Miatatude

Another San Francisco morning here in Aiken, SC. Cold, damp, foggy, real ugly this morning so we put the top up for the ride in. Today was lunch date with my wife and by noon it was sunny and had warmed up nicely. We made the 20 mile round trip to the Burger King that is less than a mile from the plant for Whoppers (Regular for me and a Jr. for Donna.) Can’t imagine being trapped inside a giant SUV with an A/C that is on all the time, missing the sounds and feel of the outdoors on spring days like this….

Not having an SUV almost cost us a couple of pieces of chocolate though. On the way home we stopped at the drive-thru of our bank to cash a check. Used the lane closest to the bank so when the teller pushed out the little draw again with my cash and driver’s license back I reached up and in, grabbed the envelope and started to pull away. The teller as she was wishing us a good weekend, said, “Wait, you forgot something.” When I took the envelope, I felt something else in the draw, but ignored it as they always keep a pen in there for folks who don’t have one and I thought that is what is was. When I reached back in there I could feel some little squares, so I picked them up. They were a couple of those little Hershey’s miniatures in St. Patrick’s Day colors. The teller smiled and said, “See, not a pen.” If I had an SUV I would have been looking down into the tray and would have seen the candy. Of course, taped to one, was a bit of paper that invited us to refinance our mortgage with Regions Bank. Erin Go Braugh, indeed.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 50

Top down and boot on for the ride home. Because of the continued absence (63 hours and counting) of That Hosting Company the Miata club site is nowhere to be found. We still have the Geocities space so I uploaded the most current web site back there. Figured a banner ad or two is better than nothing. http://www.geocities.com/masters_miata/

Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 48

We had to make an emergency run last night. Drove the 15 miles to the grocery store that is a mile and a half away to get chocolate chip ice cream. Now go figure, we put the top down. I guess maybe because it is dark it is OK to be cold…

…because this morning, in the light, we put it back up for the ride to work. Foggy as all get out and lower 50’s. Even if we had braved it, I would have put it up at work because we are still in the clouds and the interior would have gotten soaked.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 47

You could see the rain on the radar, it was close, but being 50 degrees we left for work with the top down. Made it about 2 miles and had to pull over and raise the roof. It has been raining on and off for the rest of the day so it is currently up.

Found a neat idea over in the Interior/Exterior Section of the Miata.net forum on changing the Hazard and Pop-up switches out to toggle switches, this may be my Tech Day Project.

Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 45

Close to freezing this morning, so the top went up for the ride to work. I thought winter was over with? Off to the printer at lunch to drop off the flyer for the Bike Club‘s Spring Century. Put the top down and the boot on. Stayed down for the ride home, but will probably go back up in the morning, Weather Channel say rain.

Bad news is my new A/C panel is out of stock at Rspeed and they are the only folks handling these parts. Guess I am going to have to find something else to do at Tech Day, sigh….

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 44

I am not buying any underwear, frivolous Miata stuff for me! I’m getting THIS from Rspeed so I can have something to install at next weekend’s Master’s Miata Club tech day. Just have to figure put a way for the cockpit cover to be a necessity, so the funds for it come from the household monies and not my discretionary fund.

Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 42

I’ve got to get a cockpit cover. There were some dark gray clouds hovering about after the lunchtime run, so I chickened out and put the top up. In an effort to make this top last more than the typical 3 years I usually get I have promised to take better care of it. Step one is to use the boot whenever it is down, this will protect the underside from damaging UV rays. Step two should be to not raise and lower it so much. The cockpit cover will allow me to keep the top down when there is a slight chance of rain and hopefully keep those days of 5-6 transitions to a minimum. Just hate to spend the $40 when there are so many other cool non-essential things I’d like. Kinda like getting underwear for Christmas….

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 42