Jasper!

The Jeeps seat covers

Jasper Arrives Tomorrow

Tomorrow, we will be a two MINI family. Jasper Cooper is coming home! Craig ordered him just as he wanted, and after waiting for him to be built and shipped, and then finished at the dealership, we will be picking him up.

He has the fixed spoiler installed, instead of the mechanical one, because we like the look of the fixed spoiler much better. It was pricey but we don't intend to ever sell the car, so we chose to do it immediately. We will be keeping the original spoiler in case we ever want to reinstall it. I can't imagine why. Winnie the MINI has been such a great joy for us, she has brought us so many new friends and experiences, that Jasper seems like a logical next choice. Craig has been more excited about this car than I have ever seen him, and it does make me very happy. :-)

Dipstick

Trip to Oatman, November 3rd, 2012 SCMM took a run up to Laughlin, where we spent the weekend. The MINIs ran to Oatman, AZ on Saturday, an old mining town full of burros, gift shops, and tourists. The road out to Oatman was twisty and great, and Winnie kept up with the pack just fine! Below are a few photos of our trip.

The burros are tame, in as much as they let you feed them the alfalfa cubes that you buy in a bag. A few pushy ones did a little kicking toward each other, or grabbed the bag out of your hand, but they were pretty well behaved for wild animals. I also noticed that their hooves had been trimmed. Probably a good idea. Otherwise, they are free to roam through the desert and through the town.

After Oatman, we ran to Pirates Cove in Needles, CA and had lunch. It's a resort on a side branch of the river, so ski boats come and dock and have lunch there. Very nice!

We gambled a bit, but the house won in the end. :-) It's all good, though. It was a great trip, and we are now ready to go back to work.

Updated photo of Winnie, she won an award and I needed to take a photo for the glass trophy, so took this today.

500 miles out of a tank of gas! Excellent!

Secret Compartment removal in Winnie

Brownies for Charity!

We don't all get to go through Life with all of our limbs, or our abilities intact. People lose an arm or a leg everyday, whether they are in the Military, or are civilian First Responders. Some children and young people have accidents, or are born without the abilities that we take for granted. Whether it is accident, disease, or in the line of duty, the people who have these situations often fall into depression, withdraw from society, or just slowly fade away. To counteract this, there is a charity called the Challenged Athletes Foundation, who reaches out to these people and gets them involved in athletic pursuits. I had the pleasure of meeting a young Navy man who had an accident and lost his leg, and he is now running triathalons because the CAF supported him and gave him what he needed, which along with his indomitable will, changed his life in remarkable ways. You can read about him here. My friend Denise Mueller, who is a MINI driver and an active athlete (it wears me out just reading her updates!) is one of only one hundred cyclists who will be cycling from San Francisco to San Diego, to raise one MILLION dollars for CAF, a total of over 600 miles. She has been training for months, brutal rides through the hot mornings, but she has reached her goal of raising $10,000 through her own efforts. Now, since she has a couple of weeks left, she is upping her personal goal to $12,500, and I am so impressed with her efforts and her strength, that I am trying to help her. Here's how you can help, too! These Brownie donkey heads below are custom glazed, each unique, and have high temp wire twists permanently imbedded in their heads so that they can be worn as necklaces. You can win one! For every $10 you donate to Denise's page, you will get one chance to win a Brownie head. If you donate $100, I will send you one outright. I will make another Brownie head for every ten chances that my friends earn, so that your chance of winning is at least one in ten. I will keep making Brownie heads until the deadline for entering is past, which is Sept 1st. There are two rules: 1. You must donate through Denise's page. 2. You must send me an email and tell me how much you donated. (mold40 at roadrunner dot com) Three people have donated or promised to donate $100, and they will now have first pick from these heads, and the rest will be the prizes. I have more heads ready to go, some will be brown and some will be gray. They have a very tiny thank you label fired on the back, so that you always remember that you have it because you did a great thing.

Contact me for any questions, and thank you so much!

Challenged Athletes Foundation and nice warm Brownies

There are so many charities and foundations that do worthy work. So many people in need of help. We can't help them all, and we are asked every day by some group or other. But when someone is willing to bicycle from San Francisco to San Diego, which will take seven days and cover 620 miles, and when she is so remarkably upbeat and motivating, that appeal stands out from the crowd. Denise is one of only 100 cyclists that have been chosen to participate in the Million Dollar Challenge, the bicycle ride that they will share along the way with challenged athletes, and in order to fulfill her goal she must raise at least $10,000. We can help her to achieve this goal, and the money will be used to help people who have a physical challenge to get out and live again, using sports and goals. Read more about it at http://www.challengedathletes.org/site/c.4nJHJQPqEiKUE/b.6459009/k.68FD/Million_Dollar_Challenge.htm Here is MY challenge to YOU, my friends... Between now and Sept 1st, 2012... go to the link below, donate at least $10, and you will get one chance to win a Brownie head necklace. Every additional $10 buys you another chance. For $100, I will send you a Brownie head directly. I will make enough Brownie heads so that everyone has at least a one in ten chance of winning! That is, there will be one Brownie head made for every $100 we raise. Keep donating, and I will keep making them. No limit. None. But it has to be to the link below, it has to be by Sept. 1st, and **you have to email me and let me know how much you donated!!**

These pictures don't do it justice, I will be taking better ones soon. In the meantime, here's the link: http://www.challengedathletes.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=1000634&supid=349522515 Let's put Denise over the top, and keep going!!

MINI Takes the States Photos These photos are from MINI Takes the States, a nation-crossing event held by MINI USA and attended by thousands of MINI enthusiasts every two years. Text may be added later.

Winnie's oil was overfilled by the dealership. I couldn't get a good reading on it. When the new dipstick arrived, I tried again. Someone suggested siphoning some oil through the dipstick channel until it was correct, which we did this morning. It was a half quart too much. Now I get a perfect reading. Although it is hard to see in the photo, the Cravenspeed dipstick shows two marks at the top without oil on them, so it is now between half and full. (full would be to the thicker part) The OEM dipstick shows a good reading too, though in person it is harder to see. It shows exactly the same level. YAY!!

Here's a comparison of Cravenspeed's new dipstick with the factory dipstick. Cravenspeed's is a spring.

MINIs are great for graphics. They are such charming cars anyway, you can add to them and go a bit wild. Here are Winnie's current stickers:

Winnie's California Car Cover

NSIDC Arctic Ice Graph

For purposes of reference.

Winnie's Dash and Center Console... whee!

The interiors of new cars have gotten very... dull. Even with the iconic big speedo in the middle of the dash on MINIs, it was still... uninteresting. I wanted COLOR!! UK Flags!!! CHROME!!!!! Call me a hummingbird, I wanted it bright and shiny. (Craig, with typical understated male taste, just rolled his eyes) So after some fumbles and false starts, here is Winnie's interior as of today. Center console graphic by Aesthetic Creations (on sale for $15!) "Start" button from GoMotoring, as is the chrome ring set. And I sprayed the other pieces with Krylon and a glossy clearcoat. Watch out world, Winnie is BRIGHT!