Motoring in California

I’ve got most of the sheetrock out of the livingroom, just a few pieces to remove for the electrical rewire next weekend. I’ve put down some concrete sealer and sprayed on the mold/mildew killer. A couple more coats of the sealer and I’ll start on the epoxy crack filler. The cracks along the foundation and frame footing may suck up all the epoxy and more, so I’m going to use a little sand as filler. The epoxy should fill in around the sand fine, the only drawback being a little loss of flexibility of the epoxy. I’ve also got to apply some stucco patching to the inside of the stucco wall to fill in the areas where the holes for the blow-in insulation damaged the wall. It’s like the old saying, two steps forward, one step back.

I’ve been trying some of the hypermiling that I’ve been reading about on various blogs in the MINI community. Saves some gas but pisses off the drivers behind me. Oh well, can’t please everyone.

I took the MINI into MINI of Mountain View for one year service where they did an oil change (with filter) and changed the worn wipers. I didn’t check, but I’m a little curious to see if they reset the mileage for the next oil change. I assume they don’t. This is the second time I’ve worked with Chris the Service Guy and I’ve got to say he’s very good to work with. I mentioned the trouble I’ve had trying to remove wax from the plastic bits around the wheels and other places and he said he would ask their detailer for advice. When I got the car back, I got the advice, but he had gone ahead and had the detailer clean the plastic. Nice. While at the dealership, there was a woman buying a 2008 MCS with the same wheels and black roof and mirrors as mine. She was clearly anxious about the paperwork wait and said she was looking forward to testing the handling on some local twisty. Her MINI looked great in the laser blue with the black top. I also picked up the new accessories catalog. I am strongly leaning toward replacing my side indicators with the new “Black Jack” ones from MINI. They also have door handles now in the “Black Jack” style. Both would match my favorite MotoringBadge that pretty much stays on my car all the time.

I started tearing down the wallboard on the outside walls today. The first thing I had to do was remove the faux wood paneling. Under that was the wallboard and it was rotted and moldy at the bottom. The insulation had been blown in by a previous owner and that made a huge mess. I’m only about a third done with that part and I can see I’ll have to call for a small dumpster for all the trash. I’m glad we finally decided to take out the wallboard because it’ll give me access to the wood frame and stucco backing. I’ll be able to treat the wood for mold and maybe even spray some sort of sealant on the stucco. Quite a mess so far and I’m only getting started. The crack between the poured cement footing for the house framing and the poured cement slab is clearly visible. The cold cement joint between the two isn’t holding and every time there is soil shifting from the earthquakes the gap gets worse. I’m planning on injecting cement epoxy to limit future damage and inject polyurethane foam for a water barrier.

On friday the MINI had been mine for one year. I’ve got just under 15,000 miles on it and it’s still running strong. I’ll be calling the local dealer for it’s one year checkup; oil change, fluid check and general inspection. I also finally took a picture of the black boot handle replacement. With the door open, it’s easy to see the general look I’ve been going for. Silver/Grey and Black. Still more chrome to cover but with the home projects I don’t think I’ll be spending any money on the car for a little while.

I’ve sent in my registration fees for MINI takes the States for the Los Angeles event. I’ve got two tickets, one of my wife and one for me. That event and the more local Magical Mystery Event in SF makes this years fall season look very promising.

DB of WhiteRoofRadio posted a great video of his ride on Highway 74. I used to live not too far from there and have a fond memory of driving it in my Austin Healy “Frogeye” Sprite. Here’s the link.

My wife and I finally spent a couple of days looking at carpet and tile samples. She’s got a pretty good idea of what carpet to get, at least the general color, and she’s picked the ceramic tile I’ll be putting into the entry way. The entry way is only about 33 sq ft and even though I’m not the best handy-man, I should be able to handle that. We have a couple of companies coming out today for estimates and tonight our nephew will be coming over to help move some of the furniture. The TV alone weighs more than 150 lbs, too much for just me and my wife. We’ll be moving most of the furniture into the dining area and the dining table will go in the garage along with the remainder of the living room furniture. We found out the tile under the carpet has asbestos in it, so the carpet installers won’t remove it. I’ll be removing the carpet and tile myself this weekend along with prepping the floor if there are cracks that have to be sealed. We may even get around to picking the paint for the walls and ceiling. Looking forward to getting rid of the old carpet with all the holes and such.

Over at Miniology you can see a posted video daily of the Vegas event. It looks like a lot of fun. Wishing all of you there a great time.

Finally got the license plate lights/boot handle installed by the dealership. It’s painted jet black (same as my roof and mirrors). I’m still waiting for my daughter to return my camera so I can post a picture or two. After seeing the black boot handle and chrome dealer plate holder, I had to go and buy a cheap black license plate frame. The back of the MINI now looks pretty good, the only chrome I don’t like are the rear light borders. The headlights look okay with the chrome rings but the rear lights need something different.

On another note, I’ve got to learn something more about blogging and the code behind it. I’ve got these warnings and notes:

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I don’t know what they all mean. I’m also getting an error whenever I try to use the spell-checker. I guess some research reading is in order.

I took the car to the dealership today and got some interesting news. Turns out there is an intermittent short in the unit that houses the lamps. It’s pretty amazing that they would catch an intermittent problem, usually those types of things only alarm at home and never at the dealership. In any case they found it and it needs to be replaced. They were able to get the lights to work for now, but warned me it could short again anytime. It’ll take a few weeks to get the part and prep it for install. It comes with no paint and the service advisor said that adds some time. I was thinking that it might be fun to have the unit painted the same black as the roof instead of body color so I asked him if that was possible and he said no problem. I wonder, am I nuts for wanting to do that? I’m going to ask around on NAM to see if there are pictures of cars that have something similar. Maybe even the MINI configurator on MINIUSA.

On my drive in to my job this morning I got a little notice in the SAT/NAV screen that the was a license plate lamp malfunction. I didn’t take the time to look and forgot all about until my drive home. It’s dark by the time I get home this time of year so I was able to take the time to look at the detail of the message and to see if it was one lamp or both. Before I left work it looked like both were out but when I got home is saw one lamp still lit.

Sorry about the fuzzy pictures, my camera skills are rudimentary

Looks like I’ll be calling the closest dealer tomorrow for the fix.

I’ve now seen a Clubman commercial on Comedy Central. It’s kind of cute, a scene similar to a doctors office from the 50’s with a doctor looking in a young boys ears sees the Clubman on some racetrack. He checks both ears and sees mirror images of the Clubman racing. This friday, East Bay MINI is having their Clubman rollout, it would be the first time I could see one in the flesh. So far I like everything except the rear end. I’ve heard on WhiteRoofRadio the rear panels are easy to remove, so painting them the body color would be do-able. That might help.