Nissan Cube - Borg vessel in disguise?

I can't believe I'm writing about a car that's not a MINI but here goes. On the way to our monthly bowling dinner with some of the Maniacs, I saw one of the ugliest cars I've ever seen before, not counting the convertible PT Cruiser which is probably the worst of all.. I know I just offended alot of people, sorry but this is just my opinion. I had heard about the Cube but had never seen one, this one was a charcoal grey car and for some reason it reminded me of a Borg ship... It was so ugly that it was actually kind of cute. I think it's one of those cars that can and will grow on you. Well, at least it's original and has personality and doesn't look like every other car out there, and I can totally appreciate that...

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

It was my mom's birthday today and I wanted to wish her a very Happy Birthday!!! I'm lucky my mom is the best mom anyone can have, she would do anything for me, my sister and my nieces. I love her so much and wish she could live forever..

SoCal Krispy Kreme - MINI owners promotion

This just in:

MINI owners! Get your fix of Krispy Kreme donuts, for FREE, every Monday during the months of June, July and August. Just show your MINI key at any Southern California Krispy Kreme and receive a free box of mini donuts.

Ooh I can't wait until the first Monday of June to check out this new promotion.

All MINI Car Show Jun 13th - All MINIs are invited

The Enderle Center and the SoCal MINI Manics

present the

2nd Annual All MINI/Mini car show at the Enderle Center in Tustin

When: Sat. Jun 13th 2009

Time: Entrants should arrive between 7:00-7:30

Entrance Fee: $10.00

Open to all MINI/Mini cars and their owners

Entrance Fee will benefit the Animal Assistance League of Orange County

Please RSVP to Dan Skorcz:

email: dan@pacific-tek.com

cell: 714-936-9613

or comment to this post and I will rsvp for you

There will be be awards, raffle prizes, and several MINI vendors

Last year's event brought the largest gathering of Maniacs MINIs to one place at one time, we had over 100 cars. We would like to beat that record this year.

You do not have to be a SCMM'r to join in the fun, if you have a MINI/Mini you are more than welcome to register your car and join us for a fun filled day. Actually you don't even have to own a MINI, come out and check out the cars and have some fun.

Oh Yeah, how can I forget, Krispy Kreme will be there giving out free donuts!!!

As of now the following vendors will be there:

Stuck On MINI's

Twistybitz

South Bay MINI

Carnuba Store

CoolMINIStuff

Tropical Shine

MINIs For Kids

Krispy Kreme - Free Donuts

Hope to see you all there!!!

Got my new MAXX Heat Press

Yay, I got my new heat press today. I finally did it, after much research I bought my MAXX 15 x 15 digital heat press. I decided to go with a heat press cuz I tried going the silkscreen route and that is just way too expensive and time consuming. With a heat press, I can make sample shirts and also do shirts on an order basis without having to buy huge quantities of 1 design, it just made more sense than silkscreening. Here is a shirt I designed for SCMM's annual MOAT (Mother Of All Twisties) The front has "I SURVIVED"and the back has SCMM's logo.

Rest & Relax Day

This long weekend was jammed packed with activties starting Friday getting ready for the big BBQ, Sat big BBQ, Sun geochaching/hiking over 4 miles. Whew, I'm beat and my feet are killing me. I decided to stay home with Niki and just veg the whole day. It was great to camp out on the couch and watch disaster TV all day...

I hate snakes!!!

I've been doing pretty good with the hiking thing, and have hiked at least once or twice every week since I made up my mind that I needed to get in shape. A bunch of SCMM'rs went on a geocaching/hike early this morning. It was a nice cool morning, so I wasn't expecting to see any snakes out and about. Well, I was wrong, we were looking for our first cache of the morning when Diana yelled snake!!! I hate snakes and of course screamed and ran, well the snake was a baby rattler and was less than a foot away from me when it started slithering... Totally freaked me out. On the way back from our hike on a fairly big fire road, there was another bigger rattler just sunning himself on the side of the road. I really didn't want to pass him, but I had enough room to get around him,...I'm glad he didn't bother us..

BBQ - MINI's at Mom's

To kick off the summer, I hosted a BBQ for the SoCal MINI Maniacs on Sat. When I set this up I didn't realize that it was the Memorial Day Weekend. I was a little worried that people made other plans for the weekend, but my worries were unfounded. A little over 50 Maniacs showed up and we had such a good time eating all the wonderful food. I provided the the handmade hamburgers, hotdogs, devilled eggs and potato salad, and each person brought some kind of side dish. Wow, we had sooo much delicious food, it was one of the best BBQ's ever.

IE Errors trying to open my blog

I'm not sure what happened but something is wrong with my blog, and I can't get it to load in Internet Explorer. It will open using Firefox and Safari but I get an error when trying to open in it IE. I did a search on the web for this error and it states to remove all of my java applications one by one to find the culprit and I did that but it still seems to error every once in awhile. The funny thing is, I haven't added a Java app in awhile and it this error just started happening, so I'm not sure what happened. I'm still in the process of trying to fix it...

Went to the Tam O'Shanter for Mother's Day - Los Angeles

Mother's days was very nice this year, we really haven't celebrated in the last few years since my dad died, I guess cuz my mom, didn't want to, without him there. This year she wanted to go to the Tam, so she made the reservation about 4 months ago ( you have to make them at least 4 months in advance to get a decent seat time). For those of you who don't know about this restaraunt I'll give you a little background, it is located on Los Feliz blvd in Atwater and has been in business for the last 80 years, the food is awesome and the atmoshere is Old World Scottish, we have been going there since I was a kid, they have the best prime rib!!!

Well anyway, I think this is the first time we've gone out with just me, my mom, my sister and my 3 nieces for a nice meal. My nieces usually have to bring their entourage of friends, boyfriends etc to every outing we go to. This time, it was just us and we had a nice sit down meal, talked and enjoyed each others company which we rarely do. It's hard to get them to commit to spending time with us these days and it was really nice that they did today.

Hung out with Maniacs,saw Star Trek

Sat was a great day, I met the Maniacs for breakfast at Ruby's in Long Beach, then afterwards of few of us went to see Star Trek at the AMC. I don't want to ruin it for you, so all I'll say is I really liked that they gave you some of the back stories of the characters. It did take some getting used to, not seeing the familiar faces in the same roles, but I got over that reaction pretty quick and ended up really liking the movie.

After the movie I went to pick up Woodstock and am happy to say that he is a good as new. The clutch feels much better now, and for now I can downshift from 3rd to 2nd without the screaching noise, I'll test it more when we do the Mother Of All Twisties next week. It was a great Sat, hanging with the SoCal Mini Maniacs, seeing Star Trek and getting Woodstock back....

Been too busy to post

I've been so busy with work, hiking, making stickers for my cousins Dragon Boat team and MOAT, taking my car into the shop etc. that I haven't had time to post anything for the past week. So much for my 1 post a day commitment. Oh well, that's the way life is, you just have to go with the flow otherwise you'll go crazy. It looks like this is going to be one busy summer, so I think I might end up skipping alot of posts.

There are lots of MINI activities in May

Wow, the month of May has many MINI activities going on. There's the first of the month Coogies breakfast meet the first Sat of the month. Then Seal Beach Ruby's breakfast meetup and Star Trek Movie on the 2nd Sat of the month. Then we have the 4th annual SCMM Mother of All Twisties run and lunch on the 3rd Sunday of the month. Then last but not least we have the MINI's at my Mom's BBQ on the 23rd. It's going to be a busy and fun month filled with lots of MINI stuff to do.

Got a MINI Cooper Loaner for a week

Well, once again Woodstock is in the shop for some major work. He is getting a brand new clutch, a new under the steering wheel panel with new clips, a new Punch Leather seat cover and they are going to fix my armrest that never seems to keep closed. He's going to be at Mini of Monrovia for at least a week.

John was able to get me a brand new 2009 Oxygen Blue Mini Cooper loaner car, granted, it's not an S, but this car is pretty loaded, it has the convenience package, auto air, bluetooth, sunroof etc. At first I thought the Oxygen blue was ugly, but this color is actually pretty nice and I like it now. Driving a Justacooper isn't that bad either, I look forward to putting some miles on this car during the week.

I thought I was going to die

Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but not by much. Wow, I didn't realize that I was so out of shape!!! To be fair this is the first attempt at exercising I've done in a few years and Ashley did take me on the hardest trail there is. Plus I had Niki with me, she ended up walking me....I wanted to quit so bad, but I was determined not to wimp out and after Ash slowed down a little I made it the entire 3 miles. Hopefully this will get easier as I do it more often....