Just in time for Motor's anniversary (one year since completion), she's back from the body shop after last month's front-end:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaszeta/1350916923/

 

Happy Birthday to Motor and ALL the Mystic MINIs!!!

Blimey wants to know where his cake is, dammit. He prefers a flourless chocolate with a nice dark chocolate ganache...

 

Clara and I had cake - yellow cake with milk chocolate frosting

 

Shoot. Tess is at home, locked up in the garage, battery disconnected and in an early sleep. Sucks to be her.

 

Abuvazi

Tess is spending her Birthday in a state of deep meditation, she ia a Mystic Mini after all.
Merlin got a bath and we all had spaghetti and cake and sang Happy Birthday.

 

Hey, just as long as she's not out running around with some other guy. or some other woman. Or my wife....

 

Another woman you wouldn't mind so much. As long as there were pictures.

 

Holy cr@p, I almost couldn't find this thread -- they renamed it? What a dis!

And Paul, I gotta agree -- these rock!

 

Happy Belated Birthday MINIS!
Though MOE was a tweener (order as early as 7/26 -born 9/11--adopted 10/24----when exactly do we celebrate!) he sailed with KissMyS and even caravaned up the coast to East Bay MINI together. This has been an AWESOME year... and the about the only flub (knock on wood) is a disfunctional cig lighter power thingie.. has a short somewhere. MOE had his check up and all is well otherwise! BTW when I travel to Truckee/Tahoe I'm getting 37mpg... course I'm drafting my guy's big Chevy (we take 2 vehicles.. one for fishing and one for playing)

 

SO, my wife emails me this week. Seems that she's been easing Tess in and out of the garage weekly, to get the trash and recycling out.

This week? Noise, but no start. Yikes!

Fortunately, she's a well trained pit crew member -- she slapped some jumpers to it, brought her to life, and took her and the kids for a 90 minute drive to get the battery back in shape.

Quite a scare for me.

 

Oh Noes!

Yeah, these silly cars want to be driven...

 

Happy Thanksgiving to the Mystic MINIS of w3606!

 

And the blessings of the Four Druid High Priests on each and every one of them.
Motor on.

 

So, once again, I think I'm the last one, but today is Tess's birthday. Tomorrow, to celebrate, we're going to see about putting her other running shoes on, and go for a nice drive on Saturday.

Less than 9k miles on her. It makes me feel like a total party pooper, to have so few miles on her. Of course, a great many of them are are ridiculous speed, which helps to ease the guilt....

 

So, we're out in the woods today, bee-bopping around and enjoying putting some miles on the car. Kids are in the back, music is on, the sky is blue -- it's a great day.

A Mini goes by in the opposite direction -- I wave. Son asks why; I say that I like Minis. I like mine. I think Momma should get one -- and I tell him that there's a new model out (that we'll need to go see), that is longer and called the Clubman.

Why, he asks. Why is it called the Clubman.

Dunno. Use to be one like it, in the old timer Minis, but it was called the Traveler.

Oh, he says. He knows why. Because if it's longer and has more room, you can load it up with food and drink and extra clothes and stuff, when you're going to the club.

Gee, is it that obvious that my kids have only lived in Europe?

 

Yeah, it's pretty obvious.

 

So, folks -- we've been tooling around for over a year, and the holidays are upon us.

What's the best change you've made to your car? I need gift ideas (I am horrible to shop for).

 

Hmmm....

M7 USS, H-Sport 19mm Rear Swaybar, JCW Intake, 15% pulley, coco mats, wheelskin are all big winners for me.

 

When Merlin first came into the family I had all kinds of modifications I wanted to make to him (kind of like how a woman views a man). With over a year under our belts I have learned to love love Merlin for what he is ( a 2006 MCS with ordered amenities).
So this year Merlin will get a brand new cordless 15 volt vacum and a winter detail that can't be beat.
I on the other hand will get an Olympus E-3 DSLR with a 12-60mm lens in order that I can make enough money to pay for Merlins somewhat spirited attitude on the open road. He just can't seem to get past 25 MPG, frisky little fellow that he is.

 

This would be better only if it was a Mini...

 

Finally hit 10k miles today. So sad. I'm the slowest one, it seems So many miles I Have not been able to drive.

To celebrate, I hit 130 mph on the autobahn -- the speed rating of my tires. So, that made up for it...

 

I'm up to 14k and Merlin is running strong. On a long lonely stretch of desert highway I took Merlin up to 110 and then backed down, I wasn't in Europe but Merlin had plenty of heart to go further.

 

Nearly 28K and going strong.

 

So, having hit 10k miles, and having some extra cash, I sprung for a camera mount for Tess (thanks, Paul!). For Xmas, the wife had gotten me a new video camera -- small, compact, records to SD, and records Hi Def and widescreen -- and I also have a Mini-DV one (that is with my father in law right now). I had rigged a small tripod to the passenger seat head rest, with some luck, but thought that it'd be nice to have a dual mount system for my upcoming trip through the Alps.

So, test #1 -- how well does it handle the autobahn?

[video]

Answer? As well as can be expected.

I kind of regret not buying a tow hook mounted one, when Octane Guy was still making / selling them.

Oh, and about the video -- I love that 1) slower traffic keeps to the right, and 2) traffic moves at 110 mph.

One more beauty of this new video camera is that it records in Quicktime format -- nice, since last weekend I built a Hackintosh. Need to get my other video camera back and see how the two systems work together. Two video cameras, and a GPS (Garmin Forerunner 305) to record the route (and playback via Google Earth), and it should be a sweet little package.

I guess I need to get serious and see if others want to join my little run through the Alps. It'd be just fine, me and the kids doing it, but with others would be cool, too.

 

Yeah, the headrest mounted CruiseCam bounces around at bit at speed - I've played with various heights of the headrest, wedging the mount tight between the headrest and the seat, etc. Wedging it in tight seems to help. I suspect a bungie cord around it to load it down toward the parking brake (maybe looped around the center armrest or ?) would help keep it more stable... of course, the whole car is moving a good bit at speed... you just don't notice it...

Cool video... It's more exciting doing that over here, with Johnny Law and grandmas cruising in the left lane...