M&I / GBMINI

The Wizard of Oz Museum

Posted on July 12, 2026July 13, 2026 by Ian C.

We took a drive to Cocoa Beach to visit the newly re-located Wizard of Oz Museum (we’d tried to visit a month ago but they were in the middle of relocating). It’s a somewhat pricey visit but there is so very much to see that I felt it was good value for money (we spent about 1-1/2 hours there).

For me the main focus was all the Frank L Baum and Wizard Of Oz artifacts; there were hundreds of older (and less old) books including many in the Wizard Of Oz world that I’d never heard of before:

There were many many non-book trinkets, collectibles, tie-in merchandise, and more; something fascinating for everyone surely!

Additional to all this memorabilia is a separate “immersive” experience, a huge room with many projection devices showing images on all walls and the floor. The immersive “Wizard Of Oz” part was a bit odd with strange not-quite-human animated figures and a curious selection of “locations” (the moving yellow brick road on the floor was effective). But I really enjoyed the more artistic / peaceful immersive Van Gogh part … each part lasts maybe 15 minutes and the room is on continuous repeat from one to the other and back:

[After] The Big Freeze revisited

Posted on July 6, 2026 by Ian C.

It’s been a while since The Big Freeze killed most of our garden plants back in January this year (while we were away); Margaret did a lot of trimming, digging up / discarding and replacing, and Florida has since done a lot of growing … much of our front and back garden now looks good (though many plants are not yet as big as they used to be). Here’s a look at how things are now (and a bonus pic of the potted plants on the back patio, which suffered less but are also recovering):

The return of M

Posted on July 4, 2026July 4, 2026 by Ian C.

In addition to celebrating 30 years in USA, our recent road trip was a way for me to bond with my X6 which I hadn’t really done since collecting it from Spartanburg more than a year ago.

On paper my 2025 X6 is amazing, with more engine than the 2018 X3M40i I replaced, and pretty well every available gadget / extra – and yet I found something to be missing when driving it. I assume it is the “M-ness”, whatever that is. The X6 engine has the same power but isn’t tuned to respond as keenly as the X3M; the steering is a bit gentler, overall it wasn’t as satisfying as I wanted.

So I found a 2025 X4M that was basically a cash swap, at Bert Smith BMW in St Petersburg and on Friday we drove over to test drive it. I expected it to be the same sort of experience as my old X3M but with more modern tech. And yes it had better steering but it was obviously a cheap version of tech compared to my X6; it also wasn’t the car for me.

Jokingly, I wondered if there was any X6M to test … and there was! I later got Gemini AI to compare my X6 and this X6M and the difference is incredible!

We test drove it … it had all the incredible technology that my X6 has, but with it a crazy responsive engine, excellent steering, a growly exhaust, basically all of what I had lost when I sold my X3M!

And so, I bought it …