Whatever

That’s Fair

Fair

We started the day with breakfast with the MMC at a Steak and Shake in Augusta and we’re ending it on the couch watching the FRS play playoff baseball. In between we walked around downtown Aiken to pay our bills followed by lunch on the porch of a small restaurant. This afternoon I finished up my center console modifications by installing a lighted push button that operates the garage door remote in the old cigarette lighter spot.

While I was in there I tried sliding the top of the upper shift boot up the shifter some. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that shifting into 1st and 3rd required a bit more oomph than it did with the old torn boot, well today, shifting into 5th was met with progressively more resistance. So much so that on this morning’s post breakfast drive the shifter popped out of 5th gear about three times just because of the tightness of the rubber boot wanting to force the shifter into neutral.

After dinner we took in the sights at the Western Carolina State Fair. It was a beautiful night for it as it actually felt like fall. They had quite a few awesome looking rides and that is pretty much all we did was look at them because even if we did want to try one out the lines were very long. The only thing we bought was a 1/4 pound of fudge from a vendor after 2 failed attempts to buy an ice cream cone from an outside cart.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1268

Purloined Hot Sauce

Our Industrial Engineer Rob is an eating machine. But it seems like to him, if it is worth eating, it is worth eating with hot sauce on it. Consequentially, Rob runs out of hot sauce on occasion, so then he needs to borrow some from his coworkers.

Rob has been out of hot sauce for a while now and has found a favorite supply, a bottle our supervisor Keith keeps in his office. But Keith has noticed that the level in his sauce bottle seems to be dropping faster than it should be considering the amount he uses. Naturally all suspicion falls on Rob, but he has steadfastly denied any culpability in the missing sauce, but no one believes him. Turns out, with good reason.

In the last few seconds of this surveillance video is a small obscene hand gesture that may not be suitable for children, parental discretion is advised:

Anniversary Cards

Yesterday was Donna and my wedding anniversary. This year we are celebrating the one that is right about halfway between major milestone and holy crap that long.

Because we are usually shopping together when it comes time to buy greeting cards for each other for Valentine’s Day and Anniversaries we take turns, one person shops for cards while the other loiters in the magazine section or an aisle over. Then we swap places.

This is a lot better than one couple we know, who never waste money on greeting cards, they both stand in the store/aisle and select a card they would like to give to the other and show it to them right in the store. Then instead of heading to the checkout counter, they put the cards right back in the slot where they found them.

This year because we were going away for the weekend we packed our cards separately to bring out on Sunday morning. Donna gave me my card first and as I opened it up she said, “I just love the picture on the front.” When I saw it, I instantly recognized it and said, “Well then, you’ll love my card.” That’s right, we has each chosen the exact same card. First time that has ever happened.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1262

The Power Of Facial Hair

My Red Sox Beard

I have been wearing a beard since 1978, before then I only sported a mustache because that is all the facial hair I could have as a Naval Air Crewman. Beards prevented full sealing of the oxygen mask.

Nearly every guy on this year’s FRS team is sporting a beard and they come in a large variety styles and lengths. It started with a couple of the off season’s free agent signees in Spring Training and over the season has spread through the clubhouse like a zombie virus.

I’ve always kept my beard trimmed, but I want to help the guys in their quest to go from worst to first and hopefully beyond this year, so until the Red Sox season ends, be it being swept in the division series or winning the World Series in seven games, I won’t trim my beard (sideburns and mustache excluded.)

Lucky for Donna my beard isn’t very thick and doesn’t grow very fast, so I won’t end up looking like a member of the Duck Dynasty or ZZ Top.

Here’s A recent NY Times story on the bearded Bosox: Bonding With Beards, the Red Sox Repair Their Clubhouse Chemistry and the team also features many winners in Grantland’s Base-Beards (The 2013 MLB Beard Awards)

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1256

Caw, Caw

A whole bunch of years back, after I related the story of the bird that committed suicide by throwing itself into the grill of the Miata, my good buddy Mark asked if I’d ever seen a dead crow on the side of the road. When I said I hadn’t, he asked, “Do you want to know why?”

Now Mark is an avid outdoors man and the go-to-guy for any wildlife related questions (he was the one to identify the dead bird in the grill), so I knew if anyone knew why I hadn’t ever seen a dead crow on the side of the road it would be him.

“Because,” he said, “crows always travel in groups and there is always one crow designated as a lookout and when it sees a car coming it sounds off: caw, caw.” Now, I knew that crows are social birds and very smart, smart enough that they use tools, so it sounded reasonable.

Mark is also our go-to-guy for quick witted retorts and pranks, so when a couple years later I did actually see a crow as road kill, I got to thinking about his explanation…

Mark didn’t say, “caw, caw.” He said, “cahr, cahr.”

I’d been had.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1254

Track 01 – These Are Days

Just love Natalie Merchant. I had almost every CD that 10,000 Maniacs put out and her first two solo albums. She has released a few more CDs since then, but I’ve stopped buying physical and downloadable music, so the only exposure to her music I get now is when I catch a tune on RadioParadise. The latest one is something called Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience which not only has Natalie singing, but the cello opening reminds me of the theme music for the TV show Firefly.

Track 05 – Don’t Speak

Back in the day I used to participate in CD swaps. You would mail CD mixes, usually with a theme, to an individual who would then mail you back one of theirs. It was a good way to get introduced to different music. I’ve kept some of mine that I mailed out and even a few I was given.

While looking for some empty CD disc cases to put another copy of Orphan Black DVDs* into I stumbled onto one of mine labeled “Quintessential Burn.” Unlike the rest of my burned CDs it had no label on the disc or the case it resided in. I could listen to every song and create a playlist for the disc, but I always used CD Text when doing these burns, so why couldn’t I read it right off the CD. Winamp doesn’t support CD Text, Windows Media Player doesn’t either natively, but at least there is a plugin for doing it.

Anyway, if I can find ’em, I’ll see about posting a video of each tune that I considered of or pertaining to the most perfect embodiment of a CD mix in December 2004. First up is track number 5, No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak.”