch Donna had a hankering for Mexican so we headed over to our new favorite place for that regional cuisine, Maria’s. We got the usual Carnitas and forgetting that we really didn’t need them, 3 hard shell tacos. Sierra Mist to drink for the lady and I had ice water.

Meal Cost: $15.27
Tip: $2.73
Spent Today: $18.00
Year to Date: $909.27

On the short 1-1/2 mile drive back from Maria’s the Emperor ticked past the 57,000 mile mark. To make up for passing that major milestone on such a short trip, tonight when we went grocery shopping we took the 28 mile longcut to the store that is only a mile away.

I found this cool place on the web that will create just the right striped background image for you, Stripe Generator 2.0, now I just wish this template wasn’t so confounded complex so I could add some stripes here.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 130

Small Pickup

StuffedFinally hosed off the screened porch this evening. Even with a good vacuuming, the cushions on the patio furniture still looked a little yellow. Plus they were also getting a little tired looking. Hey, this is the furniture we have had out there since we built the deck back in 2000. A command decision was made to go to Lowe’s and buy some new cushions.

We got about a 1/4 of the way there when Donna asked had we determined whether we needed mid back or high back cushions. I made a U-turn and we came back home to measure our existing cushions. They were 46″ long, high back.

We had pre-shopped online the other day and had picked out some cushions we liked, now we hoped that our local store had enough of what we wanted in stock. We have a big table for 6, a chaise lounge and two rocker/swivel chairs, meaning we need 8 seat cushions and one chaise cushion. We were in luck as they had just 8 of the chair cushions and a bunch of the chaise cushions. We picked this pattern because it is reversible and we could use one side for the six chairs at the table and use the other side for the chaise rocker grouping.

All those cushions take up a lot of space. Mmmm, should we call our friend with a pickup or our neighbor with a pickup. Ooops, forgot the cell phone. I am fond of saying that the Miata is as good as a pickup on a sunny day and now it is time to see just how true that is. I was disappointed. I could only get 5 chair cushions and the chaise cushion in the car, so I had to make 2 trips. If I had a couple of bungee cords I probably could have gotten all the cushions in and on the car, but I still would have had to make two trips because I would have had to go back to get the wife.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 130

Imagine

What Would Yoko Say?“You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will live as one.”

Right now I’m working at my ripping CDs project and listening to the FRS come from behind to whoop up on the Baltimore Orioles. I’ve almost got one shelf of the ten total done and I’m up to Bogguss, Suzy.

I’m still leaking copious amounts of Brain Lubricant, but I made it all the way through the work day without the overwhelming desire to take a nap. I made it all the past dinner before having to catch 20 winks.

When I woke up Fox News was in the middle of wall to wall coverage of a low speed chase in LA, some knucklehead in a stolen car was leading cops and news helicopters around town. At one point, riding on nothing but the rims, the “suspect” did several doughnuts in the middle of an intersection leaving nicely marked up asphalt in his wake. When they finally stopped him, he immediately hit the ground flat and about 20 LEOs pounced on him. I’m sure it would have caused a big uproar in the media, but I was actually hoping they would beat the crap out of him for being so stupid.

Uploaded the other 24 photos from the northeast trip, but I’ve still only got captions on about eight. I’d better get busy because 4 weeks from tomorrow we are off to the other side of the country for 10 days.

The screened porch is still covered in a layer of pine pollen and my hope is to get out there after work tomorrow and wash it off.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 126