Cars

Bug Splat

The MMC held its 11th Annual Bug Splat Rally tonight. Can we call it that even if we skipped the year? The first one was in 1999 and for some reason there wasn’t one in 2002.

We only had six cars show for the event, maybe the rains in the area scared a few people off. Last year the event ran through a couple of light showers and most if any caught bugs were washed off by the finish. This year we dodged the rain, but we also dodged almost all of the bugs too.

The Biggest Bug Trophy ended up in the hands a new member couple with their 3″ long streak of moth wing dust. The Closest to the Target was awarded to a small speck about a half inch away from Avery Green Dot. Once again Most Bugs and Cleanest Car Awards were given to the cars that showed up for the run in that condition. The only thing that turned out better than last year was our new route that traveled on a couple of twisty road through rural Aiken County.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 806

Something Different

After about 3 years of boring, no new business, no old business, this is what we did, this is what we are going to do meetings, last night’s was a breath of fresh air. It was so exciting that Robert’s Rules of Order and the Club’s Bylaws were quoted.

We have a new president who ran with the platform of doubling the club’s membership and if any Club could use a membership doubling, it is ours. We started his term with 15 cars (AKA memberships) and before he held his first meeting we lost one. A couple sold their Miata, saying they wanted a sports car?!? I think what he wanted is something with more horsepower or maybe more perceived prestige…

The first thing the new president wanted to do was change our monthly meeting setup. He picked a big issue to push through in his first hundred days. It was his phrase that I turned into the Club web site’s tag line, “We’re like the French Underground. We rotated meeting locations every month and members arrived willy-nilly and sometimes not even in their Miatas. His idea was to meet at same spot every month, someplace visible on a busy street, have the business meeting and then drive as a group to a local restaurant.

This is a great idea, but it really doesn’t fit into Donna and my time schedule. By the time we go through all those steps dinner will not be until 8:00 PM and we always eat some where between 5:30 and 6:30. We have a work around in place for this, seeing as the original meet up spot is at a Mexican restaurant we will eat there, stay for the meeting and then drive with the group to the second restaurant, but just not go inside and eat.

After a close vote, 4 yeahs, 2 nays & 1 abstention, on adopting this format, last night was the first go round and it went pretty well from our point of view, I don’t know what everyone else thought of it though.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 771

Ten Thousand Years

If you have been following the countdowns on the right-hand sidebar here LOB you will have noticed two changes in the last week. The first was last Sunday when Season 4 of Mad Men premiered and its counter dropped off the page. The second just happened tonight when the counter for the New Miata jumped from 123 to 484.

Miata #1, the 1990 Mariner Blue A Package, lasted 6 years before being traded in. Number two, a 1995 Laguna Blue B Package, stuck around for 8 years before being traded in. Miata #3, our current 2003 Garnet Red LS, was assumed to stay with us the average of the lengths of service of the first 2 cars, seven years, and be traded in on a 2010 model this November. That is now not going to happen, The Emperor will be with us for at least another year.

The main reason for this, we like to say publicly, is the car is not available in a suitable shade of blue. The first two Miatas were blue, and while we have grown to like the current red/maroon shade, we have our hearts set on blue car this time. The current Miatas do come in blue, something called Stormy Blue, but it is too dark, almost Navy Blue and not to our liking.

But the main reason is neither one of us like the new and “improved” third generation of the car. It is only a couple inches longer or wider, but appears relatively huge in comparison. I heard the style of the car in the first couple of years of the 3rd generation compared to an angry bar of soap and I had to agree. They tweaked the looks of front end last year and now it reminds me of a bar of soap with a Mr Potato Head mouth stuck on it. And it is not just the exterior, we both don’t care for the inside either. The doors are taller, so that leaning your arm on the window sill leaves your elbow pointing up. That, along with the taller seats placed lower in the car gives you the feeling of riding in a bathtub. As a “bonus” the new engine routed the exhaust header in such a manner that it intrudes on the passenger foot well and steals precious space for the navigator’s usual complement of tools.

The current rumors on the Miata.net forums call for the forth generation of the car, which is supposed to be smaller and lighter, to appear as 2012 model which means it might come to market in late 2011, so we wait. If worse comes to worse and a new model doesn’t appear next fall, maybe they will add a nice bright blue to the Miata’s paint palette on the last of the 3rd gen cars. Or maybe by then the oft rumored Volkswagen BlueSport will actually exist and it will be a worthy competitor to the Miata.

The post title alludes to an oriental saying that is a loosely translated English phrase used in several oriental countries as an expression used to wish long life to the Emperor.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down still again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 760

One Small Post For A Man

Sorry. I had this nice long post reminiscing about where I was when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon 41 years ago today, but I don’t have time. I wasted the evening watching a so intentionally bad buddy cop TV show that *is* actually funny, The Good Guys and a so intentionally over the top show about cars that you don’t actually learn anything useful from it, Top Gear.

Maybe I’ll write that moon landing post next year (because we all know how emotional a 42nd anniversary can be.)

Oh, never mind, I just found out the whole thing was a government sponsored hoax: Conspiracy Theorist Convinces Neil Armstrong Moon Landing Was Faked

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 743

110,000 Words

Here are six of the nine MMC cars that made the trip to Edgefield for breakfast today. I looks like the life-size statue of Strom Thurmond is orating around 110,000 words, perhaps recreating his famous filibuster, longest ever by a single senator at 24 hours and 18 minutes in length nonstop, in opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

As we arrived at the start point for the trip this morning the Emperor past the 110,000 milestone.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 739

Love The Beast

Someone recommended this movie to me, even told me it was watch it now on Netflix. Last Monday as I sat watching it on the laptop, my wife looked over at me and asked, “What you watching?” I kind of explained what it was, here is the Netflix blurb:

Eric Bana makes his directorial debut with this documentary about his biggest obsession: his Ford XB Falcon Coupe, aka “the Beast.” The actor examines his auto fixation and chronicles his attempts to compete in the treacherous Targa Tasmania race. The Beast has been by his side for more than 20 years — but can it endure this grueling five-day affair? Jay Leno, Dr. Phil McGraw and auto expert Jeremy Clarkson drop by to share their thoughts.

She said, “I want to see it too.” We both enjoyed it immensely. I did because I’m a car guy and she did because she’s married to a car guy or maybe because she had recently seen Eric Bana naked (we had watched the Time Traveler’s Wife the day before.) Seriously if you like cars, still remember your first car wistfully or have ever wanted to soup a car with an unlimited budget and then drive it like a mad man (or woman) on closed public streets, see this movie. Stream it if you are a Netflix member. Before you do, watch a lot of Fosters beer commercials, so you can learn to speak Australian. Eric was usually easy to understand, but his buddies who haven’t ever been anywhere outside of Melbourne could be a bit tricky sometimes. Maybe if you rent it, it’ll have American english subtitles…

When I went back to work on Tuesday I thanked James for telling me about this movie. He said, “What movie?” I could have sworn it was him as he usually visits on his afternoon break and we compare movies. James said maybe it was Chris and he’d add the movie to his queue.

Chris is another Netflix guy and we do occasionally compare movies. The trick with him is that our tastes are nearly the opposite of one another, so if he likes a movie, I’ll hate it and so on. Chris had no idea about Love The Beast either, but he’d add it to his queue. Hmmm, curious.

The next person I thought of was Bob, my manager, who has been know to trade recommendations with me every once and a while. Same story, he had never heard of it, but would put it in his queue. Now I’m really starting to wonder, who might have told me about the movie.

Ah, ha! Had to be Dave and Autumn from the Miata Club, also fellow Netflixers. We usually find some time during an event to talk about what we had recently watched and we had to see a baseball game with them the week before. I dashed off an email. Wasn’t us, came the reply, but it sounds interesting, we’ll add it to our queue.

I’m beginning to think I might have dreamed getting that recommendation.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 727

Sometimes You Get The Cache & Sometimes The Cache Gets You

Yesterday we were 10 for 11 on finding caches. We should have taken today off.

After yesterday’s ten finds we were at 480 for our total. I said, “Hey, let’s get 10 tomorrow and 10 on Monday and we’ll hit 500.” Ahhh, the best laid plans. There were 5 caches over on the Greenway in North Augusta that we still had to get, so I figured we would cruise down SC421 through the valley where there were 10 caches to try and get. For good measure I added two more along our route to the Greenway parking spot. We had a total of 17 on the list, surely we could come up with ten.

We have been avoiding the ones along 421 because most of the hides are near businesses and are micros in high muggle areas. Donna and I really enjoy the walk in the woods finds because there isn’t much chance of being seen and you don’t have to try and be stealthy. Figured we would be OK on an early Sunday morning, not much chance of too many people being out and about. The first place we stopped was at a small cafe. The restaurant was closed and the parking lot empty, but right next door was a very busy quick stop store. We had only half our attention on looking and the other half hoping nobody would call us on what we were doing.

It went downhill from there. Every time we would stop somewhere that appeared deserted, cars appeared like yellow jackets around a trash barrel in a picnic area. We missed the second one. We DNF’d the third and fourth. We drove right by #5 hoping to change our luck, like a batter in a hitting slump might change the way he ties his shoes. Didn’t work, we DNF’d the sixth. Donna just stayed in the car for number seven while I bumbled about. Good thing she did, as it gave her time to stare off 100 miles in the distance pondering our ineptitude, enabling her subconscious to spot the hide. Yippee, the streak was over.

Not for long though, as we promptly didn’t find the next three. We skipped the first one on the way into North Augusta as it was at a car wash and every bay was in use. The last one before the Greenway was a difficulty of 1 and a terrain of one. A person in a wheelchair found it 2 weeks earlier. We did not. So at that point we were the exact inverse of yesterday, we had missed 10 of 11.

Our funk continued on the Greenway as four of the five hides were by someone know for his creative containers and we have had trouble with his in the past. We missed 3 of what he called his “fantastic four” series.

Here is a representative of how bad we were at this caching thing today. The Greenway passes over a busy Martintown Road with a 75′ long metal bridge nicknamed the Greene Giant. There is a cache there by that name and because we needed all the help we could get, the first thing we did was read the hint because the last line of the cache description read: The hint is a give-away spoiler, so use only if necessary! Here is the hint: Very SW corner of the bridge, inside the fence, waist high. It still took us ten minutes to find the damn thing because we couldn’t figure out which way was southwest with a global positioning satellite receiver.

I consider us very lucky to have found the car where we had parked it, so we could drive home. Caching stats for today: 17 planned, 15 attempted, 12 DNFs, 3 finds and 2 abstaining.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 715