Whatever

Mod Mania Strikes Again

I added the CarArtz.com caricature, including it’s cost, to the list of Mods, AKA the btr equipment package even though it doesn’t go on the car, I wouldn’t have got it if I didn’t have the car. I’ll add the cost of framing too, once it has been done.

#5 under ugly in my list of what is Good, Bad and Ugly about the new Miata was the plastic “Brushed Aluminum” trim surrounding the shifter, radio and vents. That will get fixed on tech day next Saturday. I found a Club member with a base 2001 with the all black interior who is going to swap pieces with me. While I have the dash apart I thought I might as well get the nifty little JDM pocket that goes in place of the passenger air bag switch. Ordered it from R-speed yesterday and it arrived today. I was going to link you directly to the product on their site, but they must have pulled it off the page as I got the last one they had. Here is picture of what it looks like in some one else’s car. I’ll add the cost to the list when I install it in the car next Saturday. That’s when I’m putting on the muffler too, so the total will probably hit the 4 digit mark then.

Ran the Master’s Miata Club newsletter through the postage meter at Rader today. While we were there I got Scott to go get me some of that water spot remover he used to clear up the outside rearview mirrors. I needed some more because I wanted to clean the whole windshield with it. When he did the job back then I was teasing him about cleaning some dead bugs or something off the glass while he had the rag in his hand. Being the obliging fellow he his, he rubbed a couple of spots clean on the driver’s side of the windshield. Well whatever that stuff is, it cleaned the window so well and/or left behind a coating, that the water beads up differently on those two spots. Not necessarily better or worse, but just mismatched enough that it is noticeable when driving in the rain. It seemed to be taking him a while to return, so I had Donna wait for him and I went upstairs to where they have the postage meter. When he finally came up there, he started towards me, Donna said, “You have to promise,” I saw what he was carrying and cracked up, “not to laugh.” He couldn’t find a bottle or anything so it was in a dixie cup and the cup was inside a latex glove. Because we had a 25 miles drive home Scott had to seal it somehow, so the glove was secured at the top with a small tie-wrap. The way he was holding it, the little fingers were dangling so that it looked sort of like a cow’s udder. How could you not laugh. But it worked, the FM made the trip back with out spilling a drop. Scott, you can put my name down as a reference on your application for the next Survivor series, because I can regale them with your feats of MacGyverisms.

Fill This Out

Went to Staples this evening to buy a box of envelopes. Friday I mail out the Miata Club newsletter and I needed envelopes. Found what I wanted, $4.19, for 500 of them suckers. Take it to the checkout and the girl scans it and I hand her a ten dollar bill. She gives me $1.12 back. I look at the change and assume she thought I gave her a $5 (even though if you think about it that wouldn’t be right either.) She goes , “Oh.” And starts towards the cash draw to maybe give me a $5 dollar bill. I check the receipt and see what has actually happened is that the envelopes scanned twice somehow, so I point it out to the cashier.

Here is where things go from bad to worse. She says, “Oh.” And heads off to the customer service area and waves me along to follow her. She gets the supervisor off a ladder and explains to her what has happened. The supervisor says, “We’ll just refund the overage to you.” She proceeds to punch a bunch of buttons on the display and a form spits out which she hands to me and says, “Fill out your name, telephone number and sign it.” I think to myself, all I did was come in to buy envelopes and how did I get into this mess?

I fill out as requested, skipping the street address, city and zip code lines. When I slide it across the counter to her so I can get my $4.44 back, she looks at it and says, “You have to fill it out in case I get audited.” I wait, thinking I have filled it out, I don’t care if you get audited, just give me my money. When she makes no move to pick up the receipt and repeats the you have to fill it out bit again, it dawns on me she wants every line filled out even though she verbally instructed me to do just 3 of the lines. I think to myself again, all I did was come in to buy envelopes and how did I get into this mess?

Now I get a little mad at the whole thing, so I tell her, “Keep the envelopes and give me all my money back.” She apologizes and says that will take a manger to void out my refund to give it all back, “Fine,” I say, “whatever.” Rolling my eyes and digging in my heels. She pages the manager over the intercom. While we wait she apologizes again about the whole thing, mumbles something about getting audited and cash back and I think if I have to listen to her whine much longer I’m going to go postal and climb over the counter and start stabbing her with her pen. So I cave, fill out the other 3 lines of the form and say, “OK, give me the money back.” She is still mumbling apologies as I storm out of the store.

All I did, was go in to buy some envelopes, and look at the mess I got in.

MMM…Time

This afternoon was a MMM…Time with the Master’s Miata Club. MMM stands for Miatas, mingle and munch. We meet at a local restaurant and maybe eat there or decide to go somewhere else or whatever someone in the group comes up. Tonight we opted for a drive around the lake and back into town. From there most of the group went to Tony Roma’s for ribs for dinner.

We had a new to the Club couple show up and join us for the drive portion, they declined the dinner invite. Hope they decide to come out again, they were quite a bit younger than the average age of our most active members, hope all the gray hair didn’t frighten them off.

Deja View

It is Wednesday faithful readers and that means one thing, West Wing. It was a repeat of the season opener and for whatever reason I didn’t remember it – for the first 30 minutes anyway. I guess I must have missed the first half of the show way back when it was first on in September (or October or whenever.) I’m sure will rerun show number of the season where the find Zoey to wrap this story arc up before bringing out the new first run episodes for February. February is sweeps month the networks always save up the good stuff for then.

Oil Change – 1015 miles

Went out and drove around a bit to get the car warm. Came home and put it in the garage to change the oil. Seemed like I had to unscrew the filter about 10 more turns to get it off the engine compared to the old car. While the oil drained instead of rotating the tire as I usually do, I went ahead and checked the pressure – 20psi all around, it should be 26. As I aired up, I took the time to wipe off the wheels because they were dirty (whatever tire shine stuff the dealer uses really picks up the brake dust.) Thanks go to Mazda designers for these wheels, there are no nooks and crannies that you can’t get into to clean easily with a rage. Canceling out the thanks, is an ah shit, the dip stick is black, not chrome and this makes it hard to read the level even in bright sunlight.

Smooth Move Mr. Cyclist Guy

As mentioned the other day, I did in fact make the Sunday paper. I had actually forgotten all about it until I picked up the paper off my lawn this morning.

A picture of the cute kid who went to Camp Sertoma that is partially funded by the sale of the license plate he posed next to was at the top and the first one written about in the article. I snagged about 5 minutes of my allotted 15, by having my picture and words taking up the second half of the article. I wish I could link you to the article, but our little paper hasn’t posted the article yet (and when they do, they don’t do pictures.)

My plate is from the Palmetto Cycling Coalition which is a statewide organization to help promote cycling awareness, both to the general public and state government. Across the top is emblazoned “SHARE THE ROAD.” In the article I am quoted as saying that I hoped that this would make people aware that cyclists are people and not just something in their way.

Cut to several hours later…On our usual Sunday morning ride with some other ABC members we are coming back into town on the last leg of our journey. I was in the front of the group of five riding along close to the white line when a pickup truck blows by fairly close. As I look up to glare at the driver, I see him gesture with his hand towards the right, as if to say get off the road. Obviously he hasn’t read his morning paper yet. Usually, I just give a friendly wave as if I misinterpreted their intention, but for whatever reason today it struck me wrong, so I gave him the finger. He is about 30 yards up the road by now and returns my one-fingered salute in kind. And his brake lights come on, but just for a second. Perhaps his wife in the passenger seat was screaming at him like mine, who was riding right behind me, was screaming at me. Now I’m hoping he didn’t read the paper because maybe he would see my smiling face (and name) and put it together that was me on the bike.

Because yesterday was so busy, when I got home last night I barely had the energy to post, let alone read my usual blogs, so imagine my surprise when I read this blurb in Will’s blog and thought how close I had come having something like that happen to me.

You Can Call Me Dave

When I read the article about the fire at our plant in the Augusta paper this morning I noticed that the reporter got our Human Resource Manager’s name wrong. He was quoted as Dave Gustafson, not Mark. Upon arrival at work I made a bee-line for his office to introduce myself to the new HR Manager, Dave. Mark took my kidding in good graces and said let me tell you a story.

That reporter was being a real pain, I spent most of my time riding herd on him. Even after a polite request to him that I was the point of contact and if he wanted any information to come to me, I still had to break up him talking to employees several times. We had one female employee of the department the fire was in that was overcome by smoke and was being treated by paramedics on the scene. He husband had shown up and she was sitting in the passenger seat of their pick up while she received oxygen. The reporter had taken a couple of pictures and the husband told me about it and asked if he would tell the reporter not to print the photos. When I asked the reporter to not run the pictures, our fourth estate friend said something to the effect of freedom of the press and that he was allowed to be there and take and use whatever pictures he wanted. I agreed that what he said was true, but only if he did so from across the street, but he was on our private property and as such subject to our whims. That reporter was not there to cover the news, he was there to find a story.

Not knowing whose legal ground was firmer, I guess the reporter decided that he wouldn’t run any of those pictures. Seeing as most people love to see their name in paper, maybe he thought that that he could punish Mark by printing his name as Dave. But Mark is only to happy to be Dave as long as those unflattering pictures of one of his employees didn’t get published.