Beautiful shine on that Chinese Cooper!

Yay for Tigs and Mike!

Mike, I expect you to have new car smell now!

 

Thanks BGWC, I expect Mike and Tigs to both have fresh air in the MINIs. Deacon should be pristine smelling.

Congrats to both of you for making the switch, I hope your over the hump and it takes for the long term. I know how easy it is to go back.

Another day starts in Beijing, Friday AM 6:41. I hope to find one of the two MINI dealers my son says is in Beijing next week when I return from Shanghai.

I think today is Temple of Heaven and a couple of smaller city gardens. I will look for a MINI on the streets, but I suspect if the MINI owners in Beijing are MOCD, the MINI does not see the streets of Beijing during the daylight traffic hours. Driving in Beijing is a little nuts.

 

Yay for Tigs and Mike!! Congrats on taking the first steps to a smoke free life! hang in there guys the next few months will be tough!! but you can do it!! besides you lived through the agony of waiting for a new mini to arrive...quitting smoking will be cake!

 

Thanks for posting the China shots -- enjoyed them.

The Tigs & Mike end to smoking, does it include tires?

 

Another set, I can honestly say that Beijing traffic jams on Friday afternoon after 4pm make LA look like a walk in the park. Another thing, they say Beijing has a smog problem, it was great after the rains early in the week. Well, it's back. On a couple of major east/west highways it was sitting in a cloud on the pavement, lt looked like coastal fog.

So todays pictures, Temple of Heaven and the wonderful Beijing Botanic Gardens. Both impressive and the BBG was a place I would like to work in my retirement if I lived full time in Beijing. Link to my album.

I did sneak some pictures of the complex and my grandson into this album.

A picture of one of the jams in my two hour drive back to downtown Beijing. It is great to have a 24/7 driver and a nice Buick Mini-van, 9 passenger for party of one.

 

China is one of the fastes growing countries with regards to cars and oil consumption :(

Glad to see you have a big Buick to be driven around it though. Pics are amazing Don keep it up!

As for smoking tires... well... I had to quit that when I got Deacon... Tigs would be mad if I left collums of smoke like I used to in Church.

 

Ed L: I saw Mike this morning

JJ: driving?

JJ: skydiving? canoeing? selling girl scout cookies? driving OJ around in a white Bronco?

Ed L:

Ed L: after I dropped off Alyssa for school.

JJ: that answers when, but not what you saw him doing.

JJ: the hokey pokey? photographing Britney Spears? illegally videotaping other teams for Pats coach Bill Belichick?

Ed L: he was driving his MINI on the road at 0700, going West on Scripps pkwy, getting some coffee, in which the conversation, he discussed his plan.

JJ: plan for what?

JJ: how to take over the world?

Ed L: the weekend

JJ: oh

 

He ratted out my plan to take over the world!!!

 

Who would want the responsibility?

 

So which one of you is Pinky, and which is The Brain?

 

Hard to say... .one is a genius... the other is insane

 

I can't tell which is which either.

 

WTF, ....................................... I've read 60 pages and I still don't see if Churchill II has arrived yet? Man I've got to get a life! :(

 

There is no Churchill II. It is Deacon. It has definitely arrived.

 

TROZ ...

 

NARF!

 

Churchill


Deacon

 

That's the same damn car!

Did we get a new MINI?

Have we been in the Twilight Zone?

Which of our body parts did the Aliens remove before returning us to Mother Earth?

Quitting smoking sucked...but we did it. We're a full week clean and sober now - and it feels better each day. The cravings are only occasionally now, though strong when they hit. We get thru them by chatting with each, chewing Nicoret gum, and taking deeep breaths. The cravings pass in about 5 minutes, so it's manageable.

Being around a smoker right now is very hard though - we went to the movies last night to see Bourne Ultimatum and The Brave One (both great btw). Sitting somewhere in close proximity was a smoker (did we smell like that? ) and it was driving us crazy. Mike was chewing gum like mad and very restless. I was munching handfulls of popcorn and trying to ignore the craving. It passed though - and so did we!

Don - the pics are excellent! Keep sharing please. I've been to Korea, Japan, Germany, England, and Spain - and while S. Korea was definitely over populated, it didn't look like China!

There really can't be "Pinky" or "Brain" identifications between Ed and Mike - or Blair for that matter. I think they all share a brain, and are equally insane.

 

Sunday AM Beijing, off to a picnic in the Country with the French Ex-Pat Club, somewhere near the Great Wall.

Mike, Deacon looks like Churchill, he needs his own bling. But I would drive him like he looks since he looks great.

Tigs, It is great you are over a week, keep it up, it does get better and the people who are around you (non-smokers) love ya more.

Here is the Summer Palace, smog was bad, not crystal anymore. We hope for some rain. It has been in the 80s, nice dinner at a TAPAS last night and the Silk Market for bargain shopping (what a trip).

Gotta go get ready, almost 8AM.

 

Pinky: So Brain..... What do you want to "mod" on Deacon next???
Brain: The same thing we do on every MINI.... everything !!!

Exit music... "There Pinky.. There Pinky and the Brain. Brain, brain ...

 

a test ride is in progress...



Pinky: Do you .... think....... that .......is fast ......enough????
Brain: Should .. be... able.. to ... tune out ... a few ... more... HP....
Pinky: Nnnn....aaaaaaaaaa...rrrrrr......ffffffff......

 

LMFAO...speaking of mods...he's outside right now, adding a subwoofer to Deacon. I KNEWWWWW that he couldn't just listen to a stock stereo like a normal person.

Window tint looks good though. It's a ticket waiting to happen - but it's cheap to "fix it" should a cop feel the need to write the ticket.

 

So what type of subwoofer? I have seen two MINIs this weekend, I did not wave to either of them, night life appears to bring them out.

More pictures in my picasa, actually walked on the Great Wall this afternoon, very impressive.

I will be offline for a couple days in Shanghai.

 

Just installed one of my existing JL Audio 10"s I needed something to flesh out the sound. I do need to build a new box working on ideas now.

 

You got to see the Great Wall

How funny...I was at a corporate function Wed. afternoon, and the "ice breaker" exercise was to find someone in the room (there was just over 300 of us at this function) that had seen the Great Wall personally.

I couldn't find anyone.