Ghost Bugs

I don’t know what else to call them. Drove over to Augusta this evening to buy some more wheels for my inline skates and before we left I cleaned off the dead insect residue from our last trip. About 1/2 way there I ran through a cloud of invisible bugs, you can’t see them in your headlights, but when they impact the windshield they leave behind a little puff of dust no bigger than a couple of millimeters in diameter.

When we came back out of the store I got out my bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels and cleaned the windshield again. It lasted about 20 minutes before another swarm of bugs peppered the windshield again. I used the washer jets and the wipers to clean up this time, only to get another dusting within 5 minutes.

Squirt, squirt, wipe, wipe and this time we made it home without another encounter with the mysterious ghost bugs.

Have A Seat

I did the K& N air filter cleaning and re-oiling this afternoon. I bought a bottle of cleaner and a small vial of oil instead of the cleaning kit as I didn’t think I’d need that much oil for my approximately 5″ x 10″ sized filter. Wrong, I got about a third of the filter soaked in oil. Off we went to the auto parts store to buy some more oil. They didn’t sell the stuff separately, so I ended up buying a cleaning kit anyway. I now have an awful lot of the cleaner solution, so come on over and get your K & N filter unsullied, free of charge. (Also snagged a new bottle of Meguiar’s Quik-Detailer while we were there.)

On the same trip we also stopped into Target to buy a set of smaller folding chairs. They had ones that are half the size of our current ones on sale for $4. We wanted some that would fit in the trunk and still leave room for some luggage. The ones we have now have arms and a high back so that a pair of them practically fill the trunk. Although needed for one reason they were not needed for another, our little 3 person household has 8 folding chairs stored in the back of the garage.

Purchased Today: $15.88
Money spent since 03/03/03: $859.63
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 137

Swiming In A Sea Of Estrogen

Or “Where The Boys Aren’t.” Having spent the last couple of weeks following boys little league baseball I now know where all their sisters are, doing gymnastics.

A cousin of Donna’s from NJ (Exit 14) has a daughter competing in the YMCA National Gymnastics Championships being held in Savannah, GA. So we drove the 3 hours down to see her compete.

Kristen is 11 and is on the Madison Rosettes Novice squad or the level 6 division. Age doesn’t matter, just skill, in determining what level you compete at, the girls ranged from 8 to 14. Also going on in the same arena were the levels 7 & 8, (Developmental and Championship.)

A veritable sea of glittery hair and even more glittery lycra. I watched as long as I could and then I pulled a play I learned from my sister, I had brought a book, so I climbed to the top row of the arena and read.

0.08 Gallons Of Gas

After tonight’s Master’s Miata Club meeting it was such a pretty night that Donna wanted to go the long way home. Well, she didn’t have to twist my arm very hard, but first we needed some gas. The first place I pulled into must have run out of gas because the numbers were moving real slow and they stopped dead on $0.12, netting me a total of 0.08 gallons of mid grade. Drove about a mile down the road to the next station where I finished filling up.

I wonder how much it is going to cost that store and my bank to transact a twelve cents purchase?

Purchased Today: $13.87
Money spent since 03/03/03: $843.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 137

You’ve Got To Move Fast…

…in this fast paced world. Finally got my CafePress stickers I ordered June 14th. I bought two for the Rant and two for the Miata Diaries. They look pretty good, but in the 2-1/2 weeks that have passed between ordering and receiving I’ve moved the blogs. Both URLs printed on the stickers are wrong.

High & Dry

After Wild Bill the Tropical Storm passed our are in the night, we woke up to a forecast that called for no rain. The skies looked threatening, but bolstered by the forecast I left the top down and used our new cockpit cover.

About 10 o’clock my wife called and said that it was raining and maybe I should go put the top up. About that time I heard the sound of a really hard rain hitting the roof above my head. It only lasted about a minute. After it quit I thought I’d go look under the cover and see how wet it might be. Walked out to the car in the still sprinkling morning and when I peeked inside it was 99% dry. Cool the new cover worked like a charm

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $830.88
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 137

New & “Improved” Paper Towel Holder

Several months ago in a fit of anger some chucklehead smashed the paper towel dispenser in one of the Men’s Rooms at work. Today the replacement was installed.

With the old dispenser it took 3 pulls of the lever to get what I felt was the perfect amount of towel to bring my hands to the proper dryness level, 2 feet. With the new dispenser, 3 pulls gets you close to half that total or about 1 foot of paper. Maybe this is government mandated like the 1 gallon per flush toilets or maybe everyone thinks that this will help save the planet, i.e. less trees cut down, less energy used to make the paper, less trash generated etc. As a bonus I’m sure the company feels it will save money on buying the paper towels.

Ah, Mr. Smarty-pants, wrong answer! I still need 2 feet of paper to dry my hands. The same amount of energy and waste will be produced and you will now lose money as it takes twice as long for me to dry my hands. Say an extra 30 seconds at a time. 2 trips to the bathroom a day, times 1/2 minute. times 5 days, times 52 weeks, equals 4 hours and twenty minutes. With my exorbitant salary that’s a lot of dough.