Driver with MINI and RDU control tower

Back in January a handful of us THMMCers made it over to the new Flow MINI Raleigh when they first opened.  Things were still being constructed at that time.  I’ve also been over there a couple times for some service the past couple months as they’ve been in a “soft opening” phase.  But the big day finally got here - the official Grand Opening on May 15, 2010.

Co-pilot with MINI and Snoopy's sign

The day’s festivities started early with a scavenger hunt in the Raleigh area.  We gathered at Flow MINI Raleigh at 8:30 a.m. to receive our clue packages and we were sent off.  For this hunt, my co-pilot was my son William.  Our first goal was the Observation Park at RDU.  Luckily for us, we were traveling with a pack of MINIs on 540 over to the airport and the lead MINI knew where they were going.  After finding the answers to some trivia questions and getting a pic of the control tower, it was off to Crabtree Valley Mall.

Co-pilot with Shimmer Wall in Raleigh

At the mall we probably picked up some time as we were supposed to find some MINIs in the mall.  William had been there a few times with his Nanny, so he knew right where to go.  After that, we shot over to North Hills Mall where a British Car Show was gearing up.  Got a pic of William with a classic and counted classic British cars.  Also, we got to see a Tesla out there.  We then shot over to the original Snoopy’s on Old Wake Forest Road - a location I knew well since it is across the street from an auto shop that my father worked with.

Sax playing monkey at Cup A-Joe

After that, we headed downtown for pics and clues at several locations like the Executive Mansion, the Capitol Building, the Museum of History, Mordecai Park, and one of the convention centers.  From there we headed over to the Farmer’s Market.  I really hate going over there during these scavenger hunts as it is always very frustrating trying to find the vendor that has your next clue.  We then rode over to the NCSU campus for some info at the Bell Tower and then Cup A Joe.  I got to see the new streetscape project on Hillsborough Street.  That really makes things different compared to when I went to school there.

Co-pilot with painted horse at Horse Complex

We continued on out of town with stops at the Vet School, the Hunt Horse Complex, Carter-Finley Stadium, and finally the Museum of Art, before heading back to Flow MINI Raleigh.  We didn’t win the scavenger hunt, but I felt pretty good as we found all the clues, answered all the questions, and got all the pics we were supposed to get.  And at one point, William even noted that “this is fun.”  Flow provided us with some lunch and we checked out some of the MINIs (they have a nice convertible S in Chili Red).

Scavenger Hunt Winner with Flow folks

Near the end of our time there, we got to talking with the balloon lady.  She wasn’t having much luck as there were very few kids there.  After politely declining her entreaties to make a balloon, William finally relented and agreed to let her do a little face painting.  We figured she would just do a little something on his cheek.  But no.  She did a full on paint job over his entire face, making him look like a wolf (including eyes painted on his eyelids).  We got a good laugh out of that and I noted for William that he had made the balloon lady happy to finally have something to do and we noticed another young boy who got his face painted after seeing it could be done.  So that was a little bit of happiness he brought to two people at a small cost to himself.  So that was a nice little life lesson to close out the day.

Flow MINI Raleigh did a good job with the grand opening.  The scavenger hunt was fun, we got some free food, and got to spend some time seeing other THMMCers.  And I got to spend some time with my son doing something fun and a little bit offbeat.  Be sure to check out the photo gallery for all the pics we had to get as part of the scavenger hunt as well as some others.

Last week TWISTER from the Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club sent me something interesting that his daughter had received.  It seems she was stopped at a vehicle checkpoint over the weekend.  No problems for her, but whatever agency(ies) was(were) conducting the checkpoint was handing out some flyers.  She managed to send a pic of part of the flyer to TWISTER as shown below:

License Plate Law Flyer

As you might be able to tell, it was noteworthy in that it shows a pic of a MINI.  And as TWISTER accurately surmised, it was none other than my MINI WUF.  You can find the original pic here on the blog.  You’ll note that they blacked out one of my badges - it was the one reading “HUMMER ESCAPE POD”.  Not sure why they wanted to black that out, but left all the FLOW MINI info.

I can’t see the entire flyer and haven’t been able to find the agency that produced it (though I do know it was not the NC Highway Patrol).  So there is a chance I am wrong on this, but it does not appear they gave proper attribution for the photo per the CCL I use.  And just basic etiquette would suggest you’d contact the person to at least let them know you are using their pic (and/or ask permission as may be appropriate).  I guess they may be picky about license plate frames - copyright law, not so much.

So without the attribution, my contribution is anonymous.  Yet my MINI has some little bit of fame (maybe 10 seconds worth - long enough for recipients to toss the flyer).  Maybe I can add this to my photography portfolio, no?  In the meantime, make sure your license plate frame is good to go in NC!!!

MINIs gathered on Pilot Mountain

Yes, yes, yes, it has taken me almost a week.  And I have lots of other blog entries on my list of things to do (those would be GTD Next Actions).  But for now, I just want to see if I can crank out an update of the Covered Bridge Run that was held last Saturday by the Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club.  This was a run that I led as a follow-up to the 2009 Covered Bridge Run.

In 2009 we stayed in the central part of NC visiting the Pisgah Covered Bridge after a route that took in a couple Scenic Byways including the Flint Hill Ramble (really nice twisty stretch there).  For 2010 I set my sights a little farther north - Virginia to be more specific.  There are actually a few covered bridges in the southwest area of Virginia (also home to one of our THMMC chapters).  Getting up to them though proved to be a routing challenge as it was quite a bit of ground to cover.  I also wanted to avoid Floyd County after the whole Turkey Trot Incident (no, I will not go into details).  And on the way back I wanted to avoid Hwy 66 since I knew we’d be doing that as part of the Bullfrog Run.

MINIs on Squirrel Spur Road

So, I decided to start us off at the top of Pilot Mountain.  Those who live in the area and have been up Hwy 52 have seen Pilot Mountain several times.  I had to do a bit of research and figured out there is a State park there and it had a nice, large parking lot close to the summit.  Perfect for a gathering of MINIs.  Our plans almost derailed when we learned on Friday that a marathon was being run on Pilot Mountain.  Fortunately it started out at the base and no runners had made it to the summit while we were there.  Although a couple llamas or alpacas or something were up there as we were leaving. (more…)

On this Good Friday, I had a bit of an unusual situation to come up.  I got the day off from work.  However, due to snow days, the teacher workday scheduled for today became a make-up day, so the kids are in school.  And, my wife ended up subbing today.  So, I’m on my own for a bit today - at least until school let’s out.

Gimghoul Castle in Chapel Hill

Decided to use the morning for a little scouting work for a MINI drive idea I have in my head.  I suppose it is building upon the Howl at the Moon run I did last fall.  But this time, with haunted locations!  The first step was to identify some haunted locations that might be fun to get to (i.e. there are twisty roads leading there).  Not the easiest task.

I’ve identified four potential locations that are generally in the area.  There are lots more in the Triad/Triangle areas, but who wants to visit a college dorm?  Of course, the first candidate I visited today was close to that - Gimghoul Castle in Chapel Hill.  I vaguely remembering visiting the castle either during high school or college with some friends.  And yes, today’s mission meant riding through campus in the MINI WUF to get there.  No evidence of parties from last night’s NIT appearance.  No students at all really - guess class was out.  Anyway, there is a gravel circle that looks like it might be open to the public so we could circle right by the castle.  Not sure if it just happened to be open today or not.  If not, we should be able to get close enough on the surface street to be a worthwhile stop.

Devils Tramping Ground

From there, I headed southwest for some country roads.  This took me through downtown Pittsboro, where I got to see the recently burned down Chatham County Courthouse when I went through the traffic circle.  The next target was in the country - the Devil’s Tramping Ground.  I remember hearing the tale of the DTG growing up.  In my research, I had found a blog post that provided some GPS coordinates.  Upon arriving there, I was presented with a dirt road leading down into some woods.  Definitely not MINI country judging by the “lake” that had formed in a dip in the path.  But, it was also heavily marked with No Trespassing signs.  Just judging by sight, it didn’t look like the right place.  However, about 2/10ths of a mile back up the road was a small pull off with a path that led to a small circular-ish area littered with the remnants of partiers.  This looked much more like the photos I have found on-line describing the DTG.  Right in the middle were the remains of a fire.  Today, laying on top, were some “things” - sorry, no idea what they might be - that looked to be made out of some kind of hair (maybe some horse mane hair?).  Maybe 16 inches long, mostly white with some black, and they had some kind of handles at one end.  Whoever had been using them for whatever had thrown them on the remains of the logs, but they had not burned up.  This may be do-able.  Not great parking and who knows what kind of crowd we might stumble upon if I ever do this.

So those were the two locations I visited this morning.  fwiw, I may also look at throwing in the Pisgah Covered Bridge (found a tale about the  apparition of a hanged woman that appears in the bridge), Lydia’s Bridge (great story in the vanishing hitchhiker vein), and/or the Cabe’s Land Cemetary.  All  of those would probably be too long for one drive.  Hmm - a series of haunted MINI runs?

Rocky River Friends Meeting

With all that said, what is this bit about our Friends in the title of this post?  After visiting the DTG, I had plotted a route up through Siler City and then some back roads of Alamance County to get back home.  I didn’t even realize it, but it took me right by the Rocky River Friends Meeting.  That was notable as just last weekend they were having a revival at the meeting.  I didn’t get down to it, but it had been in our bulletin at church.  It was a nice large facility with lots of playground equipment (a good sign).  I guess looks can be deceiving, but it appeared to be a nice vibrant church.  And, it has been around since 1753 - so long, it has its own historical marker.

This means that in my journey I got to contrast the DTG with the Rocky River Friends Meeting.  The first is a patch of dirt off the side of a country road that has been overtaken by partygoers and is largely unimpressive.  But the Friends Meeting is alive and well - no trouble finding it and no threat for now of it fading from memory or existence.  So, imo, the Friends are winning!!!

MINI WUF proudly wears a new Bullfrog sticker!

As spring weather rolls around, one of the joys that I have come to expect is participating in the Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club’s Bullfrog Run.  I say I’ve come to expect it since it is something that I only know about due to my MINI ownership and participating with the THMMC.  This year’s run was the third annual running of this particular run for the club.  Members of the club have been running the route for several years; but in memory Rob Baker they started running the route as an annual event and dubbed it the Bullfrog Run.  I never met Rob as he had passed on before my membership started.  He was described as a great driver (who really knew what to do with his DS Justa), a great club member, and a great person.  His example also spawned the MINIs Motoring Against Cancer banner.  And for this particular run, we took up a collection that yielded a $120 donation to the American Cancer Society.

MINIs gathering for the run

I’m glad to say that I’ve been to all three of the Bullfrog Runs.  Besides the nature of the event, it is special to me now because the first Bullfrog Run was also my first ever event that I attended with the THMMC.  So even though my MINI adventure started in February, the running of the Bullfrog always feels like the “anniversary” of when I started with the THMMC. (more…)

THMMC took a run up to Big Walker Lookout led by ohbuga. For me, it was an early start to the day with a quick run through a carwash to knock some loose stuff off. Little did I realize how futile it would be to spend that $2. From home, the first stop was to meet up in Winston-Salem with several other club members for the run up to Sparta, the official starting point. From home over to W-S had been cloudy but dry. Things changed quickly as we headed up 52 and then over to Sparta on some backroads. A light mist set in, the roads were wet throwing up lots of spray, and there was the occasional patch of snow on the side of the road just to let us know how cold it was. The boxy shape of our MINIs didn’t help things from a cleanliness standpoint.

Gathered in Sparta

We got to Sparta and met at the Ship’s Wheel restaurant. By the time we left, I counted a total of 22 MINIs. From there, we started the “official” part of the run. Unfortunately, we were not far along, on some nice twisties, when I thought I smelled something a little odd - maybe brakes or rubber burning? But then it faded away. For a few seconds. Coming around a curve I saw a couple MINIs pulling over to the side of the road. I followed suit and we soon discovered our first casualty of the day as whaner had a flat tire. Amazingly, their model happened to have a drop down spare. Things really got on track with the help of maacodale who apparently keeps and entire shop’s worth of equipment in his Clubbie. We soon had the donut spare on and whaner was able to head back home for some fixing. The rest of us caught back up with the group waiting at a gas station. After a considerable delay.

Fun on twisties in the country

From there, it was a run up through some great backcountry roads. I did get a kick out of a pickup truck that was trying mightily to keep pace with the run rather than pull over and the last six or so of us by. He finally turned off though and we were able to catch up.

Oh yeah - THMMC got dirty on this run.

Getting to Macado’s in Marion we truly discovered just how filthy our MINIs had become. Not only were boots dirty, but sides, hoods, glass - everything. I think we may be able to lay claim to a new motto for the club - “THMMC - Dirtiest Club in the South”. And we all got to commiserate over the thought of how many rock chips we might find after washing the crud off. Lunch was tasty and capped off with some cake provided by ZOOOOM!

Upon returning to the parking lot though, we discovered our second casualty when we found MiniCuse had a flat tire. Unfortunately, no spare for him. The good news is we were in town with a cell signal, so he was able to call for assistance. Alas, it was the end of the day for him as the rest of the group headed out.

Go MINI go!!!

Time for more twisties. This may have been the most enjoyable part of the run for me as it was largely uninterrupted and I was able to get into a nice groove. Plus, things were finally starting to dry off a bit.

Yay! Sgt Pepper makes it to the top of Big Walker Lookout.

The final few miles up Big Walker turned into a cloud bound journey as the summit was socked in. Nevertheless, after all that time and miles, I was determined to climb the tower. So, me and Sgt. Pepper showed why we are the El Presidente and Vice El Presidente and made it to the the top. With probably 50 mph winds and ice covering the towering and barely able to see the ground below from the cloud.

For all the challenges of doing a run in the middle of winter, it was still a great time. Got to see plenty of old friends and meet several new ones. And we will all have tales of a truly unique run.

I have the proof!

Be sure to check out the rest of my photos in my gallery.

You would probably expect this to be about Christmas seein’ as it is on Christmas Eve. But not really. Just thought I’d touch on a few topics. I’ve been stepping up my use of Facebook and Twitter, so some of the update stuff has been redirected. That’s what really got me to deciding to come here. Feel like I’ve been neglecting my own site. So where to start.

Probably the first thing would be to mention some software update news. Yesterday I downloaded and installed Thunderbird 3.0 on both my work desktop and my home laptop (Win partition). So still need to do the work laptop, and my Linux distros here at the house. TB 3.0 has a very different interface (but they apparently give you the ability to retain the old one). I’m still getting used to it. The initial shock of the change was a little disconcerting, but I’m starting to warm to it (especially now that I’ve got the Lightning and Google provider beta add-ons installed).

And on the Mozilla front, my Firefox got updated to 3.5.7 at home yesterday as I get the beta distributions when they come out. Out a small handful of technical changes to fix bugs there. (more…)

So, haven’t posted here lately. Summer doldrums perhaps. Things just seem to be kind of plodding along. Although work has been a little bit interesting. As mentioned last month, HUD came in and conducted a review of the agency. Needless to say, problems and areas for improvements were identified. That was preceded by an IRS audit and our annual independent audit. Between all the constant reviews and audits and the ensuing corrective action plans, it is very difficult to get any momentum going to actually make improvements or changes that would actually be beneficial. I guess that’s government for ya’.

This past weekend I finally got some new tires for the MINI. Went with some Yokohama S.drives. They’ve gotten really good reviews and several members of the Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club have them. They are a summer tires, but supposedly will do ok in our winters here (which I suppose are mild relatively speaking). Still trying to get the feel for having non-runflats. Everyone swears they are better than the runflats that come standard on a MINI Cooper S.  Mine came with Goodyear Excellence RFs.  I managed to squeeze 38.5k miles out of them.  I thought they were pretty good tires.  Until I hit about the 30k mark, wet traction was excellent, but it fell off quite a bit after that.

Got the tires at the new Discount Tire that opened here in Burlington.  Managed to catch a special through them to get a $100 rebate on a set of four.  Once the local shop did some more discounting, I ended up getting the tires for $68 each.  Of course, by time you add all the services and stuff, it ended up at $115 per tire.  I was perhaps a sucker, but I did buy the replacement certificates so I can get a free replacement if something happens to one of the tires.  Now I suppose I need to find a good slime kit and compressor to keep in the MINI, especially if I go on a long motor.

The worst part was on the way home when my check engine light came on.  Swung by Advance Auto and had them read the code for me.  Came up as “Coolant Sensor Temp Low”.  Didn’t find much on-line about that, but looks like it is either a bad sensor or it really is low, apparently caused by the thermostat getting stuck in the open position.  This will cause the engine to run cool, which in turn will cause the ECU to try to run the fuel mixture rich.  Not sure whether it is really doing that.  Haven’t detected a drop off in gas mileage yet.  I’m wondering whether it threw the code one time and will clear itself out after a few more starts?  In any case, I’ve scheduled the MINI to visit Flow MINI this Thursday to have it checked out.  While I’m there, I guess I’ll go ahead and pick up all the consumables to perform the next scheduled maintenance service on my own.  Sadly, I am out of my “free” maintenance period.

On the motoring front, I did manage to get hooked up with the THMMC Sunday Sliders group about three weeks ago.  Tends to be a smaller, more informal group than some of the more organized runs.  We only had seven the Sunday I went for a run up to Apple Orchard Gap.  It was an extremely fun run and on the final leg back, I managed to get up to the front and was able to run with some of the big dogs in the club.

With the pending move to a new house scheduled for the last weekend in August and soccer matches and football games scheduled for most weekends, looks like my motoring opportunities are going to become quite limited for a while.  I do hope to make it to a St. Baldrick’s event on September 19th with our MINI club.  Supposedly the Corvette club is planning to take us on.  Then after that I may finally get to go motoring on October 3rd for the Howl at the Moon Run I am leading.  Hopefully I’ll have my new GPS by then - trying to navigate at night could be a challenge.  Don’t want to lead my MINI followers through another U-turn maneuver.

Finally, the time draws nearer for me to start leading a Sunday School class at my church (Graham Friends Church).  Pastor Mark gave me a copy of If You Want To Walk On Water, You Have To Get Out Of The Boat to review.  We are thinking of doing a study series based on the book.  I hope to start reading it later this evening.

Speaking of reading, I took some time to read some non-fiction and gave Dan Brown’s Digital Fortress a go.  It was average.  Very similar to the James Rollins books that I read.  I’ve also read The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown and thought it was pretty good.  Didn’t really see what all the hullabaloo was about.  After reading The Da Vinci Code I read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  I thought that was a very enjoyable read.  Really wish she would write something else.

30,000 miles that is.  Took my MINI in for a regular service on May 22nd and on the way there hit the 30,000 mile mark.  Based on the service intervals, looks like my “free” services are done.

30,000 miles on MINI WUF

The service itself didn’t seem to really consist of anything other than checking fluid levels and a visual check of the car.  So about the only good thing that came out of the visit was getting my rear latch replaced as it had been giving me some trouble.

I’m now getting ready for my MINI multi-tour journey in a couple weeks.  Hopefully I won’t have any trouble out of my tires as they are down to only about 4/32’s of tread left.  I’d like to get the trip completed, then put some new rubber on.

In between now and then, I’m supposed to be going on an overnight camping trip/retreat with some men from my church.  The time since I last went camping can be measured in decades, so this ought to be interesting.  In getting ready for that, I’ve been reading The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Covered Bridge Run - version 1 took us on a visit to the Pisgah Covered Bridge

After making it one year attending Mini events, I figured it was time to step up and take on some rally master duties.  Actually, I suppose this was decided quite a while ago, but the timing worked out well.  And I did help a small group get from Mt. Mitchell to the Asheville hotel during last year’s Blue Ridge Parkway Tour.  This event will (I hope) help me as I think I may be leading some during the Not A Bar Harbor Invasion Invasion.

The event was the Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club Covered Bridge Run held on April 18th.  The idea started with a posting by Twister asking whether anyone wanted to help organize a covered bridge run and a link to a page full of covered bridge locations in NC.  Using that I did a bunch of Google mapping and research to eventually figure out that the bridges on the list were mainly grouped down west of Asheville, a smaller group in the Boone area, and some in the central part of the state.  I decided to concentrate on the central part of the state for this first attempt since I could spend some time scouting out the bridges. (more…)