Cars


Ups and Downs of the Week.

Red Sox – They won tonight, but lost every other night this week.

Carroll Shelby dies – Great driver and automotive designer. His Shelby Cobra still stands as one of the great classic roadsters.

Ups and Downs of the Week

Z4 – Got to do some top-down driving this week. Next week is supposed to have several days in the upper 70s, so more fun commutes should be in store

Z4

Ups and Downs of the Week

Jason Varitek  retires – One of the Red Sox greats, even if he doesn’t make it to Cooperstown. (I’m lazy and it applies.)

Z4 – Back out of storage and ready to run top down.

Z4

Ups and Downs of the Week

Formula One – Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi this weekend. Great racetrack.

Penn State Debacle – How many ways can you screw up? We’re not talking about a couple of players taking money or selling trinkets. This was (allegedly) child rape. And it took this many years for it to come to light despite the entire chain of command knowing about it?

Patriots – Don’t count on post-season play. If they lose to the Jets this weekend, it’s all over.

Sunsets – Another nice one tonight.

Trees at Sunset

X5 at Sunset

Last week and the beginning of this week we have seen some of the best weather ever. We’ve had beautiful clear skies and sunshine and perfect temps. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to grab some more shots of the fields.

Corn Corner

Blessings Indeed

Prairie Church

Top Down Weather

Sundog Road

Ups and Downs of the Week

Red Sox – They finally won, and against the Yankmees no less, but what a horrible start to the season. 1-6 does not make them look like contenders. The pitching has been abysmal (with the exception of the 1-0 loss where Lester was superb). John Farrell must be having a good laugh.

Warm Friday Afternoons – Talk about therapy. I had a rough week ending with a depressing day, yet this afternoon was warm and sunny and I drove the 55 miles home with the top down on my Z4 and the tunes cranking. I arrived home in a very good mood. Best therapy in the world.

Mac Minis – Very cool little devices. Hook one up to an HDTV via HDMI cable and and you have a very capable HD media center/computer console. Throw in an HD webcam and you have an excellent video-phone to use for video calls to friends and relatives. The downside is the $650 price tag which does not include HDMI cable, keyboard, mouse, or the RAM needed to make it truly useful. If Apple would get off their high horse and charge reasonable prices for their cool devices, maybe they’d gain wider acceptance.

Ups and Downs of the week.

Isringhausen BMW – Good to know there are still dealers who will stand behind their products.

Unreliable Contractors – Seems to be the norm for this area. The economy may be in the dumps elsewhere, but around here contractors blow off work so often they must have a ton of it coming in.

Patriots – Best record in the NFL. Randy who?

Spammers – Get a life already. Losers.

Gross Injustice – An Oakland, CA transit cop kneels on a prone suspect, draws his pistol, and shoots the kid in cold blood. The whole thing gets captured on video leaving no doubt as to what happened. And yet he gets a whopping two years, reduced by the time he’s spent behind bars already. Unbelievable.

Ups and Downs of the week.

New Shoes – Finally dumped the run-flats in favor of real tires on the Z4. What an amazing difference. It feels like a totally different car. Smoother, quieter, and it handles much better. Why BMW ever switched to using run-flats is beyond me. Worst tires ever made.

Texas Rangers – How do you blow a 5-0 8th inning lead and not be the Red Sox? They’ve really set themselves back now. It’ll be a miracle if they take this series.

More Photoshop fun – My Z4 doesn’t get to travel much, at least not in the real world. But it gets around in Photoshop.

Z4 at Home in the Cornfields

Z4 by Cadillac Lake, MI

'With a Blimp

Z4 in San Juan Capistrano

Z4 in Grotto Bay, Bermuda

Z4 in Chicago

Z4 in Florida

Z4 in Central Park

Z4 by Navy Pier, Chicago

Z4 in Germany

2005 X5

2005 X5

2005 X5

2005 X5

Ups and Downs of the week.

New Toys Week – Finally moved into the 21st century and got an HDTV. I’m amazed at the picture quality. Movies are very cool on the new TV. I’ve been watching Netflix through the Roku box. Still haven’t been able to watch a Sox game, though. Maybe tomorrow night.

DVPRemote – My Roku box remote has been acting up. It seems to freeze or go to sleep and is useless, so I downloaded an iPod Touch app called DVPRemote which mimics the Roku remote. It works very well indeed. I love good programming. Well done to the developer.

New (to me) X5 – My trusty ’03 X5 has hit 150k miles. I sense a disastrous mechanical failure in the near future, so I’ve traded it in on an ’05 X5. It has 100k fewer miles and few new bells and whistles. I pick it up tomorrow. Can’t wait.

'05 X5

Red Sox – I was hoping they’d go out with a bang with a 20th win for Lester and winning 90 games. Well Lester blew his chance and unless the Sox sweep the Yankmees this weekend, the 90 game season won’t happen either. Still, they’ve done well and I’ve enjoyed watching them this year.

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