Three days into my auto-up enabled windows and I love it! It is so handy to be able to close them with such ease. If you don’t already have the circuit, get on to Ian at GBMini and order before he stops making them.
Finally Seen a Cabriolet
On the way to San Diego yesterday I was alongside an orange convertible Cooper for a while, got to check it out for a while. The differences is styling are subtle but noticeable – when I first saw it in my rear view mirror I knew it was a MINI but there was something odd about the front; I couldn’t pick out the differences but they were definitely there. Very cool looking car, I want one.
Auto-up Windows
Its taken me a long time to catch up with a good thing but finally this weekend I installed the excellent auto-up window circuit in Sarah. Here in the USA the MINI doesn’t come with a switch to put the windows all the way up, you have to hold them in until they are done. Ian over on the east coast solved this with his own circuit board design and, even for a botch-it artist like me, it was very simple to install. Hardest part of the whole install was getting the courage to pull on the dash to pop out the facia, I felt for sure with my ham-fisted style I’d break it. Excellent product, highly recommended if you don’t already have it.
$3 a gallon soon?
Last night I passed a gas station advertising their premium unleaded at $2.72!! I think thats the highest price I have ever seen, and the news reports are predicting it will go higher. The only ray of sunshine is the thought of all those H2 owners spending a lot more per mile in their hideous behemoths.
Maxi MINIs
The sun goes in and the MINIs come out!! I’m currently staying in Old Town, went for a walk last night, saw 4 MINIs parked within two blocks of the hotel. Tonight I went to Borders in Mission Valley, parked two spaces down from another red MCS, came out of the store and it was gone, but another red MCS was parking nearby. This one had a red checkerboard roof which I thought looked neat. I also saw a whole bunch between work and the shop. I haven’t seen many in ages but now I’ve seen probably 20 in a week.
MINI Sightings
Seen a lot of MINIs this past week, saw five in one short trip from Balboa Park to Montgomery Field, managed to bag a couple of waves from those that saw me. Also a couple of new sightings here in the Valley, including a gold one that apparantly belongs to a high school girl here in Brawley. Much to my dismay, however, the gold one was sporting one of those awful bra’s, made the car look hideous from the front. I don’t get why someone would get such a gorgeous car and then cover up half the front.
I know the argument is saving the paintwork from stone chips and hence increase resale value but surely you buy the car for yourself, not so that the next owner gets a good deal. Also, in the scorching sun of the Valley, the paintwork is going be two-tone when that bra comes off.
[Hmm… having the words “high school girl” and “bra” in this post is going to make for some interesting referrals]
New Immigration MINI Rules?
On the way over to San Diego this morning, stopped at the Border Patrol checkpoint and was halted. Said hi to the officer and he motioned that I needed to talk to the officer at the passenger window. Thinking that I’m about to get that cavity search I always wanted, I put the window down, say hi and he tells me that I am driving the wrong colour MINI, it should be a “grey” one, then he smiles and points to a silver S sitting in the staff car park. I laughed, told him that red is best and sped off before he could even think about putting on the gloves. So… all you would be immigrants to the US of A, get a grey MINI if you want to get that Green Card.
My MINI’s Optimism
I love my MINI’s optimism: last week I had driven about miles on a new tank of petrol and the trip computer was forecasting a range of 514 miles which would have given me about 600 miles on one tank!! Given that I have never gotten more than 350 miles, I wonder just what she is inhaling sometimes….
Big Audio Dynamite
I love my XM Radio but recently I had to change most of my preset stations as they were getting real blah, the rotation isn’t quite large enough on some. But a couple of the new ones are real good- U-Pop and Worldzone on 29 and 100.
But I have a dilemma: now I have both an XM radio and an iPod for playing music in the car. My MCS is a 2002 model with the radio that has no auxillary input (still amazes me that) so for the XM I am using the FM transmitter method of receiving. The sound is ok but the talk radio stations and any chat is mostly too muffled to understand. Do I go the same method for the iPod, or should I get a new head unit completely and get a much cleaner sound? And is there way to get both plugged into the same unit?
Where Have All the Car Washes Gone?
On the way home last night, the combination of setting sun and flithy windscreen made driving westbound somewhat hazardous. So I decided to get the car washed, I knew it was too late to get a human to wash it but figured I’d just run it through one of those automatic dealies. Fifteen minutes later I had yet to find one – plenty of gargages proudly announcing “Car Wash” but all of them were now supervised and therefore closed. I did find one eventually but I think the death of the automatic car wash has been greatly under-reported.