Whatever

Twenty Seventeen

Didn’t do real good on that though of writing on Wednesday did I? Well, I have a good excuse. After I got finished polishing this turd, I thought maybe I could do the same for the MMC’s website.

WordPress usually adds a nice shiny new template as an option with each major release of the software. They typically name it after the year of release, so the latest is called, unsurprisingly, Twenty Seventeen, an man is it cool. The page opens to a large image (or video if you are so inclined) and then you scroll down to the next page and there is an image to transition across to each new page. Check the demo page, then come back.

I downloaded a a program called InstantWP which allows you to install a portable version of your site on a USB stick. Not as simple as it sounded, I had to tweak a couple of PHP files to even get the Club’s large database loaded. When I finally got that sorted I fired up the web site. The side bar is on the right and we have it on the left, that was a project in itself. Countless internet pages later I got that sort of working. Several widgets didn’t work as they did before, but I thought maybe I could work around them or find substitutes.

But one of the widgets killed the whole deal, the calendar plugin that we rely on for event planning would not work at all. Sigh. I knew this day was coming, the plugin was last updated in 2009, but at least it still works on the current site. It is the next one that is really worrying, there will probably come a day when an update to WordPress itself will cause it to stop working. Look like finding a replacement might need to get moved to the front burner.

Happy 2017

For the first time in the recent (and not so recent) years Donna and I actually welcomed the Gregorian New Year while awake. Not only were we not sleeping we were not even at home, we were at someone’s house, at an actual party, with a flute of champagne in our hands.

What started out as a small intimate affair for the Valve Store’s Accounting Manager’s family on their 26 acre bit of country, has morphed over the years, as their kids have grown, into a a decent size gathering of extended family and friends. This year she invited us and a few other ASCO folks to join the fray to even out the young adult to adult ratio.

These folks do it up right too, plenty of food and drink, a huge bonfire and a crap ton of fireworks. They start small with roman candles and large sparklers at just dark and build up slowly at intervals to the big finish just before midnight.

We split not too long after the finale and made it home and into bed around 1 AM. We didn’t sleep too well though. Apparently there is a quite a difference in how the human body reacts to consuming large quantities of non-alcoholic (and some alcoholic) drinks, plus food, up until around midnight and then just jumping into bed less than an hour later from when you are 30 to when you are 60. Next year we may have to come home and spend an hour or two watching a movie to wind down some.

Best Of

When I sent out my regular season wrap up to the owners of teams in the EZEFFL last night the first paragraph read:

The six title contenders have been selected leaving the rest outside looking in, but there is still plenty of fantasy left to be had for everyone. For the playoff teams there is a pot of gold (in diminishing increments) for the top three and for the Consolation Ladder there is the fabulous “Best of the Rest” trophy to the winning-est losing team.

And when I wrote the words “Best Of” I thought to myself that maybe I needed to start blogging here more, because if I didn’t I wouldn’t have anything to use for this December’s best post. That is when I looked over on the left and noticed that I didn’t have a Best Of for 2015 at all.

So I fixed both things tonight. The Best of 2015 is live and I created a second post for December. Not that this post will make the year’s best (at least I hope not.)

Making Everyone’s Dreams Come True

Posting has once again gotten really light, another whole week between posts, but behind the scenes the pace at Life of Brian HQ has been hectic. The Board has met with the regional and local VPs. Managers have powwowed with minions. And through the power of group knowledge (and a little luck) we have solved the unsolvable conundrum.

Brian & Donna dreamed of a trouble free Miata. Brian dreamed of no Check Engine Lights. Donna dreamed of not having a monthly car payment for the next 5 years. Brian and Donna dreamed of a Miata that was just like the one they have, only better. David dreamed of more garage space.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 209

Brian Sees A Fiata1

It has been a few months since we’ve been to Brueggers Bagels for breakfast. The main reason for this is no matter what we tried, those bagels we brought home never tasted as good as they did on the day we bought them. We froze them, we froze them in the store’s special freezer bags, we kept them in plain paper bags (both in the fridge and on the counter) and by Friday they tasted just like the “bagel” we could get at Dunkin Donuts.

Ever since Donna had declared the new Miata ugly, I have been waiting for the new Fiat 124 to arrive because it is basically a Miata in an Italian designed body hoping that she just might find it handsome. Of the two, I prefer the Miata, but the Fiat was very nice looking in pictures, so I kind of wanted to see one up close for my self as well. The 124 Spiders just started arriving at dealers in early July. Right now they are all automatics for whatever reason, but that was OK, I just wanted to look.

A couple of weeks ago some of the Fiats began showing up “close” to us like Charlotte and Atlanta which were way too far away to just pop over and take a peek. JTs Fiat in Lexington is the closest one to us in Aiken at 40 miles and they received their first 124 Spider, in black, last weekend. JTs was literally right next to the Brueggers, so when Donna suggested that maybe we should get a bagel for breakfast on Saturday, I readily agreed.

When I pulled into the bagel place I noticed that the building was still there, but there were zero cars in the lot. They had pulled up stakes and moved somewhere else. It had to have been extremely recent though as the dealer’s website still has that next door address on it and the map still shows that spot as the destination on their contact page. Donna asked, “Do you want to try and find the new place?” “I have no idea where to start looking,” I replied, “but we could head a little further east to get on I-20 to go home and maybe we’d stumble on it.”

A mile and a half later we passed a brand new car dealership on the left that had popped up in the last 3 months. It was a Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram dealer and it said JTs on the building. Maybe I was imagining it, but I could have sworn I saw a Fiat 500 parked amongst the SUVs. Then the proverbial light bulb illuminated and I put Fiat owning Chrysler together and said, “I’m making a U-turn.” It was early enough still that the dealership was not open for business yet, but there were a few cars already lining up at the service department. I cruised past them and made my way over towards where I thought I saw the 500. They had some of the gates still closed, so we parked the Miata and started wandering through the huge side lot (I’m betting salesmen will have to drive you out to look at cars on golf carts.)

There, way in the back, were the Fiats, a few regular 500s, lots of insect looking 500x Trekkings and the lone black 124 Spider. It hadn’t been fully prepped yet, there was still plastic wrapping on the interior bits and it was dirty, but I liked the looks. It could definitely be my fall-back car. I asked Donna, what she thought, she said, “Not impressed.”

Thinking it had to do with that color and my plans for a black Miata, then spending more to wrap it a different color, I thought if I offered up a different color… “How about in red?” I asked. (Donna had once suggested the new Miata in red) There was just the one black Spider on the lot, so I pointed at a red 500 nearby, “Like that.” She glanced where I was pointing and said, “No way.” Feeling slightly frustrated by this whole process, I blurted out, “Now you are just making shit up to not let me buy a new car.” And maybe because I had a smile in my voice when I said it, it fortunately cracked her up with laughter.

When she stopped laughing, Donna asked me, “Well what do you want?” So I said, “A range from at the top of a black Miata wrapped in bright blue… she said, “No way.” before I could go any further… to a white Miata, to at the bottom, a Fiata in any color you’d find acceptable.” She laughed again and nothing further was discussed on the new car, the rest of the way home.

1. As long as I’m a Miata owner this car will always be referred to as a Fiata, but if I ever end up with one, I will try and make sure I call it by its proper name, 124 (Spider.)

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