Whatever

Too Much Blue?

I’m not sure I like the way the all this blue looks, so don’t get to comfortable. OK?

On Tuesday evening I changed the oil on the Miata and rotated the tires. I pulled the right front tire off first so I could get to the oil filter and drain plug. While the dark amber color fluid drained into a plastic pan, I pulled off the right rear and mounted the previous front tire in its place. I rolled each at least a full rotation looking for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing sticking out of either one, but the inside corners of both of them were worn a bit more than the outside. It was getting close to tire shopping time.

When I pulled the right rear I realized it was time to shop now. The inside edge of this tire was almost square from uneven wear. No belt material was showing, but what should have been a smooth circumference was somewhat wavy.

Normally I would spend several hours checking reviews, reading the tires & wheels section of the Miata Forum and searching for deals before getting a new set of tires, but we were taking a weekend trip that started in 48 hours. I needed tires in a hurry and the few times I’ve had to do that it hasn’t always ended well.

I checked the website of the best independent tire dealer in town and they listed a couple of Ultra High Performance Summer tires in my size, including the Yokohama S.Drive which the Emperor already was riding on. It was about 3 minutes until closing time, but the fellow who answered said he could hook me up the next day with a set of the Yoko’s and an alignment.

I hated to do the alignment because there are a new set of shocks and springs in the garage awaiting installation in the next couple weeks and I will have to do another one after that stuff is put on. But it would be kind of stupid to buy new tires and then take a 850 trip with an improper alignment. I’d like to get closer to 25,000 miles on this set instead of just under 21,000 for the current tires.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1493

Motoring Challenge Points 0, Approx Miles Driven 140
Totals So Far: 40 points & 1080 miles

Too Much Red

If you tuned in last night or today you would have noticed that I changed the style of the blog. The style itself wasn’t bad, but it came out more redder than I liked.

So tonight I changed the color scheme to something lighter. My wife viewed the page on the desktop and proclaimed it looked like Easter. I didn’t see it on the laptop, where I picked the background, here the blue and greens are a touch darker and what she saw as yellow on the desktop, looks khaki here.

Come back tomorrow, probably be some more different colors. And if you are lucky, maybe a story.

Dead Mans Pants

In a Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee Jerry Seinfeld tells Seth Meyers of his 1972 Porsche 911 Carrera RS that, “Well it’s a Dead Man Car. I bought it from a dead guy, and it’s not getting sold again until I’m dead.”

This last weekend before we made it to the Cub In, we took a trip to Lexington to get some bagels at a chain called Brueggers that purports to New York Style bagels. Because, try as we might, we just can’t get a decent bagel in Aiken.

Every time we get to Lexington we have to stop at their Goodwill store because they have this awesome Dollar Rack where Donna can get tons of stuff for the nephew and nieces in Washington. While she shops for them, I shop for myself and if you search long enough, you can get lucky. Over the years I’ve found a couple of polo shirts in my size that still had the store tags and stickers on them.

This time I scored a couple pair of pristine Wrangler jeans in my size. They didn’t have the tags still on them but the material had that new denim stiffness to them that they couldn’t have been through the wash more than twice. The shirts I can explain, somebody must not have liked the colors, but these jeans, they’re perfect, somebody must have died. Because barring mishap, I can keep a pair of jeans at least ten years…

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1489

Cub In

Cub In

The last post’s photo came as we were leaving the Aiken Radio Control Society‘s 3rd Annual Cub-In on Saturday. It’s called a Cub-In because if you are flying a Piper Cub replica you get extra point credits, but you can fly anything you want. There were Piper Cubs there with wing spans ranging from 2′ to 6’ and there were also a lot of other types of aircraft on the “tarmac.” It seems like most of the folks in attendance had one Cub and then some other flying thing.

The wind did seem to die down a bit as the morning progressed, but it would still gust at times causing some of the planes to end up in the weeds or upside down even while doing the Ground Pylon Event. It may have not been the fun event the participants had hoped for, but Donna and I did enjoy watching the planes fly when they could. By lunchtime though, we had had enough sunshine, and headed back home.

Nothing But Net!

Smart Ass

I went to Delgado College for 7 semesters, 3 spring, 2 falls and 2 summers. I took at least one drafting class each semester and took two in 3 of them, for a total of 10. Aced every one of them. In those seven semesters I took a total of 28 classes and got A’s in all but one, that one I probably would have gotten an A, but I had a side drafting job one semester and couldn’t do that and take 5 full classes at the same time. I know, what a slacker.

To say I was a bit more mature at 28 than I was at 17 in high school is an understatement. Go back and look at yesterday’s high school transcript and squint a bit, I bet you can made out the two F’s and several D’s in there. I started out pretty decent in 10th grade, but that was my peak, it was all downhill from there. I still managed to be in the top 40 of my high school class.

The top 40% that is, I was graduated 238th of 624. Thirteen years later I graduated college Manga Cum Laude, 1 of only 3, out of a class of 670.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1480

I Lettered In Drafting…

Drafting Alphabet

..in both high school and college.

I stunk at both Wood Shop and Metal Working in high school, but did manage to get a industrial course that I was not only good at, but liked as well when I got to Drafting. So I kept at it, taking couple more classes in it during my time at good ol’ NBHS. After getting out of the Navy I took a Blueprint Reading in my first semester in college and realized that being a Draftsman was what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Every drawing has something called a Revision Letter that is used to keep track of any changes made to a drawing. Some places start with an A, some start with no letter before going to A, but the Valve Store(tm) starts with a – and then the first change is an A. In the beginning of my training as a draftsman I was taught that there are 5 letters that are are never used as a Rev Ltr because they might be confused as a number, I, O, Q, S & Z.

With out using those five you still get 21 revisions before you have to start over again at AA. Because ASCO has been in business for 126 years now, a few of our older drawings have the honor of dual letters. Even though there is now a prefix, those five letters are skipped again the next time around. One of the sets of drawings I was working on the other day had a B as the first letter, meaning it has had over 40 revisions. This particular drawing’s previous Rev Ltr was BH, so naturally the BI letter combo was skipped and next pair in line was used – BJ.

Now, maybe because I was in the Navy or maybe because I’m a guy or maybe I have a dirty mind, but I think there are a few 2 letter combos that don’t include the fab five that should not be used as Rev Ltrs, that’s one of them. The next one is less likely because a drawing would have to be on its 122nd revision for it to occur, but FU probably should get a pass. The next one my dirty mind comes up with is at 177and that is HJ.

Got any more?