I did a bunch of regular & preventive maintenance on the Mini this past weekend. I had taken Thursday off for the *********, and I also took Friday off, so that I wouldn’t have to drive to & from Fresno and be stuck in my car for 6 hours. So I had two days to knock out 5 things on my to-list:

-replace leaking hydraulic upper motor mount
-replaced fuel filter
-replaced spark plugs
-replaced fog light bulbs
-added additional heat-reflecting material to stock header heat shield, to reduce engine compartment temps

Everything was more or less straight forward, expect for the the fuel filter. The instructions sounded easy, but I was literally working inside my gas tank. And I had to suction out some gasoline, so naturally I just put it in a cup, a normal plastic red party cup. It was maybe 3/4's full and I had set it down for maybe 20 minutes on my garage floor, and when I came back to it, I found it like this:

Mental note taken. I don't even think Everclear does that. But I can't say for sure cause I've never had Everclear in any container long enough to see.

I’m really grateful for the mini forums. They post detailed tutorials (with pics) on how to do various maintenance on the Mini. Without them, I’d be completely lost and would probably have to go to a shop and have all this miscellaneous work done there. So I’m saving a bunch on labor by doing stuff myself.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the doctor for the 1st time in a while. I went primarily for my bad allergies, but I also mentioned the time I woke up in the morning and it felt like I had twisted my right ankle. The doc said it might be gout, so they ran some labs. And they confirmed it. Oh, and gout is hereditary. Thanks, dad.

It's not at full blown status yet, not like how when my dad or Vince gets it, they can barely walk. So far, I've had it easy. But just yesterday, I started feeling the effects. On Saturday night, I had maybe 4-5 beers, then Sunday afternoon, I had one pint at the Stadium Pub while watching the Giants game. Maybe 30 minutes after, we leave and walk around the area, and while we're walking, I feel slight pain in both my ankles. I didn't twist them or bang them into anything, so I'm assuming it's gout, because apparently beer is not good for gout. Good thing I'm not that big of a beer guy to begin with. I mean, I like beer, but I'd rather do the hard stuff (shots) or mixed drinks.

So now I have to actually start monitoring this, like watching how much beer I'm drinking, along with my red meat intake. And I also have to watch out for crab, lobster, clams, oysters, and shrimp. I call BS.

I woke up this morning with terrible stomach pains. Not cool. Last night, all I had to eat was a Costco chicken bake (frozen, that I heated up), 6 ritz crackers with a wedge of Laughing Cow creamy swiss (not expired, I checked), one pan de sal with some I Can't Believe It's Not Butter (new package, so I'm assuming it was good) and one can of Diet Pepsi. The ritz crackers looked fine (I don't think they expire, do they?) and the pan de sal didn't appear to have any mold or anything. I highly doubt it was the Diet Pepsi, so I have to assume it was the chicken bake, which I'm placing on my "list". As I was eating it, I wondered if I had cooked it long enough, but I think they're already fully cooked before being frozen. But I guess they still need to be heated up properly before eating.

So now I'm just eating jello & pudding and drinking 7-up and gatorade. The immodium seems to be working. I also had a 101 F fever, but I took some Tylonol and it's gradually going down. Normally, I'd just call in sick, cause I'm legitimately sick, but since I just took the last 2 days off because of my car, I don't want to. My co-workers would give me so much sh!t. I guess it depends on how I feel when I wake up tomorrow. Right now, I'm feeling a whole lot better than I did 12 hours ago. So as long as I don't feel worse when I wake, I'm just gonna suck it up and go to work.