Category: My MINI

My seatbelt has become twisted in such a way that I cannot work out how to untwist it. Given that both ends of the belt are fixed, how is that I cannot untwist it? No matter what I do I end with up either it twisted across my lap, or against my chest. Looks like I will have to detach it from next to the seat (presuming I have the tools to do so) or just live with it? But how can this have happened?!

Nothing much to say so thought I’d post this picture of me and my MINI at Big Bear Airport. So far the only way I have found to combine flying and motoring is to drive to the airport, too bad I can’t do it the other way around.

Teri and I took a day trip to Big Bear, about 3 hrs each way but the air was cool and crisp on the mountain and we were able to put the top down. On the way back we had the twisty road mostly to ourselves, had a blast shooting around the corners.

Been a while….

• MINI recently passed 85,000 miles, looks like I will make it to my first ever 100k automobile
• Stripes are starting to look really tatty, faded, rusty even. Tempted to take them off and see how it looks with the two tone paintwork or maybe even buying some new ones
• Talking of stripes, I finally came up with a side stripe theme I like but don’t know who I could get to make them or, more importantly, if I want to spend the money
• Got a voicemail today from the shop that did my last Inspection in December, asked me to please call them. I presume this is a business-generation call but I’m still smarting form the $500 rear brakes replacement so probably will not call them back.
• Hmmm… I’ve surely jinxed the car with the first bullet point
• Doing my part to save California – my car tax is up to $289 in August!

Filled up my tank Monday morning before going to San Diego – 389 miles on the full tank of gas which turned out to be 28.6 mpg according to my calculator. I’ve never made 400 miles on a single tank but if there had been a gas station within in the next 15 miles I would have carried on and made it. One day, perhaps.

Oh, the difference in driving “style” between this tank and previous one was actually some favourable tailwinds.

I’ll come up with a little write-up later but for now, here’s a video from our trip and some pictures. The video contains footage from the parking ramp at the event, and also from our run to Temple Bar on Friday morning. Feel free to click on the video and on to the high definition version.

And some pictures on my new flickr AMVIV VI set.

Yes, it’s that time of year (well, for me that time of every second year) – AMVIV is here this weekend and we’re looking forward to winding our way northwards to Vegas. Last time our journey was quite entertaining – heavy rain meant that some of the washes had flooded route 95 so we had to ford some big puddles, including being totally drenched by an oncoming lorry that splashed a wave of water than went right over the car. Good job we had the top up!

Our current plans are:

• leave Thursday morning and make it to Vegas in time to sign-in
• Friday we will join the run to Temple Bar, grab some lunch and then probably go up Mount Charleston “on the way back” since we’re really disappointed we won’t get to do it on Thursday
• Friday night we’ll be top down cruising the Strip
• Saturday morning we’ll follow everyone to Nelson’s Landing and hopefully we’ll be back in time for the Poker Run as we really enjoyed that last time. It’s a bummer that these two events overlap.
• Saturday night we’re off to The Mirage to see Terry Fator and his puppets!
• Sunday morning, pack our bags and head on home

See you all there!

Too bad this didn’t happen when we are in Vegas for AMVIV in a couple of weeks but it’s still pretty all the same.

I finally got my front brakes done this weekend. I had tried last weekend to take my own pads to the local ‘one stop’ auto place for them to be replaced but they found that the rotors were out of spec and I needed to come back. So, a week later and another parcel from Moss Mini (awesome delivery service in Southern CA, arrived next day at ground shipping rate) I went back to the auto shop and came out with a new set of front brakes. I can feel quite a difference in the braking action.

Total labour cost was $100 so I did a lot better than the place I went to before Christmas that wanted my arm and leg for the rear brakes but, yes, still not as cheap as doing it myself. But a $100 seems ok for something I didn’t want to do myself.

I was looking through the service manual and noticed that I have been remiss in getting a few flushes done, looks like I should have done transmission fluid, coolant, and brake fluid by now. I will have to put them on the list over the next few months.

Just a quickie to confirm we are booked for AMVIV. Registered today for the event, will grab me a hat, shirt and grille badge but will skip the banquet. Did the first one and did not enjoy it at all, will go see a show or something instead.

Saw a tip on the SCMM forums for booking the hotel. I was able to get the Palace Station Hotel for $140.85 including taxes which is about $100 less than the special event rate. It’s a courtyard room but at over $200 less than a Tower room I am sure I can get by. More money for gambling and MINI treats.

Hope to see you all there!

Update: db says that the organisers get free rooms if people use the event code rather than booking elsewhere so if you want to help them participate for free, you should use the code. I don’t feel bad for not doing so – they already got $25 more out of me than if I had spent the event rate and a cheaper hotel means I am likely to support a vendor or two.

I don’t know if it was today’s cool temps and the high winds coming home from work but I swear my MINI was purring as we cruised our way down I-15 this evening. Motoring never sounded so good.

Should be signing up for AMVIV this week, not sure why I haven’t done it yet. I’d really like to do the Mount Charleston run on the Thursday but that would require either an extra night’s stay or a very early start (and long day’s total driving). Can’t decide whether to stay at the Palace Station or not. Nothing wrong with it but there are some great rates out there in Vegas right now, a suite in the Rio works out at $90 a night for instance and would make it more of a vacation for my wife. But we can delay that decision a while yet. More later.