Dirty Car Whoring, or Dirty Whore Car-ing.

Now that all the road trip stuff is out of the way, I want to say two things:
1. Happy New Year. My resolution is to speak mediocre French in two years.
2. I am absolutely fascinated with my dirty car. Here is some dirty car whoring.

Now, most of this stuff is road salt and sand that is spread on roads to increase traction (especially prevalent north of Montreal and in New Hampshire.) However, this stuff is pretty horrendous for your car, and, barring some unnatural fascination with dirt, should be cleaned from your car immediately. I am stupid, so I don't.

Cop Magnet

I think I look pretty innocent.

Goddamn My Car Is Dirty

It just so happens that the next morning, I found the missing cable in my motorcycle jacket.

I didn't realize how dirty this car is until I took these pictures at night. But anyway, shown in red are the Cravenspeed Strut Tower Defenders (STD). Whether they will function as advertised is pending a suspension once-over and a force diagram. So, what is it that they are supposed to do? Well, repeated high-g loading (read: potholes) deforms the strut towers (3rd pic) and this results in sloppy suspension feel. If it gets bad enough, the mounts can break. I was charged $400 once to fix it; if some stupid pieces of aluminum can prevent that, I'm all for it. I figure I'm going to be driving on a lot of pot-holed and frost-heaved Upstate NY and Vermont roads this winter, so now is a good time to do it.

Slow Posted Rork

Did that make you hungry? What I meant to say was, 'slow posting', because I lost the USB cable for my camera phone. Therefore, no pics and no posts.

Girlfriend and I had an awesome Thanksgiving dinner w/ my family and I was probably full for two days. I'd been looking forward to this dinner for a few months because of the great food, fun with the family, and that it's usually the official start of the snowboarding season. Well, that last one didn't quite come to pass just yet.

I'm also putting myself out on the slippery slope of car mods. First, it's a few cheap bolt-ons. Before you know it, you've dropped $5k on an engine & transmission swap. To put it another way, it's like taking ibuprofen for pain, and before you know it, you're the neighborhood connect for meth. But anyway, pics forthcoming.

Winter Road Trip

The girlfriend and I have been throwing around the idea of doing a snowboarding road trip at the end of the year, between Christmas and New Year. We both have the week off, so we can go a bit further than we usually do. Here are two possibilities.

Ski Areas: Mount Snow, VT; Stowe, VT; Smuggler's Notch, VT; Mont Tremblant, Québec, Canada; Whiteface, NY; Hunter Mountain, NY
Approximate Miles: 1,097 mi between destinations

Ski Areas: Mount Snow, VT; Stowe, VT; Smuggler's Notch, VT; Loon, NH; Bretton Woods, NH; Sunday River, ME
Approximate Miles: 929 mi between destinations

But before you start hearing about this, I'll probably have to prep the ol' Mini Cooper for the winter, since it seems unlikely that I will have it sold before the end of November, in favor of an '02 or '03 WRX. The car is probably going to get a wax, driving light guards, snow tires on steelies, Thule roof rack, and maybe a rubber mat for the boot. Oh, and lots of CDs to be burned.

Awaiting Winter Prep.

Of course, Greg had to show me THIS.

Ski Areas: Meadows @ Mount Hood, OR; White Pass, WA; Crystal Mountain, WA; Summit @ Snoqualmie, WA; Steven's Pass, WA; Mount Báker, WA; Whistler-Blackcomb, British Columbia, Canada

Approximate Miles: 974 miles between destinations (and Seattle is in the middle of it all)

If there was ever a question about why I wanted to move to Seattle, the above should be fairly elucidating. Factoring in the plentitude of coffee and the liberal atmosphere, Seattle becomes an obvious choice.

Craigslist Scammers

I've been trying to sell my car and so far, I have probably received one legit inquiry after a month of posting on craigslist.org. Here is an example:

Dear Sir/Ma,
My name is Freeman White. I am highly interested in the 2005 Mini Cooper, British Racing Green, Aero, Auto, Etc
Kindly let me know the selling price (negotiable) and more details about the 2005 Mini Cooper, British Racing Green, Aero, Auto, Etc as I'm waiting to read from you on the note of establishing a profound and long term business arrangement.
Sincerely Yours
Freeman White
Santex Equipments Industry
Tel: 011-44-70319-47790
Fax: 011-44-70928-94663

Excited about the prospect of a profound and long-term business arrangement, I responded with the following:

Mr. Freeman White,
For you, I offer the special price of 6.3 Million USD ($6,300,000). You may wire the amount via Moneygram or Western Union to an account I will provide upon your confirmation.
Thank you.

Mr. Freeman White then responded favorably to my offer:

Hello Jack,

Thanks for your mail and i really appreciate that.

Well i want you to give me the sweetable price and the final price so that i can make arrangement for the payment.

Note: I will be wanted to pay atlease 20% as an upfront and i would like to make the payment through a bank to bank transfer and please do not hesitate to notify me as soon as you get the fund into your account so that i can instruct my engineer to come down for inspection and also to make the rest balance of the payment.

Sincerely Yours
Freeman White
Santex Equipments Industry
Tel: 011-44-70319-47790
Fax: 011-44-70928-94663

I'm so glad that I've found such an enthusiastic and agreeable buyer!

Mr. White,
6.3 Million USD for a rare, collectible vehicle with low miles is as sweetable a deal as you will find, I can assure you. As 6.3 million USD is a fairly small amount, I will require a larger deposit of 50%. My account is ready to receive your funds, so please put me in contact with your engineer.
Thank you.

I'll spare the details, but I will note that I have not become 3.15 million USD richer since this happened. For some reason, he did not want to send me the money via Western Union (I thought that was how these things worked) and his 'engineer' never showed up, either.