Man, where the heck have I been?

So I haven't posted since the middle of last year and my site stats tell me that the peeps keep comin to the site. All can say is thanks. Thanks for sticking with me even though I'm a lazy bastard.

It's not that there wasn't news to report- that there were just no MINI happenings in my world (because there were). I've just been a busy bee. Changed jobs, moved, got a dog, got a motorcycle etc... you know like you do...

Anyway those are excuses- here is the quick run down and hopefully I can get back into this and keep it going full steam.

2005 in a nutshell...

• MINI is pretty much finished. I can't think of one more thing to do to it, except perhaps sell it. Because as it were the thing has held it's value so well that I could basically trade it on a loaded 2006 Cooper S and keep the same payments and finish paying it off around the same time. So that's something to think about. But I do have an emotional attachment to this car like you woudln't believe. So tough call.



• My brother and sister have both become MINI owners. So they rule. Bro has a MINI S and my sis just took delivery of an 06 Cooper. I got to do a little work on the S with my brother over xmas- we put in an Ultrik Cold Air intake. Took about an hour and was way fun. Pics and tutorial to follow at some point.
  



• I've had a fog light out for about a year now and never get around to fixing it- that's my fault and it sux.
  



• Took a road trip in the MINI - camping, 3 adults and all our gear. The car was packed to the roof but made it up the mountain (pics to follow)
  



• OH! I took my car to a new carwash and two of the decals on my wheels got ripped. Guess how much it cost to replace them? Freakin sixty dollars. That's right $30 each. When I inquired as to what type of space aged material they were made of- the sales rep told me that it was to discourage the placement of gram lights stickers on counterfiet wheels. I told her that it was way easier to counterfiet the stickers than the wheels and the cost of that prevention shouldn't fall on the consumer that actually shelled out the cash for the legit wheels in the first place. He wasn't amused and I have yet to decide whether I am going to actually apply these very expensive stickers to my wheels or put them someplace safer. So as of right now- decals on the passenger side, none on the driver side. Lucky for me most people have no short term memory and nobody has noticed ;)
  



• Started posting all my mini pics on Flickr.com which is convenient and awesome- check it out.
  



• Perhaps the biggest news is that I am considering the sale of MINIMechanic.com. Why you ask? Well the real reason is that I simply do not have the time to really do it justice as of late and think it may do better in more attentive hands. So if you are interested in licensing the URL, Brand or any of the content let me know- we can work something out. Also ad-space is available at low cost. Just a thought.
  

Ok so I guess that's all for now- just checking in. Let's see if we can get this thing going again.

-S