You gotta love seeing stuff like this when leaving work.
{ Sent from my iPhone }
He heads off to his 6th grade camp in the mountains tomorrow. Sure is going to be weird without him in the house for so many days but I’m sure he will come home with lots of great memories.
I'm gonna miss him.
{ Sent from my iPhone }
Finally got the CF side gills installed. I was really afraid I was going to break some of the pieces, but heating up the plastic helped quite a bit. There were a couple of areas that bent out of shape and kind of stuck that way after the plastic cooled off, but bending is better than breaking so I’m ok with that. I might need to adjust the gill on the passenger side a little though since I realized after the fact that the light unit didn’t snap all the way in like it’s supposed to.
A few more photos are on my Flickr set.
It’s just the beginning, but here’s what the boy and I did so far this weekend:
- Carbon Fiber Kidneys
- Carbon Fiber Hood Roundel
- Carbon Fiber Trunk Roundel
- Carbon Fiber Steering Wheel Roundel
- Monochrome M3 Trunk Emblem
- Smoked Front Reflectors
I also have a set of Carbon Fiber Side Gills with Monochrome M3 Emblems but I’m having a little trouble getting them installed. One of the pieces on the unit that pulls out looks like it’s pretty easy to break so I’m going to do a little more research before I dive in. My fingers kind of hurt now anyways, from all the squeezing, pulling, pushing, etc. Might give it another attempt tomorrow, otherwise, maybe next week. I also plan on getting the windows tinted and tail lights smoked next week if I can get an appointment at Tint Plus.
I have a few more photos on my Flickr account, including a comparison of the OEM chrome and aftermarket CF kidneys.
I’m really glad the M3 came back with both plates in tact. Always wanted to keep them as souvenirs and now we get to. The boy wanted to put it in his room, so we mounted it on his bed. We also mounted the original M3 emblem from my car which we took off this morning and replaced with the monochrome one. And next to the license plate, we hung up a bunch of the keychains he bought while we were over there, including ones for Porche, Ferrari, Nürburgring, and of course, BMW.
His other souvenirs (cars, cars and more cars) are displayed on the other side of his room.
Last weekend I had to return the borrowed Accord since my Mother-In-Law was coming back from her San Jose trip this week. Because of that, we were back to having just 1 car for the family, and let me tell you, it was no picnic. Here’s some of my tribulations the past week:
Monday:
- I had to go to Cincinnati on a business trip so I needed to get to the airport.
- The flight was at 8am, so I had to leave the house by 6.
- Elsa couldn’t take me since she had to get the kids ready for and take them to school.
- $42 later, a cab dropped me off at the airport (this all after waking up at 5am).
- I flew pretty much all day since there are no direct flights from John Wayne to Cincinnati. Both flights were completely full, and I ended up in the middle seat both times.
- Arrived in Cincinnati, got to the hotel, started working since I hadn't had adequate internet access all day.
Tuesday:
- Not going to blame this whole trip on the lack of having a car, but just for establishing my state of mind, here’s some details.
- The west coast-to-east coast time change always makes it really difficult to sleep “on time.”
- I ended up working late the previous night and couldn’t sleep until 3am EST.
- I had to wake up at 6:30am EST since I was carpooling with one of my bosses who needed to start his day at 8am (my meetings started at 9), so I basically got about 3 hours of sleep.
- 6:30am EST was really 3:30am PST, so I had also been up for about 21 hours the previous day since I got up at 5am PST to catch that flight.
- Day goes by. I had my meetings. Internet access stunk all day. I take a cab to the airport to fly home.
- Another full day of flying, and I arrive at John Wayne around 10:45pm PST.
- I had no car, so $43 later, a cab dropped me off at home. It was 11:30pm and I had $85 less dollars in my wallet because of this lack of car ordeal.
- I had been awake for another 20-some-odd hours straight again.
Wednesday:
- As usual, when we have just 1 car, my wife has to take me to work.
- But first, we needed to take the kids to school.
- Which is not a big deal since my first meeting was at 9:00, so the dropoff should give us plenty of time.
- Incidentally, that meeting was originally scheduled for 9:30, so again, I had no reason to believe dropping the kids off first would be a problem.
- During the drive to school, I get an email stating my meeting had been moved up to 8:45.
- This isn’t just any meeting. It’s a meeting with just about everyone I report to and their bosses, and their bosses’ bosses.
- At this point, it would appear that I have JUST BARELY ENOUGH time to barely make it there by 8:50.
- I realize, I’m going to be late for a very big meeting where I have to present to two CEO’s and the senior management team.
- Well, turns out, the boy forgot his trumpet so after dropping the kids off, we had to go back home, get his trumpet, then drop it back off at school since music is the first class of the day, and I can’t let the boy sit there without an instrument.
- This made me even later.
- The meeting started without me. Thankfully, my staff was prepared to take over the first part of the presentation.
- I walked in late, like an idiot, and resume on slide 3.
- Not a good way to start the day.
- Of course, with no car, I also have to bum a ride home.
Thursday:
- Still no car. I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning so I walked.
- The appointment takes longer than I expected and when the nurse goes to draw blood, she can’t find my vein, so she ends up not doing it at all and tells me to make an appointment to get it done at another facility. No one has ever had problems finding my vein before.
- But, since it’s getting late and I have another meeting to get to...whatever...I walk home.
- Elsa couldn’t take me to work because we’re waiting on a guy to come fix the dishwasher.
- I can’t wait since I’m already running late for a meeting with...you guessed it, my boss.
- I took the family car, figuring I’d just drive home for lunch and my wife can drop me back off at the office.
- I walked in 15 minutes late to my meeting. It had already started. I felt like an idiot.
- The meeting went over by an HOUR so now, my lunch hour was shot.
- I had another conference call scheduled at 1pm, but I needed to get the car back home so my wife could pick up the kids from school later.
- I cancelled my 1:00. Called Elsa to heat up a coupla slices of pizza since I knew that once I got home, we’d have to turn right back around in order for me to make it back in time for my 1:30 meeting.
- I ate in the car, then was 10 minutes late for my 1:30 meeting.
- The 1:30 meeting also went a tad long (partially because I was late), so I was 5 minutes late for my 2:00 conference call, which just happened to be with another high ranking official in the company.
- I felt like an idiot again. In 2 days I managed to make myself late in front of pretty much everyone ahead of me in the chain of command.
- Call wrapped up, but now, since I had been gone or in meetings all morning, a bunch of my staff was waiting to get to me for one thing or another.
- It was a hectic rest of the day.
- I had no car, so I needed to bum another ride home.
Friday:
- Got a call from my dealer that the M3 was delivered to the dealership that morning!
- Three days earlier than promised but there was one issue...the right front wheel had a gouge in it.
- Fortunately, all of my paperwork validated the fact that it was not damaged when I dropped off the car so the dealer is going to fix it.
- Car is now in hand. All my car troubles are over...hopefully?
So glad it came before the weekend, and, I’m stoked that both euro plates are still on the car. I now have the souvenirs I wanted.
Can’t wait to start the basic cosmetic mods with the boy tomorrow.
{ Sent from my iPhone }
I thought for the longest time that the tracking on the BMW USA website was off since it had been showing “en route” even after the car arrived in port on 9/27, but apparently it’s fairly accurate...at least it is with my car.
When I called my dealer for an update on monday (10/6), they informed me that the car arrived at the Vehicle Preparation Center on 10/5 and is scheduled to be at the dealership on 10/12. This means it was in customs from 9/27-10/5, so the status not being “at preparation center” was correct. Well, the pic above confirms this, so now I’m finally allowing myself to actually believe I will get the car in my hands early next week.
Here’s an update on the known dates so far:
- 8/10: Drop-off in Frankfurt, Germany
- 9/4: Depart Bremerhaven, Germany
- 9/27: Arrive in Port Heueneme, California
- 10/5: Arrive at Vehicle Preparation Center in Oxnard
- 10/12: Scheduled arrival at Sterling BMW in Newport Beach
Another user on the Bimmerfest forum who also had his car on Polaris Leader has already gotten his vehicle redelivered. He did say, however, that his dealer pulled some strings to get it earlier. Not sure exactly what that meant they did, but wish mine could have done that.
It was a pretty nice view from up over the clouds on my way from Cincinnati to Dallas. There were hints of lightning during daylight but once it got dark it was very apparent we were near a storm.
Pretty cool to see the sky light up like that, but it caused a bit of a delay so I barely had enough time to scarf down a sandwich for dinner before I had to board my flight home.One more leg...