It warmed up a bit because of the sunshine today, but not enough to brave putting the top down after work for the ride home. At first it felt nice and toasty in the car that had been closed up all day, but after about a mile the windows went down as that same heat became stifling. Just remembered that I couldn't wash the car yesterday even if it was warm enough, the hose sprung a leak last time I used it and has been tossed away. Might stop on the way home and get one tomorrow as the temperature is supposed to be back in the 70s.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $58.75
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 49

I had big plans to wash the filth off the car today, but ol' man winter just came back for a couple day's visit before going off on vacation for 9 months.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $58.75
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 49

Made it back from the Crescent City. Kind of weird being a tourist in a tourist town after living there a while and then leaving. Some things have changed for the better, so for the worse and of course some things never change. We stayed at the French Market Inn and the website makes it look a lot nicer than it was. Don't get me wrong, it was nice and the location was excellent, but it really fell short of the mark in a lot of ways.

We did the touristy things - rode the St. Charles Street Car to the zoo - took the Natchez steamboat ride - went to the Aquarium & Imax - had coffee & beingets at the Cafe Du Monde (3 times) - wandered up & down Bourbon Street - browsed the antique stores on Royal Street - ate seafood - ate "cajun" food and read The Times-Picayune on the Moonwalk listening to jazz and watching the barges go by.. We did *NOT* flash our tits for beads - get our palm read on Jackson Square - take a carriage tour - buy a T-shirt with a dirty phrase on it - get drunk on Hurricanes at Pat O'Briens or take a Voodoo Walking tour.

As Glenda told Dorothy, "There's no place like home."

Purchased Today: $18.00 in pizza
(Not actually Miata related so I'm not adding it to the total)
Money spent since 03/03/03: $58.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 48

The rain finally let up. We got a ride into work through the fog with the top down, but put it up for the morning because there was still a chance of rain in the AM. At lunch we dined out Burger King. Dropped the top for that ride and it has stayed that way ever since. As a matter of fact it is going to stay down no matter what the weather is until at least next Saturday. We are off to The Big Easy tomorrow morning and won't be back until the 29th. Next blog entry will be on that day too. This time I'm not even taking the note book to write this stuff down, so for those of you who can't get by without reading what happens to be everyday will just have to find something else to fill that 7 day hole.

Purchased Today: $15.75 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $58.75
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 48

Managed to eke out a drive home with the top down. Not more than 15 minutes after we got here, the sky dumped about another 1/2 in a half hour. I think it is mostly over now. Tomorrow it says partly cloudy with a 20% chance of a stray shower. But more importantly here is where the weather matters next week, New Orleans. We are headed down that way for a weeks vacation this coming Sunday through next Friday. We used to live there in the 80's and really haven't been back since. Going to be nice to see how much has changed in the last 15 years.

Turns out I had all the codecs needed to record directly to MP3 from the radio, I just had to register them. Found the instructions on how to do it while downloading different programs to try and replace VCRadio. Type in "Regsvr32 l3codeca.acm" in a cmd window in the system32 directory. I'll find out if it is going to work in a few minutes...

Purchased Today: squat
Money spent since 03/03/03: $43.00
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 46

Seattle. Scotland. Not a steady downpour or anything, but mist, light rain, thunderstorms, just fuckng wet all the time.

Recorded echoes into a wave file last night, but the compression I used to save some space wouldn't let me open it with Nero's wave editor. Reloaded the wave editor app that came with the sound card and it opened the file, but the interface was such that it was impossible to get around. I may have to start shopping around for another recording thing.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $43.00
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 45

Rained again most all day. There was small window around 6 o'clock that it was just misting, guess I should have dropped the top and drove around the neighborhood....

I've got most of the bugs worked out of the new PC. The only thing in my now is for some reason I can't record echoes in MP3 format. Tried all the helpful thing on the software mfgrs site but still nothing. It is something that I already had installed on the old machine, because I could make MP3s right from the start. Like a dog with a bone, I'll plugging away.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $43.00
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 45

Gonna have to put little floaties on the Miata if this rain keeps up.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $43.00
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 45

Three posts in one. Friday the monitor arrived and I got about 15 minutes in front of it. Donna graciously let me at least take it out of the box before we piled into the car and drove to Hilton Head Island for the weekend. It didn't rain the entire drive down, but close. Saturday morning was spent visiting about 8 of the condos Jerry manages to take pictures for the web page update. Saturday evening the four of us , me and Donna and Jerry and his Donna, went out to eat at place called Charley's Crab. The hostess who seated us reminded me of Helen Hunt. I couldn't stop looking, every time she came near our area to seat other customers, I would take another peek. I hope she didn't notice, but then she is probably used to being stared at with those looks. Actually she was a lot younger Helen, more of a Leelee Sobieski.



Sunday we drove home. It wasn't raining really, but it was too cold and damp for the top to be down. We got back in time for Donna's Mom's famous St. Patrick's Day feast of corned beef, cabbage carrots and potatoes. The neighbors across the street came over and we all stuffed ourselves. After dinner I went over to help this fellow out of a computer jam. He started using AOL. but after a year or so he traded them in on MSN. He recently got tired of paying 21.50 a month for the service so he moved over to ATT Global Net. Did I mention he is a computer novice? He has only had a PC for 2 years, having finally broke down at the age of 75 and joined the internet revolution. He was still getting a dellnet thing popping up in the background, so I headed over for what I thought was a 5 minute fix. I came home an 1-1/2 later having fixed a few things, but still left a possible virus alive. His son mentioned he might have the Klez worm, so I went to the Symantec site to update the Norton virus stuff he got with the PC 2 years ago. Trouble was he had Windows ME which I know nothing about it peculiarities. Left him with the downloads running, so I'm going to have to check back with him tomorrow to see what happened.

Purchased Sunday: 12.25 in fuel
Money spent since 03/03/03: $43.00
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 45

It was raining for the ride in, it was beautiful during working hours and after. Hurried home because 2/3 of my new PC were delivered. Got speaker and the CPU, the monitor made a sight-seeing trip to Greensboro, NC in the back of a UPS truck. It is on it's way back now, last I checked it was back in West Columbia, SC. It should get here tomorrow. We are going away for the weekend to Hilton Head, so I won't even get to unpack it. Sunday. I am running on the new CPU now. I started it up in XP just to see what it looked like, but then promptly fdisked it, partitioned into a 12 and an 18 gig drives and loaded Win2K back on. I've got just the bare essentials on now, I'll load the apps as needed. (I haven't loaded the spell checker yet, so if this is spelt a little rough....)

Purchased Today: Zero
Money spent since 03/03/03: $31.75
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 44

Ran the gage down until it was right on "E", so I spent the most money on gas in recent memory. 10.24 gallons @ 1.659 per equaled $17. I went 271 miles on that tank so I got about 26 MPG. Glad I don't drive an 8-cylinder SUV or live in California.

Purchased Today: $17.00 in petrol
Money spent since 03/03/03: $31.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 42

Maybe a little too cool to enjoy the ride, but we braved it with the top down this morning anyway. After work was our monthly haircut appointments, but we had an hour to get there. Usually we head home and change outta work attire before heading over. Today it was such a nice day we just took an extra long drive before ending up at the hair place.

Purchased Today: Zero
Money spent since 03/03/03: $14.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 42

Note to self, when you change the template, it changes the archive template, so you screw yourself up. (Well they were here until I posted, now they maay or may not be here...)

This afternoon was b e a u t i f u l. Hit the 70s instead of the predicted low 60s. Went for a slightly longer drive home because of it too. Spring really is here (I hope to stay.) Now I'm really regretting my idea to not attend the RoadsterChat Gap weekend in April, I just watched a couple of vids from Chris Greer's site. Damn, damn, damn. He's got a video from last summer's gap, I almost missed it entirely because I was feeling crappy, but I recognize a few cars from the lot. He's got a couple seconds of Jim Creer's bugeye in there too.

Purchased Today: Uhhhh, nothing.
Money spent since 03/03/03: $14.75
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 42

Well spring has sprung, at least around here. Just like that, one day nothing, the next day, pop, all the Bradford Pear trees in town bloomed. Went for a 3 mile hike this afternoon in the woods and when we came out 1-1/2 hours later the car was covered in a fine mist of yellow pine pollen. Had a real nice walk though.

Stumbled onto another Miata owner that blogs, Chris Greer. I've linked him over on the left with the other two Miata related blogs. Actually added him last night but for some reason my template wouldn't update. Every time I hit publish I would get a sort of error. After a few times the post would show, but the template wouldn't update. Tonight I got the same reaction, so I changed my template with a stock one and then changed it back. That worked, but now the archives have disappeared. :-(

Purchased Today: zippo
Money spent since 03/03/03: $14.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 40

Washed the car this morning, man was it dirty. The inside was filthy too, but that has all changed, it is now mostly clean. Needs a real intensive spring clean and waxing, but that will have to wait until April sometime, as the next 4 weeks are out of town trips and a vacation to New Orleans. I washed it because the Master's Miata Club was asked to show up for an elementary school's spring carnival. The way it was presented it sounded like we were going to be parked at the center of attention for an hour, with other hours assigned to other vehicles. As it turned out we were there at the same time as the fire truck, the mustangs, the hot rods, etc. Not only that we were parked way off to one side and it was hardly worth our being there. So the seven of us mingled around the parking lot and chatted away an hour and left. As Elaine of Seinfeld would have said, "Definitely not sponge-worthy."

Purchased Today: nada
Money spent since 03/03/03: $14.75
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 40

Well my dilemma as to what to buy with the $200 is over. The fire extinguisher used to put out the fire in my pocket is a new Dell Dimension 4550 Pentium 4 Processor at 2.53GHz, 512MB DDR SDRAM at 333MHz, 18.1 in 1800FP Dell Ultrasharp Digital Flat Panel Display. That $200 and I forfeit my March's $100 mad money towards the purchase price and I get to replace my aging 500Mhz Gateway with out guilt. I say guilt, because I really do not need a new PC. This one here still accomplishes everything I ask for of it. The only time I notice that it is ancient technology is when I save a an hour long MP3 of Echoes. Well the 4x CDRW is a dog, but I don't do much burning. Ships on the 13th, should be here 3 to 5 working days later...I'm going to go wait by the mailbox.


Purchased Today: nada
Money spent since 03/03/03: $14.75
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 39

Big turnout for the Master's Miata Club meeting tonight, 21. In an effort to mix up the meeting locations some we held this month's at the Atlanta Bread Company. My wife called last week to reserve a spot for 15-20 people and re-called this afternoon to re-confirm, when we got there there was nothing set aside for us. fortunately the corner we asked for was empty, so we moved a bunch of tables together and marked our territory. It was OK, but probably won't be in the regular rotation.

Purchased Today: $14.75 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $14.75
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 39

This is the busy week. First Wednesday of the month is the Aiken Bicycle Club meeting and the first Thursday is the Master's Miata Club meeting. At least all I have to do at the Bike Club is sit and listen, at the Miata Club one I am the Secretary so I have to write stuff down. Which means I have to sorta pay attention. The bike club meeting was neat as we had some folks come speak to us about an upcoming bike race that is coming to town. Rich Hincapie (brother of George, Lance's main man on US Postal) of Hincapie Sports and Tim Farrar from the SC Heritage Race Series chatted about what was going to happen on May 2nd when the bicycle circus comes to town. I would love to be there and help/watch. but we have already made or reservations for the inaugural "real" hike in the Georgia mountains that day.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $0.00
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 38

Can't decide what to mod to buy next. I am torn between some new Gage Faces or some Real Aluminum Trim. I've $200 burning a hole in my pocket....

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $0.00
Started down, went up, went down, went back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 37

As promised, a new Miata thing to keep track of. I'm going to keep track of all the money spent on the Miata. Everything, including gas, repair parts, service, and mods. I was going to do mileage, but I forget to write down what the mileage was this morning...maybe I'll start that on next April 4th.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $0.00
Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 34

Started ugly, but changed into a beautiful day around lunch. Went for another hike in Hitchcock Woods this afternoon. We're not sure of the mileage, because when we checked it at the car at finish it read .03 miles. Once, part way into the hike it read 1.9 miles. We were in the woods about an hour and a half so if we interpolate from Friday's data (two miles in an hour) we probably covered 3 miles. Unlike Friday were I knew exactly where we were at all times, this hike was spent in the I Think I Know Where We Are mode a bit with a couple of How The Heck Did We Get Here moments thrown in for good measure.

After the hike we decided to watch "Jackie Brown", Quentin Tarantino, Elmore Leonard, how could you go wrong? But somehow it did. The actors were good, the characters were good and after 40 minutes the plot looked good, but the pace seemed just a bit too slow (no wonder it was listed at 154 minutes.) I thought it might make a good 2 hour movie, while Donna was not so generous, she said 1 hour.

Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 32

Jeez, that was short lived. The morning started off misty and by 10 it was raining and I think it is raining still.

Before the wetness excelarated, myself and 7 others from the Aiken Bicycle Club did our quarterly trash pick-up. It is only 3 blocks long and the eight of us managed to fill up 4 orange bags with discarded beer bottles and fast food wrappers. It doesn't take too long and we get a warm and fuzzy feeling for doing it to go along with the small signs on each end of the road proclaiming our Club is a good citizen.

Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 31