Kettlebells kick arse!

My arse in particular. Being a wee bit out of shape, I wanted to start the new year with the goal of regular exercise. Okay, really out of shape. I've been doing a circuit on and off since the new year. A ten pounder, no sweat, and no challenge, so I don't bother to finish the circuit. Upgrade to the "girly man," according to Pavel, weight of 12 kilo's, I can barely complete the first leg of the circuit, so the kettlebells collect dust. Baby girl is almost three and a half now and growing like a weed; now I am struggling to carry her for long periods of time. Not acceptable! Finally this week, I buy a wimpy 15 pounder. I am now drenched in sweat doing the entire circuit. Righteous! Now I can work up to the girly man kettlebell. lol. In addition, I plan to do jumprope and taebo.

Magic Pixie Dust

Apparently, I did not have the magic pixie dust to remove the retaining screw. The wife's cousin, mechanic by trade, blasted away on the impact screwdriver with heavy hammer for a few minutes to turn each screw. Brake job done in record time for all four corners. Pro tools make a difference. Good stuff. Brake fluid change in the near future.

The Brake Job Too Far

A month ago, I was switching out the snow tires for the grippy stuff. The front rotors looked a bit used. Not to mention, the front pads were nearly worn to the backing plates. So, I started the process of lining my ducks into a row. Checked dealer pricing for oem parts and labor. $1200 for all four corners. Yowser! And for just the fronts? $600 plus. Fronts at a 'starts with M' place? $500 and change. The answer was clear. DIY. The best street pads? Carbotech Bobcats (Thanks, Dustin). Best bang for buck rotors? Cryo-Stop. Parts for all four corners was less than having a shop do the fronts alone. Fast forward to now...

Yikes! Got the Mini in the air on four jack stands. Wheels off. Front calipers off. And could not remove the retaining screws holding the rotors on!!! Breaker bar and impact wrench were useless. And to add insult to injury, I shredded a double strength bolt in an attempt to torque to spec! $@$%&^% Of course, this bolt was one of two to hold the caliper carrier to the spindle. What a waste of a fine day. And I had a friend and my brother over to lend a hand. Ouch! And no drivable Mini. Double ouch!

Spring is in the air filter

Spring is in the air filter
Originally uploaded by heyduard

Changed the air filter in the Mini this past week. At least, I didn't catch any bugs, yet. Not shabby looking for being in since last October. I'll see how the new one looks in June. More things to have done on the Mini (we're at 80k miles now) now or in the future (especially at the 100k mark):

• Brakes: pads & rotors
• Brake fluid flush
  
• Have the supercharger rebuilt and reduction pulley installed
  
• Coolant flush (when the rebuilt supercharger is installed)
• New clutch (a stage 1) and a lighten flywheel
• Upgrade the fuel injectors
• New spark plugs
• Engine tune
• New front control arm bushings (urethane probably)
• Valve cover gasket
• Oil pan gasket
• Seafoam the engine
• New serpentine belt tensioner
• New wheels (two of the factory rims are bent! @#$%$@#@)

Those of some of the major things that need to done at some point. Sigh. Good thing the Mini is blast to drive. If this was a ho-hum, yawn of a car, "Next"!

Spring cleaning

Well, I am trying out Journler. Very interesting. GTD capable and a data organizer of sorts and, of course, a journal. In trying to organize myself, I've glanced at Eagle Filer, DevonThink, and Together as well. But I think Journler might be a good fit for my needs. I will also take a better look at Eagle Filer.

Yep, I use a Mac. After 15 years of Windows support, I thought it might be better to have computing as a means to an end. :) What really won me over was the interface and the underpinnings. Back in '03, the current paymasters decided to port their software to Mac OS X. I was responsible for QA and installer development. And when I purchased a Mac for personal use, iLife 4 had just come out. The ease of editing a home movie was mind blowing. The power was in the hands of the consumer.

Tweaked the olde blog a bit. Redid the blog roll. And added my delicous tags. I tend to read the intarweb a lot. doh! And to bump up the blog post count, I'll add stuff from my flickr account. :D

Year of the Ox

A new year is upon us. Let the festivities begin! With the new Gregorian calendar year, my resolutions are:

1. Get a job I enjoy doing (lots a luck with that!).
2. Go back to school.
3. Finally start weight training and exercising again!
4. Organize myself and my life (lol).

I'm keeping the list short so I can achieve at least one. Doh! Better if I can do them all, so I can do more HPDEs!!!

we have no bananas!

Two infrequent passengers still consider my Mini's ride to be very firm, despite having non-runflats and the Koni FSDs. I did not mention I had changed anything. The short wheelbase is probably the biggest contributing factor. Interestingly enough, another Mini owner had a chance to ride shotgun and commented how much the ride reminded him of the JCW suspension upgrade.

All in all, I still love ride of the Koni's and the camber plates.