WTF

New To Math Too

Friday night Donna and I ran the route for the MMC’s Bug Splat Rally that we were spearheading on Saturday night. The drive would start after dinner at Apizza di Napoli in Aiken and end up at a Sonic in North Augusta after 34 miles of zigging around. Most of the roads we were taking people on were familiar to us, but 2 of the dozen or so on the route, we had never been on before. We wanted to be sure there wasn’t any construction or surprises for us to stumble upon while leading a group of Miatas. Plus, we needed to make sure we’d recognize the turns onto the ones we had never driven on before.

When we finished our dry run up at the Sonic we thought maybe we would sample a bit of ice cream. You know, just to be sure the quality hadn’t suffered any since last year. Rather than sit in the car when at Sonic, we usually sit at the table and chairs out front where it is better for people watching. Both ordering stands had a group in front of them and after listening to both sets try and figure who wanted what for a while, our lack of patience for this sort of ineptitude from small family units presented with so many choices at dining establishments that they are overwhelmed, took hold and we left.

There was a Bruster’s Ice Cream stand just up the road, so we thought we’d give them a shot at our frozen dessert business. We got lucky there as the family grouping was already sitting about with their ice cream in their hands. Donna ordered a small chocolate in a cup and I ordered a small Almond Chocolate Coconut in a cup. Our young server ducked to the left, rang us up on the cash register and reported back with the total, “That’ll be six dollars and twenty-four cents.” I didn’t have enough ones to make it to six, so I handed her a ten dollar bill and said, “Wait, I’ve got some change.” I added a quarter to her hand.

I could see this young woman through the window as she struggled to make the change. She picked up some bills. She put some back. She picked up some coins. She put some back. Donna looked at me and asked, “What’s taking so long.” “She’s making change,” I replied with a lopsided grin on my face. She gave a look that I knew was going to lead to more anxiety for our hapless ice cream server, so I held up my hand to hold her back for a while. Server came back to the window with 3 one dollar bills, two quarters and a penny. Both of as said, “That’s not right,” at about the same time. She called someone over to help her out. After a minute or so she came to the window and handed me four ones and a penny. “Sorry,” she said, “I’m new here.”

New to math too, I thought, but didn’t say.

Where The Heck Are We?

When we got in the rental car to drive from SeaTac to Granite Falls we plugged in our GPS, and while we waited for it to realize we were on the other side of the continent, we used the old style analog version of in-car navigation, a paper map. We started out heading north on I-5, but got on I-405 hoping for lighter traffic. I don’t know if this was the absolute wrong choice, because we never found out if the regular I-5 came to a grinding halt after a couple miles like the 405 did, but it was definitely a wrong choice.

As traffic slowed Donna called out to get off the next exit, using the map she could see where we could head east and slightly south on WA-169. From there we could take various state roads heading north paralleling I-405 about 5-10 miles to the east of it. This worked pretty well until we got to Monroe where the road heading north towards Granite Falls was just a black line with no number attached. Here we would need the GPS’s help.

And here is where it failed us. While traveling state roads it was fine, but as soon as we got on a county level road all that was displayed was the car icon on a field of green with a somewhat helpful directional heading.
We knew our destination was north of us, so whenever we came to an intersection we would take the road that would be going north or northeast or minimally one that would head northwest. After 6 or 8 turns we could see a state road on the GPS’s upper horizon with a dot and the words Granite Falls, so we knew we were making progress. After another half dozen seemingly random turns we drove into town on the very street that Donna’s family live on.

Before we left to go Washington I had updated the maps on the Garmin Nuvi in preparation, so what could be wrong. So on Sunday there during a bit of down time I tried to figure out why the GPS was telling us we weren’t driving on a road. I could see city level streets in South Carolina and Texas, but not in Washington or Neveda. After some head scratching, internet searching and reloading of the maps I figured out the problem. Not enough onboard memory in the GPS to store the entire country.

Why during the initial loading, or the subsequent reloading, didn’t the GPS tell me that the entire City Navigator North America NT 2015.1 wouldn’t fit in the internal memory and wasn’t installed?

Started up,went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1389

Fun With Reply All

This morning the woman who has held the job since the begining here at the Valve Store(TM), from back when it was called the Plant Manager’s Secretary, sent out a little email missive to the plant’s distribution list:

It’s been great working with all of you. This is my last week here at ASCO. My last day will be Friday, March 28. My replacements name is Hannah B. Please make her feel welcomed.

You can now send Hannah everything that you have been sending to me. She will also be booking the conference rooms.

I’m going to miss all of you!!

Kathy D
Operations Administrative Assistant

Not long after, the typical well wisher hit the reply all button:

Kathy, we will miss you as well, thank you for all the support you have given me over the years

Larry

Then we got this one:

Good morning everyone! I found a pack of gum on my way out this morning. If you lost it I have it. Thx skh

Next came one from someone who was going to miss her very, very much, but didn’t know how to spell her name.

Cathy I will miss you so much
Doris b stockroom

Then the writer of the pack of gum email tries to recall it (which never, ever works.) I can’t tell whether that person thought they were replying to a different email, batcrap crazy or brilliant, because if they were offering themselves up as an example of the foibles of hitting Reply All, it worked, as no further emails came to the distribution list.

Weather Takes A Holiday

Image1

When we checked the 10 day weather this afternoon our eyes were immediately drawn to the Wednesday forecast. A high of 47°, a low of 28°! A 60% chance of rain. And underneath the rain cloud there is a little snowflake! Geez, that’s serious February winter weather in November.

After we overcame the shock of that we noticed something curious, there was no Monday weather. No just no weather, but no Monday at all. I guess the weather gets to take a holiday for Veterans Day.

Monday was still gone a couple hours later, so I got curious. I cleared the weather history, deleted any weather related cookies and restarted the browser. Still no Monday. I blew the dust off the shortcut and fired up Internet Explorer. There was Monday. I then compared the web addresses between the two browsers. The missing Monday URL had a b. between www. and weather.com. A little research yielded the answer, the b. signifies a beta page, a place where the Weather Channel folks try out improvements to their site. Something still needs a little more work.

Wishful Thinking

Got the “Payment Applied” email today from our mortgage company, we know we’re getting close to paying the note off, so Donna asked me to go online and see what was left. We are now about 10 payments away from owning this baby free and clear.

Citibank, being ever helpful, had a bright blue box in the middle of the loan details page that let me know that I could save over $600 a month if I took advantage of a 4.125% refinancing on a 15 year note. They’d even waive any fees associated with the loan.

Now let’s do some ciphering, $600 times 10 is $6,000 savings. OK that’s nice, but to the get those savings, all I have to do is make 180 monthly payments of $180 or a total of thirty-two thousand four hundred dollars. Uh huh.

Unintentionally Unpleasant Acronym

Remember those clear Lucite document holders that started to appear in the Valve Store’s(TM) restrooms a couple weeks back? Turned out they were more of the same as the others that had blanketed the cafeteria tables earlier, recruitment posters for the plant’s Emergency First Responders.

I never really paid much attention to the text of the message because rushing to the scene of an accident is not my cup of tea. It took my summer college student helper to point out to me today that what I have always called, or thought they were called, First Responders, the Plant Nurse has taken to calling First Aid Responder Team in her promotional material. I wonder if she is going to have t-shirts made up for them?

F.A.R.T.

Not A Lot Of Bugs, But A Big Surprise

Big Bug SlayerLast night was the 10th or 12th Master’s Miata Club Bug Splat that Donna and I have organized and while it won’t go down in history as a very buggy event, I predict it will be the most remembered.

We start at the south end of Whiskey Road in Aiken at the Red Bowl and finish up on the south end of Martintown Road in North Augusta at a Sonic. Both ends of the trip are definitely “in town”, but in between I try and get as rural as possible, both to avoid traffic and to increase insect impact chances.

Usually there are about 6 cars that show up, including us, so I printed out 8 maps in a fit of optimism. I should printed at least one more. We had nine cars run the route, including some brand new members, some hardly ever seen members and a previous member couple who had also previously won the Biggest Bug Trophy. But no worries, the maps are usually not used at all because Donna and I in the Emperor lead the train of cars along the route.

About half way through the trip, in the middle of a 3 mile section of a very backroad road I had to slow way down as there was a stopped vehicle in our travel lane. The 9 Miatas that started at about a 1/4 mile long line quickly tightened up because of the obstruction. As I got closer I could see that it was a PT Cruiser convertible with its top down. There was a man standing on the back seat facing the side of the road. At first I thought he was looking for a stray dog or something, so I checked the oncoming lane and proceeded to pass. As I started around I realized I was wrong, he was letting loose a mighty stream of urine out onto the side of the road.

Yes, you read that right, while his wife, girlfriend, possibly date sat in the passenger seat he decided to stand in the back of a PT Cruiser convertible and relieve himself.