Antigua Again

Posted on by Ian C.

Yet another trip to Antigua – a favourite destination because of the warm weather, beautiful turquoise water, peace and quiet and the variety of land to tour! This time we stayed at the Hawksbill Resort, small quiet and beautiful. No TV, internet – just sun, sea and a great restful time.
The resort has four beaches – our “room” (duplex chalet) was just a few feet from the sand & water. The views throughout the resort were perfect! Great wildlife too – especially if you share your food with them 🙂

 

We rented a car for a day and toured the island, visiting our favourite places of English Harbour / Nelsons Dockyard, and Fig Tree Drive (which goes up through some rain forest “mountains”):

 

We also visited the capital of St Johns, cramped and full of cruise ships but fun to walk around (except it poured with rain!)

 

Our trip was somewhat spoiled by travel – more than two hours in immigration on the way out due to too many flights into Antigua, and on the way back we arrived in Philadelphia to find no flights to Boston, no hotel rooms, and no cars – except one we had to pay almost $700 for to get home yesterday (430 miles unexpected driving) … But our neighbors had dug out our cars when we finally did get home!


Previous trips to Antigua here in 1998 and here in 2004.

The DPSM user guide

Posted on by Ian C.

After installing the DPSM in GPMINI and being ever more impressed by its sound quality (I didn’t really believe the “burn-in” claims but either it does improve over the first few hours – or you get used to it!), I’ve scanned the user guide pages for anyone interested. Unlike the mysterious Harman Kardon system, impossible to find specs on it, the DPSM user guide includes some detailed specs (click either for bigger):

Of course, listening is the best test … I’m starting to think that subs aren’t needed …

50 years of the Mini

Posted on by Ian C.

Google News linked this great article from the Scottish Daily Record today, amusing enough for me to re-post it …
It started as a little giant but conquered the world. Perfect for parking, a hot favourite with the stars and simply oozing sex appeal, the Mini celebrates 50 glorious years this month.
It was born in 1957 as Britain’s answer to the fuel shortage which followed the Suez crisis.
The British Motor Corporation asked car designer Alec Issigonis to come up with a small family saloon that would eke the most out of a gallon of petrol …

It had a slow start. Only 20,000 were produced in the first year.
The first million Minis were produced by 1965.
The two-million mark came in 1969.
The best year for sales was 1971, with more than 318,000 Minis produced worldwide.

Lots more classic Mini info points, but nothing on the new MINI …