Miata Weekend Off

At noon on Friday when we got home from work Donna & I and her Mom and Aunt piled into the MSV and headed north, destination Cherokee, NC. After dinner in our favorite little Italian place in north Georgia we arrived at the Holiday Inn in Cherokee. Right after Breakfast on Saturday we dropped off the ladies at Harrah’s so they could spend a chunk of the day feeding the one armed bandits. Donna & I went back to the hotel and packed the car and checked out. We then drove 5 miles the other way to go for a walk in the woods. She had picked a nice little 1-1/2 one way walk to a waterfall.

The leaves are at near peak and the morning, though cloudy, was crisp and in the lower 60’s. The walk was basically all uphill to a nice waterfall, who’s name I have forgotten already, but worth the walk. We then came back down the same way we went up. What a great way to spend the morning. After hiking we drove into Bryson City to find some lunch. We stumbled onto the 4th Annual Chili Cookoff, so guess what we had? For $5 you got a bowl, a spoon and a napkin and could sample any of the chili’s you would like. It started at 10:00 AM so by the time we got there a few had already run out and we missed voting for the people’s choice, but we got our fill of some very interesting tastes. After about 7 or 8 different half ladles of chili Donna and had had enough and took a little walk around downtown Bryson City. On the way back to the car we ducked into an ice cream shop, Donna got a scoop of chocolate, but I only got a small coke, as I was still full of chili. Turns out she was too, as she could only finish 1/2 the ice cream.

Then we went back to the casino to pick up Mom and Mary. Cell phones don’t work inside the casino and they won’t page anybody, so your only option is to wander around looking for who you want. Amazing how hard it is to find two particular little old ladies amongst the thousand or so people hunched over all those machines. It was pure luck we stumbled on Donna’s aunt. We then split the casino in halves and made another loop before we found Mom sitting in one corner. I can’t imagine how the atmospheres we each spent our mornings in coul be any further apart. Donna and I out in the clean air of nature and Mom & aunt in the closed, dark, smoke filled, beer in the carpet smelling room. Next time, they have a certain time to meet us outside.

The UPS man had left the side sills from Trussville on the back deck as I asked. I was going to install them today, but realized that I need to mail a Master’s Miata Club newsletter out on Thursday and I haven’t even started it. So today will be spent working on that little item, maybe next Sunday I can get them installed.

Pigs Fly! Hell Freezes Over! Red Sox Beat Yankees!

For once in my lifetime the roles were reversed between these two teams that most sports shows claim to be the best rivalry in baseball, maybe all sports. The Red Sox looked confident in games 6 and 7 in Yankee Stadium. The Yanks looked scared. They made the inopportune errors. The breaks went our way. Has the Curse been reversed?

We’ll see about that starting Saturday in Fenway.

Will This Be The End?

Game seven is tonight. So will this be the last game of the Red Sox 2004 season? If we go by past history, they will lose in some spectacularly unexpected way. If for some miracle the do win, I still won’t able to celebrate because the only possibly reason for advancement would be to lose the World Series to who ever. I know most of you are hoping the Sox lose so I will shut up about them and get back to my usually witty repartee. My wife is hoping they lose so we can get to back going to bed at a normal hour again. Blogging early so I can watch the game on TV. I’m sure I will have something to say either way tomorrow.

Monkeys On My Back

I can’t stop rooting for the Red Sox just yet. I listened to the game on MLB.com until the 9th inning last night. Then I watched innings 10 through 13 on Fox. I turned it off about 10:30 thinking that they just might be at it all night. I’m watching or listening as long as it is convenient, I can seem to turn off the game and not worry about the out come. Maybe that is why the Red Sox keep hanging in there, they feel the same way, like they have nothing to lose, so what the heck. Of course it could be their master plan to fight back, forcing a 7th game, just so they can rip my heart out with a tragic loss on a walk-off homer by the unlikeliest Yankee (ala, Bucky Fucking Dent.)

Side Sills Coming

Walking back to the car, with the way the sun was hitting it, it made Donna notice the black lower body pinch seam and it looked ugly to her. It kind of does to me too, there is a spot where the flat black protective paint was kind of globbed on, so it is shiny, and a spot where the seam is bent slightly from sitting on jack stands, so it doesn’t look at all even under there. When I said that I could fix that by getting some side sills, she just collapsed from the weight of all the hints and said, “Buy them.” Called Trussville this morning and they will be here within the week.

It took about 5 years of modifying for me to get the ’95 Laguna Blue customized to my liking (and I was still tweaking it when I traded it in.) With this last modification it will have taken me just 11 months to get this car right where I want it.

So Much For Cold Turkey

The miserable bastards pulled it off last night by winning on an Ortiz homer in the bottom of the twelfth. I quit listening in the fourth and went to bed. The way I found out they won was when the weather channel OCM this morning gave me a forecast for game five in Boston. Seeing as they are playing this afternoon, I can’t use the going to bed excuse, so I’m listening to it on Internet radio. Once today’s game is over and they have lost, I’ll be able to forget about this painful period in my life…

My Exciting Day

Went for a walk in the woods this morning. We haven’t been on a hike in Hitchcock Woods in so long I can’t remember when, but finally getting back in there will hopefully get us back on the every weekend Sunday morning hike. It is definitely becoming fall, as the morning was crisp and cool, but not many leaves have changed color, so it still looks very green.

Off to Augusta Regional Airport (Fly Here Fly Home TM) in the MSV to pick up Aunt Mary. She flys direct from Newark to Augusta and vice versa on Continental Express and seeing as they are ceasing operations in Augusta at the end of this month, Mary returned for one last visit while the non-stop flights fly.

This afternoon Donna and I ran some errands and stumbled on a low-key car show in downtown Aiken put on by the Aiken Horsepower Association. We wandered up the street , stopped in for ice cream and then wandered back.

Tonight I’m listening to what could be the last Red Sox game of the year on MLB.com.