Merry Christmas, Everyone! And, have a safe and Happy New Year!
I’m a bit late - same to you anyway :)
Sorry for the delayed response, but hope you all had a good Christmas.
Now, have a Happy New Year! Retired people do! 
Thank you! We may have enough leftovers from Christmas to get us through New Years! 
Happy New Year everyone!
Belated thanks, and hope everybody else has a good holiday season.
Today is my last day at work, as of 1/1/26 I’ll be officially retired. Dunno what that means yet, but it’s nice not to feel a need to wake up in the early dark winter mornings (except to need to pee).
Well, damn! Congratulations, Ben!!!
If you are like me, it was a long time coming!
I wish you a long and healthy retirement, and good luck to your retirement finances! May your sequence of returns risk (SORR) be zero!
Indeed, congratulations btrueblood!
I agree wholeheartedly about not having to wake up early and head to work! This was a big change for me and i now get up and eat breakfast/brunch shen I’m ready.
@Latexman - investment returns this past year have been most favorable . . . glad i have a personal advisor to work with.
Congratulations, Btrueblood!
And - my condolences - some retirees talk of losing something that they relied upon. Either the purposefulness or the discipline of work (whether they really like it or not) it created order.
Good luck with the adjustment.
My bodily routines reset to something similar to this, during long winter holidays like the christmas break. I have not gone to work since the 19th December, and by now my body has reset itself to waking up with the sun (about 8AM) and getting sleepy at about 10PM.
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Yeah, I’ve been semi-retired the last few months, just going in 1-3 days per week. Which is worse than either working or not, because you can’t get into a rhythm. Having order of some kind is definitely better than none Not sure exactly what I want to do yet, so I’m going to take the coming year to find some new time-wasting habits and spend more time with the ones I already have. I want to give back a bit too, so will be looking around for some volunteer opportunities.
I did get out and went XC skiing Monday, up on the pass. Snow was great, and my knee felt good, and the trails were empty, even with the holiday. So, there’s one time wasting habit that I’ll keep doing, and if the dang UPS accountants will pull their heads out, I will continue doing the summertime version with a new pair of German-made roller skis that I ordered only to have them put a 200% tariff on…!#^$#^%.
Also decided on my next engineering project for something that does not currently exist: a ski rack that will fit Nordic skis (long skinny ones) on a current model MX5 Miata. Currently I take the wife’s Rav4 to the mountains for skiing, but that leaves her without her favorite vehicle. Have some ideas, and the 3d printer, and a base mount using a Revo Rack with some modifications should work. But I worry about road vibrations and wind pushing the skis around. So, a good project to use the picoscope, laptop, and some cheap accelerometers for road testing. May need to ask Greg and you for some advice on vibration damping, and maybe flow spoilers.
This won’t work?
Thule Universal Ski & Snowboard Rack 91725B
While I ski a lot myself, I just put them inside the car, so I’ve never actually messed around much with these racks, to tell the truth.
No, that won’t fit. Not many racks available for it, all of them are trunk mounts only.
A friend I have coffee with is an ex-Boeing aero guy who worked on flutter problems. We both had some laughs about the idea, and then we had some more serious discussions about mass loading and stiffness…
Slow learner here. I didn’t read carefully the “Miata” you mentioned.
Yeah, mounting a roof rack to the Miata is tough. Do you have the hard-top?
Why do I get the sense that you’re planning on drilling holes through it?
No, no drilling. The Revo rack is made in the UK, and uses suction cups to mount. Cool idea, but…with the current idiotic state of US import tariffs, I would pay a lot, and probably wait a long time to get it.
But the same company also makes a “boot bag” which secures to the trunk with straps. So, I borrowed that idea and made some brackets which can be held to the trunk and a part of the retractable hardtop roof with straps. The brackets have adhesive rubber foam padding added where they contact the car and the skis, to hopefully preclude any scuffing. Bungee cords wrap over the skis and attach to some bent-wire brackets that slip under the straps…everything seems pretty secure. The straps get stretched tight when the roof and trunk lid are closed. Took it out on the local main road and everything seems right, no noises or vibrations noted at about 50 mph. I’ll probably head up to the pass on Monday, and keep an eye on things with frequent stops to check. The pass is I-90 and has a 70 mph speed limit, so…wish me luck!
If this works, I may eventually remake the brackets from aluminum, either as bolted pieces or welded. The 3d print was done with PETG, which has decent durability and UV/weather resistance, but I don’t trust it for fatigue strength and made design choices that should keep it loaded mostly in compression.
Pictures below show the setup. 199cm Fischer XC skis. Poles and other gear will go in the passenger seat/foot well, along with chains for the car.
Have fun this weekend!
A google search for “Miata+Skis” turned up this:
and this:
Monday visit to the pass, with 40-yr old xc skis (because 1. if they fell off would not be broken hearted, and B. the snow reports said areas of the trails were bare). Bottom line - ski rack performed fine, no weird vibrations or noises, no evidence of chafing, etc. People who know that parking lot were amazed that the Miata got in and out (deep potholes and icy road surface), but it’s small and agile to get around the deeper stuff, the tires (M+S rated) have good grip, and the driver has had 40+ years of RWD+manual+snow.
PS - I have no idea what kind of animal left that shaggy pelt behind in the bottom right of the photo. It’s frozen into the ice so I left it alone.
I would have as much fun on the drive up, as on the skis. Green with jealousy.
My own car is packed for a ski trip tomorrow. Manual+Snow, but, sadly, FWD.
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