So, every once in a while I login and check to see if there are pending comments that need to be moderated before becoming active and after nearly 6 months I have yet to have any comments on this silly blog other than link requests and porn spam, junk spam and other bogus garbage. Does anyone read this that is actually interested in MINI’s and OutMotoring.com? If maybe you could post a reply and I can see an actual real post and make it active!!!! Not that it will change my life or anything, but it would be nice to know that I am not ‘typing in the dark’.

For all you Facebookers out there feel free to add your MINI Cooper Club or personal Facebook account to our’s and keep the web love going. Check out the new OutMotoring.com Facebook account here.

So, I decided to clean out the third bay in the Garage as it had become filled with random objects of life and I finally had enough room to get my MINI back in after a 2 month period of sitting outside all by herself. The day I was ready to pull it in we got hit with a small snowstorm, 10 degree weather and all that fun stuff. No biggie. A day or so later we got about 3/4″ of ICE that hit and made a ICE cocoon out of my beloved yellow MINI. Then we got about 5 inches of snow on top of that. I just can’t win. Luckily today, nearly 10 days later we got a warm day that melted all the ice so I can finally get my car back in shelter. Silly story, not much to it but bad timing, lots of ice and nasty weather. Why do I live in Ohio?

IT’s been a pretty crazy Holiday season and the dust is just starting the settle around here…along with the snow and ice and cold air (which is NOT welcome by the way). The year in sales ended in about a  40% increase over last year and in this economy that is frankly shocking. Absolutely shocking.

But, whats new? Well MINI just released the new Convertible at the Detroit Auto Show and it looks pretty much like it should. No surprises. The cool news is that the USA is now the largest market for MINI sales which is pretty cool considering the facts.

http://www.motoringfile.com/2009/01/12/mini-press-conference-official-release/

Lets see, I need to do my taxes and such so Jan will most likely be a bit quiet as far as adding new products although I did squeak in a few brake kits from Stoptech:

And I think I will be adding more of the Clubman accessories like the rear Union Jack boot edge protector and a few other little things….stay tuned.

Most of my MINI Cooper pics are up on the Picasa Google image database if anyone is interested:

For the last few years we have had a Rear Projection Sony TV that was nice but a bit dull and a bit clunky. So I sold it on Craigslist in a few days to make room for a Pioneer 60″ Plasma that completely knocked my socks off. I had seen in the last two years at the CEDIA show (trade show for custom home automation and home theater) and finally broke down and got one. It completely rocks. The blacks and the detail in the shadows are amazing. Skin tones are perfect and the bezel design is so clean and cool. I also happen to be a partner in another venture that does Home Theater and Home Audio equipment with a friend of mine so getting wholesale pricing on all of this fun stuff makes buying it a bit easier which is VERY nice.  So the TV is new and I sold my Sunfire CRM ribbon speakers and got some Martin Logan Fresco i’s across the front, a new NAD T755 AV Receiver, and to top it off sold my Sunfire True EQ 2700 watt dual 10″ sub and now have 2 Martin Logan Depthi subs. Each sub has 3 - 8″ subs that completely shake the whole house…..and yes there are two of them which makes 6 - 8″ speakers. Movies will never be the same.  When my 9 year son plays Lego Star Wars on the Wii it sounds Darth Vader is actually landing in my living room. Does anyone out there care about this stuff? If so, drop me an email so I know that I am not wasting valuable HTML space.

Okay for the last 3 years of having a ‘real’ phone number for the company I have also had a healthy phone bill that I prefer to ignore most months and I usually just close my eyes and send the check. It gets expensive. About a year ago I bought two VOIP phones with plans to hook them up and never got around to until about a month ago. What is cool about them is you can hook them up to any ethernet cable on your network (or any network, anywhere) and direct calls to that phone regardless of where it is. And it costs much less than normal phones as a result of using bandwidth I am pretty much already paying for via our internet service. So anyways, I went through 3 companies trying to get the features and service that I needed and settled on Vocalocity after trying Packet 8 and ViaTalk. Packet8 requires that you use their phones but their interface for setting up the phones and the menus is great. I had already spend 600 on new phones that ended up not working.  They said they would work when I signed up. Wrong. Canceled service after 1 week.

ViaTalk was a mess as they never quite allowed me to set up the phones the way I needed them to operate. I needed a menu driven system that would allow extensions to be selected and to have access to a digital voice mail, etc. 2 weeks later I canceled that service as well.

Vocalocity is working out great so far aside from some glitches with existing routers and modems which were supplied by AT&T which I was able to finally resolve. So we have a new number and a fancy menu system that routes calls as selected. It is totally cool. We have a new number too! 614-656-4315. Don’t be scared of the menu system. I am still answering all of the calls and replying to all of the messages and all that fun stuff. I just wanted to be ready to handle the call volume as we grow into needing additional lines, more people and all that ‘big business’ stuff. For real though, the phone system makes Out Motoring sound much bigger than it is. It is pretty much like Alice in Wonderland behind the wall.

VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocal. It is the same technology that Vonage uses but in business applications the equipment is a bit more robust and allows for more flexibility to create phone networks that are much more modern and easy to manage than most business phone systems for small business.

I am sure the Out Motoring warehouse may seem very odd to the outsider. You see, we are in a business complex with a tutoring company on one side and a Insurance company on the other along with a commercial heating and cooling place in the mix. For the most part they all keep their doors shut all day long. If it’s remotely close to 70 degrees I would much rather turn the air off and open the rear bay door and the front door and enjoy the breeze. Most days I get a few bees and a few flies which is irritating but manageable; I guess I just like to feel like I’m not locked up. Maybe I should have been a farmer,  a landscaper or something. Although I hate mud and I am not really into overalls and animals. I guess selling MINI Cooper parts is a good compromise; as long as I can leave the doors open sometime….

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Okay, when March ended I thought I had seen the high point for the year but then April and May had a little surprise in store. A fairly nice surprise. And then came June which was nearly 2- 1/2 times sales from last June. It could not get any better….it must have been a fluke. Maybe everyone did their taxes late and finally got their returns in June? Then July came and went. Again leaving me speachless and worn out. Double last years July. It must have been a fluke. August. Same deal. I think things are really catching up and even though the economy is trashed people still love their MINI’s more than ever and I think more and more people are ditching their gas guzzlers and getting MINI’s. The other thing that is happening is the the tens of thousands of used MINI’s are coming on to the market at reasonable prices and are attracting new buyers who either want to upgrade the car or have to replace a few things here and there. As a result Out Motoring is getting bigger every month. I will keep running the business as long there are still orders to ship and questions to answer….

It’s a very simple concept yet is so often overlooked. Using one of these tire pressure gauges will help with fuel mileage AND increase tire life. It’s simple. Get one.

or these two cool daddys: