Sport, Off-Road, Touring

April’s End Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 26, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1988 Ferrari 328 GTS 1962 International Harvester Scout 80 2017 BMW M6 Coupe
I’ve got a couple of Hawaiian shirts in my closet, just call me Brian P.I. What sells this for me is the hand painted Mound Nurseries advertisement. BMW calls this color Sakhir Orange, I call it Outrageous (in a good way.)

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 2004 Honda S2000 Sold for $18,900
Off-Road: 1972 Ford Bronco Sold for $41,000
Touring: 1953 Chevy Panel Truck Sold for $41,000

79,000 Drops of Something or Other

A couple of weeks ago when I pulled the snow tires off the Mini the inside of the front wheel on the passenger side was all coated in a icky gunk. Back when I had put the snows on, I put the Mini wheels on the Miata and I certainly didn’t see anything like that on any of the wheels. This leak issue has to have come about in the last 3-1/2 months.

My first thought was an oil leak. When I looked at what I could see of the engine and suspension bits they appeared coated in the same grimy stuff as the inside of the wheel. Now I can do some minor car repair stuff on the Miata, but the front wheel drive Mini is a nightmare for the novice me. The engine, all its related subsystems, and transaxles are stuffed into an area the size of a Navy seabag, meaning you would probably have to remove the entire front body works to do any repairs. I decided to call for professional help.

The local place we have used before is very busy, so we had to wait until yesterday to get the car in to have it looked at. We dropped it off after breakfast. Donna drove the Mini and followed me in the Miata so we could leave it with them for as long as needed. The folks at the repair shop didn’t call us back yesterday, but we know it is a popular place and figured they just hadn’t got to it yet.

They did call back this morning and apologized twice. Once for not getting back to us sooner and second for not wanting to fix the problem. From their troubleshooting they determined it wasn’t oil leaking, but coolant coming from around the the water pump. The one guy who was the real Mini expert no longer worked there and the other mechanics there were as excited about tackling the job as I was. They recommended a place over in Medford that was better equipped for Mini work, John’s Auto Care Center.

I called and made an appointment to drop off the Mini next Wednesday. Medford is 75 miles away, so we won’t be doing the follow the leader thing over, we’ll drive the Mini, drop it off, pick up a rental car to have for a couple days. We used to drive 50 miles one way to get the Miata worked on back in South Carolina, so this is not too big a deal, plus this will give us a couple of chances to eat in some chain restaurants that we miss and don’t have here in Klamath Falls.

So the 79,000 drops of what I thought was oil was actually a mixture of coolant, brake dust and road dust from the traction stuff they put on the roads around here in the winter. On the way back home yesterday we stopped and filled up the Miata with gas and when I went to reset the trip odometer I noticed that the main odometer read 79,001.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

City Connect Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 19, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
2004 Honda S2000 1972 Ford Bronco 1953 Chevy Panel Truck
I guess I’ll have to add some blue/black stripes to this silver car too. Big V-8 power and big off-road tires, look out forest service roads. I almost chose a 1950 Chevy Suburban, but this one is here in Oregon

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1993 Toyota Supra Sold for $57,000
Off-Road: 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser Sold for $26,000
Touring: 1984 Toyota Century Sold for $11,500

Discovery+

We each have our own set of favorite channels on the the TV and they fall pretty much along the stereotypical gender lines. I could live with just a few, Motortrend, MAVTV, NBCSports1 and WE tv2. Donna needs literally just two, HGTV and the Food Network.

We both could do with out all the commercial interruptions while watching TV. I can tune mostly tune them, especially if I hit mute, but Donna really despises them. You would have thought we would have jumped on the Discovery+ streaming service when it first became available, but we held out. We are already spending a fair amount on cable TV and while the base rate of $5 a month isn’t much, it seemed a bridge too far. But when we discovered3 that they offered an ad-free version for just 2 bucks more we decided to give that 7 day free trail a go.

So far, two days in, the jury is still out. Very little of the Discovery+ originals have been worth anything extra, so whether we stick around after this coming Sunday is going to come down how long we can be entertained by watching the older shows from Donna’s favorite two channels.

I thought it might be fun to watch one of her favorite shows from the beginning and watch them in order, sort of like the Law & Order marathons on WE tv. Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives has 419 episodes, roughly the same amount as Law & Order’s 456, but if we did that what would we watch on Fridays because Food runs them all day long.

Today we went back and watched the first episode of Love It or List It from HGTV, their mere 154 episodes seemed less daunting. We are used to seeing the later episodes and were surprised how different everything was. The real big difference was instead of the two stars do the setup dialog, there was an announcer doing it, that sounded like the same voice that does House Hunters. Both leads had aged pretty well in the 8 years the show ran and looked only slightly different. When I asked out loud, “Aren’t they married?”4 Donna said no, but went to look it up on the internet. We discovered that they were not ever married to each other, but we did discover5 that the woman, Hillary Farr, was actually an actress back in the 70s & 80s. She even had a small part in that cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Right-Hand Drive Toyota Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 12, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1993 Toyota Supra 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser 1984 Toyota Century
We’ll be fast and furiously driving all around Oregon in this silver bullet. Rough and ready for any off-road adventure we can find or dare. Donna will be driving while wearing white gloves and I’ll ride in the back.

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1971 BMW 2002 5-Speed Sold for $50,000
Off-Road: 1986 Jeep J-10 Pickup 4×4 Sold for $21,500
Touring: 2008 Mercedes-Benz CLK63 AMG Black Series Sold for $125,000

Sport, Off-Road, Touring

Here is what last week’s cars sold for, or bid to, if the reserve was not met.
Sports: 1959 Alfa Romeo Giulietta Spider Sold for $74,000
Off-Road: 1988 Mercedes-Benz 240GD Sold for $37,600
Touring: 1965 Ford Falcon Country Squire Wagon Sold for $11,200

It’s Baseball Season Edition of SORT
As of Monday, April 5, 2021 at 9:00 PM pacific time:

Sport Off-Road Touring
1971 BMW
2002 5-Speed		 1986 Jeep
J-10 Pickup 4×4		 2008 Mercedes-Benz
CLK63 AMG Black Series
This is almost too nice looking to hoon, but it wouldn’t stop me. It is a 4×4 & a pickup which checks 2 big boxes on our automobile wish list. A land-based rocket ship for when you have to be there NOW!.

Hope Springs Eternal

⚾ 2018 seems so long ago.

For 2019 I just listened to the Red Sox play baseball and was glad I hadn’t coughed up the hundred bucks or so for the video because they were just a mid-level team finishing mid-division and out of the playoffs. For 2020 I bought the radio package again expecting more of the same. COVID put a damper on the season, limiting the season to a mere 60 games, but the FRS did not disappoint me and lost 60% of those games, finishing last in the division.6

With our move to the west coast I though listening to the games in the afternoon would be more fun that late evening, but I was wrong, I probably listened to maybe a quarter of those 60 games. Just wasn’t the same. So this year I thought maybe I’d try watching the games. I’d have two options, watch them live at 4:00pm or watch the replay of the game at 8:00. I cancelled the audio package and signed up for the TV package.

Because it is April and still chilly in Beantown the first 3 games of the season, at home against Baltimore, were 1:00pm games meaning that they stated at 10:00am here. Morning baseball, mmm, weird, but okay in a way. But not fun as the Sox lost all three games, including an 11-3 shellacking in the finale that was over by the 3rd inning. There are like 3 players left on the the team that I remember from 2018 and now I’m sort of regretting paying that much money to watch a team that looks destined to finish dead last in the division again.

Fortunately I signed up for the free 7 day trial to start, so as of yet they haven’t hit the charge card. The Tampa Bay Rays come to town for the next three games and if they don’t win at least 2 of those, I’m going to just cancel and not be out the money.