Miata Mileage

The Taurus Diaries – Act II, Scene I

Dropped the Miata off at the body shop today after work. They gave us a loaner car, a tan Ford Taurus. It has the required rear trunk lid spoiler for that go fast look and rear drum brakes for that stop slow feel.

When I first pointed out my list of flaws to the body shop manager he told me he needed the car for a couple of hours. Tonight when he handed me the keys and I told him I would see him tomorrow around the same time, just the way he said, “I should have it ready for you.”, led both Donna and I to expect the Miata not to be ready then. Sigh.

Almost forgot, on Saturday, about 5 miles past Burlington, NC the Emperor glided past the 40,000 mile mark.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 175

39,000 Dust Enhanced Water Spots

Thirty-nine thousand flickered by on the digital odometer during the trip home from work today.

When I picked up the car from the body shop they had washed and waxed the back part of the car (the parts they painted), but didn’t really clean the front. Sunday’s rain left behind spots on the hood of coagulated body shop dust. I have been meaning to wash the car for the past couple of days, but they have been calling for rain. The last chance of precipitation for a while past this morning, so tonight when I got home I broke out the hose and bucket.

While cleaning the car I noticed a couple of things that need addressing from the body shop. When closing the trunk the sound has been a little different. Does the latch need replacing or is it because the trunk is off align of straight by about 1 degree? There are also a couple of dust pimples in the pain on the left trailing edge of the trunk lid. There is also what looks like a milky haze in the clearcoat in a couple spots on the trunk and left fender. The kicker is what at first I thought was dirt and suntan lotion build up on the shift knob turned out to be several small scratches in the clear coating on it. Guess I’ll give them a call tomorrow.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 136

38,000 Calories

The monthly meeting of the MMC was held tonight at the local Red Lobstah. I had two refills of sweet iced tea, 1-1/2 cheese biscuits, a garden salad with 1/2 portion of blue cheese dressing and a main course of Salmon New Orleans (Pan-seared fresh Atlantic or King Salmon & shrimp seasoned with Cajun spices in a rich lemon butter sauce. Served with a side salad, seasonal vegetables & your choice of side.) This is about 38,000 calories, but I can’t be sure because the Red Lobster web site does not have a nutrition guide. Thirty eight thousand is coincidentally the same number the wounded Emperor’s odometer passed through on the way to the meeting.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 98

37,000 cc’s Of Gas

Today was the MMC Tech Day and we had a whopping 2 cars get worked on. I did the swap of the slightly stripped lug stud and President Dave had his throttle body cleaned and a remote oil filter mount installed. We had one person come to do some wrenching on others cars, Clunk. His partner Thunk showed up a couple times through out the day to help or hinder as needed.

My stuffing Club newsletters under unsuspecting Miatas in parking lots paid off as someone I had hit twice popped in for a while and visited. Might turn out to be a member, might not.

On the way home I stopped in a Quick-Stop to fill up and realized I had passed through the 37,000 mile mark on the way over. My first clue was the slight smell of gas as I parked by the pumps, I didn’t pick up on it. Clue number 2 was the speedi-dri crunching under my feet as I started to fill the tank, didn’t register. Clue number three was the sound of splashing fluid on the pavement, I got it. The automatic shut off on the nozzle I was using was broken. I stopped at $25.37 and I bet at least the 37 cents worth spilled onto the ground.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 80

36,000 Girl Scout Cookies

Last Saturday in front Publix on HHI we bought two boxes of Girl Scout cookies. The Samoas didn’t last the day, while at least some of the Do-Si-Dos made it home.

Today in front of Wal-Mart we bought another box of Samoas and they met the same fate as their brethren did last weekend.

Tomorrow Donna gets the 4 boxes she ordered from a co-worker. I know there is at least one box of Samoas and hopefully they will last at least until Tuesday.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 56

Lost 35,000 Miles From Home

On the way to dinner out tonight the Emperor notched over the the 35,000 mile mark. Donna and I meet with two other couples for a meeting of the Fine Dining Round-table, a Boolean Subset of the MMC. We reconvened after a long holiday break at the last place we met back in October, Rae’s Coastal Cafe.

While tonight’s meal was good it didn’t live up to either October’s fest or our memory of it. Donna’s twin lobster tails were large and tasty, but my Cajun flounder, off the “specials” menu, was not that great. I’m thinking that maybe Chef Papou must have had the night off. The only thing that saved it was I spread some of the hot sauce that came with John’s Jerk Chicken Meal.

About 12:30 this afternoon the postal delivery person filled our mailbox with a bunch of charitable come ons and Season 1: Disc 2 of “Lost.” We spent the next 3-1/2 hours of a beautiful sunny warm January afternoon inside on the couch riveted by the escapades of 46 individuals stranded on a uncharted Pacific isle.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 32

34,000 Things That Could Be Wrong

I feel like such a dummy. I used to be an alpha geek, now I’m lucky if I even can claim the title of plain ol’ geek. My computer knowledge peeked around the cusp of the Windows98/Windows2000 change over. I never really learned anything about networking and it is starting to show.

I managed to get both computers to connect to the Internet through the router. But I can’t get them to talk to each other. I’ve turned on file and printer sharing, I shared the my documents folder on both machines, they belong to the same workgroup. A couple of the tutorials I’ve found on the web have mostly rehashed the same old procedures that come from XP’s built in Network Troubleshooter. I have run XP’s Network Setup Wizard, but always stop short because it looks like it wants to change some setting that I used to get the Internet sharing to work and I don’t want to muck that up.

About halfway to work this morning the Emperor clicked past the 34,000 mile mark. I wanted to say rolled over, but the Miata has a digital odometer so it doesn’t roll at all, it just blinks. The 3 nines change to zeros and the thousands digit advances one. I kinda miss the rolling action. Of course sometimes the zeros didn’t exactly line up nice until a few more miles down the road and that bothered the anal retentive portion of my brain. Maybe the digital is better after all.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 4