splat

When I was at GT Peace last week getting some stuff done on my MINI and CR-V, Galen mentioned that they are VERY competitive on tires. I don't want to quote him on the details - but if folks are shopping for those, I would give them a call.

Thanks to the fabulous hosts for a great picnic!

I have a long folding table and some folding chairs - but those definitely won't fit in the MINI! If it gets closer to the date and we still need those, I can bring my "MINI-NV"ious CR-V instead.

Hope all of you heading to the dragon have a really safe trip there and back! Looking forward to seeing all the cool pictures. I'll be doing laps around Fairlakes Parkway thinking of all of you!

Thanks for setting this up! It was too bad that it was raining - but it was great seeing everyone! The restaurant really went out of their way to decorate the room for us - which was very sweet of them :-).

The new facility is really nice and we got a great discount on the Adam's products. Thanks!

My CR-V was getting jealous of all the attention that my MINI was getting so I had to give him some new plates! He is benefiting from the MINI being around since ALL the cleaning products get tested on him first before I use them on the MINI - so he's cleaner than he has been in years.

Ordered 3 - love those baseball shirts and the grey sweatshirt option - great suggestions and thanks for adding them!

Did they tell you the actual part number for the thing that needs to get replaced? I had to have the header bow in my convertible top replaced and it really helped to know the actual BMW part number since the part was listed online for about $50 and then I had GTPeace install it for me in about 30 mins. Those auto part sites have the diagrams of all the parts and how they fit together so you might be able to determine which one it is and then ask them if they can replace just that one part without all the others. Hopefully it wouldn't take 5 days - that is way too long to be without your MINI :-).

Happy Holidays! Installed a badge bar and some seasonal badges. Since I would have had to remove and drill the grill to put them on the front, I got a badge bar instead and put it on the back. The little screws that hold the license plate thingy onto the car ended up being a little short once I added the washers and bar so I had to dig around and find some similar longer ones in my toolbox. Not OEM screws - but at least the whole thing isn't going to fall off.

Bummer! I managed to snag a pair of the women's high tops in my size before they were gone. They are pink (instead of orange) but I'm not holding that against them :-).

Found the thread that I mentioned - it also has a link to some diagnostic procedures: http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/general-mini-talk/224848-battery-draining-dealer-can-t-diagnose.html Hope this helps!

Before I start my ramble, let me first say that I'm NOT a under the hood car person at all, I'm a computer systems architect so you will want to check anything with the folks that know for sure! When I was reading all kinds of things trying to confirm my options on connecting my iPhone/iPod/USB to my 2011 R57, I remember reading some posts about those devices causing issues with the radio not going into sleep mode properly if they were left connected after the car was turned off. The radio would come on and off on it's own when the car was parked. I think that there was even someone who posted something about having to reprogram the MINI computer to get the problem to stop (don't remember where but maybe on northamericanmotoring.com). I actually noticed that one of my SanDisk USB drives continued to have the power light ON even after I turned the car off and removed the key. That bothered me so much that I switched to a "dumb" USB instead. Not sure if this has anything to do with what's happening to you but it seems like it happens to bunches of folks.

They are by the company Artistic Reflection (they make grill badges too) and you can find them on amazon and ebay. They have different sizes in case you have the long skinny kind instead of the more square kind.

I mentioned this at happy hour - but if you go to the Passport MINI of Alexandria site and click Accessories and MINI Lifestyle --> MINI Lifestyle, it looks like everything there is on sale. I did the math quickly and it appears to be about 23% off compared to the same exact things thru another MINI dealer site. When we were there for Halloween, it seemed like the stuff in their retail store were on sale then - so it looks like that sale is just being continued online.

My first teeny mod - replaced the "Warning" stickers on the sun visors with something fun! Now I get to wait and see which of my friends is the first to notice them.

I parked the wrong way at my first happy hour - it's butts in! I still have trouble reversing my MINI so I'm always the one that is a bit crooked :-).

We would crush next year if we did a MINI version of the Lexus LIT IS: http://bgr.com/2016/12/05/lexus-lit-is-leds-video/ We'd only need about half the LEDs - so about 20,000 instead of 42,000. I know you MINIacs out there are thinking the same thing I am....

Here's the link to the store on ebay - there are lots of patches of different types - some are of one color only while others have multiple colors to choose from: http://stores.ebay.com/Sea-Arjay-Alaska

It was fun! I took so many precautions to prevent the costume falling off (gravity) that I didn't do enough to account for WIND! Steve (battpodd) gave me some good ideas so that I can do better next year, especially if I decide to dress my MINI up in something that wants to be a kite again. Thanks to all the walkers (and one kind spectator) who helped me with my wardrobe malfunctions :-). Maybe next year, we can order the candy in bulk online and put little DCMM stickers on them as a bit of PR? Third place? I wonder if the judges liked those groups since they all kind of looked the same - which might be tough for MINIacs to do since the COOL thing about MINIacs is that we (I guess I'm owning up to being one now) are all so different. No matter where we placed, it was still AWESOME seeing everyone out there and I got to sing my holiday songs over and over until I was hoarse.

I didn't see that anyone had posted something like this so I figured I would. I found someone who creates jacket/shirt (sew on) patches of MINIs - both hard top and cabrios - in pretty much any color. I ordered a couple and they just came today and they are great! Send me a PM if you are interested and I can send you the link. She did say that she could do other colors if the one you want isn't there.

How about mac and cheese?

Oh - and i'll make sure that whatever copies i make are "legal" for me to share before i do. Have to make sure i stay off the "naughty" list.

I actually have the soundtrack to Burl Ives Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (the one with the island of misfit toys) so I can make a playlist from that and make USB copies for anyone that thinks they can tough it out for the length of the parade! (Or at least for the short part where we drive past the judges.)

I didn't see any notes on music anywhere - did you guys coordinate tunes in previous years? Since I'll be driving with the top down, I figured I should be playing some sort of holiday music instead of pit bull/megan trainor :-). Not sure if we would all want to play the same song over and over or pick 2-3? I have some small USBs that I can load up with the same playlist if we want to coordinate.