Category: General

Cleaning out the garage today I found the second of the two John Cooper signature decals I bought a couple of years ago. I couldn’t put this one on the stripe like last time but I think it looks neat underneath the S on the side.

I don’t know if its the change in season, my rapidly approaching entrance to the 40s or something else but I’m increasingly becoming an old curmudgeon. I haven’t been on a community MINI run this year; I haven’t posted on the SCMM board in a very long time;I don’t care about the new MINI magazine and am happy to let people know it, and I’m getting increasingly fed up with people raving about someone tweaking their car to go much much faster. Maybe its just been a horrible year and my mood will get better next year?

We all have links that we read every day, first thing in the morning over coffee and a bagel. High on my list is the excellent photography at the Tale of the Blu Iguana. If you like this example, go check out the rest of his site (it isn’t all MINI-related).
Props to db for his HTML advice, the cheque is in the mail.

But it seems not everyone does….. traffic chaos in La Jolla. For those who don’t get it, the Tribune has even provided a handy guide to how to use them!

Reminds me of my first road trip to Sweden… coming back into Harwich, we drive off the boat, get out of the port and come to a huge roundabout. The car in front – Swedes in a Volvo (what else!) – immeadiately goes the wrong way round it. I go the correct way and of course we meet at the exit, we all laugh and wave at each other and I let him through first. As I turn off, I see at least one more Volvo come round the wrong way…. I bet the police love that roundabout.

Now that the desert temps have come down to just about perfect, the dirt people are back. I have no problem with that, the local economy certainly appreciates them, but it does cause some driving problems.

When I go home on a Friday night the line of RVs, trailers etc is many miles long, sometimes bunched up, otherwise with a few decent gaps. I typically drive home at about 75mph but the mean speed for everyone else must be 85+ so when it comes time to overtake a group of slow vehicles I pull out, go nicely by but because of the spacing there is usually some idiot up my exhaust pipe before I am done. So do I push it up to 90 and get by the next RV or do I sit there watching the driver behind get more and more pissed off? And if I pull into a gap, there’s a good chance I’ll be sat there doing 60/65 for a long time as a stream of fast moving cars give no chance to pull out. It all makes for an stressful ride home.

A picture says a 1000 words….

More pictures on my Flickr site

No time for a report, that will come later. Enough to say that I have my new baby, to be called Carrie, and she’s brilliant!

Google Maps are cool. Ian C’s auto-up window circuit for the MINI is cool. Now Blalor has combined the two to give you a google map showing all the locations that Ian has sold to. For a long time Ian has maintained a map but the Google Maps API presents an opportunity to do so much more with it. Full props to Blalor for having such a great idea and working it out.

I’m sure you all read the MINI blogs but in case you haven’t checked out Todd’s blog recently, go take over and take a gander at this very neat design of his.

So, with the new MINI officially in production its time to have fun speculating which ship it will be on. The excellent guide to order tracking at MINI2 gives the website for the shipping company, Wallenius Wilhelmsen.

Given my finish date of July 12th, there are two likely candidates: the Terrier which departs on the 18th of July, or the Don Quijote which departs on the 28th. The Terrier arrives in CA on the 11th of August, the Don Quijote on the 19th. I tried my VIN number on the cargo tracking but its not there yet to know which one.