FRS

I Hate Plumbing

Sunday I got the screened porch cleaned off of pollen and we moved into our “summer” bedroom. Tonight I finished editing down the vacation pictures to 124. For most, the title will be enough, but I still will need blurbs for quite a few of them so they make some sense. I ordered the new Miata battery this morning. Tonight I fixed garbage disposal, it grinds up stuff just fine

But in the process I created two leaks under the sink. There is now a plastic bin under there to catch the water. I knew I was in trouble when I disconnected the disposal drain outlet, the rubber gasket was all gunked up, along with the seating surface of the unit. I was not going to be able to make a watertight connection no matter how hard I tried cleaning up, but I tried anyway. As a bonus the thin wall tubing’s flange was eroded away in a small area. The other leak is over near the trap section of the Rube Goldberg maze of piping required for a double sink with a disposal.

Tomorrow it is off to the Big Box Home Improvement Store to buy a new unit, some piping and a gasket or two.

The FRS are playing the MFY tonight on ESPN and the game that was supposed to start at 7:00 PM just started (2-1/2 hours late) because of a rain delay. Every time these two teams get together it is a marathon heavyweight fight lasting around 4 hours, so I will be reading about how this one comes out tomorrow morning.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 181

How Was Your Day?

I need to swap the bedroom set to the summer bedroom. I need to clean the pine pollen off the back deck. The garbage disposal in the kitchen has stopped working, so I need to take it apart and see what has jammed it up. I still have 12 days of vacation photos sort through.

So what did I do today? We went geocaching, on a Time Speed Distance Rally with the MMC, watched two episodes of West Wing and I’m listening to the FRS on the internet.

Oh, and I have to order a new battery for the Miata.

We finished a disappointing tied for fifth (out of 6 cars) in the rally this morning. We made one error due to a misleading statement from the rally masters misinterpretation and another because of a missed a clue. We felt that we had kept track of the time and mileage overruns, but even subtracting them from our totals we were still way over and lost big points. The capper was I worked a pounds to kilogram conversion the wrong way and blew the bonus question.

After lunch at the BBQ place one of the Club members had left his lights on and the car wouldn’t start. That is a picture of three of us trying to push start him. After about 4 or 5 attempts we gave up on that and went inside to see about borrowing some jumper cables. The jump start work its magic and off he went.

On the way home Donna and I stopped at a quick stop store in south Augusta to get a bottled water and a Sprite. When we got back in the car I turned the key and was met with silence. Hmm, did I have the clutch all the way in? Tried again and still nothing, but radio display flashed as I went by. The dome light was on, so I figured it wasn”t a dead battery. Funny thing was that with the ignition switch in the ACC position the radio display would flash and there was a clicking sound (like 2 relays) coming from the instrument cluster.

Pulled out the cell phone and called Rudy (AKA Clunk) (or is it Thunk) and his first thought was battery, even after I described the symptoms. He said hold on, I’ll get the truck and come take a look. Thirty minutes later Rudy and Patti pull up. He brought some wrenches so we could remove the battery and (for what I figured was for testing purposes) the battery out of his Mazdaspeed Miata. We swapped batteries and the car started right up. According to Rudy the newer batteries don’t give you any warning, like they used to in the olden days. now they just up and die. We called a couple places to see if they had any batteries for the car and one said we don’t carry ’em, called the dealer and the other had one, but for $90 and he was all the way on the other side of town. Rudy has his truck and Patti just got a new Lexus, so he let me babysit his battery for a while.

It is still going to cost a hundred bucks or so for the battery, but it won’t be a generic replacement from Autozone, it’ll be a quality Westco replacement that is designed for the Miata.

Thanks Rudy.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 180

Maybe I’m Not Ready…

…for baseball season. At least the FRS may not be. Last night I posted that they were tied with the MFY 1 to 1 in the 8th inning, well in the bottom of the inning the Yankees scored 6 runs, unearned runs mind you, to win the game 7-1.

I am ready for tonight’s episode of TDTVS.

I am also ready to get the brakes fixed, but that ain’t happening until at least Friday night now. The parts got to the dealer on Tuesday, but I decided I didn’t want to deal with driving 60 miles with the last 8-10 in hectic capital city traffic, so I had them ship the stuff to me. Parts arrived today and wouldn’t you know it, they were the wrong ones. I called the part’s guy back and he said, “Oh yeah, there are two kinds of brakes for your year car, you must have the hard suspension. I’ll get the right parts and ship them right to you and they should get there Friday.”

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 152

Less Than 2 Weeks To Go…

..and I’m ready.

Although technically I’m not eliminated from the office March Madness contest (to win it #1 seed Louisville has to lose to #12 seed Arizona and my other remaining 14 picks have to be correct), I am ready for the tourney to be over and get to the start of the baseball season. Right now I’m listening to a pre-season baseball game between the Sox and the Yanks (it’s tied 1-1 in the 8th) and it is going to be great to have something to listen to each evening.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 151

The Greater Good

Season 1 Episode 21 revolves around Sayid off island and we find out just how he ends up on that fateful Flight 815. On island we attend a funeral, witness a near murder and Sawyer calms the new baby, “Turnip Head”, by reading a car magazine. The SciFi Channel has been running repeats of TDTVS since September by running 4 episodes every Monday starting at 7 PM and coincidentally the show running tonight at seven is The Greater Good.

I stayed up to see the whole game last night. It was close the whole way and the FRS had a couple of chances in the late innings, but couldn’t pull another rabbit out of their hats. The Tampa Bay Rays are on the way to the World Series to play the Philadelphia Phillies and the Red Sox are going home. Because it doesn’t matter to me who beats who in the Series, I might watch some portion of the games if Donna can’t find anything she wants to watch on TV those nights, so baseball is pretty much over for me for this year.

Pitchers and catchers report in 115 days.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 386

Have I Learned My Lesson?

I’m going to say no. The FRS forced a deciding game seven in their series with the Rays by winning last night’s game. But tonight, if the Sox are trailing by a bunch of runs in the late innings, I’m going to bed at 11. Tomorrow is an early start and the 5:00 AM alarm will come quickly.

I’m kinda glad I don’t have HDTV, John Lester’s sweat salt encrusted hat is ugly enough in plain ol’ analog TV.

Although I like the theme of the Brooke Shields commercials for the new Volkswagen minivan, I just wish there was some actual German engineering behind the Routan aside from figuring out where to paste a big VW logo on a Chrysler Town & Country.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 384

Do No Harm

Tonight we watched episode 20 which finishes disc 5, leaving only 4 episodes of Season 1 left. Off island in flashbacks, Jack gets married to a women he saved after a car accident and on island Jack tries to save a Lostie who is injured badly in a plane crash that wasn’t Flight 815. Definitely a 4 hankie episode; the wedding, a new romance blossoms, Boone dies & a baby is born.

If you follow sports even in the slightest you know what happened last night. If you don’t, a quick recap, The FRS were losing last nights ALCS game seven to nothing in the seventh inning with two outs (meaning they only had seven outs left) and they pulled it out winning 8-7 on a two out single in the bottom of the ninth. It was the second largest run deficit overcome in a playoff game. The other one didn’t really count because it happened nearly 80 years ago, so the only people who knew about were baseball statisticians and they had to look it up (and the only reason they looked it was because of this game.)

As I said last night I figured the FRS were out of it in the first inning when they were trailing 2 zip. I handed the remote to my wife in the 4th with them losing five to nothing. I checked just before my pre-bedtime shower and Tampa’s lead was up to seven. After the shower the Red Sox had broken through for 4 runs thanks in the most part to Big Papi’s 3 run homer. It was after 11:00 o’clock and even though my wife asked if I wanted to stay up to watch the end of the game, based on they way they had played tonight and in the series so far, I went to bed. I figured stick a fork in ’em, they’re done.

Today the sports world was all ga-ga over the comeback. There was tons of second guessing of the Rays manager; he should have left the starter in longer or he should have brought in so ‘n’ so to face that batter or whatever. He played it how he played it to get the team to where they are, one victory away from the first World Series in the team’s short and up ’til now, dismal, history. Pretty easy to second guess on the morning after isn’t. And just how many Major League Baseball games have you managed?

There was also plenty of negativity hurled at the fans at the stadium who were leaving after the middle of the seventh. The same went for the folks at home who turned off their TVs and radios (like me.) We were told we need to get off the bandwagon, turn in our Red Sox Nation membership cards and should never be allowed into Fenway Park again. Screw you. I’ll root for the team in the manner that got me here, watching them win and turning off the game if I think they are going to lose.

I wasn’t always able to turn away, but something happened in 2004, against all odds the Red Sox won a World Series. And to do it, they had to come from a 3 games to none deficit to the MFY in the League Championship Series. The fate of the world no longer rested on a victory in a playoff game or series, they had done it and I had reached a zen like level of fandom. If a game ran late I could just go to bed and find out the score in the morning. If they blew a lead and lost there was no more tossing and turning replaying the failure, as my head hit the pillow I was asleep. To quote the Great Guru of Baseball, “(If) It doesn’t happen, so who cares? There’s always next year. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.”

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 383