Miata Mileage

128,000 Vague NFL Referee Calls

I pretty much gave up watching NFL way back, but started again last year when I joined a Fantasy Football League at work. But this year it is getting hard to watch. I know everybody is all over the replacement refs and the NFL front office has asked the teams to lighten up, but these scab zebras make it a pain to watch the games. I’ve read a few things and they are really not too awful, but what they have messed up have been some game changers and worse for us TV viewers is they take too long to decide most calls. Sloooows the game down.

The Emperor passed the 128,000 mile mark on a routine shopping trip this afternoon. Kinda wish it would have happened yesterday as that photo of the inside of Lowe’s Motor Speedway probably included 128,000 cars, parts or people.

127,000 Milligrams Of Caffeine

This morning was the monthly MMC Breakfast event. Because we weren’t meeting for the drive to breakfast until 7:30 Donna and I decided on a pre-breakfast at our more typical 6:00AM time at DD. We split a bagel and had our usual morning beverages, Donna’s hot chocolate and my coffee.

We made the meet & greet, and in not too short an order our line of 5 cars made the brief drive to Harlem and our breakfast spot, the Red Oak Manor Bed & Breakfast‘s Acorn Restaurant. The first order of business for our host was to fill the coffee cups of the majority of the eleven members present. And the coffee kept coming for the whole hour or so we ate, chatted and even had a brief meeting. I bet we consumed over a hundred and twenty seven thousand milligrams of caffeine with all that dark amber fluid guzzled.

The Emperor passed the 127,000 mark on the way over to Augusta.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1162

126,000 Nyjer Seeds

On Thursday afternoon, not long after we left the Valve Store’s(TM) parking lot, the Purple Whale crossed the 18,000 mile barrier.

On Saturday morning, not too far from home, the Emperor passed through the 126,000 mile mark on the way to Augusta.

After losing the first game of the series against the Cleveland Indians, the Red Sox have won the last three games. Is this the start of a turn around like in 2011 or is this just slight blip designed to get my hopes up, so they can drop the next 4 games in a row and crush those hopes?

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1136

Mileage Matters

The Purple Whale joined our automotive stable at the end of last April, approximately 9 months ago, and since then we have put 12,000 miles on it.

From the time the Emperor was new in November of 2003 until the Sonata showed up in April 2011, a total of 7 years and 5 months, we drove it, our only car, for 120,000 miles. If you break that down into miles per 9 month period it comes to a little bit over 12,000 miles.

So on the surface it looks like our driving habits haven’t changed much, 12k miles around every 9 months, but not really. The Miata, in that same April 2011 to January 2012 time frame, has also been driven 5,000 miles. This means our cars have been driven 17,000 in the past nine months. And it is not because I’m driving one car and Donna is driving the other, when one car is moving the other is parked.

I guess I’m going to have to go back and read this blog for that time period and see if we have traveled more than normal.

Started down, went went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1106

125,000 Granules Of Sugar

The unseasonably warm weather continues and at the risk of having a blizzard hit Aiken, we really have had a very mild winter so far. We drove the Miata in to work today for the second day in a row. Tonight we are supposed to have a LOW of 51°, which is only a couple degrees lower than our average high for this time of year, which is why tomorrow we may even get to ride to work with the top down.

This morning while stopped at the bank to take some cash out for breakfast at DD the Emperor’s odometer stopped at exactly 125,000. Which, coincidentally, is the exact same amount of sugar granules that Dunkin’ Donuts sprinkles on top of my favorite breakfast item there, a Coffee Cake Muffin.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1102

124,000 Footsteps

I know it was nowhere near that many, but sometimes it feels like that when you are walking in circles, kicking over leaves, looking for and not finding a cache.

We set out this morning with a list of the 13 geocaches left in the 47 cache Risk Series. Those were all that were loaded in the GPSr so we couldn’t get distracted by other near by hides. We were out for 9 hours, walked almost 4 miles, drove almost 150 miles and found 8. There were 3 DNFs and 2 we couldn’t even attempt. One, the final cache, World Domination, we were lacking 3 numbers in the coordinates. Those 3 numbers would be found inside the other cache titled, Capture The Flag. We couldn’t find that one because its coordinates were wholly located inside a random cache in the series and it must be one of the three we couldn’t find today. Maybe next weekend…

Yesterday was a car-less day as we rode the tandem to work and when we got home we just stayed inside for the rest of the evening. The temperature Friday morning was anywhere between 35 and 38 depending on which weather source you believed. Whichever one it was we know it was down right cold bike riding in. The only thing that got really cold were our hands, which prompted a stop at a bike store in Augusta to buy some winter cycling gloves.

The Emperor passed through the 124,000 mile mark not long after leaving the garage for our trip this morning.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1092

123,000 Hz

Well, it’s happened again. Changing the accessory belts on the Emperor has resulted in belts squealing at a high pitched 123,00Hz. This time it is both belts. Yesterday evening when we were coming back from the mall one of them just started squealing for no apparent reason. It lasted for about a minute before I pushed in the clutch and it shut up.

Today on the way home from work, for a test, I hit the A/C and was greeted with a nice squeal, later tonight I got a squeal when making a tight turn, so the second belt that runs the power steering pump is a bit loose too.

As I pulled into the driveway this afternoon the odometer hit the 123,000 mile mark.

Guess we are going back to see Steve on Monday.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1077