Taco Loco

Family night at El Rio. Donna wanted Mexican food for supper and who am I to argue. She, I and her mom decided to split the Fajitas for two. Just in case eating a bowl of chips and salsa before hand wasn’t enough, we ordered 3 tacos (1 ea) to go with the fajitas. The fajitas were good, but the tacos sucked. Is it my fault, were these real mexican tacos and I have become so used to the americanized versions that these didn’t taste good to me? Estoy apesadumbrado, give me a Taco Bell taco any day over theirs.

Also, I wanted a Dos Equis Amber Lager with dinner. Nope, they were out. 6:00 PM on a Friday and they are out! I only hope that Miguel was on his way back from el almac?n de licor.

Lunch Date

There was a 20% of rain in the afternoon and it sure looked higher than that on the way back to work from our lunch at McDonalds. So the top went up and down an extra time today compared to the last 5 days. I forgot about the lunch “date” with my wife, so Radio Shack will have to wait another day. Driving to Wagner tomorrow to drop off the CD player and give some pointers on the install, hope the prediction of mid 60’s holds….

Started down, up, down, up, now down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 20

Valentine’s Day Bonus Rant

This is our 26th Valentine’s together (25 as a married couple.) We have gotten to the point where a simple exchange of cards is enough of a celebration. While relating this to a co-worker, he said, “Please don’t tell me every day’s like Valentine’s Day so we don’t do anything special. If I hear that one more time I’ll puke.” I didn’t want to see him ruin his shoes so I kept silent….

Your Choice Green Or Yellow

Made a lunchtime run to the auto parts store to shop. Two bucks a piece for the lights, your choice green or yellow and $3 a piece for toggle switches for a total of around $20. Going to check Radio Shack tomorrow. Now I need to figure out what to make the panel out of….aluminum sheet or can I get some plastic with a similar grain at a stereo install shop? For now the cardboard stays in.

Five days in a row, same pattern, started down, went up, now down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 16

Smoke Screen

Dull February day here in Miataland. Got some more ideas for the toggle switch labels from FillG over on RoadsterChat: Smoke Screen. Nails on Road. Passenger Eject. Only other news is I’ve got a buyer for the CD Changer I yanked out of the trunk. A fellow Master’s Miata Club member wants to put it his daughter’s 90 Miata.

Once again, started down, went up, now down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 14

One Twist Too Many

Law and Order, the original, is one of a few TV shows I still watch regularly. I usually tape it, because it is so much better to fast forward through the commercials. We normally watch the tape on Fridays with dinner as we wind down from the work week. For whatever reason, we didn’t watch it then, we watched it tonight. They usually keep me guessing until the end by using plot twists, so it is hardly ever who you think it is.

Tonight they needed to link a guy to some money used for paying someone to kill his mistress. No matter how hard the DAs looked they couldn’t find a connection. They finally got the guy’s wife to come forward with a bank withdrawal form that made it look like he had gotten the money from one of his kids college funds. The jury convicted him because of it. Afterwards the assistant DA noticed the similarity between the wife’s handwriting and the signature on the withdrawal slip. The DAs confront the wife to see if she will admit to fabricating the slip. No way will she do it. They are left to believe that the wife set up the husband. Neat trick. Too neat I say. First thing they would have done is get the police to verify who actually withdrew the payoff money (if there ever was money withdrawn.) And even if they didn’t because it was the final nail in this guy’s coffin, certainly his defense lawyer would have checked out the slip.

Close, But No Cigar

Predictably, I put the top up the ride to and put it back down for the ride from work.

Man those guys in the Trussville Mazda parts department are good. Ordered the cubby hole yesterday and got it today via UPS ground. Bad thing was it was too big for the hole. When I checked Miata. net Garage section there was mention of some trimming required to use bigger cubby that I ordered, but to the extent I thought. This thing needed, in my opinion, major rework. About a 1/4″ off the bottom had to be removed and there was no way I was going to get a straight line across the 7 inches or so of width. I sent it back. They were real nice about taking the part back, I’m just out about the $10 it took to cover shipping in both directions.

My next option was $80 for one of those Really Nice CD Caddys from Serious Auto. But before I did that, I went and visited the company’s Mad Scientist in residence and borrowed 4 toggle switches. Wanted to see how they would look in my temporary cardboard blanking plate before I spent that much on something I could only “see” on the web. Made up a couple of labels and stuck them on there too.

Not too bad for a first attempt. I don’t like the labels yet, maybe I can find someone who still has one of those old dynamo pressure labelers. I think maybe I need lights too. Just wire the lights through the switches so they come on when the switch is up… Maybe get one as a momentary on to use as the garage door opener. I can see this mod getting out of hand.

Started down, went up, now down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 12