Miatatude

MMC Tech Day II

Bulldog Blue Meanie

I had grand plans to paint the Emperor’s valve cover with red wrinkle paint when I had it off changing the gasket on Saturday. The local O’Reillys didn’t have the paint in stock in red when I called on Thursday, so they ordered some for me to pick up on Friday evening.

Standing there outside Kurt’s garage on Saturday morning looking down at the cover sitting on a garbage bag, noticing all the things I would have to clean and/or protect and/or mask off, I abandoned the plan. I just didn’t feel like investing the time, besides, it is not like I keep a “Car Show Shine” under the hood (as evidenced by the above photo.)

While removing the cover I had some big help from John “Clunk” Haff, but that help cost me the stock yellow handle of the dip stick as John snapped it off while twirling a ratchet. Not that it took much pressure to break, it is a known Miata issue, because the hard plastic it is made from turns brittle with age and the under hood heat. So much so that mine was not the only one broken on our Tech Day. Dave was having his timing belt & water pump proactively replaced had his break off too. John swore he had nothing to do with it and I believe him as he still had his head under the Emperor’s bonnet, but I suspect it was his partner in crime, Rudy “Thunk” Wilmoth.

John apologized profusely, but I told him, “No worries, mon. I’ve got jus da ting to be repairin it.” This has happened on my previous two Miatas and I had the perfect replacement at home. I still had two of the four heads left from on my Yellow Submarine Blue Meanie Bulldog figure.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1321

We Go To The Zoo

Destination - Zoo

About three weeks ago we had traveled to Columbia to take a picture of the front entrance to the Riverbanks Zoo. It was crowded that there was a line of cars just to get into the parking lot. We took one photo of a nearby banner, but decided later that it just wouldn’t do. I remember from our last visit, several years back, that the entrance had a big ol’ colorful sign and an animal themed mural at the entrance.

We drove via the Interstate on the way back from Statesville yesterday and would pass right near Columbia. Figuring we might be early enough to get that elusive zoo picture we drove over. It was 10:30 and I guess the zoo opened at 11:00 AM because it was already getting busy on the entrance road. There was no line of cars so we took a left, much to the chagrin of the guy with the wands who was pointing right, and pulled to the curb at the main entrance.

It was under renovation. There was no mural and the big sign was not nearly as impressive as I remembered. We took the photo anyway and I think it will just have to do.

Photo Rally Update: We came in 4th place, a long way out of first.
RidgeRunner Tours 2014 Photo Rally
Targa Class Results:
1st….Steve Wilson & Sloane Wilson 106 pts
2nd…Rob Bolling & Amber Bolling 96 pts
3rd…Stephanie Sturm & Teresa DeSantis 94 pts
4th…Brian Bogardus & Donna Bogardus 83 pts
5th…Dwayne Gentry & Lydia Johnson 79 pts

I Is The Loneliest Letter

County - Iredell

Of South Carolina’s 46 counties, it turns out that there none beginning with 6 of the letters of the alphabet. Q, X and Z are to be expected, T & V a little unexpected, but I was surprised that none began with the letter I. But actually I is relatively scarce as the first letter of a county. Of the 3,143 counties (or its equivalent) in the United States there are only 30 that begin that way. Georgia only has one, Irwin, and it is 200 miles away from Aiken. North Carolina only has one, Iredell, and it too is around 200 miles away. But as luck would have it, this weekend’s Foothills Photo Rally 4 that we participated in started in Statesville, NC which just so happens to be in……Iredell County.

As for the rally, we had a blast. We drove over 100 miles of back country roads trying to spot various things we were given photos of, stopping at 4 different checkpoints that involved games of chance or skill, spending nearly six hours doing it. Only once we had to backtrack because of a missed turn and that was the drivers fault as when my navigator said three tenths of a mile until the next turn I heard 3 miles.

I don’t know where exactly we finished in our 20 group class, but I know it wasn’t 1st, 2nd, or smack in the middle. The first place team in each class, of which there were two, each received a Mason jar filled with White Lightning. The second place teams got a Mason jar of local honey. The teams that finished in the statistical middle of each class’s scores got a certificate that will only be slightly embarrassing to have hanging on the wall in their Trophy Room at home. After the awards were handed out we could have gone up and checked our actual place in our class, but opted not to, so we could believe that we finished in third place only one point back of second and two points out of first.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1317

More Moss Motoring Moments

This spot was today’s goal, the only National Park in South Carolina, Congaree Swamp. We didn’t actually enter the park, we’ve been in a couple times previously, back before it was made a NP, so we just took this picture of the sign. On our way there we drove through South Carolina’s recreation of the Scandinavian peninsula:

I’ve created a gallery so you can follow along with our adventures, it is over there on the left – 2014 Moss Motoring Challenge. We also captured a couple of counties, a dead end, an airport and a candidate for one of the next Sneak Peek photos, but I haven’t finished editing and uploading them yet.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1298

The Week That Was

As a run up for Season 2 of Orphan Black the folks at BBC America released 8 sneak peeks and because I’m such a nice guy I collected all of them and made a handy YouTube playlist so you can watch them back to back to back…and when I say peeks they are just that at 15 seconds a piece. To add a little meat to the list I tacked on a trailer for Season 2 at the end.

What does Walt Whitman‘s “Song of Myself” have to do with the Clone Club? I have no idea, but it must mean something as a sharp-eyed Clone Ranger, Valerie Anne of the website AfterEllen, noticed that at the end of each of the sneak peek is a bit of binary code that converts into a line from that poem.

On Sunday John Travolta mangled the name of the singer for Frozen’s Oscar nominated song “Let It Go,” Idina Menzel calling her Adele Dazeem . Now if you’d like, thanks to Slate.com, you can find out how John would has mispronounced your name had you been her. Brian Bogardus would have been Benn Bozowens…

Now if I had known about this around Christmas time last year I would not have wasted my money on that quadcopter that lasted a week. Instead I would have commissioned my very own likeness as a rubber stamp.

I think I have said here before that my ideal Miata would be my first one reincarnated with about 20 to 30 thousand miles on it. Well here is one that is almost exactly fits the bill – Hemmings Find of the Day. It is not Smurf Blue, but I almost bought one in white when the wait for a blue one got past 100 days.

Spring Is For The Birds

I think.

Last week at this time the freezing rain was still falling, now seven days later we drove home from work with the Miata’s top down in the upper 70’s with the sun shining.

The weather is certainly springlike and there must be birds singing out there, but you can’t hear them over the sound of the whirring of chainsaws. Every street in town is lined with pile of upon pile of fallen tree limbs and broken branches like hedgerows. Some streets in our neighborhood have been narrowed down to a single because of the tree debris lining both sides.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1294

134,000 Grains Of Salt

Bridal Veil FallsWow, another thousand miles has gone by. This one in less than a month. Almost seems like old times when the Emperor was our only car and we drove it everywhere. A good chunk of this thousand miles can be directly attributed to our trip to Deals Gap a couple weekends ago.

On our way back home that Sunday we stopped just outside Highlands, NC at the Bridal Veil Falls for a small photo op. We thought with all the recent rains in the area it might have a lot more of a flow, but it seemed to be about the same amount as any old fall day.

Tonight we went out to get some dinner and were surprised by the amount of traffic at, admittedly the busiest intersection in town, Whiskey & Pine Log Roads to turn left. It was backed up about a 1/4 mile with about a hundred and thirty four thousands cars in line. We were going to go left there, but opted to go straight through and turn left further down the street to sneak up on our destination, Captain D’s. Even that left turn was a bit of a wait and the short circuit we were making was crawling (literally) with cars.

We left the house with the odometer on 133,999 and by the time we parked it was right on the 134,000 mark. One mile traveled, but it felt like about five. Our drive brought us to a parking lot area where the were several restaurant options, so when we arrived Donna changed her mind, since she was going to have fish for lunch tomorrow, she would rather go to Five Guys and get a burger. Very little arm twisting was needed to get me to agree. The burgers are pretty darn good and the fries are awesome as well, except they sure do sprinkle on the salt. I bet but our small size had about 134,000 grains of salt on them.