Daily Smiles
 

OK since I started annoyances lets go the other way - daily smiles. What cheered you up today, hypermiling or otherwise ?

For me three things.

1. Arragonis Jnr - although I had to clean my "white seats" (see annoyances thread) because of his drink 'incident'. But today he made me proud by agreeing to share a room with his friend who has bladder issues and look after him, as in making sure his friend has his 'pants' on overnight and making sure his friend is clean without any fun poking or mischief. He's only nine.

2. I've started to drive home in daylight. Spring is coming.

3. And today it stopped snowing / raining / blowing a gale so finally it feels like the country and the ground is finally "drying out". Time to plan my veg patch...

Oh and an extra one. I have planned to be away in Spain at Easter. Woohoo! :)

1. Timing lights perfectly so you can coast down a hill in N and go through two lights in a row without having to touch the brakes.

2. Turning on the radio and not getting commercials.

3. Nice weather (last week) to commute by bike.

A stop sign at the top of a hill.

A perfectly timed coast-to-a-stop with nobody in the rear view mirror.

A 17" rear view mirror.

Watching the glacier that had been building on my driveway for a few months melt away last week, and anticipating installing my RE92's.

A drug dealer with three gangster wheels and a temporary spare on his $500 Dodge Intrepid.

Coasting past a gas station with the engine off.

Overtaking while coasting.

Seeing Arragonis praise something, instead of complaining. No, really: Seeing this new thread, and seeing who started it, put a smile on my face:)

+1 for you, sir!

EDIT: OK, one more smile today: I found an old magazine from a few months back with 2-3 articles about truck aerodynamics. I'll try to translate the relevant info and throw it onto EM within the next month (or two).

I didn't realise I was such a miserable old ....

Until now. :D

About 4 feet of fresh powder in the mountains. Watching the dog have fun as we're cross-country skiing in the new snow.

they say you get like the folk you live with.. in this case, its Grumpy Scots:p

New garage door fitted which actually opens and indeed closes. No, this is really good. I opened and closed it several times in amazment.

So maybe now I can get my MGB or MGB Electro (depending on how cream-crackered the B-series is) started...

Arragonis Jnr has a Richard Hammon Blast Lab electronics kit and likes it. Hmmm, I think the geek DNA maybe becoming active...

Yes but it must also be nurtured.
Regular doses of binary and HHGTG help.
The other day at the science museum I asked "so, how long do you think it took the mice to burry these?" Pointing to the dinosaur bones. Reply "uncle Jason, you know the philosophers will never let us find out" I nearly cried....

...that's not "grumpyness" it's Scottish "hagis humor" ala' carte' (wink,wink).

This put a huge grin on my face:

While fuelling up last summer a snootie little school girl pulled up behind me in a Prius, She filled up and was bragging to a friend how she got 47 mpg, and then asked me what I got with my old piece of junk while trying further impress her friend. I smiled and turned on the key and told her to have a look, my gage showed almost 90mpg over 800 or so miles. I doubt the friend will ever let her live that down.

My neighbours daughter has a Prius and whilst over for drinkies we compared MPGs. I'm getting 5-8 mpg more than her - which given I'm only just getting 45 US probably says more about her driving than mine.

Cleaning the car after not all winter, and being amazed every time you crawl in it.

My workplace is a bit downhill, and there's a stretch where I can coast for about 4 miles... Hitting 120mpg for the current trip FE on the scangauge puts a smile on my face every time... of course by the time I actually get to work it's back down to ~80mpg.

Whatching the usual pushy idiot in the Audi TT being comprehensively mashed this morning by one of these.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_mEt1jXfs6D...s+RS500_05.jpg

Coming into my local village with its 50kph limit. Tool in bmw rockets up to me from behind, tailgates for a few seconds then overtakes me with a rather high scream from his engine. He races up to the light that started to go red just before he overtook me. How i laughed behind him as i engine braked up to him with only a little brake at the end. He surely wasted more fuel in that maneouver than i used on my entire trip!

PNGing around 80 km/h in a 90-zone, letting everyone pass with as little problems as possible, and smiling ear-to-ear when I see that the police stopped half of them only a few kilometers down the road.

Then smiling again when I look in the mirror and see that the police officer is staring at my Kammback, regretting that I was going too slow to give him an excuse to stop me.

Coasting half a mile, taking a left into a parking lot, and coasting all the way into a parking spot. I missed my LRR tires.

Oh, and 3 out of 4 animals in the house getting along:

https://s-hphotos-snc6.fbcdn.net/180..._1477338_n.jpg

EOC through the last light on my way to work, two blocks, turn, one block, turn, coast into spot. total costing of .5 of a mile (initial speed of 35 MPG) :)

Watching the idiots slam on the gas trying to out run the next light (0% chance) only to slam on the breaks. I only speed up to 30 MPH then EOC, I end up right next to the idiot and make 40 + MPG doing it.

haha! thats a daily occurance for me, don't they know it doesn't help them in any way shape or form?

What's the 4th animal?

A second cat that hates dogs, even though the dogs could care less about him.

It's a shame really, he is quite lovable as long as they're not around. They show up? He's gone.

I thought the fourth one was taking the picture. ;)

(in a nice way, I like animals)

Neutral coasting through a green light while passing people on the left.

Getting slightly higher (24.9MPG) than the EPA rated 24MPG during the last tank with all short trip city driving.

Laughing when people tailgate you and pass you only to stop at a red light.

:eek: That's a nice Focus RS.

http://www.live4ever.us/uploaded_ima...ion-705971.jpg

Nyom nyom nyom

my trip meter just rolled past 160 miles on my cb750 and I still have about half a tank left! I usually only make it to 150! This turning it off and gliding thing is amazing if I can make it to 250miles my mpg will have gone from 39 to 65!

This should be in the annoyances thread.
It's a disgusting taste that only an Englishman can like :D

Second only to sour cream and onion.

You are quite right in that aspect as well. I usually play tug of war with both the dogs. The german is quite adamant about always winning, the boxer could care less most of the time. It's a lot of fun to trick them onto the kitchen floor and then no amount of muscle is going to get them past their no traction paws. So if they're both clamped onto the rope, you just end up dragging 140 pounds of dog around.

That's a smile too. :D

I've had two dogs - well my family has - both collies. The first was a bearskin which is a cross between a collie and lab. It has both the collie desire to play and the lab desire for laziness - so when it got out from home we found out it had 2-3 houses it used to visit for food and frolicks in the local area. It was called Harry but when he would, er, cock his leg my parents said they would get a "Harriet" the next time.

So when he died at 18 we did and she was called Harriet - this time a full collie. At the time she was a puppy I was a student so had study time at home (both my parents worked) so I was tasked with house training (poop scooping) and of course play - at least a thousand throws of a ball every day.

About 15 years later when my parents were divorced and Harriet was with my dad and she was by this time old, creaky and mostly blind - whenever I came for a visit she would come for a 'sniff' and then hunt out a ball from somewhere and drop it for throwing even though she had no idea where it would go. You had to do it and then of course lead her to sniffing distance so she could have a game.

Miss them both.

Thats a smile for now. :D

EDIT Harry was named after this chap.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-dirty-dog.jpg

Our animals (cats, dogs) have been well worth the price of admission...

Very much related to daily smiles, but still its own thread:
How big is your dog?

Its Friday.

Given my week that is enough for a smile today :D

Getting a new job with same duties but twice the pay!!!!

Saw the Google Street View car for my area today... :D Pretty cool lookin' vehicle, based on a Subaru Impreza... Couldn't get a pic of it, unfortunately...

My SE5a has a new companion

http://ecomodder.com/forum/attachmen...1&d=1299278229

I'm a born again modeller so my skills are at beginner status but it made me happy and joins A Jnr's "Hanger"

Happy friday! :thumbup:

Its Saturday so diet free day - all the food is fresh so I enjoy it.

Smile 1 - Mrs A making fresh bread rolls this morning. Nyom nyom nyom.

Smile 2 - Finding my favourite wine on offer at £3.99 at the local supermarket (normal price £8+)

Smile 3 - Walk planned for tomorrow with friends.

This is our (as in me and Mrs A's) first work free weekend since Christmas. :D