New Year’s Day Tradition

I know two years in a row, can hardly be called a tradition, but it is a start. Last year on New Year’s Day Donna and I went for a hike in the Sumter National Forrest on a trial that we used to mountain bike back in the day. The Horn Creek Trail is almost 6 miles long in Lick Fork State Park about 30 miles from Aiken. This year we invited another couple we know from the Miata Club to join us. Even though both John and I had washed our cars the day before, we didn’t flinch too bad at having to drive the last 1/2 mile to the trailhead on a dirt/gravel road. (I did use the California Duster when I got home.)

Happy New Blog

I’ve threatened it a couple of times before, well now I’ve gone and done it. I’ve merged my three separate blogs into one. No more PLOG, all my photos will get published here. No more Brian’s Daily Rant, I will be bitching here. No more Miata Diaries, car stuff goes here too. I will leave the old ones up for reference purposes. I would probably have imported them into here, but Pivot doesn’t have a way to export entries in a manner that MT would understand, so there they stay.

Pardon the dust as there are still a few things left on the punch list.

OOPs

I really need help on this whole Help! movie thing as I didn’t realize it is OOP. I wondered when I went to Amazon.com the there was no “Add to Cart” button, can’t buy it new because it is Out Of Print. I can but like new ones that have been imported from overseas for around $20. If I would like a brand new MPI official 1965 copy, they sell for around $200. Yikes. I’m thinking I’ll be waiting around for a re-release.

Took advantage of the warm weather to wash and then wax the car this morning. What kind of wax does Mr. Miata use you are asking yourself. Because if someone who has a blog based on life with his Miata and registered the domain name mr-miata.net he must use a special 7 step waxing regimen using the finest ingredients that money can buy. Well, not really. I finally used up some Mequier’s paste wax in a can I have had for about a decade the last time I did some touch up waxing in September. The other week when I knew I was going to be waxing the car I bought a bottle of some Black Magic Wet Shine Liquid Wax, cost, around eight bucks. Wax is pretty much wax to me. This stuff went on super easy, but a bit more difficult to get off. Plus if you didn’t get a couple of good passes with a clean part of the towel the color of the paint underneath looked streaky and kind of subtly two-toned. Once you got all the wax off, the car really looks good, I would swear it looked more red, less dull maroon, under today’s cloudy sky.

Help!

Trekked to Augusta this evening. First order of business was to run the Master’s Miata Club‘s newsletter through the postage meter at Rader. Sorry we didn’t stop and say hello Scott, but we were hungry and the ribs at Tony Roma’s were beckoning. Besides I’m sure you were busy selling cars as Kwanzaa gifts. đŸ˜‰

Second order of business was to shop. I am owed $50, thirty-five from a misspent Target gift card plus fifteen bucks for the vig. I am searching high and low looking for the movie Help! with the Beatles. Target – nope. Circuit City – nope. Boder’s – nope. Best Buy – nope. I tried my level best locally, so off to the net I go…

It was in the upper 60’s when we left work and even though the sky had clouded up, it was still warm enough for top down motoring. As the night crept on the cold crept in, it was in the upper 20’s by the time we started for home. The top stayed down, but the windows went up and the heater came on a touch,

Target Gift Card

My mother-in-law gave me a Target gift card for Christmas. Tonight Donna and I stopped in to see about me spending it. While I shopped for DVDs and CDs she headed over to the 50% off Christmas Stuff Sale. I looked up and down and far and wide, but just couldn’t pull the trigger. I was really looking for HELP! and it wasn’t there. There were plenty of movies I kind of wanted to see, but they just didn’t fall into the buy category. I couldn’t find two CDs I really wanted (needed two to spend most of the value of the card.) I was tempted by a two-disc Norah Jones box, one of her second CD and another of a DVD with a few videos and an interview. In the end I decided to wait and see about maybe heading over to the bigger store in Augusta later this week.

Donna didn’t have any trouble filling her basket with 1/2 off merchandise. As we checked out the total of her stuff came to about 2 bucks less that the gift card value, so guess how we paid? Right, easy come, easy go….

19,000 Miles

On a totally uneventful trip home from work today the “Emperor” passed through the 19,000 mile mark. That is averaging nearly 1,500 miles a month. The car is dirty and I thought seeing as it was in the 50s this evening I would wash it. Parked in the driveway and looked at the car and it wasn’t as dirty as I thought, so instead of buckets and sponges I though maybe I would give it a Quik Detailer and towel cleaning. When I looked under the cabinet in the garage I realized I was out of the Quik Detailer, so I gave up on the whole thing and pulled the car in the garage. New Year’s Day is supposed to be in the mid 70s. I’ll wait until then and I will be able to wash it in shorts. Maybe even wax it if I get ambitious enough.

Like A Bowl Full Of Jelly

Unfortunately I have been following my own Holiday Eating Tips pretty strictly. I don’t know if it has translated into that many pounds gained, but I sure feel like I have gained 10 pounds. To make matters worse I have a doctor’s appointment the first week of January where he is going to check to see how my cholesterol is doing. After last September’s dismal blood work, he has had me taking a herbal supplement called red yeast rice to see if that helps. I have been taking one pill a day in hopes of staving off high dollar medication and more importantly, I guess, clogged arteries. If I’m still up I’ll try and see if he’ll give me another three months taking 2 pills. After that I guess I will have to start cutting fat out of the ol’ diet. And heaven forbid, exercising more.