Miatatude

I got a PM from someone on the Miata.net Forums asking about some Barndoor Fan Club stickers. I sold the last of them just before closing shop on the BDFC so he was out of luck.

Then as I thought about it, I still have all the images I used on the CafePress store, I can upload the logo and put it on one of their 3×5 stickers. Then all he had to do would be cut the 2 circles out and for a little less than the cost of the originals, he would be in business. While I was at it I made up a couple of different T-shirts. So if you missed out the first time get your very own Barndoor Fan Club memorabilia before it is gone for good (really.)

Life of Brian Store Annex

If it were not for the egging on of a co-worker we would have had a repeat of Tuesday, June 21st. They nearly had to beg me to go put up my top. It wasn’t until I checked the radar that I ran out into the parking lot and raised the roof. Good thing, as it was already raining nicely as I walked out and back, but no more than 5 minutes after I got back to my desk it came down in buckets, big buckets.

I guess the air is still saturated from Dennis, because we have had at least 4 more heavy thunder showers since that first one.

My favorite Mazda dealer and sponsor of our local Miata Club is no more. It was part of Rader Mazda/Mercedes Benz, but the owners sold the dealership and the new owner wanted just the MB portion, so he sold off the Mazda franchise to the person who owned the other local Mazda dealership. Here is the first article from a couple weeks ago: Dealership owner will purchase lot. (If you are asked to register, username: augustabob, password: godawgs)

Today’s paper had a follow up: Dreams become reality for store’s new owner. My favorite quote from the piece, “Other plans include strengthening the dealership’s service department, which he says ‘was the weakest part’ of the operation.”

If you are a regular reader here you know of my experience with the service department and all I can say is, “Amen brother.” If you are not a regular, try this or this or this for a couple examples.

Our pants got a little damp on the ride into work this morning, but leaving the cockpit cover off in the morning helped quite a bit. Not taking any chances we put it back on for the afternoon. Tomorrow’s planned repeat of this process will probably have the car totally dried out.

At our lunchtime walk around the parking lot the sky was looking kind of iffy. Donna asked if I thought that we should put the top up and I waved her off. As a precaution when I got back inside I checked the radar loop on Weather.com and it looked like the line of thundershowers was moving north and east away from us, so I forgot all about the rain. For about 10 minutes. That is when the bottom fell out. If you were to look in the Microsoft’s Encarta for the word deluge, a video of what happened this afternoon would appear there.

It rained hard, like a cow pissing on a flat rock in a flowing stream, for at least 20 minutes. After 5, I knew I was in trouble. When the storm passed I wandered out to the parking lot to inspect the damages. The cockpit cover was soaked and when I peeled it back the inside looked barely wet. I did a quick sigh and felt the driver’s seat bottom. Uh, oh, it went squish, squish. That’s when I noticed the puddle of water under the seat. 😯 There was about an inch of rainwater under there. I went into the trunk and got my hand towel I use for quick detailing and started to sop up the puddle. After about a dozen dips and then squeezing out the water onto the asphalt the remaining water was at least not in danger of slooshing around on the drive home. The passenger side didn’t have a puddle, everything was just soaked through. I used a bunch of paper towels and dried the rest of the surfaces off. The seat bottoms and the “carpet” was still very wet.

Once I got home I pulled the seats and popped off the sill plates so I could peel back the carpet and dry underneath. I ended up using 6 full size bath towels to get all I could get dry in the cockpit. The colored and shredded recycled 2 litter 7-Up bottles that Mazda uses for carpet in the car is no real problem, it should eventually dry with no issues. But underneath that on each side are a couple of pieces of fiber padding that acted like sponges and they will not be 100% dry when I button the car back up later tonight. I may just rip the soggy padding out and replace it with something else later…