New England Off Topic and Banter as Most Brilliantly Proposed by Cape Cod MINI

[MGB Boy]

Quote: Originally Posted by yellowmininy

Not to change the subject, but...
I know some of you sent cards or letters to the young man in Wyoming trying to get mail from 50 states for his class project, but it looks like some of them didn't make it. Anyone care to try again? I think they'd need to be first class mail rather than post cards to make it before the project is due next week.

States he has not yet received information from:
Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont

PM me for the address (and I'll go clean out my inbox...) Ricardo & Angela, I know you sent cards before. Sorry they didn't make it, but care to try again?

The postal service lost my beautiful postcard of a Vermont Holstein enigmatically staring into the camera lens? Damn them! Damn them all! I'll have to see if I can find the same one, if not they might have to settle for a loss bovine card...

-Ricardo

[yellowmininy]

No wonder they're all going postal, I'm sure they can't live with the guilt! Thanks!

[MetalMiniMayhem]

Quote: Originally Posted by MGB Boy

No, I think his point is simply the irony of a visibly pregnant woman smoking a cigarette while expressing concern about the potentially negative effects the sounds of jackhammers may have on her child. The irony being that smoking has many well known and well researched negative effects on a fetus, so her concerns about construction noise seem a bit silly. I don't think the one (driving too fast) has anything to do with the other (the picture)...

-Ricardo

!.. Thank you , Ricardo..

Actually, those two posts were completely unrelated.. I just thought it was funny.. nothing more..

[MetalMiniMayhem]

Quote: Originally Posted by GBMINI

But if there had been a passenger in that car we would be having a very different discussion right now

yep.. here's the pictures..

http://www.motoringunderground.com/f...ead.php?t=1644

as far as driving fast on 129 goes.. believe it or not, it is much safer to drive it fast at night (which is mostly when I went) for a couple of reasons.. first off, there is little to zero traffic escpecially in the weeeee hours of the morning.. also, throughout all the switchbacks and stuff you can see headlights of oncoming traffic for a good 1/4 mile ahead of you and you have plenty of time to slow down.. the only bad thing about night is the animals.. When Steve and I got there we had to take the Dragon on our way in, this after being up for 25 hours 16 of which were driving, even then the road wasn't THAT challenging, if you know how to drive, etc.. we almost hit a deer and by saying almost I mean it was about 50 yards ahead of us and I downshifted, applied the brakes and we let him go across the road.. other people just got stupid, that's all..

I have in car video of my runs day and night.. you'll see that although it felt extremely fast, the speed-o really never really got above 50 in the straight sections, the people that wrecked were trying to drive in excess of 55 mph in areas where the limit was 20 or at most 30 mph, in the curves, not the straightaways and taking the widest curve they could..

Snid, I'm open for sponsorship, you willing to come up with the fees for me to go on a track?..

[Actual Size]

Ah...such fond memories of Roanoke...Laurie and I waking up at a Holiday Inn in the middle of the night on a bed that filled with ants. I surely do love the South.

[MetalMiniMayhem]

Quote: Originally Posted by snid

http://hillclimb.org/

But as someone who dislikes rules and structure, you're really not going to like hillclimbs.

actually, it doesn't look all that bad considering the type of driving it is.. it's also a much less boring type of racing IMHO than track stuff.. Thanks for the link I may have finally found something I'm willing to follow the rules to do..

[GadgetGav]

Quote: Originally Posted by MetalMiniMayhem

I may have finally found something I'm willing to follow the rules to do..

You're getting married aren't you... there's going to be rules to follow to do things you like to do...!

[MetalMiniMayhem]

Quote: Originally Posted by GadgetGav

You're getting married aren't you... there's going to be rules to follow to do things you like to do...!

ROTF!.. yeah, but I've been divorced once already..!.. I know what to expect.. it starts to get like that, I'm out before it even starts this time

[Jester's mom]

Quote: Originally Posted by yellowmininy

Ricardo & Angela, I know you sent cards before. Sorry they didn't make it, but care to try again?

Still in my inbox; I'll send another and put it in an envelope. If they don't get it again I'll have to have Secco FEDEX it

[yellowmininy]

Thanks, Angela!

[jcsinnh]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jester's mom

Still in my inbox; I'll send another and put it in an envelope. If they don't get it again I'll have to have Secco FEDEX it

Ha! Funny you should mention it. Last Tuesday, I sent ice some stuff via FedEx. NH to CT, standard overnight. Since FedEx has switched to the brown model and does not require a signature unless so specified, it has become an easier job for us couriers but often problematic for customers. Anyway, ol Bradeopolis said, "Yo, where's my stuff?"

I tracked it and told him that it was left at the back door at 11:35 Wed. AM. Days later, he found it in the barn.

Sending it FedEx? or UPS? (DHL still too scary for me), require a siggy..even an indirect.

[snek]

Speaking of MINIs: My car has never had the cold start problem. But now it takes two or three tries. I think it has to do with ethanol in the gas. Anybody else has the same problem?

[Actual Size]

Not happening with our MINI, but the 4Runner is exhibiting the same problem recently.

[GadgetGav]

YES! And Gary and Heather even predicted that I would three weeks ago. I had the parameters reset in the ECU because I had the lumpy idle / near stall, and they said that resetting it and the change to summer fuel would probably mean that I'd get the cold start problem. Of course your $3.20 a gallon is only buying you 90% of a gallon since they now put 10% ethanol in. It should be called E10 if we're supposed to swallow this whole 'go yellow' campaign for E85 shouldn't it..??
Gary also said that BMW was about to launch an additive to make the crappy fuel back up to something that can run an engine effectively. All these problems only occur in California, Ohio and the Northeast apparently - all the areas that use the California emmisions grade gas. Someone needs to standardize the blends (hopefully not on CA blend) and get rid of the 17+ different mixes that are sold across the country!

[snid]

On my way to Lime Rock, I filled up with 10% ethanol. The car ran just fine out on the track and on the drive home - through the tank of E10

I don't think the gas up in Vermont is 10% ethanol, at least there aren't stickers on the pumps like there were when I filled up in CT (or maybe it was MA).