The Sunday Post #96
1 week ago, I spent 9 days driving a MINI Cooper from San Diego to Denver. All told, I racked up about 2,000 miles (no matter what I tell you there) from the time I picked it up to the time I got to Denver.
I spent 9 days in a MINI
I’m in the process of completing my worded wrap-up of MINI Takes the States 2010. It’s going to be a multipart series spread over a few days. Why? Quite a lot happened over the course of those 9 days and it is taking more words than I thought to tell the story. So far, I’m up to day 4 and I’ve written almost 1500 words.
Usually I would have done this during the event as we went along. Usually. This event was different from any other that I have ever done which threw me off a bit trying to find, for lack of a better term, my rhythm.
Normally, when the show covers a large MINI event, it’s a process. There are people. There is the team. There is even paper (and all y’all know how much I love that). There is a process. Todd does the interviews/audio, I do the photos and video, Gabe stands around and looks pretty. That’s not it exactly, but pretty much. It’s a good system that has served us for years. Everything gets covered, everything gets posted and the MINI community rejoices.
This time however, we were separated. The boys were coming from the East, I was coming from the West solo. I was a photo taking machine as you have seen. I even managed live video twice a day. Even got the photos uploaded to flickr. But honestly, I fell short.
After spending 9 hours in and around a MINI, with a few stops thrown in for photos or bathroom breaks and, as I was told, being ‘on’, I was usually too wiped out to write. At the end of the day, there was enough time to hook everything up to charge, get photos uploading and grab a bite or do the owner event. By the time all of that was done, I was back in bed to rest for the next 400+ mile drive tomorrow.
I’m not complaining at all here, and hope it’s not coming across that way. It was this trip that made me realize a few things.
- The MINI community is pretty awesome
- With White Roof Radio, I get to do some pretty cool shit, and people enjoy it
- I need to do more driving to places I’ve never been before
- I have a new found appreciation for the work that Todd and Gabe (and even Michael and Chad) do on the show
The drive and all of it’s associated events were epic. Dare I say life changing. I can’t even accurately put it into words, so you will just have to take my word on it.
All was not sunshine and unicorn feathers however. By the time I got to Denver I started getting sick. And I was tired. That combination is never good for me, and I got pissy. And I’m sure I pissed off quite a few people. If that was you, and I’m sure you know who you are, please allow me to apologize. I don’t have any excuses, it just happened.
Next time will be better.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have another 1500 words to write, proof, edit and add photos to. If you are a fan of my work with the MINI, keep an eye out for it starting, I hope, tomorrow.
w(t)f video hour
Let’s get this out of the way.
I’ve been busy over on the other side lately, so be sure you are following along over there. There is some very cool stuff coming in the next month and change that is MINI related and I’m pretty excited about all of it.
I’m also going to making some changes (again) to this site. No matter how hard I try, no matter how many resumes I send out, I just can’t seem to make anything happen. So it’s time to take off on my own and try to generate some income anyway possible. I need a website that reflects that.
What does that mean to you? I’m not sure yet. Of course it will be cool, but that might mean that I move my more ‘personal’ blog posts over w(t)f and keep this more technical, which I’ve already started.
Anyway, go to the MINI sites and see what’s happening. If you are in SoCal, stop by and say hi when I’m at MINI of Ontario or catch me at AMVIV with almost the entire WRR crew.
Words, not video
Busy busy busy. It’s a good thing business is slow right now because I’ve been pretty busy doing other things. Mainly, getting ready for…
MINI United
For those of you that might have missed it, I’m heading to England this week for MINI United and will be posting photos, video and audio at Motoringfile and White Roof Radio starting this coming Thursday.
Keep an eye everywhere for updates as they happen. A good place to follow along (if you don’t use that fancy RSS all the kids are talking about lately) is the White Roof Radio Twitter Machine. Anything that goes on WRR ends up there, so follow along!
MINI United – Tech
In my bag, besides my toothbrush, will be the following.
- The The Flip Ultra
- Panasonic DMC-TZ3 photo camera
- Canon Vixia HF 100 HD video Camera
- Blackberry Storm (radio off)
- EeePC
- Almost a dozen SD cards of varying sizes and classes
- Edirol R-09 audio recorder
- My toothbrush
I’ll be back next week. Josh is in charge while I’m gone. Try not to piss him off this time, ok?
iPod as an iPhone
There is a very good chance that I will be going to England over Memorial day weekend, for those of you that haven’t heard. MINI United 2009 is coming up and they have asked us to head on over and cover it for WRR and Motoringfile. Should be fun!
I have a couple of issues before heading over the pond however. One of them is communication. Verizon, while selling me this fine Blackberry World phone (even has a SIM card), wants to charge me an exorbitant amount of money to use that feature of my phone. I could go the Pre-paid SIM route, but getting the unlock codes for my phone is a serious pain in the ass (so I have read) and isn’t always successful.
Looking around a bit last night, and playing with teh lad’s iPod Touch, I had a lightbulb moment. No, a lightbulb didn’t actually appear, but you know what I mean. Look at the photo above and think on that for a minute.
Yes, it’s a microphone for the iPod Touch. Yes, it works with Skype on the iPod Touch. In fact, there is a whole bunch of them over at Touchmic.com. They work with current and previous generation iPTs.
Ok, it’s not an ATP, but it would work for me as long as I had WiFi, which I am pretty sure I will.
Has anyone used one of these mics, or any microphone, on the iPod Touch?
White Roof Radio #289
Quite a bit of chatter about my new camera, affair-proofing a MINI, Molly Wood, the weather in Kansas City, Todd sells 2 MINIs and Fireball Tim is selling his.
Then, on to news of the week from Motoringfile, including more making fun of the Clubman Spoiler.
Before we get into the content portion of the show, Robert in Toronto checks in. You can search for his AMVIV videos over at YouTube or check him out at his other podcast at MobileMovie.ca. It’s great fun!
Gabe checks in via satellite phone from an undisclosed location and he talks a little about the 135i he drove last week then Todd and Gabe spend pretty much the rest of the show waxing poetic about all things JCW and then on to talking about cars built in America. No, really.
