Hello everyone. I know that I have been a slack Chapter VP, but I have reasons. Biggest ones being work and more work, and a dead MINI. A couple of you know about it, but I finally diagnosed that my ECU died. I won't go into details, but it is getting fixed very soon and I will be setting up some meet and eats, drives, etc. Please contact me, or chime in here, if you would like to meet at a local favorite place (ie. near you), etc. Same goes for drives: if you have any preferred routes, etc. I'm all ears. I know that there are some already-printed drives done. Not sure who still has them, but if they can share I'd appreciate it. Directions are a good thing - with a group anyway.

 

Glad to hear Greenville is still on the map. Greenville and Columbia need to join forces more often. Might even could find a half way point with some twistes. How 'bout the Helenblitz coming up in February? Let's try to get S.C. represented big time. Columbians could meet up with Greenville and motor on to Helen.

 

sawrry to hear about sydnee.. hopefully she will be all better soon.. anytime your up for a meet and eat together half way.. lemme know.. we can throw it together!

 

I will be watching for the post, and glad your getting the baby up and running again. Are you going to try and do Vegas or Colorado this year?

 

Thanks everyone!

Speaking of joint getting into trouble, er, I mean ventures, uh, meetings - I had some thoughts about doing one at Shealy's BBQ.
I would say it would be a drive/eat, but there isn't anything from here to there that would be a "good" drive. Nonetheless, we can still did it. Maybe the quarterly meeting in March?

Same goes for Helen. Didn't get to make it last year, but definitely have it on the list this time.

I hope things at work will continue to settle down, so that I can be able to do more. I'd love to get out to Vegas this year. But, I have not made any hard plans for there or CO, yet.

 

Glad to here sydnee will back up again. We've missed you guys and will see you soon.

 

Glad to hear that Syndee is going to be back on the road again.. Hopefully we can blow each other's doors off again on I-85 real soon.

 

I'm up for a meet; I'm at CU-ICAR every Tuesday and Thursday this semester, so I'd prefer a meet one of those nights (anytime after 5:30 works for me). I'm up for really anything.

 

Glad to see there's people around me after all. I'd love to get involved in some driving and hopefully autocross when I get a Mini. Somebody needs to hurry up and trade an 05 into Century so I can buy one! I'll be getting an apartment in Cola in August though to start USC.

 

We can definitely do some stuff on Tues or Thursdays. Doc Chey's is up there and lots of others really close.

Yep, there are a lot of other MINIs around. We'll help you with questions, etc., and anything else we can.

Also glad to see you wanting an R53....... no, i'm not tryin' to start anything.

 

Ha too bad its out of my price range. An R53 would be sweet but I want an R50 for best gas mileage (would be triple my Jeep's) because I like doing a lot of outdoors stuff. 35mpg highway means I could jet up to bike in Pisgah or paddle in Hendersonville anytime I wanted too, as well as go down to Charleston on the weekends to go to the beach (from USC).

I got a Jeep thinking I could do a lot of rock crawling, I'll try not to buy an R53 in hopes of getting to run laps around race tracks every week, because that wont happen either. I just want an R50 with around 50k miles to get me through college then I can figure out what I want after when I get a job.

 

The R50 is a great choice. Esp, the later models.

Here is a pic of Sydnee getting ready for transport Sat.

She's to be flashed sometime today.

 

I suggest a roof rack - I can't fit my bike in the back of my MINI unless I remove both wheels and my snowboard only fits diagonally. I probably wouldn't be able to fit a second snowboard and gear for a second person in the car at the same time.

[Other than the transmission] there's nothing wrong with an early one; I like my '04 R50. The only thing I prefer about my friend's '06(?) R50 to my '04 is his is hardtop (no sunroof); his has some extra lights in the interior, but if you really care about that kind of stuff wiring in LED's is pretty easy to do.

Good luck. Hopefully that'll fix it (I know how big of a pain it can be to have your car out of commission - not my MINI, the car I had before it)

 

I plan on getting the Yakima rack, I think the MINI rack requires drilling. I'm going to get 2 bike carries and probably the load-warrior basket with extension. I'll need the basket for mtb tires and wet kayak gear, and sometimes a backpacking pack if the inside is full. I think I'm going to have to drop a good bit on Yakima stuff so I'll try my best to talk my future mini down as much as possible.