Gray Is The New White

Regular Navy TI’ve changed the design of one of my black T-shirts that I’m selling through CafePress. Instead of saying Real Navy, it now says Regular Navy. When I uploaded the image and previewed the new shirt, what I had as white in the image appeared gray online. I thought I had messed something up, so I checked the colors and uploaded again, same gray results.

I next went over to the CafePress Forums to see if there was any mention of this issue. Sure enough, there is a sticky at the top of the general announcements board that they have muted the colors on the black T-shirts to better represent the actual finished product. Seems they were overly optimistic on their ability to get good solid printing on black.

Actually it works out kind of OK for me, the printing comes out looking like it is done in ‘Battleship Gray’, which is pretty much the official color of Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club anyway.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 378

We Get Letters

This was sitting in my in my gmail inbox when I got back from HHI today:

Brian,

Stumbled across your Real Navy t-shirt design tonight via a Google search and I wanted to let you know I have the Real Navy brand trademarked as I have been using it since 2002. I saw your article about the New Navy or Regular Navy and that same thought is what prompted me to start Real Navy.

I would like to ask that you not use the Real Navy slogan. I understand how I feel when a good idea hits but I’m afraid that this idea that you had is already being done. I would appreciate your response.

Regards,
Mike Ward
Real Navy
http://www.realnavy.com

My first reaction was WTF, this guy’s got the phrase “Real Navy” copyrighted? Doesn’t Uncle Sam already have dibs on that? Have your lawyer call my lawyer.

Real Navy T
But then I thought, he’s right, my bright ideas are always way past due. Why just a couple years ago I thought up one where you didn’t need your phone plugged in a jack in the wall and wires on poles to call people. I was all set to line up venture capital when someone pointed out that that had been possible since 1947. So if you were even remotely thinking about buying one of my shirts you had better do it within 24 hours, because I’m going to pull it from the CafePress shop. I’ll probably change the wording to something else, I wonder if he has any claim on, knowing the way real sailors think, Real Fucking Navy? 🙂

If you think my shirt stinks and it’s replacement is even worse, go check out Mike’s designs at RealNavy.com, something my strike your fancy there.

32,000 Grains of Sand

Not too far south of Aiken on the way to Hilton Head Island this past Friday, the Emperor glided past the 32,000 mile mark. And after a walk on the beach followed quickly by a trip to Piggly Wiggly, there are now about that many grains of sand embedded in the floor mats…

I would vacuum the car and wash the salt mist off if it wasn’t so damp and dreary this afternoon. I may shake out the mats and do a Quik Detailer wipe down later tonight. We are headed to Palm City FLA for a quick Christmas visit with Donna’s sister, leaving Thursday AM, and the weather for the trip down and during the visit is calling for rain, so I may not even bother.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 378

Close, But No Cigar

On the previous episode of As The Cholesterol Varies we were in a rocky hover mode, with the numbers changing slightly, some the right way and some the wrong way. After 4 months of Tricor…we are about the same. Good news is that the triglycerides are now under the limit, but the “good” cholesterol is still below where it should be. The Doc feels the only way to bring this number up is by adding a statin, so we are going to start taking the Red Yeast Rice again, but as an addition to the Tricor not just by itself. We’ll see what happens in April.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal <200 >40 <100 30-150
09/21/04 209 24 131 271
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
12/08/05 182 35 120 137

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 376

I Hate Christmas

It is easy to buy something for someone close to you, with personal interaction you get an idea of what they want by how they react to the world or even through blatant hints from them.

I speak to my mom on the phone once a month or so. I get to say a few words to my brother if he happens to answer the phone when I call mom (he lives with her.) A stray email passes between my sister and I. Approximately once a year Donna and I pop in for a visit ranging from a few hours to a few days. So buying gifts for my family back in Connecticut is difficult, they are practically strangers. In a the 30-odd years since I left the Nutmeg State behind when I joined the Navy, the gift giving process has morphed from traditional to meaningless in a pace slightly faster than geological.

At first we exchanged gifts based on our mutual knowledge, but as the years apart grew, our tastes changed and the gifts given and received no longer were relevant.

Next we graduated to swapping lists. For a short while the generic ones would suffice; v-neck sweater in large or jazz records, but we soon decided that there were still more misses than hits.

The next level was the detailed list. J.C Penny Fall/Winter Catalog, Page 436, Item A, Men’s Mock Turtleneck in Heather, Size Large, etc. We got just what we asked for, but colors, textures and sizes were not always what we expected.

In the never ending quest for the perfect gift, we next ushered in the Gift Card era; Best Buy, Old Navy or B.Dalton Books thank you very much. I really don’t like the idea of trading gift cards in the mail. Suppose my brother said send me a gift card to Lowes and I tell him that I would like a gift card to Lowes too. Shouldn’t we just skip mailing them to each other? Save the time and energy of mailing them to each other. For that matter why even buy the gift card at all. Sometime in December go to the store and buy something you like and thank him for it in his Christmas card, “Love than cordless drill you got me bro’, it was just what I needed!”

The end of the gift card era is coming and I’m not sure that the next step is any better. Last year I gave my sister a gift card for Amazon.com. I bought it online, they mailed me the plastic card, I mailed the card to her and she redeemed it online. Which leads to the 21st century digital gift giving era…online gift certificates. You just cut out that whole messy US Postal Service middleman. Deadline, schmedline, you can get up Christmas morning with mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, log on to the net and email everyone an electronic gift card redeemable for merchandise available at an online store.

Well, I’m not going there, Donna and I are going down to Hilton Head Island this weekend and my mother, brother, sister and her husband are getting gifts with an HHI theme whether they want or like them.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 376

Speaking of the 3rd Gen Miata…

Might be time to get one, after a little over two years and less than 32k miles, our current car has developed a major defect. A dash rattle. Just started showing up on cold days at between 2600 & 2800 RPM. God, I hate dash rattles. Most times they are my fault because I had the dash apart to do some mod or another. This time it was self generated because I really haven’t disassembled the interior too much.

I remember the Laguna used to have a couple of dash rattles, one only showed up when the outside temperature was above 85 degrees and then there was another that only made an appearance when it was below 40 degrees. Different sounds for each and in spite of several attempts to find the source they never were quieted down. At least I had relatively quiet springs and falls.

With any lightweight, tightly sprung car you are eventually going to develop these annoying buzzes, creaks or rattles, it is only a matter of time. I was hoping for another year of quiet though.

Wait a minute, I just stuck a new CD in the glove box the other day, could it be that simple? I doubt it.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 376

$35 “Richer”

A little over 7 weeks ago I test drove a new 3rd generation Miata for two reasons; 1) curiosity and 2) the promise of a $35 Gift Card. My curiosity was satisfied immediately, the gift card arrived today.

Well, actually, the certificate to get a gift card. You go online and enter the codes from the paper and start shopping. The place that Mazda teamed up with must be a big clearing house for this sort of promotion, because there were several categories of merchandise to choose from along with a whole host of places that offered gift certificates. It was practically overwhelming the choices, under the household section of merchandise there were 742 items to look at. The other categories were as equally packed. Then I realized it was going to be slightly easier because they were listed in ascending price order and the $35 dollar limit was a small portion of the available items. Plus the items offered at that price level were mostly junk unappealing to me.

I headed over to the gift certificate section and figured I would just get one to Amazon.com where I could get just about anything, when my heart grew three sizes and I decided to not be so selfish and I picked a restaurant that Donna and I would enjoy and ordered $35 worth of gift certificates.

In 2 to 3 more weeks I’ll let you know what we had for dinner.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 376