More guests! ; problems selling the Miata

(posted from home)
(This post covers 1-15 July, 2012)


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Sunday, 15 July -

After a morning on the web (for me) and in the yard (for Labashi) we went into town to run an errand and then have lunch at Chili's.
We returned home mid-afternoon and began watching 'Louie', the TV series with Louis C.K. I had watched the pilot episode a few days ago and thought Labashi would appreciate his off-beat humor. I was right. We watched six episodes, took a break for supper, then watched 'Terribly Happy', a very interesting and strange Danish movie. It was Coen brothers-David Lynch strange. Loved it!

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Saturday, 14 July -

This morning I had some uploading to do for Labashi. I had taken my camera along on our visit to the Shippensburg church last week and Labashi wanted the pictures. Unfortunately we don't have a good way to transfer the pictures to her PC. I put them up on my laptop and had her select the ones she wanted. I then cropped and color-corrected them and sent them to her via email. I also did a bit of editing on two video clips and uploaded them to YouTube.
That afternoon I rode the GS to Rocky Ridge and did my walk in 1:48. The gnats weren't as bad today but still not much fun. I'm ready for cooler weather.
We didn't have a movie tonight. We both had a bit of a strong margarita and not long after fell asleep in our chairs. I don't think we have to worry about becoming alcoholics. A drink or two and we fall fast asleep.

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Friday, 13 July -

Today I had only a few little chores to do. I helped Labashi with her project to fix a decorative lamp-post. My part of it was some grunt work taking out old rusted screws and cutting a replacement 7-inch disk out of an oak board we had lying around.
I also cleaned out the house's rain gutters. The front gets badly jammed up with pine needles from the Virginia pines overhanging the front of our roof.
That evening we watched the first four episodes of 'Hell on Wheels', the TV series about the building of the Union Pacific railroad. Not bad!

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Thursday, 12 July -

Today I took the Miata to town for a more extensive test of the transmission and suspension. I was also on an errand to pick up plumber's silicone grease.
I stopped in at the East York Starbucks after Lowe's and chatted with barista Jackie. She was on break and we talked about her interest in tennis and in going back to school.
Back home I changed the whole house filter for the first time. Upon installation this filter had leaked, I think because the o-ring hadn't been properly lubed. But the whole process only took ten minutes or so and there was no sign of a leak.
I also submitted a non-paying bidder report to Ebay on the Miata. Looks like I'll have to relist it.
That evening we watched an excellent play on DVD. It was Lawrence Fishburne in 'Thurgood', the story of Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall. Excellent, excellent work.

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Wednesday, 11 July -

Another extra-hot day today. I spent much of the morning on the web while Labashi was off visiting her Mom and Dad.
At mid-day I took my regular walk at Rocky Ridge.
Late in the day I picked up the Miata at the garage and took it for a short test drive. Sweet!

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Tuesday, 10 July -

I talked to the garage guys this morning and they agreed to install the sway bar if I could get the links today. I called the Mazda dealer and they did come in as promised so I zipped down there on the GS and back.
I took a load of records and all our fans over to the storage unit today. I also ran to the post office on an errand for Labashi and enjoyed talking with our friendly postmistress--- such a nice lady.

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Monday, 9 July -

This morning I took several items down to the Salvation Army store to donate. I then bought some banker boxes at the Office Max. I later used them to pack up old financial records from my parents' accounts.
While in town I looked for a replacement link for the Miata's sway bar. The guys at the garage had removed the bar last month when they thought it was impossible to find the links for the aftermarket sway bar. However, I later learned the aftermarket bar could use either stock links or the fancier adjustable aftermarket ones. Today I learned I could order the stock ones at the local Mazda dealer and they could have them here tomorrow. If that's true I can have them installed when I take the car over for the transmission oil change.
I also received some bad news today. The buyer of the Miata has told me she wants to back out. I suspected there could be problems with a bidder who has no purchases and no sales but you never know.
I dropped off the Miata for it's transmission oil change. Hopefully the Motorcraft oil will help with the slightly 'notchy' shifting of the transmission and cure the cold-weather grind between gears 1 and 2.
We also took my old chair out of my office and set it out with a free sign this morning. It was gone within an hour. Labashi had planned to sell it on Craigslist but as we looked closer at it in preparation for taking pictures we realized it probably wasn't worth the trouble.

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Sunday, 8 July -

Today my main 'thing' was going to be the end of the Ebay auction for the Miata at 1700. I had seen the view counter up around 1000 and the watch counter up to about 50 so I thought the car seemed to be getting some exposure. I only had one bid but thought I'd get more as the auction drew close to the end.
Mid-day I rode down to Starbucks and then on to Rocky Ridge for my regular walk. Weather is very, very hot so I've started taking along a bottle of water for the walk. The feels-like temperature today was 106 degrees but in the shade I was fine.
I returned home in time to check the Ebay auction and was surprised to see I didn't get any other bids. I only need one to sell the car, though.

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Saturday, 7 July -

This morning I called my local Ford dealer hoping to find the synthetic trans oil I need. The sales guy was on duty but the parts shop was closed. Fortunately he told me the dealer in Red Lion was open today. I called there and found they had this fairly hard-to-find oil in stock.
I rode the GS down to Red Lion for the oil and hit the Tollgate Starbucks on the way home. By that time it was already quite hot so I was happy to get home to the air conditioning.

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Friday, 6 July -

I spent most of the morning researching transmission oil for the Miata and figuring out where to get it. I thought I wanted Redline MTL because of a recommendation from a guy I worked with but things got a little more complicated as I read the miata.net web site's recommendations. Some guys recommend the MTL, some the heavier MT90. But the latter isn't good in cold weather. As I read more, though, I saw more and more of a consensus that Motorcraft Full Synthetic Manual Transmission Fluid is the way to go. I called around and found the Redline oils at a garage in Dillsburg but by that time it was too late to begin calling the Ford dealers.
Midway through the day I went over to my local garage and made an appointment to change the trans oil next week and then buzzed down to Rocky Ridge for my 5-miler.

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Thursday, 5 July -

Today we had a late breakfast with our guests, then drove to Mom and Dad's apartment to pick them up. The whole gang of us took Mom and Dad to visit a church which Dad had designed. Labashi had made arrangements to meet the caretaker at the church and we were given a very nice tour. It has been 45 years since Dad was in that church and it was clearly a wonderful treat for him to see it again.
After our visit to the church we drove to Carlisle for an early supper at Cafe Bruges. Unfortunately they were closed today! We instead went to the Red Robin on the east side of town and enjoyed their 'gourmet' hamburgers. I wasn't particularly impressed.
After our meal our visitors headed to Chambersburg and Gettysburg for a bit of a Civil War tour and we took Mom and Dad back to their apartment, then went on home.
That evening we watched the last disk of season two of 'Intelligence'. We're very sorry to see the end of that one. We were wondering what magic Chris Haddock would use to end the season with a story line which could bring a meaningful end to the entire series if it wasn't renewed or give us a cliffhanger into the next season if it was. He didn't disappoint. Good job, Haddock!

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Wednesday, 4 July -

This morning we dug into cleaning up the house for our visitors due later today. Labashi made a run to the grocery store while I dusted and ran the vacuum cleaner. We had things pretty much in control by mid-afternoon and only had to take showers. That's when our guests arrived. We hadn't expected them until supper time but they arrived around 1430.
Our guests were one of Labashi's sisters and her husband and two grown boys. We caught up on family news and then spent a few hours doing a show-and-tell in front of the TV. We had video clips of a graduation, artwork, travel clips, Facebook photos, Google Maps explorations, etc as our conversation wandered far and wide. Great evening!

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Tuesday, 3 July -

This morning my first task was to drink my 450 ml barium sulfate 'milkshake' plus six glasses of water for my annual kidney scan today. Once I had all that liquid I drove down to the urologist's office for the CT scan an hour later.
Today's procedure went very easily. After the process I drove on to Starbucks for a break, then back home for lunch.
I spent another hour making more calendar entries and testing the notifications, then updated the blog.
After supper we were about to watch some TV when we realized the state store would be closed tomorrow and we had guests coming. I zipped over to our local store only to find it had closed twenty minutes before. I rode on down to York and at first couldn't find the state store-- they had moved it. Fortunately it had only been moved to another part of the strip mall. I loaded up some goodies and headed home to watch more 'Saving Grace' Season Two episodes. We also watched fireworks off in the distance from our bay window.

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Monday, 2 July -

Today I began researching calendars. We want to set up a shared calendar for all the home and vehicle maintenance reminders. After an hour or so looking I settled on Google Calendar and made a few sub-calendars and entries on them.
In the afternoon I mowed in the low-Nineties heat. I had noticed we had a nice air moving today so thought I'd better get on it since we have visitors coming later in the week.
That evening we watched 'Saving Grace' Season two episodes. These were actually pretty bad. We've noticed that sometimes the actors go into an overdrive mode on this series and become hyperactive and overly melodramatic. At the same time the director revs up the American stereotypes. Oklamoma coach Barry Switzer appeared in an episode and they treated him with such awe it was almost painful. And once you couple that with this week's news out of Penn State that Joe Paterno appears to have been in on the plot to let Sandusky's acts slide, it was made all the more tawdry. At one point Grace even falls to her knees and crosses herself in front of Switzer. Yeah, it's a joke. But then it isn't.

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Sunday, 1 July -

Today we drove to Chambersburg to visit Maypo and family. On the way there we listened to 'This American Life' podcasts and stopped by the Shippensburg Wal-Mart for a few small items. We'e found that this particular Wal-mart seems to have things in stock which are routinely out of stock at our local store.
We spent a lazy afternoon chatting and checking out Maypo's new deck, then went out to dinner at The Cottage before heading home.


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