Whatever

It’s Here!

My new favorite hat showed up on my doorstep this afternoon. Whatever contraption they use to assemble them or the form used for quality assurance or the head of the guy who packs them in a box must be the same size as my head, because I put it on, and it fit perfectly. I’m going to wear it to work tomorrow.

I have to show it to my manager the Yankee fan. 🙂 Back when the Sox won the series, I went back into his office and told him that when I ordered my Boston Red Sox World Series Champion hat they sent me a Yankees ALCS runner-up hat for free and did he want it. That’s when I gave him this:

Yankee's Hat

I couldn’t find a brown paper bag, so I snagged some images off the ‘net, plotted this out and taped it together. He was a good sport about it because he put it on for a second or two before tossing it aside.

Two Utes

My Cousin Vinny was on the tube yesterday. This is one of those movies that whenever I stumble in on it on TV I have to watch the rest of it. I can’t help it. Yesterday I didn’t. I couldn’t. I have the DVD sitting on my coffee table and it just wouldn’t have felt right. I borrowed the DVD from a co-worker a couple of weeks ago because I love this movie and wanted to see it in wide-screen and with the cuss words intact. For whatever reason I haven’t found the time to watch it. What I should have done was get up and put it the DVD in and watch it right then. I wasn’t really doing anything right then anyway.

4 Weeks

While waiting these 4 weeks for the arrival of my new front lip spoiler (almost halfway there?) I haven’t been standing still in the Miata Mod Department. Way back in February I pulled the power antenna and replaced it with a cheapo $6 thing from an auto parts store. I knew it was only a matter of time before I replaced that ugly rubber thing with something a lot nicer. That time has come.

When I ran through this scenario with the ’95, I went to my local BMW dealer and got one of the masts from the Z3. It was thin, flexible, about 1 foot tall and looked very sharp back there on the fender. $40. Now that style of antenna is every where, even the new Mazda 3 has the Fubu type antenna from the factory. Something different was required this time. Into the Honda parts bin for the little stubby S2000 antenna I went.

It came in the mail yesterday, but just like the BMW unit, this needs modification too. The threaded shaft that screws into the car is too short. It would probably be OK if the threading in the Mazda antenna mount started right at the top, but for whatever reason the screw doesn’t start to engage until about a 1/4 inch down. I don’t have the tools, nor the expertise to accomplish the antenna mod, but I do know who to call. Because I work in a manufacturing facility, I know several people who have access to several pieces of high dollar machinery and know how to use. This morning I asked one of them to remove the existing stud and tap the bottom so that a longer one can take it’s place. And not destroy my $20 investment. If he had the same sense of priorities I have, he’d have dropped any of that work stuff and got right on my antenna, but now I have to wait a day or so until he can get around to it. I say that half seriously, the last time I got Jim Mullan to do something for me it took about three days, but it was better than OEM looking when he got done with it. Well worth the wait.

Comet Gestation Counter: 28 days

Speaking Of Wheels

While poking around the ol’ hard drive on Thursday I found another chapter of the Life of Brian that I had coded for the Master’s Miata Club’s web site several years ago. All the other LOBs were in word format, but for what ever reason, this one wasn’t, so I missed it the first time through. Chapter 5 happened in late 2000 and concerns the jinxed purchase of a set of tires and wheels from the TireRack.

This purchase was jinxed for the entire life of the tires too. For whatever reason this combination of the wheels and tires had a tendency to spontaneously got flat. Happened 3 times in the two year life span of the tires. Best we (the collective knowledge of the Miata.net Tires forum and I) could come up with was that once the tire pressure dropped below a certain level the bead of the tire could separate from the wheel. The set of Bridgestone SO-3s that came after, never failed in their 2 years before I wore them out.

Comet Gestation Counter: 4 days

Promotion?

This memo was forwarded to few folks at our plant today. It concerns a staffing change at our main plant in Florham Park. Why I got it I’m not sure, but I’m glad I did because I found it entertaining. The Name has been changed to protect the “innocent.”
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I am pleased to announce that Fred Flintstone has accepted the position of Procurement Commodity Manager beginning 7/19/04. Over the last 6 years, Fred has held various roles in Engineering with increasing responsibility. Most recently, Fred held the position of Project Manager with direct responsibility over the RHNG project. Fred has played an integral role in managing this project through a successful design freeze. Due to the critical nature of this project, Fred will continue as Project Manager until the electronic version is successfully in production.

Fred has a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Really Smart Guy Institute, an M.S. in Engineering Management from Cheesy Online University, and an MBA in Strategic Management from Snotty Nose University.

In Fred’s new role, he will manage several key commodities including machined parts. Fred will be responsible for developing and implementing the strategic direction of these commodities in an effort to drive negative net inflation, globalization, and supplier performance. Fred will be reporting to me.

Please join me in congratulating Fred on his new assignment.
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RHNG stands for Red Hat Next Generation which going to be our latest and greatest valve if it ever comes to fruition. It has been stuck on one thing or another for couple three years now. So is this a promotion or a demotion? Before, top dog engineer on the company’s valve of the future, now, buyer of bitsy valve parts, you tell me. Just what is a successful design freeze anyway? He got the design so screwed up we are frozen with no chance to go back or forward in any attempt to make this a viable product? Whatever, here is my hearty congratulations to you Fred, salute!

Clean Top

On one hand I like the cloth top on the new Miata, but on the other…It sure looks nice, but because it is a light tan in shows dirt easily. Not only that, but what do you clean it with? The vinyl top was easy, practically whatever was readily available worked fine. You sure can’t use Windex to clean off the bird doo off a cloth top. After some research in the Tops, Windows, Tonneaus, and Boots forum over on Miata.net I bought a 303 Cloth Top Care Kit. It consists of some cleaner specially designed for cloth and then a protectant that helps keep it that way and it restores the waterproofing too.It came via FedEx ground a couple days ago and maybe tomorrow afternoon I’ll go out and wash the car and then use my kit on the top.

Thanks For Nothing Microsoft

A little over 2 weeks ago in one of the weekly email newsletters I get I saw an offer for a free CD from Microsoft that included every security update available up until February. Really free. No shipping even. So I signed up. It got here Saturday and I took it as a sign that I really did need to format c: and start over (along with the earlier deleting the question mark extravaganza.)After freshly installing Win2K I went to the Windows Update site and it reported that I needed to run 2 Critical Updates and Service Packs, 19 Windows 2000 Updates and one Driver Update. I didn’t do anything because I wanted to try my new CD. I ran it and whatever it did took like 15 seconds…WTF. I rebooted and went back to the update site, I now needed to run 2 Critical Updates and Service Packs, 18 Windows 2000 Updates and one Driver Update. Wow that was a big help.

Also in the same CD package was a trial version of a firewall and a virus software. I didn’t even investigate further.