Masters Miata Club

Chasing Steeples Again

More or less repeat of my wrally wrap up over on the MMC website:

I don’t know what you were doing last Saturday, but we along with three other couples were enjoying what was basically a Division 1 college football tailgate party, interrupted by a six or seven horses whizzing by every half hour or so.

httpvh://youtu.be/S3JROluZ-_c

Not only did President Tom allow us the use of his rail-side parking spot, but he had a cake delivered to our tent that said “Happy Retirement Donna.” If Tom offers up his spot next year we’ll probably come again, we are not big horse racing fans, but it is a fun event to eat, chat and people watch. This year we hefty a few leftovers in our lunch sack, I threw the folding chairs over my shoulder and we walked the mile home unlike, last year where it took us over an hour just to drive the Miata for enough to get out side the venue’s gate.

Twenty Seventeen

Didn’t do real good on that though of writing on Wednesday did I? Well, I have a good excuse. After I got finished polishing this turd, I thought maybe I could do the same for the MMC’s website.

WordPress usually adds a nice shiny new template as an option with each major release of the software. They typically name it after the year of release, so the latest is called, unsurprisingly, Twenty Seventeen, an man is it cool. The page opens to a large image (or video if you are so inclined) and then you scroll down to the next page and there is an image to transition across to each new page. Check the demo page, then come back.

I downloaded a a program called InstantWP which allows you to install a portable version of your site on a USB stick. Not as simple as it sounded, I had to tweak a couple of PHP files to even get the Club’s large database loaded. When I finally got that sorted I fired up the web site. The side bar is on the right and we have it on the left, that was a project in itself. Countless internet pages later I got that sort of working. Several widgets didn’t work as they did before, but I thought maybe I could work around them or find substitutes.

But one of the widgets killed the whole deal, the calendar plugin that we rely on for event planning would not work at all. Sigh. I knew this day was coming, the plugin was last updated in 2009, but at least it still works on the current site. It is the next one that is really worrying, there will probably come a day when an update to WordPress itself will cause it to stop working. Look like finding a replacement might need to get moved to the front burner.

Jar of Toe Jam

Friday night was the MMC’s annual Christmas Party. I really kind of dislike giving a store bought gift for the gift exchange, so when I can, I like to make something sort of crafty. After last year’s Wrench on the Bench I really felt like there was no way to top that. So this year I dropped back and bought some stuff, admittedly non-standard stuff, and added a little crafty delivery system.

I didn’t get a cut of sales of the Blipshift shirt I inspired, but I did in fact get a $100 credit at the company store to use as I see fit. So on Cyber Monday when they offered these cool Cargyle Socks, I decided to spend some of that money. Because it was two pair I figured the second one would be my gift to give away. I also bought a set of the laser-cut ornaments and then I could use one of the four as decoration on the sock delivery package.

Initially Donna was going to bring a bottle of Blackberry Gold that we bought in Hendersonville over Thanksgiving from the Flat Rock Ciderworks. I was going to some how stuff the socks into a wine bottle so that we would both show up with identical shaped gift bags. This planned crashed for two reasons, first Donna opted to take the hard cider as her gift to the Valve Store’s Lady’s Christmas party the night before and second it turns out wine bottlenecks are too small to stuff a grown man’s sock through.

What you see above is Plan B. I was impressed with my effort, the person who ended up with it on Friday night was not. I was not too surprised by that though as the car club is stuffed full of non-car guys. Even if every person in the Club was there, I bet it would take less than one hand to count the number of folks out of the nearly fifty member/member families who would know the significance of the color pattern of the socks.

MMC At The Gap

OK, this past weekend Donna and I were supposed to lead 5 cars up to western North Carolina to enjoy some twisty roads and one really, really twisty one. Well, I’ve got to stop watching the news and reading the news on the internet, because I convinced myself that the Alabama gas pipeline’s second accident, earlier in the week, would cause shortages stranding us in the mountains. So Donna and I didn’t lead a group to NC, we handed them our maps and wished them well.

Of course the shortages never materialized and we probably missed an epic weekend of Miata fun. I sent an email to all the folks who went last night, asking for a few words about the trip, but as of yet I have no replies back so I have no idea of what they did. Well, that’s not exactly true, I know they drove through the famous Deals Gap at around 9:30 AM on Saturday morning. Killboy caught them in the act:

165,000 Sunrises

165,000 Sunrises

That many sunrises would actually be somewhere just north of 450 years, so that is not how many I have witnessed, but perhaps in another life if I was Count Magnus Brahe, a Swedish noble, who was born on September 25, 1564.This particular sunrise was experienced by Donna and I on our way to work this morning.

Not too far into the trip to tonight’s MMC monthly meeting the Emperor pass thru the 165,000 mile mark.

Motoring Challenge Points 2, Approx Miles Driven 0
Totals So Far: 60 points & 970 miles

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 195

Thank You For Your Service

Yesterday morning we drove the Miata to lovely downtown Trenton, SC. We were with 9 other Miatas from the MMC and we were on our way to drive in the 46th Annual Ridge Peach Festival parade. This was the 13th year the Club has driven in the parade. Donna and I were among the 8 cars that first year, and while we haven’t done it every year, but I bet this was the 8th or 9th time.

During the parade you are allowed to throw candy to the crowd and we always spend about $20 so that we have enough to last the entire 2/3 of a mile route. When we could drive 2 abreast we would and Donna would throw candy to the crowd-side herself, but when the crowds thickened and we had to drive single file she would throw to the right and in between, hand me candy so I could toss some to the left. It was during this time when I tossed a few Starbursts at a couple of kids that I happened to make eye contact with the mother and she said to me, “Thanks. And thanks for your service.”

That woman at the parade was thanking me based solely on the hat I was wearing. A month ago when we toured the USS Midway I bought a hat in the gift shop to commemorate our visit and my time aboard almost 40 years ago. This has happened a couple other times too, once in Barstow, CA and once again here in Aiken, both times it was just because of the hat. Not that I don’t slightly deserve it having spent 10 years in Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club, but any schmoe who’s toured the ship or spends around twenty bucks can get one from Amazon or eBay and that weirds me out because they’ll get thanked for possibly no service at all. I’d like to wear the hat, but I’m going to have to only do it when there will be little chance of interaction with people and definitely not on Memorial Day or Veterans Day.

And then again maybe it is probably just me who has a problem with this, but when I joined the Navy in 1973 people were still into calling servicemen returning from Vietnam baby-killers and now after the middle-east conflicts it has become fashionable to call servicemen (and women) heroes and to thank them for their service and I am of that era, not this one.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 186

4 Years Later

McLeod Museum

We took a drive on Saturday to scout a route for a future MMC event, but we didn’t take the Miata, it was just a little too cold (and windy) for a convertible drive. The picture above is from the destination, the McLeod Farms Antique Museum.

It was even colder today. We got up this morning for our usual Sunday morning breakfast bike ride. Our first stop was downtown at the ATM because we didn’t have any cash and after were going to go another dozen miles or so before eating. The temps were in the upper 30s with the wind chill near freezing. We both felt uncomfortably cold in the 15° below normal, so after the ATM we just rode home and got in the car to drive for breakfast. Post breakfast we did the weekly grocery shopping and we have not been outside since.

This afternoon we sat glued to the couch watching the only golf tournament we ever watch, the Masters.

I have been seeing Dr. PCP twice a year forever for him to run my cholesterol numbers and I can’t believe it has been 4 years since I put up the numbers…Maybe because they looked pretty much like this latest batch of results, cholesterol & LDL within limits and my triglycerides too high with my HDL not high enough.

  Chol HDL LDL Trig
Goal 80-199 40-110 30-130 30-150
03/31/16 170 37 95 180
10/10/12 196 36 128 160
04/10/12 193 39 121 166
10/10/11 162 43 88 155
04/04/11 155 38 96 107
12/06/10 176 41 114 105
05/18/10 151 38 91 109
12/15/08 167 41 92 171
03/21/08 164 37 104 115
12/12/07 175 38 104 165
07/17/07 185 36 117 162
03/05/07 195 39 123 167
09/19/06 167 37 103 135
04/06/06 168 37 106 126
12/08/05 182 35 120 137
07/28/05 177 30 113 169
06/17/05 164 31 85 238
05/06/05 174 27 108 194
01/10/05 176 33 110 167
09/21/04 209 24 131 271