The “all new” MINI Peabody

Posted on by Ian C.

Headed over to MINI Peabody at lunchtime to meet Richard, also met Chris – both having service work done … MINI Peabody had their parking lot resurfaced this past Monday, so everywhere is smooth now, with no potholes anywhere – it would make for a great auto-x track! Also, the upstairs “owners lounge” is now finished and fully ready for use, offering satellite TV, wireless internet access, as well as the essentials like coffee!

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I also noticed that the convertible MINI rear window failure still occurs …

Where is NorthAmericanMotoring?

Posted on by Ian C.

Although MINI2 is my most frequently visited (MINI related) web site, NAM (NorthAmericanMotoring) comes nicely second – both sites specialise in different areas, at least from my perspective.
The NE regional forum on MINI2 is very active & fun, and most of the MINI events I go to are planned there.
NorthAmericanMotoring seems to focus more on performance mods (engine/suspension/etc) and also has some good discussions on upgrading stereo systems – more indepth than the similar discussions on MINI2.

But since the weekend, I have been unable to access NAM – it seems to be a routing or firewall problem within “theplanet” that hosts it:
C:Documents and SettingsOwner>tracert http://www.northamericanmotoring.com
Tracing route to http://www.northamericanmotoring.com [69.93.166.248] over a maximum of 30 hops:
1 37 ms 14 ms 10 ms
…
6 21 ms 19 ms * unk-426d0e99.adelphiacom.net [66.109.14.153]
7 18 ms 19 ms * p1-00-00-00.a0.cdp00.adelphiacom.net [66.109.1.46]
8 25 ms 24 ms * p3-02-00-00.r0.nyc90.adelphiacom.net [66.109.1.21]
9 60 ms 65 ms 67 ms p3-02-00-00.c1.chi75.adelphiacom.net [66.109.0.101]
10 84 ms 83 ms 87 ms p3-01-01-00.c1.dfw91.adelphiacom.net [66.109.0.66]
11 85 ms 84 ms 84 ms g1-03-02-00.p0.dfw91.adelphiacom.net [66.109.3.78]
12 85 ms 99 ms 83 ms eq-dallas-1000M.theplanet.com [206.223.118.3]
13 133 ms 83 ms 88 ms dist-vlan31.dsr3-2.dllstx3.theplanet.com [70.85.127.30]
14 87 ms 86 ms 84 ms dist-vlan21.dsr1-1.dllstx2.theplanet.com [70.85.127.67]
15 89 ms 85 ms 83 ms car4-1-v2.dllstx2.theplanet.com [12.96.160.49]
16 * * * Request timed out.
17 * * * Request timed out.
…
Trace complete.

I tried contacting “theplanet” and they very unhelpfully suggested I contact the website(!); luckily I was able to contact Mark Ferguson (who runs NAM) – he very quickly replied and confirmed that I am not the only person having issues and he also believes the problem is within “theplanet”.
So hopefully the issues will be identified and resolved soon; meantime I’ll have to check NAM from the office 😉

MINIs at the Movies

Posted on by Ian C.

About 20 MINIs met up to tour the Budweiser Brewery, enjoy a BBQ on top of Pack Monadnock, drive back roads to Ice Cream, and end the day watching movies at the Milford Drive-in (Derek (MetalMiniMayhem) organized the event on this MINI2 thread)

I joined the other MINIs at Pack Monadnock in Miller State Park, where we filled the parking lot! The road up the mountain is fabulous, with exhilarating twisty bits and switchbacks in a short run with no scary drops to the side – better than Mount Washington in many ways!

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At the top, a BBQ grille was prepared and everyone gathered to chat and wait for food; the weather was not great, with threatening rain and near zero visibility, but it had no effect on the fun factor of MINI owners gathering …

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After lunch, we headed back down the mountain and drove some wild back roads (a little too quickly!), to arrive at Ice Cream!

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Then it was finally time to head to the drive-in movie, where most MINIs chose the “scary adult movie” (Skeleton Key); I and two other MINIs picked the “G” rated “Valiant” instead, which was fun; the drive-in also offered good snacks at a reasonable price.

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The price of admission ($18/car) is good value so long as you have more than one person in the car, and stick around to watch both movies – (not so good for me, on my own and leaving after the first movie)!