I previously discussed my hunt for a convertible, here and here. I've never owned one, and this is the right time to give it a go. The new car fund is sufficiently healthy after driving the Scion for 9 years.
My second candidate had a thorough looking over from a German auto restorer. It received a much better report than the first. Of course it wasn't clean, but lacked scary words like "leak" and "cracked" unlike the first car. It definitely needs tires and an alignment though.
So.....
After squeezing a little money out of the dealer, I am now the proud owner of a 2015 428i xDrive convertible.

Forgive the appearance, it was a 130 mile drive home

First order of business is going to be replacing those heavily worn Pirellis.

This was the worst one, with a different date code than the rest. Used replacement?

Time for some new Continentals! And an alignment.

More details and impressions to come. Pictures too, if it ever stops raining.

Oh shit, nevermind!
FCC proposes $300M fine for 2 robocallers. 6 billion calls to hundreds of millions of numbers. Sounds like a good start!

Just rolled 50k miles. If I broke the miles down by season, I've probably done 30k of those in the Winter. It has not lead a typical FR-S life

And yes, it's snowing today. Fortunately, unlike with Jawzx2 on the other side of the state, it's not sticking here.

My Zero came from the factory with unpainted black plastic for body work. After nearly 5 years of sun fading, I decoded to try a little color on them.
I took off the 4 main panels and in an act of non-commitment, I plasti-dipped them Daytona Yellow. Because of the unfinished black plastic, they needed a couple layers of white first.

Then a whole lot of yellow. This is my first pass at plasti-dip, and I definitely did a mediocre job. But that's fine, it was just to try, and I'll probably peel it before the end of the season. Getting the right 'weight' applied on each pass takes a little practice.

But, it's together, and ready for tomorrow's first 50 degree day of the year. I'll get the badges back on and wait patiently for a couple soft bags coming by week's end. Unfortunately, we'll be right back to 20s and 30s by Saturday.

As previously posted, I picked up a '15 428i convertible in desperate need of new tires. Out are the well worn pirelli all season run flats. In are some continental sport contacts. Dedicated summer tires without the run flat ride.

On new wheels!
The stock 18" wheels have a bit of wear and rash on them, so they're shifted to winter duty. The new shoes are on a set of 19" BBS SX with anthracite paint.
The immediate difference in road noise between 30 and 40mph was surprising. I'm dtilling waiting on an alignment, hopefully it helps even more.

@limitedtimeonly The real answer to this issue, and many others, is that the NHTSA needs to adopt a forward visibility requirement. Assuming an x height individual (5'8" or whatever) the max allowable distance to the driver's sightline to the ground is y feet.
It will fix the criminally dangerous super duty hoods and dangerous modifications such as this. Hell, it might even improve the Camaro gun slits. It could even be adopted for commercial vehicles to limit the number of times a tractor trailer rams a compact car straight through an intersection when they lose focus and forget there was a car in front of them (happened to a friend in a Boxer).

@e90m3 This is 2023, it will probably sink on a transport ship in the middle of the Pacific

/congrats

Is this politics? I don't think so, it's maybe politics-adjacent.

No SR20, because I was driving, but I had an amusing DoTS yesterday. On the drive into work, I came up behind a red Chevy Aveo yesterday, probably 10 years old. It was clean, but still a crappy Aveo, complete with jacked up gas door that doesn't close. It had a Bernie 2020 bumper sticker. As I pass it, sure enough, it is Bernie at the wheel. Slow rolling in an Aveo, arm out the window because the A/C probably doesn't exist or doesn't work.

Aging socialist in a $2000 crapcan, seems authentic.

Pictures don't even do it justice. Super clean, included a third brake light, sounded good, looked better.
Mini pickup truck!

@Highlander Great joke, but engineers don't risk their own money.

It's the 1st weekend of Spring, so the local scoop shop has opened for the season. So of course, the family needs to get out there and get some ice cream!
It's 39 degrees. The snow banks are starting to receed. The driver through line is around the building and out to the street, the walk up line is out the door and into the driveway. Does everywhere else do this, or are we just dumb in VT?

@UpCreekwithShitPaddle Early bird gets the worm. Personally, I thought to buy a house directly in the path 10 years ahead of time.
Yup, always the plan......

@Turbineguy-Nom-de-Zoom For some real money may as well be Monoply money. Just numbers on paper.

@Mazda616 Happy St. Patrick's Day

@tae I've flown both. I would be concerned that JB would take the worst part of Spirit leadership, which is what makes Spirit so crappy. Nickel and diming to the 11th degree, including belligerent credit card application requests before during and after each flight.
JB is fine as it. If they do it just for the hardware and personnel it would be ok, but I don't necessarily trust them.

@SmugAardvark
Fuuuuuuuuck!
First off, modern medicine is amazing, they can achieve some really great results. Good luck going forward. My stepfather had/has serious bladder cancer, but they were able to chemo & surgery that sucker out, and left enough behind that his life is mostly normal, no bag etc.
I had to have a benign (but still trying to kill me) tumor removed 4 years ago. That sucker was only 5cm, 11.5 is a whopper. And to think it has a sidekick, too.
Good luck, here's to it just being a jawdropping story in a couple years.

@facw A friend went through unemployment in MA about a decade ago. My understanding is that it's going to get much worse before it gets better. Best of luck!

@facw This was residents' row for BU, so also a strong possibility that it's an international student that doesn't bat an eye st $70k a year for school.

@EssExTee LOL at a Mary K salesperson clearing that threshold. And I'm talking about the door sill, not the lipstick.

A pink Supra. Not something I'd expect to see outside Forza

Boston has a decent population of Taycans, too.