Whatever

Weekend Edition

Friday we did the usual tandem commute to work and back. For the afternoon ride home there was a stiff headwind for most of the way and the temperature was in triple digits, so we really appreciated the A/C in the house once inside. About an hour after arrival it didn’t seem as cool as it should be, so I checked the thermostat. It read 79°. It was set to 74 and the fan was running, but because it was so hot outside we didn’t notice that the air coming out the vents wasn’t properly chilled. I called up the Air Conditioning & Heating place and they said they had a technician finishing up a job and we would be next in line. It was a little before 5:00 PM when I called and we had actual cold air blowing again by 6.

Saturday morning we woke up the A/C was still running to catch up and get the house down to normal, but shut off soon afterwards. We walked to a local Waffle House for a breakfast of a waffle and hash browns. Trust me when I say the only time to try crossing busy Pine Log Road and not risk death is 6:30 AM on a Saturday morning. In the afternoon I changed the Emperor’s oil and rotated the tires. I re-hooked up the wires to the oil control valve and cleared the P0010 code. I’ve decided to try Option III, another round of the Rotella T-6 high detergent oil because the folks on the forum have said that sometimes it takes multiple tries to clean out all the “gunk” out of the VVT system. We had lunch at home and then dinner out at Sonic with a friend (Hi Jackie)!

Sunday we had our usual bike ride to Ridgecrest Coffee Bar for their delicious breakfast panini and once we got home it was pretty much TV viewing for the rest of the day. Three and a half hours of the 9th Stage of the Tour de France followed by 1-1/2 hours of the Season 2 finale of Outlander which was immediately followed by 3.5 hours of the FRS – Tampa Bay Rays game. For dessert we caught a couple random and wildly varying shows on PBS.

Neither Friday nor Sunday we used a car. The Purple Whale went to North Augusta and back, while Miata never left the driveway on Saturday.

Thank You For Your Service

Yesterday morning we drove the Miata to lovely downtown Trenton, SC. We were with 9 other Miatas from the MMC and we were on our way to drive in the 46th Annual Ridge Peach Festival parade. This was the 13th year the Club has driven in the parade. Donna and I were among the 8 cars that first year, and while we haven’t done it every year, but I bet this was the 8th or 9th time.

During the parade you are allowed to throw candy to the crowd and we always spend about $20 so that we have enough to last the entire 2/3 of a mile route. When we could drive 2 abreast we would and Donna would throw candy to the crowd-side herself, but when the crowds thickened and we had to drive single file she would throw to the right and in between, hand me candy so I could toss some to the left. It was during this time when I tossed a few Starbursts at a couple of kids that I happened to make eye contact with the mother and she said to me, “Thanks. And thanks for your service.”

That woman at the parade was thanking me based solely on the hat I was wearing. A month ago when we toured the USS Midway I bought a hat in the gift shop to commemorate our visit and my time aboard almost 40 years ago. This has happened a couple other times too, once in Barstow, CA and once again here in Aiken, both times it was just because of the hat. Not that I don’t slightly deserve it having spent 10 years in Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club, but any schmoe who’s toured the ship or spends around twenty bucks can get one from Amazon or eBay and that weirds me out because they’ll get thanked for possibly no service at all. I’d like to wear the hat, but I’m going to have to only do it when there will be little chance of interaction with people and definitely not on Memorial Day or Veterans Day.

And then again maybe it is probably just me who has a problem with this, but when I joined the Navy in 1973 people were still into calling servicemen returning from Vietnam baby-killers and now after the middle-east conflicts it has become fashionable to call servicemen (and women) heroes and to thank them for their service and I am of that era, not this one.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 186

Wonderful Wednesday

Yesterday while passing through the shop at work, someone said to me, “How’s it going?” I said in a semi-sarcastic tone, “Terrific!” His response was, “Cool, its Tuesday, double T’s!” Usually I say, “Fantastic”, so I don’t know where terrific came from, in that moment it just did.

This fellow’s response got me thinking. When a coworker or acquaintance asks you how are you doing, they probably really don’t want to know, it is just a different form of Good Morning, etc. So instead of my normal go to of fantastic, from now on I’ll answer alliteratively, sort of. Depending on what the first letter of the day of the week is my response will begin with the same letter as.

Monday = Magnificent
Tuesday = Terrific
Wednesday = Wonderful
Thursday = Tremendous
Friday = Fantastic

Texts From A Cousin

We still have a flip phone (GASP!) and we will on occasion text someone as long as we keep it short. My snowbird cousin has a fine little iPhone and texts up a storm. Louise has just gotten to Florida for her couple of months of avoiding winter and Donna texted her the other day:

Feeling better? How are the B&B. A&F 1

Louise texted back a reply:

an. He is a
macrobiotic chef
and she imports and
sells clothes from

India so they are
very interesting…
But I feel like
throwing a c

Feeling much
better. Air BnB is
fine. The owners
are French and Veg

ds. How are you
doing?
Mild winter?
A&F Weeze

e steak when I
go out? going ove
r to West coast
today to see frien

hicken part on his
cutting board is
not the way to go
so I order th

For whatever reason her texts always gets broken down into mysterious haiku-like tidbits that arrive out of order. We have to go to Verizon’s web site to read the messages where the above six texts can be seen in the proper order:

Feeling much better. Air BnB is fine. The owners are French and Vegan. He is a macrobiotic chef and she imports and sells clothes from India so they are very interesting… But I feel like throwing a chicken part on his cutting board is not the way to go so I order the steak when I go out? going over to West coast today to see friends. How are you doing? Mild winter? A&F Weeze2

Everything Comes In Threes

Friday before last when we rode the tandem to work I had to add a bit more air to the front tire than the normal touch up after a week or two of inactivity. So this Thursday night I checked to see what the air pressure was and sure enough it was low. So I pulled the tube, found a small leak and patched it. The patched tube became our spare and I put a new tube back in the front tire.

On the way home from work on Friday a couple miles from home we hit a big piece of gravel with the front tire in just the wrong way in that it snapped up, poked through the sidewall and punctured the tube. Hss, hsss, hsssss. No problem, we always carry the stuff needed to fix a flat. Unsnap the front panniers, back the whole front quick release out and remove the wheel. I pull the tube and place the recently patched one back in.

To pump it up we have one of those CO2 cartridge things where you tighten the bottom into the top to puncture the cartridge. Well, I twist it a couple times and then it gets too hard to turn. I back it off and try again. This time I force it so much that I strip the plastic threads. Crap. Fortunately we also carry one of those collapsible 4 section pumps too. After about a 100 strokes I get enough air in the tire to limp home.

Thursday night I dropped Donna off at the home of a co-worker’s house for the ASCO Ladies Christmas party. On the way back home I noticed that the low tire pressure light was on. I figured it was a 3 p.s.i. air loss, just enough to trigger the light, that seems to happen annually around this time of year. Today I broke out my little garage air compressor and started filling tires. Left rear, down 3 p.s.i to 32. Left front down 3 to 32. Right front down 3 to 32. Right rear, down 8 to to 27. Huh? As I go to attache the chuck, right there at eye level, I see a nail sticking out about an inch, right at the radius as the the sidewall transitions to the tread. Right at a place that represents new tire not plug & patch.

A Variation On The Elf On The Shelf

A Variation On The Elf On The Shelf

Back in February when I needed to replace one of the Emperor’s 02 sensors I bought it and the wrench I needed to change it online. The sensor showed up, but the wrench was back ordered, so I went down to the local Advanced Auto and bought one to do the job with. Naturally the online wrench arrived a couple days after I finished the job. I couldn’t return the used one locally and I didn’t feel like spending the $5 to return the online wrench just to get $6 back, so now I have two of the same wrenches that I might not ever have to use again.

A couple times during the year I thought that maybe I’d just give one away as a “Door Prize” to an attendee to one of my MMC led events, but never did. Well it is now towards the end of the year and the MMC Christmas Party was coming up, maybe I’ll just wrap it up and put it under the “tree” for Ol’ Swapperoo Gift Exchange.

Then a couple of weeks ago I overheard my cubical neighbor telling another co-worker about his experience with The Elf On The Shelf and his 3-year old twins. I had heard of The Elf On The Shelf before, but never knew what it was all about. So rather than let on that I was ignorant of the subject, I Googled it. WOW! There is a whole subset of America’s mommies that are The Elf On The Shelf disciples and are not afraid to swap stories and activities and tips on how to make this “fun” for the month of December. This is where I discovered that some folks, that now knew what TEOTS was about, but didn’t feel like spending the money on the book and the official elf doll and could just make their own. A light bulb figuratively illuminated over my head at this point, I’d turn the extra wrench into a automotively themed TEOTS.

What followed was a weeks worth of some fun and some frustration for me and mostly frustration for Donna as we perused local stores scanning shelves for the ingredients for my MMC Christmas present. I already had some red paint for the wrench/body, but needed a small Santa hat, a styrofoam ball for the head, red pipe cleaners for arms and legs and some colored felt for the hands, feet, etc. Then we needed just the right size plain box to put him in. Just when finding all the required pieces proved too elusive we got lucky in Hobby Lobby when we found a $6 elf ornament for half price.

The right box was still missing. Google to the rescue again, the 6th link down for DIY Gift Boxes led to a hexagonal shaped box that I could scale to fit. What better style box for a wrench could there be?

Fearing a copyright infringement lawsuit I couldn’t call it The Elf On The Shelf, so in keeping with the car theme called it The Wrench On The Bench. I photoshopped an homage to the actual TEOTS book cover and now I just needed to put something on the inside to tell the story of TWOTB. Hoping to find a passage or two from the real book to inspire a new story once again I turned to Google. No actual words from the book, but I did find a poem on lil’ luna that got me going enough to hack something just long enough to go on the inside of the hex box cover:

How does Santa know who’s naughty or Nice?
The Wrench on the Bench sits in your garage
Watching if what you do is wrong or right
And reports back to the North Pole every night.

Harbor freight junk from Ol’ Saint Nick
Is going to be under your tree if,
You crawl under a car without jack stands, or,
Use pliers when a 6-point socket is called for.

Santa will make sure it is presents you’ll get
If you always consult your Chilton or Haynes,
Use a torque wrench instead of a guess
And at every 3,000 miles your motor oil is fresh.

There are only two rules for the Wrench on the Bench;
1. Never touch the Wrench on the Bench or it will be gone forever.
2. The Wrench on the Bench needs a name that is clever, but not Murphy, not never.

Delivery Systems

I’ve got a big sweet tooth and I like my coffee light and sweet, so for me coffee is primarily a delivery system for cream and sugar.

We usually end up in front of the TV during or after dinner at around 6:30, so we end up watching a nightly national news show. No matter which network, these seem to be designed as a delivery system to inform people of new, probably expensive, prescription drugs?