Flat Hat

You’ll notice below that the top went up and then down today even though it didn’t rain nor did I wash the car.

Because I’m ever the southern gentleman, I always remove my hat when dining. Last night when we went out to eat at Outback instead of taking my very rare Red Sox World Champions ball cap inside and chancing losing it, I tossed it back in the car. Because it looked like it might rain while we were inside the restaurant, I put the convertible top up. The hat landed on the parcel shelf behind the seats. When we finished eating, the sky was clear enough so that we could drop the top for the trip home.

Tonight when I had to run out to drop of some dry cleaning, I went to grab my hat, it wasn’t there. Then I remembered. Before I backed out of the garage, I removed the boot and raised the top, so I could now remove my nicely pressed flat hat. Top went back down, boot went back on and with a quick bend of the brim, stuck the hat on my head and drove on my errand. Good thing that it was an unstructured cap…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 305

Up in Sin Jahn’s

A Scotsman, an Englishman and a Newfoundlander were sitting in a bar in Toronto. The view was fantastic, the beer excellent, and the food exceptional.

“As good as this is,” said the Scotsman, “I still prefer the pubs back home. In Glasgow, there’s a wee place called McTavish’s. The landlord goes out of his way for the locals. When you buy four drinks, he will buy the fifth drink for you.”

“Well, Angus,” said the Englishman, “At my local in London, the Red Lion, the barman will buy you your third drink after you buy the first two.”

“Ahhh, dat’s nothin’,” said the Newfie. “Back home in Sin Jahn’s there’s the Codfish Bar. The moment you set foot in the place, they’ll buy you a drink, then another, all the drinks you like, actually. Then, when you’ve had enough drinks, they’ll take you upstairs and see dat you get laid, all on the house!”

The Englishman and Scotsman immediately shout down the Newfie’s claims, but he swears every word is true. “Well,” said the Englishman, still suspicious. “Did this actually happen to you?”

“Not me meself, personally, no,” admitted the Newf. “But it did happen to me sister quite a few times.”

The Good News is the Ice Cream’s Free…

…the bad news is we sing off key!

For my birthday we went to Outback for dinner tonight. Like good people we split an order of babyback ribs and just ordered a second salad instead of ordering two entr?es. Like bad people we ordered coconut shrimp for an appetizer. To make up for that transgression we declined desert. But we got on anyway. On the way in Donna whispered to the hostess that it was my birthday, so a cadre of wait staff came over and serenaded me and handed me a ice cream sundae (with two spoons.) Donna knows that I hate this kind of thing, but I forgive her, at least she didn’t get them to decorate the conference room with black streamers and balloons at work and get the whole front office to give me those horrible over-the-hill gag gifts that take up a section of Spenser Gift stores…

All I want for a present is an FRS victory in tonight’s game against Toronto. They won this afternoon’s make-up for last night’s rain out already, keeping them tied with the Damn Yankees. These two rivals are locked in a tie for first place with seven games to go in the season. This weekend they play three games head to head that will more than likely decide who is going to the playoffs. Doesn’t get any better than this…

As you can see by the bottom of this page I managed to do a little importing, all the previous Mr. Fletcher’s Ride photos are now a part of the new blog. Even with the heroic measures taken, I overran my bandwidth limit and when I got home this afternoon, the web site was locked. I emailed the web host and he promptly upped my limit, so I’m back online. Hopefully next month I will get no where near my alloted 10Gig.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 303

The Sky Is Falling!

For the first time in almost a month* I had to put the top up in anger. We actually had rain this afternoon. Light rain for about a couple of hours, but it started just about quitting time, so I had to pull the boot and drive around like a regular car for a while.

* I’m not counting the Gap weekend because we normally put the top up for overnight hotel stays…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 300

Ooops

Ignore my last post. West Wing was on tonight at 8:00PM. When I finally got myself comfortable on the couch and surfed my way to NBC the show was just going off.

This sucks on so many levels. One, 8:00PM is too early to wrap up the day. Two, I missed the season premiere. Three, now I don’t feel like watching the show at all any more. Four, how could I have missed the start time?

Just Like Old Times, Sorta

NBC has moved The West Wing to Sunday nights at 9:00PM. It is going to be nice once again to have a definitive ending to the weekend. Everything that needs to be done, will be done a few minutes before 9:00PM, so when the show starts it can have my undivided attention for an hour, then at 10:00PM when it is over, preparations for bed can commence.

The last TV show that came on Sunday’s at 9 that I used to watch was The X-Files and I miss it as much for it’s role as a closer as I did for the stories. I know it is a little early, but I gotta go get a good seat on the couch…

Death of a Seat Clamp

Death of a Seat ClampSpent a few hours yesterday setting up the tandem.

I installed new tires and tubes to replace the 10 year old ones that came on the bike. They were in surprisingly good shape, but why take chances on the possibility of failure due to dry rot when barreling down a hill at 50MPH!

Wrapped the stoker’s handle bars with some new tape. The old stuff was dried out and not very comfortable. I bought enough to do the captains bars too, but didn’t use the second roll. The captain’s handle bar tape was in better shape, just a little faded and it was the same kind as the new stuff I bought, so the setup matched already. Now we have a spare set of tape for any future needs.

Next I installed the cycle computer for the stoker. There was an old Vetta already mounted on the captain’s bars, but my stoker likes to have her own, so she can see how far, fast and long we are riding. One of the joys of tandeming is pedaling like mad down a hill and reaching crazy fast speeds. The stoker cycle computer keeps the captain from having to answer, “How fast we going now?” questions every 15 seconds during descents…

Next I changed out the captain’s saddle from an older Vetta that was there with a newer fangled Flite Titanium with the cutout in the middle for the comfort of your private bits. I then took some measurements off the road bike and duplicated them on the tandem for the captain.

For the stoker on this bike you really can’t do that for handlebar reach, otherwise the handle bars would be in the middle of the captain’s thighs. But sitting a little more upright is not a problem on the back of a tandem, in fact Donna said she even enjoys it more there. Setting up the seat to pedal distance is still important. After our short ride of a couple a weeks ago Donna mentioned that she felt too low, like the seat needed to be higher. When I measured Donna’s road bike and compared it to the tandem they were already really close, hmmm, confusing. Until I realized that the softride beam gives when you sit on it to preload it. Loosened the pivot bolt and pulled up the beam a couple of inches. Not scientific, but a start. On the next ride we see how it feels. It is a one allen bolt adjustment, so I’ll pack the appropriate wrench and we can adjust mid ride if necessary.

This morning we headed out for ride to check and see how well I got it set up. Things went great for the first mile. Then a loud pop came from the back of the bike. I thought her foot had popped out of the pedal, but Donna said no, it felt like under seat. We stopped and dismounted. The seat felt secure but seemed to be leaning a little. When I looked under neath I could see why. One side of the seat clamp was broken. Oh well. We rode carefully back the mile in which we came and parked the tandem. All dressed for a ride we pulled down the single bikes and went for a short 12 mile ride north east of town.