Miatatude

Took The Air Right Out Of The Sails

Augusta's Christmas Tree on the CommonsOn our way home from dinner out with friends tonight we detoured through the “valley” to see some Christmas lights. At one point going through a neighborhood Donna said, “It sounds like you picked something up in a tire.” I slowed a bit, but after a few seconds the sound went away, so I shrugged it off. About 10 minutes later as we were accelerating away from a traffic light, the back end of the car squirmed. When I shifted into second, it did it again and we could tell we had a flat. I limped ahead another 100′ or so into a small lighted parking lot.

It took a couple minutes to clean out and disassemble the trunk to get down to the spare. Jacked up the car and swapped out the flat tire for the bitty compact spare. Fortunately the regular tire and wheel fit back into the trunk, but only because there wasn’t any air in the tire and then still it was a tight squeeze. Because of the time, our only chance to get it fixed was if the tire center at Wally World was still open. It was on the way home, but although Walmart is open 24 hours, the tire center part must close their doors at 8:00 PM because it is dark when we get there.

The only good thing about this puncture is at least it is in the center of the tread area, so I can get the LTS to put a plug in the tire tomorrow. The tires are getting worn, but there is enough tread still left to possibly get me through until early spring. Just for the record I checked to see how many miles I have on these tires and it turns out I’ve got 30K on them. I wonder if the T1R is supposed to wear better than it’s predecessor the T1S? Because I was usually only able to get 25K or so on the older model Toyos…

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 496

Happy 4th Anniversary

November 24, 2003

In the spirit of getting green, Donna and I have decided to downsize. We have donated our 7-1/2′ balsamus artificialus to Goodwill and have procured a 4-1/2′ antedate illuminate coniferous falsiful to grace an end table in the living room.

For the last couple of years we have been half-heartedly searching the after-Christmas sales for a deal on a new pre-lit tree with no success, so this year we just went ahead and bought a small one. As always, the Emperor was as good as a pickup truck in both carting the old tree to Goodwill and the new one home from Lowes on top of the folded top behind the seats.

Along with all the tree shopping and recaulking the bathtub, we still had time to watch 2.2 Kissy-Poo Movies™. The point two was “Alfie“, the Jude Law version, and I think that .2 might have been longer than we watched the Michael Caine version. The other two were “The Upside of Anger” & “The Banger Sisters.” I spent most of that last movie trying to figure out who the actor was that was playing frumpy writer guy, Harry Plummer. At first I thought it was the same guy who played Q on ST:TNG, but it wasn’t. Not until they rolled the credits and I saw the name Geoffrey Rush! Yikes, Captain Barbossa himself.

You don’t know what this is, do ye?… This is Aztec gold. One of 882 identical pieces they delivered in a stone chest to Cortez himself. Blood money paid to stem the slaughter he wreaked upon them with his armies. But the greed of Cortez was insatiable. So the heathen gods placed upon the gold a terrible curse. Any mortal that removes but a piece from that stone chest shall be punished for eternity.

The Incredibles is on NBC tonight. I shoulda bought it instead of Pixar’s stupid rat movie…

Lawyer: Mr. Sansweet didn’t asked to be saved. Mr. Sansweet didn’t want to be saved. And the injuries received from Mr. Incredible’s “actions,” so-called, causes him daily pain.
Bob: [lunging towards Sansweet] Hey, I saved your life!
Oliver Sansweet: You didn’t save my life, you ruined my death, that’s what you did!

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 486

Gafinkleforp

Mystery FieldIt took a while this morning, but we finally got off our duffs and made it into Hitchcock Woods around 9:30. For grins we headed all the way over to an entrance on the other side from where we usually enter, so we could walk on some different trails. One new place we passed by was called Mystery Field and there were two mysteries about it that we could see, 1) it really wasn’t a field, but more of an area covered in youngish pine trees and 2) a lot of the trees were painted with blue markings.

We stayed at our company shindig long enough to eat and the door prize drawings before sneaking out the back door. We both “won” prizes, Donna got to take home one of the two large flower arrangements and I was selected to take home one of the small table flower arrangements. Not only did we really not want the big flowers, we weren’t sure they would fit in the Miata, so we gave them away to someone who was sitting at our table.

Stopped on the way home to buy gas. There was a white Miata in the adjacent lot of a restaurant, so while the tank was filling I walked over and put an MMC calling card under their windshield wiper. After filling up we went into Krogers to do our weekly shopping. Pushing the cart out the door I paused as the woman of the couple in front of us snagged some home buyers or apartment guides out of the rack. The couple who grabbed the brochures were in front of us along with two other women shoppers heading towards our section of the parking lot. There was a white Miata parked out there near us and I speculated as to if it was the same one. We both wondered which of the pairs would get in the Miata. The male/female couple made a beeline for the Miata and Donna said to me quietly, “Don’t go say hi, I don’t want to spend 20 minutes in the parking lot chatting.” We were loading the bags in our trunk and as the woman got in the white Miata she noticed us and waved. I noticed the same 1/4 raised stuck power antenna as the one from the restaurant parking lot. I wonder if they thought the card and then seeing us was a coincidence?

Tonight’s title is a word I made up. It returned zero hits on Google. How long will it take for this post to show up in a search engine? How long before someone besides myself searches for the “word” gafinkleforp?

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 471

Wine & Dine Subset

A Miata Darkly IIOnly a real die-hard Miata nut would have recognized the car in last night’s picture as a Miata. And only the Uber Miata Geek subset of that group would have been able to tell you that the car could only be either a 2004 or 2005 because of the speakers built into the windblocker behind the seats.

Ah, Friday night. Donna and I drove to Augusta right after work to meet with MMC‘s Fine Dining Subset for a nice evening out. This month’s pick was Calvert’s. All three of the couples like to eat diner early so we took advantage of Calvert’s Sunset Special which includes salad, entree and desert for $28.95 a couple. Donna had a seafood crepe; shrimp, scallops and crab meat served in a light French crepe and covered with a lobster champagne sauce and I opted for the pecan-encrusted pork.

Tomorrow will be a hike in the woods in the morning and the ASCO Management Club’s annual Christmas meeting in the evening. The Management Club is a subset of the company’s employees that consist of the salaried folks and we get together four times a year for a buffet dinner at a local country club or restaurant and sometimes there is a speaker. The year end one is different in that spouses (or a guest) are allowed to attend and instead of a speaker there is music and dancing. The HR department waited too long to book a place, so instead of the usual middle of December date we are having it in early November. To make up for it we are going to have our office Thanksgiving dinner at work the second week of December.

Sunday is possibly a quick drive northwest to get the Post Offices in Clifton and White Stone, they are the last ones in the Spartanburg subset.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 471

A Miata Darkly

A Miata DarklyI wasn’t so sure I was going to like this movie, but “A Scanner Darkly” pleasantly surprised me on two accounts.

First, I remember seeing a clip of the bicycle scene when the actors were making the talk show circuit to promote this movie when it first came out in theaters. Taken out of context it seemed kind of stupid, but now in the total of the movie it seemed humorous and perfectly captured that feel of the conversation of a group of stoned people. The rotoscope process seemed gimmicky in the clip and again for the full hour and a half of the movie it enhanced the ambiance.

Oh, and secondly, Winona Ryder’s character drove a Miata.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 471

Happy 18th Anniversary

I just knew I had blogged about it before, but a couple of searches here came up empty. I tired looking at all the posts from around this date, again with no luck. In one last try I hit pay dirt.

Birth Announcement

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 471

If Charles Caleb Colton Owned a Miata

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

And if he had a blog it might look something like this:
The Miataman Adventures

Maybe not really imitation, but definitely influenced.

Still not sure about those new galleries, I still like the idea of having some captions which is not really possible with those flash style viewers. I like the stripe background though and I think that maybe it is time for a template change for here incorporating that stripe. Probably take a week or two to find one I like and modify it to fit me. For those of you who really like this theme, I’ll leave it available as an option.

Can you tell that the weather has been perfect for convertibles the last few days? The count hasn’t changed since last Friday morning when the top went down for the trip to work.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 398