A new game... Post pics from your cel phone V.1.0

[Jims5543]

Was mowing tonight in the dark and listening to my earbuds. Suddenly had my earbuds yanked out of my head violently. Sat on the mower stunned and confused for a few moments when I suddenly realized what had happened. My phone fell out of my pocket and was swallowed by the tire. I slammed my hand on the PTO button to kill the blades when I suddenly heard the sound of technology meeting its maker. and not the Taiwanese ones...

Whoops. Looks like another company write-off.

That sucks.

Do you have it insured?  I used to not insure mine until they started costing $600 to replace.  2 weeks after I upgraded to an S5 Active I lost it to The Incredible Hulk (roller coaster) and thought I was out some  $$. Then remembered I had insurance, $50 later I had a new one.

On the bight side, it looks like you have nice sharp blades on the mower this season.

[94touring]

That sucks man. 

[94touring]

My buddy Steve took a pic of my car and posted it on Facebook.  I saw it for 2 days before I realized it was my car lol.

[Jims5543]

Great shot, cal looks good in B&W.

[Jims5543]

You know what sucks?  Today was the first time this year I went to the beach. We were kind of amazed ourselves as we normally live on the beach, we have been so busy this year at the house, doing fun things and working we just have not had any time.

So today we finally went. I promised myself this lack of down time on the beach will be rectified for the rest of the summer.




It also sucks that I am now home in front of a PC working.

[Jims5543]

Hmmm......




4 Cyl - check
manual - check
4x4 - check

Old Blue might get replaced.

[94touring]

That's nice

[Merlin]

Oh man. I drove one of those before and it was the worst. I remember going up hill in second just to make it.

[Jims5543]

Oh man. I drove one of those before and it was the worst. I remember going up hill in second just to make it.

If I get this one it is getting a diesel out of a Hilux swapped in, 30 MPG  please.

[94touring]

Lunch today

[Jims5543]

Saw Dolphins:


Saw Iguanas:


Went to go see the Southernmost Point, saw the line to see it, passed.



Saw Jimmy Buffets private recording studio:


Went to Dante's and it was much different in July than in September, decided to not go in the water. Should have snapped some creep pics, it was almost a strip club there, I approve of the new bathing suit trends.


Found a Food truck that serves Korean BBQ in a taco, mind blowing...



My son brought his dog, this was him running on the beach, yes that is seaweed we are getting a lot of it up here away from KW as well.



Probably have more pic, just no time gotta get to work.


Also, Mudhen, I think you said you were going to be in FloRida in August?  My Universal Passes run out on August 16th we have plans to be there the last day and no renew for a year and do other things.

So we will be in Orlando from Aug 14th to 16th.  We are hitting up the Evil Rat on the 14th to go try out the new Mine Cart roller coaster ride in Magic Kingdom, then Universal Sat and Sun.

It would be awesome if that was the same time as you being in town, I owe you many beers.

[Mudhen]

Ya, we changed our plans to October...and then until next year sometime.

But I just got another job and then my current gig countered with more money and extension through next June - so we may once again come down in October.  Hope to anyway!

[Mudhen]

Bumped into none other than the illustrious ADRay at the big Eliot Antique Tractor show this weekend - barrel train ride, always a big hit for young and old alike.   ;D



At least his sons didn't have to wait in line with all the little girls for face paint.



But we decided we should meet up for coffee - I don't know that in 28 years of Mini ownership I've ever blasted around the streets with another one - love it.  Didn't love getting stuck at the drawbridge in the heat, though...and only 9am - need a cooling seat!





About a month ago I met a local kid with an old Land Rover Series ambulance, too - he heard us go by his house and sent me a text - next time he's joining us...lol.  Our own little British car show.   77.gif

[Jims5543]

Love the pair of Mini's I am sure it made people look and point.

I am going through withdrawal, I have plans to take mine out tomorrow and put it to work again, we need to haul my in laws anniversary gift to their house, some guy in our hood makes from scratch wooden lounge chairs, so we had him make one for the front of their house.

Mrs.5543 does not know we are hauling it over in the Mini tomorrow.  ;D

[Merlin]

Put this up outside my office to keep the spirits high and the troops motivated.


I think I have a homophobe among the ranks. Someone scribbled on my sweet Brucie.

[Jims5543]

The difference between looking on your phone and on a computer, I did not initially notice the face scratched off.  LOL!!

I had to pick up a set of yard chairs, this guy in our hood makes them from scratch and sells them for a really good price, this was our anny present to my in laws. I took a long lunch today to make this delivery.

They were a little long but I made it work, got a lot of funny looks on my way to their house.





No one was home so we took the plastic walmart chairs they had out front and put them out back and replaced them.


My son passed his boaters safety course today and this was the boat he took out and piloted on his final day in school.


Next summer he can take an intermediate class then when he turns 14 he can take his boating license class, then he can take my jet boat to the Bahamas without me, I will be sure he has no safety gear but does have a $500 Yeti cooler.

[Jims5543]

Took a ride down to Jupiter so I could see where you send kids out in the ocean to die.  $500 Yeti Cooler? Check!  No Marine Radio? check!!

These are some beach shots from the area:









The reef system is almost on shore in this area, you can snorkel the reef from the beach here. The water was perfectly clear.




My little guy posing on a rock crop:



Sea Turtle Egg, they are hatching right about now.



Empty Sea Turtle nest:



Crab in his hole:


I thought this was cute after I walked by so I snapped a pic from behind. Then when I uploaded it I realized I had crack in the picture.  Oh well.... they were cute with their shirts off the thrown over the same shoulder.



I stopped off at Tequesta Brewing Company and picked up a Growler of Gnarly Barley, and swag for Mudhen  ;D  , the filling system was the most trick I have ever seen:

[Jims5543]

I show up to this property yesterday do place hubs inthe ground for a form board crew to place house forms.

It appears to me to not be ready and I pull away. The super claims it is indeed ready and to pin the house.

So I do, I am sure the formboard crew is going to be very happy working in this mess.

When I staked the grade the pad was 4" too high but the builder did not want to waste money scraping off the pad.

Glad it is not my house, I would not want a bunch of organic material under my slab.

Lets play spot my helper Vincent.

[MiniDave]

Since the wife's Audi is laid up waiting for parts (they came today - only took 2 days when they said it would be a week!) she's been driving the Blue 2009 MINI Clubman, so I've been using Buzz as my DD.......went to the dentist downtown yesterday in OMG it's hot conditions and it ran right at the thermostat setting - my little extra rad is doing exactly what I hoped it would.

[Jims5543]

First, my condolences on the Audi ownership.  ;D

Second, love your truck it looks awesome.

- Ex 2x  Audi owner

[MiniDave]

Truck? You mean wagon? Estate? Clubby?  ;D

I've had great luck with all my Audis, and I've owned a bunch of them over the years. This is a 2004 Allroad, supposedly the worst car Audi ever built, with all sorts of terrible problems over the years - funny thing is, when you find one for sale it always has 200K + miles on it!

For us, the car has been mostly trouble free, the air suspension pump has given up so I bought a rebuild kit for it - $35 shipped - and I'll have it fixed by this weekend if I can get into the shop at school - if I can't there's a DIY shop with lifts for rent nearby I can use and worst case, I'll fix it at home.

However, it is due for some major maintenance - it only has 70K but it's 11 years old and has never had a new cam belt - the dealer wants $2100 for that job but I'm going to DIY it, $400 in parts, it's a huge job requiring the removal of the front of the car, much like when you service a new MINI. I also need to replace the bearings in the SAI pump - I did that about 5 years ago but they've failed again so I'll see if I can find some better bearings this time.

Still, I've spent diddly squat on the car in the 11 years we've owned it, it's never let us down and has been all over the States , both coasts and north and south. We'd replace it but can't find anything as nice or with near the equipment this has for anything close to what we can afford, so I think we'll just keep it.

This car was a present to my wife, she'd just finished treatment for and survived breast cancer, so far so good as she's still here and driving it - I think of it as a good luck charm for her. It's also one of the safest cars I could buy for her, and with all wheel drive I never worry about her being able to get home in bad weather.

[Jims5543]

First, we have very dear friends where his wife is on the tail end of a double mastectomy and lymph node removal that has altered her ability to drain fluids from her arm so she has to wear a compression sleeve  all the time.

They are our best friends and it was hell watching them go through this. We go on lots of trips together and we were really there for her when she was and is going through this.

So, Fuck Cancer and congrats to your wife for kicking its ass too.

Her husband is my AA car friend, he has a E30 M3 among about 6 other cars, he is like me always screwing around messing with cars, his wife and mine share a fondness for wine, us guys?Craft beer.

Yes,  I meant your wagon, it is awesome.

And finally Audi's, I am glad your experience is nothing close to mine. I had a CPO 2001 A6 Sport, Quattro, 2.7 twin turbo 6 speed manual and all the goodies.  It was in the shop every month for something else, from leaking water pump to electronic gremlins that made us insane. To parts just galling off of it, like the front directional. We loved and hated that car at the same time.

So we decided to trade it in and lease a 2005 brand new at the time A6 Quattro with a 3.2 in it.

I picked up where the other one left off, the most ironic failure was when we were heading back from Virginia in it, my wife was driving, I was following in my older sons first car, he purchased a 1990 BMW 325i for $500 from a friend up there. It was destined to be a 24 Hour of Lemons car but the team backed out. We stopped for dinner 45 minutes away from Asheville, when we came back to the car the ignition system burned up rendering the car inoperable, furthermore, it locked the auto gear selector and put on the electronic parking brakes. The flat bed operator has to dolly it up onto the flatbed.  He did get the gear selector into neutral, actually I did after consulting the owners manual.

Regardless, we sat in Asheville for 4 days while the dealership floundered around with the car. We told them we could no longer wait and since it was a lease we were supposed to get a loaner, they would not give me one. So if I did not have the 325i (which we were worried would not make the trip <-- irony) we would have been stranded in Asheville without a car.

We piled into the 325 and finished our drive home, it took the dealership 3 weeks to get the car fixed.

We made lemon aid out lemons, we flew up, picked up the car and had a romantic weekend in Savannah on our way back. This was 4 weeks after the car broke down.

There were countless other problems with that car, like 100 miles from the dealership the tail lights went out, when that happens this deafening noise comes from the dashboard to let you know, every 30 minutes or so.

We took it to the dealership in Florida, and the tail lights went out 2 more times after that. The last time, we were 6 weeks away from the lease being up, I told them they could deal with it when I returned the car.

Needless to say, they did not try to get my to lease another car after that one, I have no idea why.


This little sucker tried to bite my helper today, I see more of these than snakes.

[MiniDave]

Yep there are horror stories all over the net, especially about the Allroad, with it's very complicated suspension, twin turbo V-6 5 valve per cylinder engine, Tiptronic auto transmichigan with the self destructing torque converter, air suspension that likes to genuflect on one knee and on and on....

We've had none of those issues.....  4.gif

We bought the car when it was 6 months old with 9K miles on it, the guy traded it in for the V-8 version cause he wanted more power.....even tho even back then they were flash programs out that would substantially increase the HP. I've resisted doing that which may have helped it live longer....11 years later it only has 70K on it even tho it's been to both coasts, the Colorado mountains many times, and north and south to the ends of the states.....

So, it's either a good car that's been well maintained and will continue to give good service, or a ticking time bomb  :-\

For example - if one of the turbos fails it's an engine-out repair - and you wouldn't spend that much time and money and not replace both - so - $10K

If the transmission fails, a replacement is $8K installed.

If the suspension fails I can buy replacement airbags - US made - for about 1/4 OEM cost, so that's not too bad.

If it has electric or electronic problems - yikes! Any one of those can total the car (as you found out) as they'll cost more to fix than it's worth, so what do you do? We've decided to just maintain it and see how long it will go...plus there isn't another car out there that we can afford that we would want. The Audi has an amazing level of equipment, rides extremely quietly and smoothly, gets shit gas mileage but has wonderful turbo power and sophistication, power everything, full leather interior and on and on.

We can't duplicate it (we like wagons and they don't make an A6 bodied wagon anymore) at any price and certainly not at a price we can afford now that I'm retired!

Best of luck to your friends, as you said - we've BTDT - but we've had good results, she's been cancer free for 10 years now, looks like I'm stuck with her!  ;D

[Willie_B]

Had an storm blow through yesterday afternoon while I headed to Target. While parking I noticed alot of tree debris in the parking lot. Then looked closer at the tree. It had just been hit by lightening.

[94touring]

"Shocking" Brad!

Did my 6 month captain recurrent yesterday.