Plug

The Miata stayed home in the garage today. It was embarrassed to be seen in public wearing that ugly little mini-spare. We took the MSV to work with the flat tire in the trunk. I went out at lunch and had the shiny metal object removed and a plug of sticky rubber shoved in the hole. Cost five bucks. The plug will get us by until the new tire arrives from California. I sure hope it is coming because I didn’t get a tracking number today. If I don’t get one by tomorrow AM I’ll give them a call.

Purchased Today: $5
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1055.66
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 175

Vogue

Today was haircut day for both the Bogarduses. We go to a place called Sheri’s Hair Affair because Sheri was in the bicycle club with us at one time and she does a right nice job too. It is a typical salon and the place is just littered with women’s magazines for me to look at while Donna gets her hair cut. I hunted through the stacks until I found a relatively recent one to look at, a Vogue from March 2003. I actually don’t mind looking because they are usually chock full of cheesecake. It was my turn to hop in the chair. When I sat down, there on her table in front of me, was another issue of Vogue. About that time I became conscious of the music playing in the background, Madonna singing, pause for effect, Vogue.

Shiny Metal Object

Bought $13 worth of gas and walked over to Advanced Auto and bought 4 quarts of oil for $7.48. At home I jacked up both sides of the car using my new hydraulic jack and placed the 4 jackstands under the jack points. I removed all four tires to rotate them front to back on the same side as the tread is directional. I pulled the drain plug and drained the oil straight into the recycling container. I used to have to drain into a shallower basin and then pour that into the recycler because the car was too low.

As I rolled the right rear forward to the front I noticed a bit of shiny metal imbedded in the tire. Damn. I had picked up a nail somewhere. Hustled the tire down to the local tire place and they confirmed my worse fears, the hole was too close to the side wall to patch and nobody plugs tires anymore. 2500 miles and I need a new tire.

He offered to sell me some Goodyear HP tire as that was all he had in stock in 195/50-15. I said no thanks, I’m not mixing and matching on my car. Came home and went to Onlinetires.com, the place I bought this set of four about seven weeks ago. They had them still on sale for $59, but with the 2nd day shipping charge of $47.55 it put the cost at over $100. Which is still cheaper than the other two places I checked online by about $30.

Purchased Today: $127.03
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1050.66
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 175
118,500

I’ve Lost That Loving Feeling

Well, I’ve lost the ability to watch a movie all the way through. Watched 1 hour and 27 minutes of Spirited Away, stopping like 40 minutes before the end. I don’t have a concrete reason for stopping, I just got bored. The animation was wonderful and the story was intriguing, but it would have made a nice 90-minute movie. Scenes took too long and maybe there were too many bathhouse scenes.

If you check my Netflix rental queue to the left you will discover that I have a plan. Seeing as I can not watch a whole movie I’ve reverted to TV shows. Specifically, one long gone, but still missed show, The X-Files. I am going to keep at least one disc on the coffee table and every Sunday night at 9:00 PM I will sit down and watch 1 episode. For the next 4 or 5 years I will have something to look forward to on Sunday nights.

Style Bar 3

Donna and I drove over to visit Dave & Shirlene in Augusta this evening. Dave is the owner of a red 2001 Miata with the coveted Frenzy Spider style bar. We had to wait a bit in their living room while a passing shower, one of many I dodged today, went by. I measured from the back of the convertible well to my OEM cockpit brace and got 16-1/4 to 16-1/2 inches. When I measured Dave’s car I got 15-1/2 inches. This was not good news for me. I already had to give the top a serious push to get it to clear my bar, another 3/4 to 1″ more seems to make it way too much. I’m sure I could make do, but think it would really shorten the life span of the vinyl at the bottom of the glass window stressing it that much. Especially with the amount of times the top goes up and down around here. Even removing those windblocker tabs would not make it that much better because they only stick out about 3/8 of an inch.

Made Donna happy though, as she really didn’t want the shiny bar. Too bad, as it was really nice looking bar, even better in person than the photos. Guess I’ll have to figure something else to spend my disposable income on…

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $923.63
Started down, went up, went down, up, down, up, down again, up again, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 174

Well, I Tried

This afternoon I finally blocked out a segment of time to watch a movie. To practice first-in, first-out inventory control, I started with Adaptation because it had been around the longest. Managed to make it about 15 minutes in before bailing out. Just couldn’t take Nicholas Cage’s whiny characters (Character is plural, because he plays twins.) The Meryl Streep portion of the movie that is supposed to be the book that Nicholas Cage is turning into a screen play seemed interesting, but it couldn’t overcome the WHINE.

So we picked the next oldest movie, Rabbit-Proof Fence. It had an interesting premise of a trio of half Aborigine girl who escapes from a re-education camp and head back home. The trick is that home is 1200 miles away and to get there they follow Australia’s rabbit, now emu, fence. We made it 42 minutes into this one.

Tomorrow I will try to get in Spirited Away.

Style Bar 2

I’ve got my wife to let me buy the Frenzy Evil Spider Bar, but it cost me. She doesn’t like it because it is chrome, she liked the more subdued black of the other bar (truth be told, so do I.) I haven’t ordered it yet though. I have a minor clearance concern. When lowering, my glass window top just clears the OEM cockpit brace, but requires a little push to do so. The Frenzy bar has a couple of tabs that stick out towards the back to support it’s windblocker and if it extends any further back than the OEM piece it won’t work for me. Turns out that there is a fellow here in the area that has one on his 2001 Red. We’ve exchanged emails and I hope to go visit sometime this weekend. I’m going to bring a tape measure.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $923.63
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 167