JOSHUA , Hi!

After a quick 1 hour of paperwork and signing contracts and financial obligations, we finally had Joshua delivered out of the dealership. Sumati gave me and her mom the privilege of driving it home. soweeeeeeeeeeet, is all I can say ;)

Its really here!!

Couldnt resist the urge. Finally picked up the phone and called Jeff in mountain view mini this evening. He confirmed that the package arrived a few hours ago! Woo hoo!!

Set up an appt for pick up tomorrow. Am excited, err, my wife is!

Got Orgrans? donate one.

2 weeks for a drive from santa barbara to mountain view? LUDACRIS!

Pardon the venting, but it took the ship 2 weeks to get from the UK to the santa barbara coast through the panama canal on a slow moving ship. Now its the same time, and our Mini still hasnt arrived in mountain view - 11 days after it made landfall. The dealer already got a earful of voicemails from me this last week, but now its insane. Its driving me up the wall. Folks all the way up in sacremento and further north, who had thier cars on the same ship as I did, received thier babies early this week. I think its time for me to go personally confront the dealer. Boys, here I come....

The bird has landed!

OK, after a couple of weeks of frantic tracking on the atlantic and through the panama canal and its final course to Port hueneme, the mother ship ISOLDE finally hit the port as of yesterday. Here are the details and some pics of the ship at port hueneme in santa barbara, CA.

Here is a picture of the ISOLDE, actually docked in port hueneme, CA

Now its just a matter of a week or so, before all the paperwork gets done at the port of entry, the car gets inspected at the Mini/BMW VDC(vehicle distribution center), gets loaded on a truck and arrives at the dealership. Man this week, will be the longest :)

Panama Canal - what a view!

Ok, there are some folks who have thier minis on the same ship as I do and boy, they have a lot of time on thier hands! They managed to get a hold of a few webcams in the panama canal, and made a movie out of them, when our ship ISOLDE made the crossing. Check out the video here!

Traffic court - I'm sorry

Back in november 2007, I got a ticket for speeding, taking a exit ramp at 66 on a 35. payed my fines and thought I'll go see if I can reduce the fine, but appearing in court. I just got back after 2.5 hours at this place called traffic court - man I'm sorry I went there. Pathetic. DMV looks like a extremely well oiled and efficient machine compared to this. Airport security checks are easy.

Pretty much everyone who works there, looks at you, like you're guilty. Was #43 in line, sat through a variety of cases and then finally plead guilty with some explanation around the circumstances around which I was caught. Good try, but judge didnt buy it, no reduction in fine.
Pay on and move on. So I pay my fees and come out to my car, parked on the street and what I see there - a F&*$in parking ticket. WTF? The traffic court itself has about 25 parking spaces, most of them occupied by employees and the cops. So I had to park it on the street across. It was raining and I didnt see a red curb.

Anyways, am frikkin pissed. I'll pay by $36 and move on. Dont want to waste my time on these morons!

MOCD - MINI Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Yep, i've got that disease :)

Mini has a website for prospective owners to track the progress of their car's production, transport and arrival into the dealership. A quick registration at http://ol.miniusa.com/ with my production number, got me in. I could see the VIN#, daily updates and such! Our Mini is now BORN as of Jan 07, 2008. Albeit, the miniusa site is good with info, I NEEDED to know more details on our cargo. Recall MOCD? Exactly!

After reading through several forums on northamericanmotoring.com, and mini2.com, I found that there is a way to check your new cars path, every single step of the way. Some good soul, posted this piece of valuable info, on the forum.
http://northamericanmotoring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=70301

The first step was to figure out, the ship name. As of today, our Mini is onboard the ship ISOLDE, picked up at Southampton and willl be dropped off at Port Hueneme near Santa Barbara in California after making a long trip across the pond and passing through the Panama Canal. This ship is the one which brings almost all european cars to the west coast of the US - BMWs, Volvos, Saabs, minis, etc.

He should be at the Panama Canal on Feb 02, where I plan to catch ISOLDE on the webcam, and then at Port Hueneme on 2/10. Here are the Voyage details.

The next step is to start tracing the ship, so it doesnt get lost at sea ;)

What to name the mini cooper?

I'm sure a lot of you are in the business of naming your favourite things in life - cars, toys, much more which I definitely dont want to discuss ;) So there we were, yet again in our lives, figuring out a name for the mini cooper.The following ones are already taken:

"The Jeep" or "Snow White" - Our 2001 Jeep Wrangler Sahara(not in the garage, but in our hearts)
"Isabella" - Our 2004 Toyota 4Runner SR5.
"Anna" - The Lady in Red, my 2001 Honda VFR Interceptor.

A lot of girls, I must say. Given this IS Sumati's car, I wanted her to pick a name.
She sat on it for a while and she tells me she wants to name the cooper - Joshua.

She said it just like Rachel(Jennifer Anniston) in Friends said it - Jaw-shoo-aaa.

I ask her why "Joshua", and she goes - " I just like that name". I've got this strange feeling that this name stems from the fact that she's goo-goo-ga-ga over this actor called Josh Lucas.

If you dont know who the hell this is, its ok. Its normal. No one does. He's a class-C actor, who gets lucky once in a while, and gets to act in a class-B movie, which will air at 2am on a tuesday on a non-descript channel on your TV. Sour grapes? not at all my friend. If I stand in sub-zero temperature for a couple of hours, my skin will be fairer than his and my eyes blue"er" :))

Enough said, Joshua it is. Hmpph. Welcome dude....