Category: General

New Stripes! New Stripes! There Will Be No New Stripes… Or will there (with apologies to Strictly Ballroom)?

The new stripes are here and they look great except… that they aren’t quite long enough. They don’t go from the top of the bonnet to the grille, there is about a half inch missing. I’ve read that this is ‘standard’ but I am not sure what I should do. Do I have a gap at the top? At the bottom? Both? Or just give up on the whole stripe fiasco?

Spent the day in Joshua Tree National Park today, Sarah got her first off-roading experience including almost getting stuck in some sand. I tried to take a few arty pictures – MINI meets desert, we’ll see what they come out like tomorrow.

The final concorde landings took place at LHR earlier today, I had meant to get up in time to watch them on BBC America but totally forgot 🙁 But you can watch the first two landings on the BBC website. A sad day for aviation and Great Britain, I think.

So after waiting excitedly for my stripes I’ve now decided not to use them. I think they look cool on the base Cooper but I’m not sure I like the way they go around the scoop on the MCS. Then I watched the Italian Job movies and decided that I wanted my MINI to look like a traditional one, with the traditional short stripe. So… I’m selling the Shelby Stripes – email me if you’re interested.

The stripes arrived last night and I can’t wait to get them on. But, after looking at it for a while I think I will have a professional install them. I have so little talent when it comes to these kind of things I don’t want to ruin Sarah’s look by screwing it up. There are a couple of promising looking companies to do it in the phone book so I shall see if one of them can fit me in early next week.

I spent today in San Diego, first at Gillespie Field in the simulator getting my instrument currency back and then in the afternoon did a little flying to the usual places on my own. Whilst I was at Gillespie I saw a red MCS parked outside Anglo-American Aviation International; it had the plate “RED MCS” which I thought was cool.

No sign of my plate, I think it is probably at the DMV waiting for me to pick it up but the form says they will write to me to let me know when to come in for it. I have until the end of the month to finish the registration so will wait a while longer yet. I do have the title documentation from Arizona, though.

My stripes should be here on Friday.

My passenger window is stuck again. It started to stop on Weds but I thought I got it working again. But now it refuses to budge again. Sigh.

I bought the Italian Job yesterday, in both original and remake flavours. I had forgotten what a great film the original is, even if it does have “My name is” Michael Caine “and not a lot of people know that”. CostCo has a $4 rebate on the new film DVD. A must for all MINI owners!

Back from my trip to San Diego and I only saw one MINI the whole time, a yellow one coming out from the road to IKEA as I went by. I waved and got a wave back.

Then just before my turnoff on the 8 in El Centro I spied a red MINI coming past me very fast. He came alongside and we exchanged visual pleasantries. After that, he dropped down at least one gear and then floored it, racing away. Er, why on earth did he do that? I know how fast MINIs can go, I was driving one – was I supposed to be impressed?

Anyone feel the earthquake today?!

I didn’t make it to the British Car Day, spent the whole day pretty much doing nothing in Brawley. I didn’t even take the MINI out of the garage, shame on me.

Today I am off to San Diego for a couple of days flying, hopefully the clouds will be sufficient to let me fly visually, my instrument rating is not current right now. You can find out more about my flying at my flying website.

In the Jeep I used to get about 10mpg going over to San Diego and it would really struggle to get up the grade. My MINI however flies over the hill, gets a decent 23-26mpg and is a lot more comfortable. Hopefully I shall see MINIs over there.

Thanks to a link from Don at dbmini.us I have a spiffy new look, and had an excuse to put Photoshop Elements to work in creating the banner. I think I still need some tweaks but its starting to look better. Why not email me using the link on the right and let me know what you think?

I’m pretty sure I won’t be going to the car show tomorrow. My parents have been in Cuba for three weeks and Sunday mornings are the best time to talk to them.

I don’t know how I got so ‘famous’ but I had a guy email me today asking for a picture of my MINI with the sunroof open, wants to know what the union jack looks like in that position. Any excuse to show off my baby: