I thought we should start a thread on what we do second best (I am assuming that we all talk/type about our cars best) --- Chat.

So, here it is....our own private little world to hang out and chat.....hmmmm do we need a topic to get us started? I don't know? Hmmm...

So, who has plans for Labor Day? When will you be picking up your Labor Day Presents? Your Larbor Day Tree? What special Labor Day traditions do you have?

Hugs,
PB

 

I think I am working Labor Day.........yes, I am definitely working. True Labor Day for me!

 

better that being in .....

 

not sure about that, i think Jen still has to scream a lot and change diapers.

 

Yes, but given where she works....they are polite screams and VERY expensive diapers....and we can't talk about it because it might invade a guest's privacy....

Hugs,
PB

 

My dad, stepmom, my sister & her family and I used to go out to Rehoboth for the week after Labor Day... I miss Grotto's and Thrasher's! I hear tell that Auntie Anne's closed up! At least they are all over now even if they aren't at the beach.

Haven't been to the beach for Labor Day in several years though... my sister stopped going out with the family and so now instead of renting a big house my dad stays with my aunt. I haven't been this year even though I want to go. Don't know when I'll get out there again... I'm still jonesing for a Nic-a-bola...

Maybe I'm just homesick for Chicago... Both my mom & sister used to live here in Germantown, but Mom moved to Wilmington, NC and my sister's putting her house up for sale in Feb. I've always spent holidays with family so it feels strange to think of being somewhere with no family. In Japan all the foreigners were in the same boat, so we stuck together on holidays... though I remember my 4th of July party one year -- I was the only American there! Anybody else out here without family?

 

My folks live in the RTP area and my sister just moved from Wilmington to Breckenridge, CO. She graduated from UNCW in May '03.

Nicola's Pizza (home of the Nic-A-Boli) and Thrasher's - two places I know very well, particularly the french fry place!! One year I ordered a case of 'Bolis for my parents during the summer and had them shipped. It was my dad's favorite treat! I think he ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner . My family and I would go to Rehobeth nearly every summer when I was growing up. Ahhhh, good memories :smile: :smile:.

Let's see, this coming Labor Day I will be exercising my left hand in a RHD MINI and trying to avoid oncoming traffic .

 

Ooh! Make sure that you get well acquainted with some "B" and "C" (aka 'farm') roads out there! And if you're in the area of Sheffield or Manchester, be sure to drive 'Snake Pass' going between the two cities. That was one of my favorite drives out there, both for the road and the scenery!

The Snake Pass Inn has some good food, too!

-Paul!

PS - And remember, turn left into the roundabouts!!

 

goin' to Rehoboth tomorrow for 3 days. I'll eat some Thrasher's for ya. No Labor Day plans, tho'.

 

Motoring along in a MINI Cooper!! Along with Mike A, Chris and Jay. On the 6th, we'll pick up our MINIs and head to Oxford. We have a factory Tour on Tuesday. Fun, fun, fun. Other places we'll visit include: Cooperworks, New Forest and the National Motoring Museum, Stonehenge, Stratford-on-Avon and of course, the city of London! We might even get out to Silverstone for the MINI event on Spetember 12th. It's an all motoring trip!!! :smile:

 

running the Rock 'n Roll half-marathon in VA beach.

God I hate running.

Marty

 

In London, if you guys are into Japanese influenced food, be sure to check out Wagamama. They're scattered throughout London, so finding one shouldn't be too hard. Awesome food! The Yakisoba is one of my favorite dishes there. And all of the different ramen noodle soups are great too!

Have fun!

-Paul!

 

It's on our list for when we get in, we wandering into one last year and loved it. I was also facisnated by their ordering system, it was a combination of wireless Ipaq's and writing on the table in front of you, high tech and low tech at the same time!

 

I actually asked them about that! The waiter explained that when Wagamama was just starting out, on one particularly busy night, the whole Ipaq/computer ordering system locked up and crashed! So they had a restaurant full of customers, a pile of plates ready to go out, and absolutely no idea of what dish went where!

(I dunno if that was just a made-up story to 'take the ****' out of a 'yank' though, as the times I went to a Wagamama, they used the written-on tables to figure out who-got-what. :smile: Cool story in any case!)

-Paul!

 

I'm very jealous.... you guys will have a blast!

 

Hey all,

I got a bunch of gmail invites today. If you want one, PM me your email address!

-Paul!

 

Paul -- Dare I ask a stupid question...? I know what email is and snail mail, but what's gmail? And what are the invites to?

 

:smile: There's no such thing as a stupid question! (Just stupid people...) Kidding!!

Anyway, Gmail is a new web based e-mail service like Yahoo Mail or Hotmail that's offered by the people that run Google. Like Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, it's free. Unlike Yahoo Mail and Hotmail, Gmail gives you 1 gigabyte of storage. That's about 5 times more space that the other two offer. It pretty much means that you won't have to delete another email message again. Ever. :smile:

Gmail, however, isn't open to the general public yet. It's still in testing mode. So what they are doing is letting a few people on at a time through an invite system. How it works is they give a couple of 'invites' to a few people that are already on Gmail (these are people who either work at Gmail, or have already been invited through someone else). These people that get the invites are free to give them out to whomever they choose.

I'm already on Gmail, and a couple of days ago, I got a bunch of invites to give out. I figured that I would share those invites with the good people at North American Motoring and DC Metro MINIs!

-Paul

PS - I think that makes sense... if not, write back here and I'll try to explain it better!

 

Paul!

Makes perfect sense... can you send me one?

Thanks,

Deb

I'm NekoWoman at aol.com

 

dont want to be a sour puss here, but wasnt there a lot of hubbub about the fact that your email is not private, and that Google is scanning your email to "tune" their ads to you and your interests. So if the word mini cooper shows up in your email, then you might get a CooperFlags ad.......or if your wife suggest you get a colonoscopy, a MrPlumber ad might show up....etc

i guess, my statement here is to view their service with some caution. Google was developing Orkut community with similar intentions.

 

Grumbler,

Can't all companies scan your email? Do they have a posted privacy policy? Is anything ever really private anymore?

What's Orkut?

 

if your email is being sent to corporate office, they have the ability to scan your email. Services, to this point, have pretty stated that they will not. Google is the first major service(there may have been little ones before) that is scanning and modifying to your personal content. I believe they have stated that in their privacy statement. Orkut was a way to merge all the random forums and information on the web and create a level of accountability. You are not actually anonymous in orkut. What was nice, is that it kept the rude kiddies down to min. What was bad, was similiar to the gmail, is that you having a group study your interests and present advertising based on it......they could also sell that information to third parties. i wasnt too comfortable with that selling of information to third parties so i bailed.

yes, we are all being tracked. big brother is not just a tv show.

 

Is never private anymore, neither corporate nor email like gmail, yahoo or hotmail. All the public ones have scanners that do several things, the least of which is to scan your email for potential terrorist implications. If something is found, the information is passed via NSA to the appropriate people for investigation. Believe it or not, this is happening with cell phone and landline phone conversations too! (I know because I was helping get that system going a while ago...) It's cool stuff, but scary since everyone knows who you are and what you are up to!

 

As z3baum said, no public email system is really private anymore. Even ISP's have been happily shelling out emails to government organizations. All that Google is really doing (from what I understand) is machine-scanning your email for key words, so it can show ads on the side of the page that are relevant to the key words it picked up (well, that and shelling out your email to government officials if requested). For the convenience of having a 1 gigabyte web accessible mailbox, I think that it's a fair trade. And if Google or 'the man' really wants to read through my email, more power to 'em. They'll learn all about my obsession with MINI's and other useless tidbits about me. :smile: If I have something really personal to say, I either say it in person, or I encrypt my email before it gets sent.

As someone who currently works for 'The Man', there are no truer words!

-Paul!

 

What about paid for services? I'm on AOL. While I don't expect 100% privacy. I'd be upset to learn that folks could randomly read my mail. If I pay for it, I'd expect it to be damn secure (or as much so as it can be in the world of spammers and hackers).

I was also reading about the "extra" features of the EZPass and iPass systems. It seems that they are looking at (able to?) vehicles for more information than your toll. They can catch you speeding if you get from one toll to another too quickly and other more scary info. Apparently they found a kidnapped Govenor up in NY or such because he was carjacked and they tracked the car's toll progress...