Dry Carbon Fiber by Vinyl Styles

Day 3 of our month long journey brought us to San Carlos the home of the master vinyl man Lyle from Vinyl Styles. He spent almost 6 hours installing dry carbon fiber on the A and C pillars, the hoodscoop and the tail light surrounds on Yoshi. I must say it came out awesome.

Can you see the rainbow and the seal?

Today we stopped to visit the seals in San Simeon, (can you find it in the pic?) ate lunch at the amazing Village Restaurant in Carmel, checked out the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, went to see Unstoppable (great movie), lots of rain (can you see the rainbow?) 4 cops, 19 MINIs, 2nd stopover in Newark (not New Jersey)... yeah I know where the heck is Newark??? If you must know it's a little south of Oakland... It was the closest Marriott to San Carlos, which is where Vinyl Styles is located. Yoshi will be all dry carbon fiber'd out tomorrow by the master vinyl man, Lyle... I can't wait to see what it will look like

Month long Honeymoon Road Trip

We started off our month long honeymoon yesterday eating breakfast with our SCMM buddies at Coogies in Malibu.This will be the last time we hang out with them until we get back sometime in Jan. We'll be driving up the Pacific Coast Highway To Vancouver Island. We don't have any plans set in stone, except to have Lyle with Vinyl Styles install the rest of our dry carbon fiber on the A and C pillars and the taillight surrounds . Other than that, whenever we see something we like, we'll stop.

Our first stopover was the Bluebird Inn in Cambria, this is one of my favorite places to stay on the way up to SF. We ate dinner at Lombardies in Cambria, wow the food is awesome here.

My tradition of counting cops and MINIs continue, the goal this trip is to NOT GET A Speeding Ticket. So 21 cops, 5 MINIs and pair of rubber duckies capped off our 1st day on the road.

You Can't Own Just One

We did it again, bought another MINI, but this isn't just another MINI, this is a very special MINI. It belonged to one of the founding members of SCMM who died of Leukemia last year at the age of 78. His dream after watching the Worlds Fastest Indian was to take his MINI to Bonneville and make it into the 130MPH club running it in the standing 1 mile. Sadly he died before he could do it in his MINI, he did do it in another MINI though. This is a 2004 JCW with all the bells and whistles and has been raced at Willow Springs, Buttonwillow and many other tracks. Bill was very good friends with Jack and he didn't want to see this car go to someone that wouldn't appreciate it's specialness. So now we have 4 MINI's you know they're like Lays Potato chips, you can't just have one....

MINI Wedding of a Lifetime

I've been soo busy with Stuck On MINIs, we just got done with MTTS and Minis in the mountains in Aug but have also been busy planning our MINI wedding that happened in Oct. I'm just now writing about it. All I can say is wow, I met my husband in our MINI club, SoCal MINI Maniacs almost 3 yrs ago, but we were just casual friends. I don't know how it happened but we fell in love and got married on Oct 24th at MB2 Raceway in Thousand Oaks Ca. We had almost 250 people in attendance and half of that number was our friends from the SoCal MINI Maniacs. It was the best wedding anyone could ask for. We both wore t-shirts and shorts and did our first dance in go karts. Our close friend Robert from Twisty Bitz designed our wedding invitations, save the date magnets, t-shirts and thank you cards as a wedding present, and I must say they came out awesome. I cut the stickers and the vinyl for the shirts but he did all the design work. If you want a special MINI wedding too, you should contact him. Thanks Robert we love you and appreciate all the hard work you put into making our wedding special, it was definitely a night to remember. I love you Bill!!!

Yoshi's First Boo-Boo,

The first dent is always the hardest one to deal with. Well it happened alot faster than on my other cars and I didn't even notice it, Bill was the one who told me. I'm not really sure how it happened since most of the time I park on and end spot with lots of room between me and the car on the left, but somehow it did and I'm not happy. Luckily it is a small one and there is no paint missing so I can get one of those paintless dent repair guys to fix it. Geez some people are so rude, I always make sure when I open my door that I don't hit the car next to me. How hard is it be be considerate of other peoples property? I guess it's pretty hard considering all the door dings I see on other peoples cars. Oh well I guess it's a fact of life at least Yoshi's first Boo-Boo wasn't a car wreck or something, I should be happy it wasn't anything worse.

Stuck On Minis at MINI of Ontario Booth MTTS

I just got a call from my friends at MINI of Ontario and they asked that Stuck On MINI's share a booth with them at the MINIcross on Saturday, Aug 7,2010 Santa Anita Park, Parking Lot B
285 W Huntington Drive, Arcadia Ca 91007.

Come by say and Hi, I'll be selling stickers til about 5:00 pm. If you mention this blog post I'll give you a free MITM/MTTS sticker that looks like the one in the post below.

Hope to see ya there...

Ready for MITM & MTTS?

I know, I know, I was supossed to post something once a day, but what can I say? Being the SCMM event Director, participating in MINI events almost every weekend, making T-shirts and stickers for MINIs in the Mountains and MINI Takes the States, planning my wedding and Bill's 65th Birthday party there's just too much to do.. I guess blogging had to take a back seat.

Can you believe that we've only had Yoshi for 4.5 months and he already has almost 13,000 miles on him? Geez at this rate we'll put 40,000 miles on him in a year..

Anyway, back on topic, are you ready for MITM and MTTS? I can't believe this huge event is less than 2 weeks away. I'm doing pretty good, I'm not quite ready, but I came up with 2 more t-shirt designs and numerous new stickers. Not much to do except figure out how to pack all the stuff in Yoshi. We did it for MOTD8 we should be able to do it for this. Stuck on Minis will have a booth at Minis in the Mountains Wed Aug 11th thru Friday Night Aug 14th. We'll move from Winter Park to Denver and will set up at MTTS on Sat Aug 15th. We hope to see you there.
11 more days to MITM and MTTS, Let's Rally!!!

Back from The Dragon

We're back, we were gone 15 days, drove 5674 miles, went thur 16 states, stopped 23 times for gas, which we bought 198 gallons of, at an average price of 3.13 per gallon. We averaged 28 mpg, got 1 speeding ticket, washed Yoshi 4 times, experienced a low of 16 and a high of 92 degrees and drove thru the torrential downpour in Knoxville.

We had a blast at The Dragon, got to see some old army friends, ate awesome steak in TX, took a boat ride on the Lost Sea in TN, visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, bought some cheese in Wisconsin, was in awe at Mount Rushmore, froze our butts off in Winter Park and finally made it home. Oh yeah, we did not have 1 single problem with Yoshi and put a total of 8300 miles on him in our first 2 months of owning him.

It was a trip of a lifetime, not only did I get to see things I've never seen before but I got to do it with Bill which made it so much better, and guess what? We are going to do it again next year. We already reserved our room for MOTD9 and we're going to drive a different route so we can see and experience new things. I can't wait, anyone else want to join us next year?

Packed and ready to go

We packed up Yoshi last night, so all we had to do was get in the car this morning and go.

We decided a couple of days ago that today was going to be the longest stretch, we needed to get to Albuquerque the first day so that we could make it to The Dragon by Wed.

We hit the road around 6:15 and headed out, we also decided that we did not want to get any kind of tickets on this trip and that at the most we would only drive 10 MPH over the speed limit. Luckily we actually stuck to this, because we counted 25 police cars either giving tickets out or waiting to give tickets. Our handy Passport Escort 8500 helped us, but we were pretty safe cuz we weren't driving much over the speed limit anyway.

Can you believe that we drove over 730 miles and we only saw 3 other MINI's? I wonder where all the MINI's were? Well we got to Albuquerque around 7:30 and we figured we averaged 29.3 mpg, not too bad considering the car is packed with alot of extra weight, plus the extra drag from the rooftop mounted storage pod.

Tomorrow we will head to Oaklahoma City..

Roadtrip - The Dragon or Bust

Ever since I got Woodstock I have been wanting to go to the Dragon. When my contract ended in Oct we decided to put off looking for a job and be a vendor at most of the National MINI events, so we registered Stuck on Minis for, AMIVIV, The Dragon and a few days ago MITM and MTTS. Well the time has finally arrived, we got our new JCW Clubman "Yoshi" last month and finally got him ready for the long 17 day roadtrip to NC. On the way there and back we are going to visit some old Army friends, meet some new friends and do some good old fashioned sight seeing. We are also going to try eating at some of the Diners, Drive-in and Dives. This is going to be a great trip, I can't wait for today to be over so I can start my vacation already.....

5 Weeks and 2450 miles later

Sorry I haven't posted pics of our new car but we've been so busy getting ready for AMVIV and The Dragon, that time just flew by. We picked up "Yoshi" on March 16th and have been motoring like crazy since we got him. Not only have we been motoring but we've been modding too. He's got awesome suspension now, with Eibach Mega MINI springs, Eibach 19mm sway bar, Koni FSD shocks, M7 Heat shield, Tinted Windows 18% rear and 40% front with custom Mellow Yellow stripes installed by my friend Robert from TwistyBitz. Oh yeah and since we couldn't fit all the stuff for AMVIV in the car, we got the MINI roof rack crossbars with a Yakima RocketBox to hold all of our stuff for the trips to The Dragon, MINI's in the Mountains and MTTS.

I really didn't want a clubman for everyday driving cuz I thought it would be heavier and not as fun to drive as Woodstock but we needed the extra space for all of my Stuck On MINI's activities. Boy was I wrong, I love this car, it's fast, handles great and the extra space is wonderful. It's been 5 weeks and we've already put 2450 fun filled miles on Yoshi. Sat we are leaving for the Dragon and we'll put another 5500 miles on him in two weeks. Wow with The Dragon, MITM and MTTS, this car is going to rack up alot of miles this year. Hope to meet some of you at some of these events.

Started my new job

I've been jobless for the last 4 months mostly because I needed a vacation and I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue being a Unix Systems Admin or if I wanted to make a career change. Not to mention that it is pretty hard to find a job right now. I also figured that this would be the perfect time to take Stuck On Minis on the road and be a vendor at all the major National MINI events, like AMVIV, MINIs on the Dragon and MINIs in the Mountains. I wanted to find a job but I also wanted to see if I could make a go of having my own business. Bill and I had pretty much agreed that I should wait until after Minis on the Dragon before I started to seriously look for a job. Well it figures, just when we decided to go for it, I get a call from a recruiter, long story short I interviewed, got the job and started last Thur. It's nice to have a job again, but the really great thing about this job is that it's so flexible. I requested the AMVIV and Minis in the Mountains vacation days and they agreed to let me go for 4 days in March and 2 Weeks in Apr/May to attend these events. Wow, not only do I have a pretty good job, but I get to go have fun with all my old and new MINI friends. Not to mention that I get take a 2 week road trip in our new JCW Clubman, just wish it would get here already...

WW - Madame Butterfly

Yahoo, I just found out the my new baby will be delivered via the WW - Madame Butterfly. The ship is scheduled to depart Southampton UK on Feb 16th and arrive into Port Hueneme, Ca on Mar 11th. If all goes as planned I should have him around Mar 18th just in time for AMVIV....

Waiting to be transported

Wow, the wait is killing me, even though this is my 3rd MINI, this is the first one that I conceived and ordered. My 2 other MINIs were adopted, so I got instant gratification and was able to bring them home the same day. Well my new baby completed production on Feb 5th and is now at the port waiting to be transported by ship. (he's way too big for a stork) Once he gets on the ship, he'll be at sea for approx 21 days. Hopefully I'll get him before AMVIV but I think that is a longshot. Anyway, I'm so glad that MINI allows us to track our babies throughout the process, it makes the wait so much easier to know where he is everyday. Now I need to come up with a name...

Feb 4th Due Date

I just called ASK-MINI and found out that my baby will completed by Feb 4th. Then I have to wait the longest time for the stork to deliver him to me. I was really hoping he would get here before MINI's on the Dragon, but since he went into production much faster than I thought, now I hope he gets here before AMVIV, that would be awesome.

My BRG JCW was Born Today

Well, it happened faster than I thought it would, my British Racing Green JCW was Born Today. My Motoring Advisor Amanda from South Bay MINI in Ca just sent me his first baby ultrasound and this letter:

"Congrats

Guess what… its looks like you have a MINI delivery on the way our doctors at Plant Oxford sent this over for you!

Your MINI has started production as of today! Let me know if you have a name for it already or when you come up with one let me know!

Congrats again and thanks for ordering with me and South bay MINI! I will keep you updated as your MINI makes its moves through production.

Motor Safely

Amanda White
Motoring Advisor
South Bay MINI
310-939-7154"

Wow this is so exciting, my first two Mini's had already been delivered to their temporary homes before I adopted them. This is the first MINI that I configured and conceived from the very beginning. Boy this is going to be a long 2 months, I can't wait to get my new baby....

New Stuck On Minis Mobile

I finally heard back from the Lemon Law lawyer, Woodstock will be turned back to MINI USA in a couple of months. We've had some great times, but it's time to move on. I'll miss him, but it's not like we'll be MINIless, because I just placed my order for a 2010 BRG JCW Clubman. Hopefully it gets here before Minis on the Dragon, cuz we are driving out there to be vendor for Stuck On Minis. I guess the crazy tracking of my new baby begins tomorrow. I didn't have to track Woodstock because I bought him off the lot. It's going to be torture waiting for the updates on the MINIusa site. Oh well that's the fun of ordering a new MINI, watching his progress as he's born.