lo mein with abalone

This is a dish that I didn't plan for.

mini love - part 25

Now that the rainy season has started, I have time to begin think of a few enhancements that I may make to the Mini. Some of these are from my experience of driving the Mini on the track hard that I discovered something that I would not have otherwise.

bbc proms

How I love the BBC Proms. The most recent night recording has the Finlandia in the choral version which I'd never heard until now. I much prefer it over the orchestral version.

mini at the track - part 8

Driving on the track tax the car much more than one would ever driving on public road, as I found out from personal experience. It is extremely important to perform detail pre and post track day mechanical inspections. The heat, mechanical stresses, shocks, and vibration put the parts to their extreme limits. The most dangerous is fasteners loosen from shocks and vibration. There are many things I took for granted until I discover their vulnerabilities when pushed to the limits.

mini at the track - part 7

I wanted one more track day to wrap up for the season because I felt that I had not a chance for some clean laps to establish my best lap time for the season. Up until before the last track day, I only had one session in which I have an instructor riding with me.

mini at the track - part 6

I went to the HPDE day at PIR. My friend and I both wanted to have one more track day to wrap up the season. It is a day designed to maximum the time on the track. Each run group gets 120 minutes of driving, which is a lot.

mini love - part 24

It had been raining dogs and cats in the last three days after the weather suddenly switched from summer like weather to winter like weather. I am trying to eke out one more HPDE day to call it a season.

british car show at PIR

In early September I went to the British Car Show at PIR. It was an impromptu activity that day when my Mini Cooper S friend texted me if I will be there. When I arrived there is another local Mini Cooper S friend there too. She has a classic Mini which I didn't know. I also bumped into my previous neighbor, who acquired a Triumph TR-250 in recent years.

mini love - part 23

We went grocery shopping across town.

mini at the track - part 5

I processed the video for a couple of laps.

mini at the track - part 4

Last track day Mini broke the header so we had to call it a day halfway through.

mini love - part 22

I took the opportunity to go back to the "crime scene" to look at the pothole that Mini hit a week ago. It is always good to know how bad a pothole that was that Mini survived.

mini split air conditioners

Ever since the mini split air conditioners first became available in the United States I bought one small one for the bedroom and one medium one for use in the living room. This was in late 90s. I did not got around to install them in my previous house.

mini love - part 21

The Mini has not been running well the last week. It all started when it hit a big pothole when we went grocery shopping at the other side of town.

air filter for mini - flow test

I recently decided to try a K&N filter for the Mini over the genuine MINI air filter. It was actually a long story that resulted from my investigation starting off with my questioning the hypes of the aftermarket "cold air intake".

a great german tv series

 

I like movies and TV series based on historical events. Recently I came across a German TV series "The Same Sky" - "Der Gleiche Himmel" in German, on Netflix. It is a cold war Germany drama set in East and West Berlin starting 1974. There are 6 episodes in Season One. It has to be one of the best cold war dramas.

new display monitor

Only a while ago I wanted to update one of the two 1920x1200 LCD monitors for my Windows 7 PC to a Samsung 4k monitor. I ran into the problem with the new graphic expansion card. I decided to call off the upgrade and live with the two 1920x1200 Dell monitors.

some random dishes

These are just some casual dishes that I made lately.

how stiff are your springs?

Until recently that I took on the interest in making the Mini more fun, I only have cursory notions of how car suspension works. When I decided on the set of Swift Sport Springs I was puzzled by the rear spring being stronger than the front.

broken header - part 2

The header on the Mini broke wide open last Friday during HPDE at the track.