Cars

Best of 2005

January

Hot For Teacher

Friday the 7th

Due to yesterday’s train derailment and toxic chlorine gas spill, today was a day off for the Aiken County school kids because several local schools are now housing the displaced folks of Graniteville. But it was a teacher work-day, where the teachers reported to school to do, uh, work. On teacher workdays they get a lot longer lunch break so they can leave the school grounds and dine in local restaurants. I found this out when Donna and I walked into our favorite Friday afternoon off lunch place and it was packed. Several clues tipped us off that all these extra people were teachers, but what amazed me most was that a lot of these young women were very attractive, especially in their jeans and t-shirts. Funny, I don’t remember my elementary school teachers as being this hot. They were all old ladies.

Then logic took hold and I realized that when I was in elementary school my teachers were at least 20 years older than me, which would make them right about as old as these “girls.”

February

Every Husband’s Dream

Sunday the 13th

On the eve of Valentine’s Day I received every husband’s dream, wife sanctioned internet porn searching. Donna is a big fan of Trading Spaces and she heard/read somewhere that the hostess of the show, Paige Davis, was canned from the show for the discovery of a Paris Hilton style sex tape that was somewhere on the net. She asked me to try and find it. I answered promptly, “Yes ma’am, I’ll look in every filthy corner of the net for you.”

It didn’t take long to find out that the tape was not really of her. Or maybe it was the greatest cover up ever perpetrated, it was denied it was her, just someone who looks and sounds a lot like her. The tape may (or may not) be real, but apparently racy pictures of Paige at a gay male charity function are not – Paige Davis Gone Wild!

I may have not found anything tonight, but if she ever comes in and I’m looking at internet porn, I can just say I was looking for that Paige Davis tape.

March

Always Hoped That I’d Be An Apostle

Sunday the 27th

Knew that I would make it if I tried.
Then when we retire, we can write the Gospels,
So they’ll still talk about us when we’ve died.

Yesterday evening Donna wanted a nap, so I queued up the DVD of Jesus Christ Superstar and kept the sound down low. I really like this movie. I’m not sure if it just that I’m a child of the early 70’s and that is the style of music of my youth or is it because I saw a Broadway production of the play on a high school field trip and had great time in NYC, in spite of being left behind. Or maybe it is because we get the whole Jesus fable neatly wrapped up in an hour and 45 minutes.

Today on TCM I stumbled on the last 40 minutes of King of Kings and stayed. It was pretty fun to compare this 1961 “serious” take to the more irreverent JCSS telling of the same story.

April

Might As Well Just Say “I’m A Loser”

Thursday the 7th

They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so the folks over at Girls Gone Wild HQ must be pretty happy. I stumbled onto an infomercial for a GGW knock-off this morning called Wild Party Girls. Instead of $9.95 for a video, really usually 2 because they throw in a “free” one, these guys are giving you two DVDs for Free!* (*$5.95 shipping and handling)

Not only are the DVDs free, but they are going to toss in a free hat. It is one of those foam trucker hats that have become, for some inexplicable reason, fashionable again. The hat is bright red with a white front panel. On that white front panel, in matching bright red lettering, are the words “Wild Party Girls.”

It might as well just say “I’m A Loser” on it. This thing screams, “Hey look at me, I’m a schlub! My idea of excitement is to watch girls expose their breasts.” The only purchasers of these things that can’t be considered perverts are the people who aren’t supposed to buy them in the first place, boys 17 and under.

Does the buyer of these types of videos think that if he wears that hat around, nubile young women will just lift their shirts and flash him, hoping to get a starring role in the next series of DVDs?

May

Office Supply Milestone

Thursday the 5th

At 7:38AM this morning I used the last staple from the box I was given when I started working here 505,267,200 seconds ago. To put it in easier to understand terms, I started working at ASCO Aiken on May 1st 1989, which was 5,848 days ago. Each box of staples has 5,000 staples, so I have used approximately .85 staples per day during my tenure here.

I know I don’t use too many staples in my job, but that isn’t much at all. I haven’t worked every single day straight through since then, so let’s do some, as my math idol Jethro would say, cipherin’. Assuming a 5 day work week, we can get much closer to a proper work day number by multiplying by 5 and then dividing by 7. This gives us 4177 or 1.20 SPD (staples per day). What about holidays? Good point, we get 9 paid days off here in Aiken, 9 times 16, so subtract 144 days from the total, giving me a 1.24 SPD ranking. How about sick time? I bet I miss on average 3 days a year for colds or flu or doctor things. Then there was the 2 week recovery from knee surgery in 2000. 3 time 16 plus 10, lets take another 58 days off. Best guess is I have used an average 1.26 SPD in my working here. I am so proud.

June

So If You Get Hurt And Miss Work, It Won’t Hurt To Miss Work

Wednesday the 29th

Our friend’s 11-year old son plays on a traveling baseball team. No, not like Bingo Long & 20 other guys in an old bus barnstorming the southeast, but more like 20 Chrysler minivans with rear seat entertainment centers filled with siblings who go from town to town all over the state every other weekend playing more teams just like themselves in tournaments. The teams have to pay to enter the tournaments and there are uniforms to buy and umpires to bribe and all manner of other expenses that are borne by the parents. To help offset these costs, they do what all kids are taught in school to do from an early age, they sell stuff.

The team’s current scheme promotion is selling raffle tickets to win a bat that has been signed by Yogi Berra. When we had a visit from them this evening to ask if we would like to take some chances, I asked, “Yogi Berra, isn’t that the guy from those Aflac commercials?”

Jared, just gave me as world-weary a look as an eleven year old could, like he had heard that a million times before and it wasn’t that funny the first time either, and nodded his head to say just fill out the back of the ticket fool.

July

All I Want For Christmas Is…

Friday the 29th

…is a subscription to People Magazine. Caught a blurb about this while channel surfing the other day and in this morning’s paper there was a small article about it too. Brittany Murphy will be the new Jordache jeans girl. It was said and written with almost breathless excitement, so I know that Brittney Murphy is a famous person, I just don’t know what she is famous for. Singer? Actress? Reality TV Show Star?

I feel so left out.

August

Temporary Exile

Wednesday the 3rd

The Miata is our daily driver, which is both a blessing and a curse. The really good part is that a fun car makes the most mundane drive enjoyable, even the one to work. The curse part occurs after spending the weekend, like we did this last one, driving the windy, twisty roads in the mountains, because when you return home it makes those mundane drives mundane again.

When driving in the mountains you spend a lot of time in 2nd and 3rd gear, winding the engine out close to the redline as the g-forces through you from side to side in the car. As you turn the wheel, the engine is singing and the car goes right where it is aimed. Occasionally you approach the limits of adhesion and the tires start to complain, but then you ease off the wheel and give it bit more gas and you swoop through the curve. Barely time to enjoy your accomplishment when you see which way the road bends next and set up for it.

Then you are home. Shifting gears returns to a more sedate 4,000 RPM level. All the curves are 90 degree bends on city streets taken at 20 MPH so as to not land in the back seat of the minivan in front of you. Sigh. I have said it before (I could have sworn I’ve said it here, but a search turns up nothing) this must be how women feel after giving birth, a sort of post partum depression.

I saw a commercial the other day on TV for Celebrity Cruise Lines. This older couple return from their cruise and all they can do is remember their “celebrity” treatment. “My butler knew just how I took my tea,” he says. “I had fresh cut flowers every day,” says she. My favorite part is the man is obviously back in his office and is trying to open some vertical blinds that aren’t acting right, “I like to think of this as a temporary exile,” he moans. That is what it is like for me to come back from a weekend driving in the mountains…

September

1 + 1 = 0

Wednesday the 21st

We recently had a city council election here in Aiken where there were 4 people running for the two open At-Large spots. It was really a Republican primary, but seeing as there were no Democrats interested in the offices, it turned out to be the actual election and every registered voter was eligible to vote. The hot button issue in the election was the unchecked growth in the city, particularly the south side.

As it shook out, the four candidates became aligned into two groups of two, one pair for limiting the growth somewhat and one pair for encouraging all the growth possible. As usual, quite a few front yards sprouted campaign signs and every lawn that had signs, had them in pairs representing one group or the other.

Usually when a candidate wins an election, the people who had signs up for the winner leave their signs up proudly. It could be to let us know how smart they are for backing a winner or it could be just rubbing the losing supporter’s noses in it. Heck, there are still a few Bush-Chenney bumper stickers on local cars…

How it happened I’ll never know, especially if the sign groupings were actually representative of the voting intent, but in the election, one candidate from each group won a seat. Within a couple of days after the election, 99.99% of the campaign signs were gone. I guess no one felt like admitting they were a half assed political prognosticator.

October

Question For English Majors

Sunday the 2nd

Is irony used correctly in the following sentence?

During a Cleveland Indian at bat in the fifth inning, with a fan pounding rhythmically on an Indian type drum in the outfield supporting an offensive rally, was the public address system operator being ironic by playing a recording of the bugle call Charge at the same time?

November

Shades of Milli Vanilli

Saturday the 12th

Due to circumstances beyond my control I attended the Aiken Kidney Benefit production of Oliver tonight. Cockney accent, nearly incomprehensible. Southern accent, sometimes difficult to understand. Residents of Aiken, South Carolina playing Londoners, unintelligible.

I can only hope there was a good reason for it, Fagin was lip-syncing his songs. At intermission I told Donna that I thought he was doing just that, but I wasn’t positive. In the second act Fagin has several solo numbers and it was confirmed in Ashlee Simpson-like fashion when the actor stumbled on a couple of words and the song never skipped a beat…

December

Lake City, Where?

Thursday the 22nd

When Donna and I planned this little Holiday trip we decide to take two days down and one back up. To pick a place to stay that was about half way I used the scientific method of stretching my finger from Point Aiken to Point Stuart and looked at a spot about half-way for the overnight stay, unfortunately that point was in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp. Went a little past half, to make the second day’s driving easier, and settled on Lake City, FL. Made a reservation at the Holiday Inn Express there and started counting down the days until I would get a cinnamon bun for breakfast.

After we had eaten lunch and gone for a hike in the Little Ocmulgee State Park, Donna took out the reservation sheet for the Holiday Inn Express and went to check the directions to get there. For the life of her, no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find US52 nor US378 anywhere near Lake City, FL. It was then that she noticed the address on the reservation confirmation I had printed out, Lake City, SC. At first I thought it had to be a misprint, but then I noticed the hotel’s phone number and sure enough I recognized it as a SC area code. DOH!

Got on the cell phone and called Lake City, SC and canceled my reservation. Asked the clerk there to give me the phone number of the Holiday Inn Express in Lake City, FL. There was not an Express, but there was a plain ol’ Holiday Inn, with a vacancy, so we reserved a night there. I wasn’t going to get my cinnamon bun, but at least we would be staying in a room on the way to Stuart, FL not 300 miles away in the wrong direction.

Where There Is Fire – There Is Smoke

This afternoon, while chatting with Mark the CNC Programmer in his office at the back of the plant, one of the machine operators poked his head in and said, “I’m not sure what maintenance is up to, but there is a bunch of smoke coming out of the neighboring department.” Mark and the Turned Parts Supervisor, Marty, jumped up, grabbing safety glasses and followed saying, “Let’s go see what’s happening.” I followed them out the door and sure enough, to the right, the old Die Casting Department space was full of smoke. They headed towards it, but me, believing discretion is the better part of valor, turned left and came back up to my office. As I walked away, I was passed by a couple of our maintenance guys carrying fire extinguishers going towards the smoke filled department.

When I returned to my cube I told my neighbors to keep their coats handy as the fire alarm might go off any minute now. Being veterans of the previous plant fire they also gathered up car keys and lunch boxes in case it did go off and we weren’t let back in like last time. No alarm came. But after about five minutes a female voice came over the plant intercom saying, “There is no fire, but with all the smoke everyone please leave the building.” My wife called from her end of the front office and told me to meet her at the front door with her coat. I asked her why, was that an official notification for everyone to leave the building or just those who could see the smoke? We could even smell it up here. I went to give her coat figuring a little break from the afternoon might be nice. She wasn’t at the front door, but standing outside the Accounting Manager’s office chatting with her. When I got there Kaye asked me some computer question and we agued on where our new user name was used and where the old one was still valid while watching a small crowd gather on the front lawn. A fellow from maintenance, with the full powers vested in him by his walkie-talkie, instructed us that everyone was to leave the building. So we went to join the others.

We then spent about 20 minutes on the front grass watching the cars go by and wondering what the heck happened. The office types got to go back in first because we where the farthest away from the smoke. The hourly folks had to wait about another 20 minutes or so because it took them a while to get most of the smoke out of the plant.

It was a fire in one of the HVAC ducts in the old Die Casting Department. It was extinguished in a couple of minutes causing minimal damage, but boy did it fill the back end of the building up with white smoke.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 372

30,000 Orange Barrels

30,000 Orange BarrelsOn last night’s trip up to the mountains to spend the night, there was construction on US441 between Clayton and Dillard, GA. We must have past 30,000 of those orange construction barrels as the Emperor past through the 30,000 mile mark.

Yesterday morning I washed the car because we had a MMC event in the early afternoon. This was our Senior Drive. One of the Club members is the Administrator of the Elmcroft Assisted Living Center in Martinez. He and I concocted a scheme in which the Club would come over and take the residents who wanted to go on a top down Miata drive instead of their usual Saturday 8-passenger van ride. We had a perfect day for it too, lower 70’s and a cloudless blue sky. We had 5 cars and 5 passengers for the first trip and when 4 more people showed up, we did a second slightly shorter trip for them. The one fellow who I drove was so appreciative that I was embarrassed by it. This is definitely an item we should do at least once a year.

When we got up this morning in the north of Georgia it was in the lower 30’s and there was a layer of frost covering the car. We wimped out for the first couple of hours of driving. The leaves didn’t cooperate in the whole picturesque, blazing fall color, Norman Rockwell painting we had hoped to see, but you take what you can get and we got extremely patchy color. We even did a 20-mile segment of the Blue Ridge Parkway in hopes, but the colorful vistas never materialized. There was one short stretch of NC 215 coming down off the parkway that in a matter of minutes we went from bare trees to patchy color to green. Never the less we had a wonderful time in our 24 hours of the mountains. We got in a night away from home, a short hike in the woods, a look at a beautiful twin waterfall and miles of twisty roads.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 343

Underwhelmed Again

Sometime earlier this week I received a certificate in the mail that entitled me to a $35 gift card just for test-driving a new MX-5 Miata. So guess what we did Saturday morning? Right.

The interior is not as bad in person as it looked in pictures, for that matter the same can be said for the exterior. The gauges are trendy in that they start at the 6 o’clock position, but are easy to read and they shouldn’t ever be hidden because of the Miata’s first ever, tilt steering wheel. Kudos’s to the return of a real oil pressure gauge (although I didn’t really notice it.) The seats felt uncomfortable because they have tightened up the seat bottom bolsters making the seat narrower. I bet that you would get used to it after a while though. The car is larger inside, but really only on the driver’s side. I could actually get comfortable with the seat forward one notch unlike the current car. There is even a bit more headroom with the top up. They kept the 50/50 weight balance, but in and effort to reduce polar movement by getting as much weight towards the center of the car as possible they moved the engine back about 3 inches. To do this they moved the exhaust manifold to the opposite side of the engine than the current car and it encroaches on the passenger side of the interior. Not only is there a swelling of the center tunnel, but also the foot well has been pushed back. Donna is 5′-2″ and with the passenger seat pushed back all the way, she cannot stretch her legs fully out! I remember back in July when I sat in one at the gap it felt very tight on the passenger side and attributed it the center tunnel intrusion, but I see that it wasn’t just that. She was not uncomfortable, but just a little crowded. I would be uncomfortable on a trip over there though.

The door tops are marginally higher, but you can probably rest your elbow there comfortably. Although, for whatever reason, during our test drive I don’t think mine found its way there. The Z-fold top doesn’t tuck down as far as the current one, it stops about shoulder high, thereby filling in between the seats. The larger seats seem to block more from the back too. It all adds up to the interior being more encompassing, makes you feel like you are sunk down in the car. The steering wheel has audio controls in the spokes and looks like it was pulled from a Mustang, not a high point.

Exterior-wise, the fender flares are still polarizing; sometimes they look geeky and other times not so bad. The front looks a little too cute; it reminds me of Nemo, the clown fish from that Pixar movie of a few years back. I’m sure the after market will take care of that in due time (a nice set of shark’s teeth in the mouth might help.) There were several things that glared out at me in the pictures I’ve seen that I didn’t like at all, head lights, marker lights, tail lights, third brake light, but standing next to the car in person, they didn’t really bother me. One thing that really bugged me in the pictures I saw of the car with the top up was a funny hitch around the window. Made it look like it was coming undone from the frame or something. Turns out to be an extra folded seam along the edge of the top (hard to explain) that is a rain rail. Once again it didn’t seem so obvious in person. The Z-fold top with one center latch is trick. The no boot thing is nice, sorta, I don’t like the looks of the empty spaces that show on each side, they’ll probably make a nice spot to catch falling leaves.

They had a new black car parked right next to a black ’05 Mazdaspeed and you can tell they are related, but the newer one is larger looking. Not MG Midget to MGB larger, but more like a younger brother who grew up with better nutrition. It is still very much Miatalike, but with each passing generation of the car it creeps further from its roots. When we went from the first generation car into our current 2nd generation vehicle it seemed more grown up. It had a little more power and a little more torque. It was quieter, both inside and out. The interior was much nicer in looks and materials. Plus they added all those power goodies that we take for granted in cars now days. The new Miata is probably about the same incremental step up from our current car, as it was from the first generation Miata we used to own before. I’m not so sure that is a good thing.

Donna may have said it best. While chatting with the salesman afterward, she told him she didn’t like it, “It felt a lot like riding around in that Mustang convertible we rented a few years back.” If that is the case, it spells doom for us lovers of raw rear-wheel drive sports cars, but maybe success for Mazda as the car may attract a more mainstream buyer.

29,000 Matchbox Cars

29,000 Matchbox Cars29,000 pairs of socks. 29,000 knives. 29,000 VHS tapes. 29,000 out of date bottles of asprin. And 29,000 used chainsaws.

Today we went to the Jockey Lot outside of Anderson, SC. Someone thought it would be fun, so we planned a trip with the MMC and it was a nice day for a drive. While the Jockey lot is a huge ass flea market, pretty soon it all starts to look alike, did we have fun? You bet. Will we go back? Doubt it. About halfway there the Emperor passed through the 29,000 mile mark. We bought this Miata just before Thanksgiving in 2003 so it looks like we will make it past 30k before the 2 year mark.

Most of the time the skies were blue with scattered clouds, but on the horizon, in every direction you looked there were dark gray clouds. The weather forecast called for a chance of rain and while it never did (on us anyway) everytime we stopped for any lentgh of time everyone put their tops up in case. On the way back we stopped in the quaint little town of Abbeville for lunch. We parked over on the same street as we ended up at the last Trivia Road Rally the MMC did in May. I had snagged a picture of one of our member’s cars as it was parked and the wall and art there made a nice back drop, today the Emperor had it’s portrait taken there too.

Can’t really tell from the picture, but the car was really dirty. I did wipe off the big stuff with a towel I keep handy, but when we got home the car got a much needed bath.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up again, then down, then up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 322

1 + 1 = 0

We recently had a city council election here in Aiken where there were 4 people running for the two open At-Large spots. It was really a Republican primary, but seeing as there were no Democrats interested in the offices, it turned out to be the actual election and every registered voter was eligible to vote. The hot button issue in the election was the unchecked growth in the city, particularly the south side.

As it shook out, the four candidates became aligned into two groups of two, one pair for limiting the growth some what and one pair for encouraging all the growth possible. As usual, quite a few front yards sprouted campaign signs and every lawn that had signs, had them in pairs representing one group or the other.

Usually when a candidate wins an election, the people who had signs up for the winner leave their signs up proudly. It could be to let us know how smart they are for backing a winner or it could be just rubbing the losing supporter’s noses in it. Heck, there are still a few Bush-Chenney bumper stickers on local cars…

How it happened I’ll never know, especially if the sign groupings were actually representative of the voting intent, but in the election, one candidate from each group won a seat. Within a couple of days after the election, 99.99% of the campaign signs were gone. I guess no one felt like admitting they were a half assed political prognosticator.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 299

Goin’ Gappin’

Come back Sunday night to hear of our daring exploits at Deal’s Gap. It is supposed to be a MMC event, but there are only 2 cars going. That is not a *Club*, it is just a couple of Miatas driving down the same road at the same time…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 291