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.

We Wish You…

Please accept — with no obligation, implied or implicit — my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable tradition of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your preference. In addition, please enjoy a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2005.

*Quoted from Brian Damage

British Invasion III & IV

Its Christmas Eve and seeing as I have a traditional holiday greeting reserved for tomorrow, I just go ahead and post a picture of Paul and George together:

British Invasion

The Beatles arrived today, one day ahead of schedule, so far, only Ringo is out of his box:

Finally, A Nice Day

It made it to the middle sixties today. wOOt! It had clouded up by quitting time, but it was still warm enough for a trip home with the top down – no coat required. On the way home I stopped in to Autozone and picked up 4 quarts of Penzoil 10-30. Rotated the tires and changed the oil at 18,813 miles. Grandpa Mazda recommends changing the oil every 7500 miles, but I like to do it halfway between as well. This way the Emperor gets some nice clean blood every three thousand seven hundred fifty miles. I lifted the car up and put it on 4 jack stands, this way after removing the front right tire I can get to the drain plug easy enough. While the oil drains I go ahead and get 3 of the 4 tires rotated. Before putting the right front back on I swap oil filters. Takes about an hour and a half from start to finish.

I think my friends at Rader, they changed the oil last, used the impact wrench on the drain plug, as it was a bear to get off. Because the car was full hot I expected a little resistance in removing the plug, but my usual ice cube trick didn’t seem to help much. Even after melting 2 cubes on the head of the drain plug it still wouldn’t come loose. I had to resort to gently tapping on the end of the wrench with a hammer to get it off. I wonder what the torque spec for the oil drain plug is?

The answer is 22-30 foot pounds