Tag: MTTS_2012

Last time we were in Nebraska, so what happened between football & home?  A lot.  Lincoln to Boulder, Boulder to Albuquerque, Albuquerque to Phoenix, Phoenix to L.A., L.A. to Winslow, Winslow to Amarillo, Amarillo to you get the idea…  When I started this I thought it would be easy- easier said than done.  I thought I would take a couple of weeks hit the highlights and then resume with regular storytelling.  Reality & life got in the way.  I still have the stories to tell and wonderful characters to include somewhere.  I still have in my mind a long line of MINIs stretching out to the horizon with radio conversations about Cretins.  Time with Blue Leader, Red 5, Dee, Bob, Stella, Emily, Don, Lizzie, Dallas, Ellen, Todd, Jim… too many people (& MINIs) to name.  Old friends and new who made the time on the road wonderful.  All the people from MINIUSA & TPG who treated everyone like royalty (even a crazy guy with a stuffed monkey), I thank you.

I started off this journey joking about “What do you mean, your car company doesn’t do stuff like this?”  Where Jim McDowell feels lucky to have so many people loyal to the MINI brand, I think those loyalists feel so lucky to have a brand like MINI. A brand that takes time to acknowledge that you , as an owner, are their most important asset.   Is the car perfect? No car is perfect, but after 7 years with Penfold, I see Alfie around my garage for many years and many more MINI Takes the States, MINIs on the Dragon, Mickey & MINIs, MINI Uniteds.  Is a MINI for you?  Maybe not, I have found my joy in owning a car that, to me, makes getting from point A to point B fun, as they say “Your mileage may differ.”  So I finish out my rather pitiful MTTS coverage with a simple (long winded) thank you to everyone who made it the best, epic road trip ever. Here’s the sadly monkey free summary video, but it does help in understanding the MINI Community, even without Cecil. Then again you always check out Cecil’s Flickr pool of photos.

If you have been reading My Geek Odyssey simply for MTTS I invite you to stay and keep going for a while, I promise that once we get back into these simple strips they will keep to a schedule.  AND since when I look in my garage I have the choice of a MINI, MINI or Mini to drive, there will be a MINI of some variety in the strip on a fairly regular basis.

Driving from DesMoines to Lincoln was a great day of motoring including a stop at the Strategic Air Command Museum.  It was memorable for the roads and with stops at a ginormous cow, and the egg capital of the world.  Eggs… that reminds me of football, because in Nebraska football the players take care of the ball like they are carrying an egg.  They wouldn’t want to break it, and that is why the Nebraska football program is successful.  This of course reminds me of the talk we had after a wonderful dinner by the coach of the Nebraska football team who was not too clear on his audience, since he doesn’t own a MINI or even know what kind of car the university bought him.  Every thing was related to football & every question was answered in a way to bring the conversation back to football.  Those who were into Nebraska Football were transfixed by the brilliance of this talk.  We were not the first ones to quietly leave. Nebraska is a lovely state, but I think my feelings towards sports might make it low on the list of retirement locations-  unless they pay web cartoonists or elementary school teachers as well as they do football coaches. As for the tardiness or blatant lack of comics, I hope I finally have things in hand- only time will tell.
Every day on MINI Takes The States is an adventure.  But even the adventure ends up becoming a highlight reel.  So many things happen and you try to remember it all, and some days just blur by.  It’s Sunday so this must be Chicago.  Today the highlights are pretty simple to those who attended, for those who didn’t here we go- The wonderfully friendly LEO at Tabcat Creek Bridge pull off where everyone finished their run on the Dragon.  The guy in the lightning blue Coupe still owes me for having Cecil get his picture with said LEO which stopped them from being able to get a decent record of your speed. In Tennessee & Kentucky there were sporadic showers caused by a localized weather system known as “Jim.” After a day at Autobahn Country Club in Joliet the climax being a lap around the track (or two, or three) and some wonderful food including one of Cecil’s favorites- Giordano’s Pizza. This was also the portion of the trip we stopped by home to drop off some dirty laundry and things we had picked up along the way, you don’t need to see my dirty laundry. — I’m going to stop apologizing for late strips.  Not that I’m not sorry, but until I can figure out a schedule with my new job, things are going to end up a little random.  I decided that today I would post without color so I could get something out… It’d much rather get strips out on a regular basis for the short term than worry about color.
Cecil with some MINIs stopping for a “Surprise & Delight” at the Virginia War Memorial.
So we head out from Washington D.C. heading towards North Carolina… just remember “Keep Calm and follow the MINI in front” Yes, we did try to geocache along the way-  yes, this was the usual result… including ticks (ugh!)  It kind of felt like we were on “The Amazing Race” and realized that we took way too long on a roadblock.  It’s sad when you speed off thinking “I hope this isn’t an elimination leg.” After trying a few caches it was decided that we would hold off on caching unless it was a cache with a lot of favorite points (like the oldest cache in North Carolina), or a new new state.  The day ended in Charlotte, North Carolina with a wonderful party held at the NC Music Factory. — Cartoonist Note:  While I had a wonderful idea about doing these somewhat long form comics for MINI Takes The States I’m finding it is more and more difficult to get them done.  My new job, and other worthwhile excuses keep me from the drawing table.  So While I will continue I’m going to go with highlights and try to keep them coming at regular intervals.  They will be shorter and some may end up in the normal My Geek Odyssey format.  As for MTTS I really don’t want to play down some of the wonderful things that happened, but I may have to, in the immortal words of Monty Python “skip a bit.”
So we get everything ready and Cecil gets demanding.  The original plan was scrapped due to many changes the least of which was Penfold heading to the circus and finding a replacement…  The original plan was for this to be Penfold’s “Farewell Tour” and to keep driving him until the John Cooper Works GP2 arrives (sometime in 2013).  Due to those changes we went with Plan B which in the land of MINI was not horrible in fact I’m very happy with the end results.  Over the next couple weeks you’ll get to know Alfie, as we go close to 8,000 miles traveling across America.  Alfie is a 2012 MINI Cooper S Roadster in white silver.  He was the dealer demo so had just hit 1000 miles when we picked him up.  Lots of different features that I’m still figuring out & being spoiled by.
Alfie in Pennsylvania
  I always have great ideas for how I want to present a story.  In this case I thought I would create pages for each of the legs of MINI Takes the States…Then I realized that the way I broke up the story that wasn’t going to work…  So this week while getting ready for the start of school I i tried to figure out how I could best present what I had outlined using the time period I was considering.  I think I have it settled and I hope you will join us on this epic road trip.  Of course I’m still working on how to draw the new MINI, but I’m guessing after a few strips I’ll have figured out a style.
Two years ago I was asked to chronicle MINI Takes The States for MINIUSA.  I went on the road and drew, and scanned and uploaded.  It was some of my best work to that point and like 24 hour Comic Book day, it pushed me as an artist and a writer.  Each night I worked until the wee hours recapping something that happened or at least trying to tell a story in a “Sunday Comic” format. This year MINI Takes The States 2012 was held.  I was not asked to draw- which actually was a relief.  It allowed me to enjoy the trip and not worry about what idea I could come up with dealing with the day’s exploits.  It also allowed me to sleep.  We had a great time and if you will indulge me the next 6 strips will be kind of a “highlights reel” about the trip.  They will be larger than normal in order to capture everything that happened on a road trip from New Jersey to Los Angeles.  While I tend to say that this isn’t a bio-comic because my life isn’t that interesting  I hope you will enjoy the next couple of weeks, just don’t expect me to work in large format every day after this is done. The first strip I did in 2010 was the “Know before you go” information and while in the middle of a workshop, on deadline, they asked me if I could incorporate the Black Eyed Peas song into it, since that was the “theme song” for the trip.  We all sang that song in Denver… It’s still stuck in my head and a grin a little when I hear it remembering the great time it was.  Fortunately, there wasn’t a theme song this trip.