The Chronicles© - No Equal Since 2008 | www.stickydiljoe.com » Behind-The-Scenes

“Easy Like Sunday Morning…”

stickydiljoe — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 11:24:58 +0000

I’m pretty sure that only the older folks will get the reference to the post title for today… This past Sunday was one of those random ass mornings that turned out being something that was post-worthy here on The Chronicles. I guess it’s just one of the cool things about working in the industry because you never know what’s going to happen on any given weekend. Starting from Friday night on, I had already had a pretty eventful weekend with May, DPK David, and his wife-to-be Jackie. We went practically everywhere, from our area to the valley to Santa Monica and then to Venice Beach, and then back home again. Everything was pretty spontaneous….we just got into the car and drove around, walked at some spots that David and Jackie had never been to before in all their years here in Southern California, and we ate at the popular food truck spots. We had eaten some pretty delicious Korean BBQ/Mexican-fusion food from the Kogi Truck that Friday evening and while it was good, it didn’t really settle well in my stomach. The next day we went to some concert in Long Beach and then more Tacos were consumed at The Lime Truck. May and I were watching TV later that evening and then we both ended up just knocking out, which usually means that I fell asleep with my contacts on yet again. I woke up around 5:30am Sunday morning because I had to take a gigantic dump as well as to peel the dried-out contact lenses off my eyeballs. During my poo-session, I checked the Facebook app on my phone to see what everyone had been up to from 1-5am and I noticed that Alex “Sheepey” Soto had posted that he was on his way to downtown Los Angeles. Driving out to L.A. that early in the a.m. on a Sunday could only mean that he was on his way to a shoot. I hit him up to see what was going on and he was indeed on his way to meet up with Rodrez. I had finished writing the story for his S2000 a couple weeks back, and this particular Sunday was perfect for them to meet up and knock out the photos for the story. I sent a text message to Rodrez to see if he needed any help with anything and he sent me the address for the meet-up spot where they were shooting. I was already up at that point any way so I got dressed, hopped in the car, and headed out to meet them…

The photos below are just some “behind-the-scenes” material that I captured with May’s Canon S95 point and shoot camera. The photos look different from the norm because I was shooting in “Nostalgic Effect”, which is one of the featured settings that came on the S95. It cuts a majority of the color out and adds this grainy, washed-out look which is pretty cool. I wanted to mess around with the photos because I think the whole effect is pretty cool and also because I didn’t want to give away too much of how the actual shoot for the mag was going to look. This way I can show you guys how the shoot went down without giving away how everything was going to look. There isn’t much to the photos, if you don’t like the grain and all that stuff, oh well, it’s not something that I’m going to be using often so just deal with it… The shoot went well and I had lunch with Rodrez later that day and he mentioned that he was really happy with the shots. Anyways, enough talking…on with the pics…

Cliff Notes….I woke up to take a dump and ended up in downtown Los Angeles where Rodrez was shooting Sheepey’s S2000 for Honda Tuning magazine…that is all. Keep an eye out for this car in the winter issue of Honda Tuning…Time for bed, thanks for looking…

Rodrez snapping away while Sheepey laid out and relaxed…

Head-on shot without the hood…Sheepey and Tes assisting…

Shooting with the Sunday morning L.A. sunrise…

Detail shots…

Me, Sheepey, and Rodrez chatting for a moment after we wrapped-up the shoot…

Just another random Sunday in the life of StickyDilJoe…

Thanks for looking…

This is cool…

stickydiljoe — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 23:56:35 +0000

Hope all of you are enjoying the new layout of The Chronicles which now officially ushers in “Version 3″ of the site. I really wish I would have took a screenshot of the original layout back in 2008. Things were different back then…content was limited to basically just me rambling and photos were small because I didn’t even have a camera to use yet. Pics were probably around 600 pixels or so and the whole site just looked really crammed. When I changed to the Version 2 layout, pics started to get larger and content started flowing more rapidly. With this new layout, pics should be even larger now and jump from 800 pixels to around 950 or so. I haven’t really decided what the final sizing will be because I still want the site to run quickly so I’ll have to work out the small kinks to make sure it happens. One of the main reasons I switched to this new look is because there were a number of you who would complain occasionally about how the pics were getting cut in half and the background was a solid blue color. This was due to the site only loading the original template that I selected and it wasn’t loading up the rest of the CSS values that I had written for the site. Hopefully with this new layout, that is corrected because I have more of what I want from the get-go and no longer have to add large amounts of code to get the site to look the way I want. Now I’m taking more of a simplistic approach to it so the site is even less cluttered than before.

If you guys are looking for the blogroll now, it is now at the bottom of the page, along with the drop-down archives menu as well as a search bar so you guys can look up old stuff from before. Hope everyone enjoys it, so far I’m very happy with how everything looks. I really like the small menu bar up top which makes it much easier for you guys to get to the store and the about page and what not. It was off to the side before and with all the text that was on the sidebar, people were constantly wondering where the store link was because they just couldn’t see it. It’s almost much easier on the eyes now as well so I think I’ll be sticking with this look for awhile…

Anyways, enough about that. I figure you guys would want something to look at instead of just reading about the site itself. As you guys know, I’m a big fan of magazines and always have been. One of the magazines I like the most are the ones from Japan like Option, Option2, VIP Style, and VIPCAR. I don’t get a chance to go to the Japanese book stores to buy mags often but when I do, I usually pick up a couple issues whenever I see something I like in them. I’ve been into these mags since the early 2000s so it was really an honor when I looked in the latest issue of VIP Style magazine and saw a photo that I shot…

I shot a couple pics of the 5Axis/Air Runner GS460 earlier in the year as a favor to Shin Okamoto from Air Runner in exchange for the valves, gauges, and switches to my air suspension set-up in my Q45. It worked out great that I had the chance to shoot the car because I really liked it from seeing it at events and online and really wanted to get a closer look at it in person. An added plus was that I also got to see the 5Axis facility, where the Lexus was stored at the time. To this day Shin still has a candid photo I shot of him during the shoot as his Facebook profile pic…

I know he wanted to photos in print format for his personal use and for the Air Runner website but I had no idea the photos would be used internationally in an ad for Air Runner. When I flipped to the table of contents and saw the ad, I had to take another look at it because I didn’t believe it was the same photo that I shot…

Notice the Wekfest LA ad at the top too, pretty wild to see my work in Japanese print…

Here’s the original without all the crop and additional stuff from Air Runner. For the rest of the photos (in case you guys missed it), click here….

Thanks for looking and thank you for your continued support…

“It’s The Chronicles of a Mastermind…Yo!!!”…featuring Amy Fay and Chaba…

stickydiljoe — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:28:56 +0000

Alright, so I got a call maybe a week and a half ago from my boy Tony Lee over at It’s JDM Yo!!! about an offer to shoot the twin Spirit Rei Odyvias over at Mastermind. One of the Odyvias (the silver one) was set to return to Japan a couple days later so the guys over at Mastermind really wanted to get some shots of the car before it left. I had mentioned to Tony a while back that I really wanted to shoot the cars but it was locked down by some other websites/mags/etc. so it just wasn’t going to happen. Tony came through though and called me as soon as he got the word that the guys at Mastermind where down. Tony wanted to print out some new posters with these cars to give out at various events for promotional purposes. If you guys have ever come by The Chronicles booth then you will probably remember the posters that we usually give out to people. Those posters came courtesy of Tony of course and featured Phaze2 Tony’s NSX and model Chaba. The posters were a hit so Tony really wanted to get some new ones out before the show season in 2011 hit full force. One of his other photographers that shot the poster the first time around, Keith aka Keychain, couldn’t make it to the shoot so Tony asked if I could go down there and assist him since I wanted to get some shots of the Odyvias anyways. Tony has done probably a million things for me in the nearly ten years that I’ve known him so I wasn’t gonna just turn down the offer, even though I was pretty busy that week. An added incentive was that the Mastermind facilities were really close to me so it wasn’t a problem for me to get over there…

To set-up the shoot, Tony once again invited two of his favorite models, the lovely Miss Amy Fay and Chaba. These girls have always been down to support Tony and his site so even though it was short notice, they came out to shoot. Tony’s resident model photographer, Gilbert was on hand to do all the shots for his site and his videographer, Daizo, was also there to capture video of the whole day. There stuff should go up soon as well but today, we’re going to take a look at the shots I got that day. Before we begin, you should be well informed that this post is probably not safe for your viewing pleasure at work. The girls aren’t like all naked or anything or even remotely implied. I just don’t know how your boss feels about you staring at photos of females at your job on a site called “Stickydiljoe.com”, if you know what I mean…haha. You should also know that I am no model photographer. All you import model fanatics should be familiar with guys like Steve Bitanga or Rey Trajano or whoever…I am not any of those dudes. If anything I should be in front of the camera because of my boyish good looks and charming personality, haha. I just merely went out there to help out Tony and to capture some shots of my own for the site. I brought out all kinds of lighting equipment that I usually use for shoots of cars for the guys to use but Gilbert had his own equipment that he was pretty set on using so I just used my own equipment. Of course Big Mike was out there to be my assistant as usual and to chat it up with the girls…

The Mastermind guys were more than a pleasure to work with as well. Those guys over there are very generous and even bought food and everything to feed everybody. I’ve dealt with Mastermind before when I first ordered my JDM Nissan Cima front bumper from them, which unfortunately, was lost in the Midnight Garage fire. Even back then when they had no idea who I was, they were incredibly helpful and I couldn’t ask for better service. Big shout out to those guys for their courtesy and allowing us to move all kinds of things around in their facility so that we could shoot. It was a tight space but we managed to make it work. Even after the shoot we were all just chillin’ and chatting it up with them about cars and the industry and what not. If you guys need anything imported from Japan, whether it be something you saw on Yahoo! Auctions or Upgarage, be sure to hit them up. They can get stuff fast and they can basically get anything from overseas….

Check out the Mastermind website here…

I have to thank Tony of course for inviting me out there to experience the whole thing. I like working with Tony because he gives me a lot of freedom to do whatever I want at shoots and whenever we have collaborations with one another, things usually go very smoothly…

Can’t forget to thank the girls as well, they were extremely easy to work with and very professional. There were moments in the beginning of the shoot when it was a giant clusterfuck and we couldn’t decide what went where and how the lighting worked out but they were so patient and willing to wait until we got everything set. Amy was on a bit of a tight schedule because she had to go to a Laker game later that day which we all found out later that whoever took her to the game tricked her because she ended up at a Clippers game but it’s all good, everybody knows that the Clippers were more exciting to watch then the Lakers anyways…haha…Anyways, Amy was easy to shoot because I have the terrible shakes and can’t take any photos without a tripod so I just set it on a timer and walked around while she did her thing. I don’t have that many shots of Chaba because Gilbert did most of the shots for her and I was still trying to figure out my equipment while she was getting shot…

The shots are pretty random actually. I ended up only getting some shots of the car and most of the shots were of Amy. The majority of the car shots as well as the video were all done by the guys over at It’s JDM Yo!!! so consider this post more of a “behind-the-scenes” type of deal. The majority of the shots where just test shots and I’ve never really shot people outside of a candid setting so don’t expect anything great. There are also various other shots after the shoot when the Mastermind guys had some fun with one of the Odyvias in the back of their closed lot…

Enjoy, and make sure to look out for links to larger versions of the pics below. Not all of them have larger versions but many do. The ones with my usual watermark are just regular sizes. At the end I’ve also included some like “alternate” edits of various shots just because I was playing around with them in Photoshop one night when I was half asleep and they actually came out pretty good…alright, enough talking…on with the pics…

Larger Version (1400×933)

This Odyvia belongs to Mastermind and has a 500+hp LS6 motor in it, unlike the silver one, which is from Japan and has a carb’d Nissan L28 motor…

Amy Fay of course…Larger Version (933×1400)

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I think this one might actually end up being the poster shot… Larger Version (1400×933)

Larger Version (933×1400)

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Chaba with Amy Fay…. Larger Version (933×1400)

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Rockin’ the Mastermind tees…

Group shot of everyone that was there that day at Tony’s request. The Mastermind crew with Big Mike and I and the It’s JDM Yo!!! crew. Ross from Midnight Garage was there because he likes to stare at models…haha… Larger Version (1400×933)

…and a shot with the girls and the Mastermind staff… Larger Version (1400×933)

Okay, so at one point during the beginning of the shoot, Tony pulls Gilbert aside for some secret meeting. I was wondering what they were up to but it turns out that Tony was trying to get a particular shot for the poster that he wanted. He didn’t know how to describe it to Gilbert so he took a marker and attempted to draw the shot that he wanted…the picture that he drew resulted in even more confusion. I took the liberty of taking the marker and adding hair but this is what he came up with…

…I was eating a slice of pizza when I saw this and was like “what the fuck is this?” I couldn’t possibly end the day without getting Chaba to do that exact pose though to make Tony happy…

…and this is shot that we got, down to the hair and all…haha…You can see how terrible of an artist Tony is because his drawing of the Odyvia looks like an angry train…

Now for some stuff that I got after the shoot. This was when Gilbert was getting more shots of the cars and Daizo was doing his video stuff…

Vertex steering wheel, and a MSD 6AL ignition box built into the Kenmari Skyline dashboard of the S13…

Uncommon L28 swap from an old Datsun Z…

Last shot of the car before it returns to Japan… Larger Version (1400×933)

Renderings of the Odyvia that hung on the wall of the Mastermind offices…

Test shot from my camera while Gilbert was shooting with his…

Amy Fay and Big Mike pinky-swear collabo…

Below are the alternate edits that I was talking about earlier in the post. Just some “artsy” I guess you can say, style of edits that I did while I was falling asleep. Came out pretty cool I think so I thought I’d share them with you…

Really liked this one… Larger Version (1400×933)

Candid… Larger Version (1400×933)

That’s all for today folks, thanks for looking and have a great weekend…

On a Sunday afternoon…

stickydiljoe — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 03:13:50 +0000

Well, I really wanted to take some time during this past weekend to really do some stuff for the site. The next big event, or any event for that matter, is the annual Wekfest show and that is a little over a month away. I wanted to make sure you guys still have your regular fix of Hondas that you’re used to coming on this site to see so I planned out the whole weekend to go shoot some cars just for fun and just for practice to see if I can improve at this whole photography thing. May was out of town for work in Las Vegas so it left me with some extra time to do car stuff. It was cool overall and I had fun just doing that and hanging out with the guys. The pictures will probably drop this week after I get through with some more work and after I go through the pictures themselves. On Saturday though, I woke up bright and early to take May to the airport and then I grabbed my Q45 and took it for a car wash. It’s been months since I’ve washed it since it’s been with Ross and Midnight Garage and with all this crazy ass rain we’ve been getting in Socal, the car looked like shit. I also wanted to wash it so that I could stop by this little VIP meet that was going on. I rarely go to any VIP meets or whatever because I don’t really know many of the guys and my circle consists mostly of Honda heads, but it’s always cool to see new things.

After a fresh wash I called up DPK David to see where he was at. He wanted to check out the VIP thing too but when I stopped by the Rywire facilities…

…they were busy working on DPK Henry’s hatchback. I had planned to get some shots of it early in the morning so they wanted to clean it up a bit and do little things here and there before the shoot.

I stayed for a little bit and it didn’t seem like they were gonna finish any time soon so I took off to the VIP meet. I hadn’t seen Tony from ItsJDMYo in a while and he called me up to see where I was at. I didn’t even know he was going to the meet but it’s always cool to catch up with him so that was more incentive to go. When I got there, there weren’t really that many cars there. Tony told me like 10-15 but I think it was more like 8 cars since the other cars there weren’t really “VIP” cars. Here’s some pics from the “meet”…

My Q at the meet…

I actually just spent the whole time hanging out with Tony and just shooting the shit until he had to go to dinner with his family. David and Ryan happened to be finished by that time so we met up for dinner. Not much else happened after that. We just hung out and did our usual bullshit since we had to get up early to shoot the next day.

Sunday…

I was supposed to wake up around 5:45am to get ready but as usual, I ended up being late. Big Mike dropped by after the Vintage Manifesto party in Hollywood the night before and stayed over at my pad since he wanted to come along. We met up with David and Henry like, almost an hour and a half later and headed downtown to get some shots…

Like I said earlier, I haven’t had time to go through the shots yet but here’s a behind the scenes look after we wrapped up. It took us a couple of hours and everyone was hungry so we drove down to Long Beach to eat at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Pretty random, but we ran into Bisi and his girl Hedi there and Bisi even took care of our tab, which was really cool of him. I still had to meet up with Jared later at night to grab some shots of his S2000 so we headed back to David’s to wait until he got out of work. I had to change the oil on May’s Yaris too and being that I didn’t have a garage myself to do it in, I decided to mess up David’s driveway by spilling oil everywhere…

Ryan came by in his NSX after his lunch meeting to come hang out as well…

A shot of the guys hanging out on David’s porch…

It’s a pain in the ass to wash this big ass car but I’m pretty happy to see it clean finally. It’s been filthy for so long that I almost forgot what it looked like in a clean state….

It started to get dark, and I was getting tired so I headed back home for a bit to shower and change. On the way home though I got this pretty cool shot of Ryan’s NSX. It was totally random but the shot came out pretty interesting…I’ve attached a bigger link if you guys want to see it in a larger format..

Larger Size (1200×800)

Anyways, none of the guys had tried Five Guys Burgers before and there was one not too far from us so that ended up being the dinner spot. After that it was time to shoot…

Again, I still have yet to go through the shots but here is one random ass one of us just fucking around. Jared looks terribly disgruntled but apparently, that’s his tough guy face…

Check back to see the pics later this week. It shouldn’t take my long to go through them, I just haven’t had a whole lot of sleep the entire weekend and I have a plethora of other things to go through in the mean time. Thanks for looking and thanks to all of those that helped me knock out all this site content. As much as I like to think that I do all this on my own, I always have good people around me to lend a helping hand and I truly appreciate it. Peace out for today…

Day 5…

stickydiljoe — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 17:39:40 +0000

Damn, can’t believe it’s Friday already. Still having issues with the dumb ass internet at this place we are staying at so I gotta make this quick. I just woke up from a 4 hour night of sleep and heading back to SEMA for the final day of coverage. I’m gonna go snap shots of whatever I missed the other days and to bring Tony back to the event so he can pick up his NSX when it ends at 2pm today. Shits crazy over here….probably the best experience I’ve had at a SEMA event so far. Before I go I just wanted to give you guys a sneak peak at the shenanigans that have occurred at the SEMA industry parties…

Here’s a shot of last night’s Falken Tire/Pro-Motion Distributing party at LAX inside Luxor…it was crackin’ in here and insane amounts of dudes. If you were looking to go home with females, SEMA parties were not the spot to be at….haha…

Oh and yesterday, we fuckin met like the tallest dude who ever lived. I don’t know where he came from or what company he worked for but this dude was the tallest fucker EVER. So I had to have Rywire take a picture with him. Sorry that the pic was blurry as shit but that’s just the type of nights we were having. Sunny from Franklin Autobody kept trying to force Vodka Redbull drinks on us and make us take shots with him. The guy is an animal. Only dude I know who orders drinks and tries to tell people that they’re shots…I drank so much Vodka I can’t see out of my left eye and I’m not sure if I have re-gained used of my penis yet… Fuck man, that guy was tall. So tall that the height discrepancy made the camera unable to focus…haha…

Alright, that’s it for now. I try to get back on here and see if the internet is working. Shit I don’t even know if this will post right now but we’ll see!…

Another weekend in Norcal…Hella Part 2…

stickydiljoe — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 17:34:33 +0000

DISCLAIMER: The following post will be mostly non-car/Honda related. This post is more on the lifestyle side of it so if you come on here just to see cars, check back later…

Okay, back with the second half of the Norcal mini-vacation. We didn’t do much on this day but go to the ATS BBQ at Chris Sakai’s place. I gotta say, Dina makes some amazing food. It was a blast and a pleasure to be there. Both the food and the company were excellent…Thanks to the ATS*Family, Chris Sakai and his wife Dina for being such amazing hosts. We all had a great time. I was supposed to shoot Anh’s car that day just so I could do a small write-up on it for The Chronicles but just our luck, as he rolled up, one of his radiator hoses broke and coolant was everywhere. We didn’t want to risk it and drive it anywhere so we just parked it. I guess it wasn’t meant to be, haha!…

Chris and David hanging out…

The Blackest of the Pie…

Jared eating some chicken while Ryan watches on…

Darryl, Jared, and Pie…

The delicious food that we ate all day long…

Assortment of drinks…

Wek’Sos Ken with geniune Honda parts in the back and a drunk Ferd creeping up in the corner…

Norcal dudes hella hanging out and drinking…hella…

The sausage king…dude gobbles up sausage like Pacman…haha…

Ryan and Jared doing their usual 2 hour talks about Seinfeld and how great that show is…Ryan Der randomly got sucked into the conversation…

I’m sure many of you remember this S2000, now rolling on SSR Type-Fs…

ATS*Ron’s hatch…

You know you trust your homies when you allow them to party around your car and have steel chairs inches away from it, haha…and you gotta pop the hood and stunt at the bbq too…

Anh rolled up in his Integra…

…and Ken and David were messing around with it…

…and then the hose blew and Fred had to find another braided hose to fix it…

Intense conversation was had…

Anh stayed for a little bit and then had to go home with a bunch of gifts from everyone for his newborn baby, Charis….

When you see the “Fred Chapman Built” stickers on cars, it’s not really for his contribution to builds. It’s really for his amazing ATS*Miracle Dip that he makes. I don’t know what’s in it because I didn’t want to ruin the magic but that shit was delicious…

Ryan posing while I tried to figure out why one of the flashes weren’t working…

Fred and Jared trying to blame eachother for breaking the toilet…

Group pics even though you can’t see some of their faces…haha…

Fred Chapman and Black Pie…

May and I with the guys in the back…

Pie and Ken…

The Chapman Builts…

After we started cleaning up it was time to head back to the Dolce Hayes Mansion. We didn’t really do anything after because we had to check out early and have lunch with some of the guys before heading back to Socal…

After we checked-out, we headed down the street to Red Robin to grab an early lunch…

Ron, Angel, Chris, Dina, Fred’s kid, and Fred sat at one table while Ryan and us sat at the other…

Ryan drinking a smoothie of some sort…

We all ate, had some laughs and what not then it was back to Socal…

It was a good trip overall. Everything went off without a hitch and it was smooth sailing. Two weeks up in Norcal back to back is definitely not a typical trip I make and it’s probably gonna be the last bit of traveling I do before SEMA in Las Vegas. Thanks to the ATS guys and everyone up in Norcal for being so courtesy and taking care of us. Until next time, I’m out…PEACE.

Another weekend in Norcal…Hella Part 1…

stickydiljoe — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 16:50:51 +0000

DISCLAIMER: The following posts for the next two days will be mostly non-car/Honda related. The posts are more on the lifestyle side of it so if you come on here just to see cars, check back in a day or two…

Okay, finally back in business. I hadn’t really planned on going up to Norcal back to back weekends but I did promise DPK*David that I would go with him to visit the ATS guys whenever he had planned to go. I didn’t know he had his mind set on Labor Day weekend though, which was just one weekend after I came back from going up there with Rodrez. Luckily for me, Anh was able to hook us up big time with a pretty nice room up in San Jose so money wouldn’t be too big of an issue. I had pretty much just planned on using the money for food and little misc. things like gas so May and I told David and his lady Jackie that we were down and we took off for Norcal late Friday night…

We were gonna get to Norcal really late/early in the am so it was just easier to stay at Ryan aka Rywire’s pad. He’s got a pretty big spot and it wasn’t too far from the hotel so it took us little to no time to check-in to our hotel the next day. By the time we arrived, it was probably about 4:30am or so. We were still pretty awake from the drive so we just kinda hung out before we went to bed…

Hanging out in Ryan’s workshop area where all the Rywire-magic goes down…He’s got a couple of other roommates who are also car guys so there were parts everywhere throughout the house. I literally slept next to a set of BBR wheels and a Backyard Special front bumper in the room that I was staying in…

Trash…I’m just sayin’

Like 5 minutes after we finally went to sleep, Darryl from DPK’s Element pulls up and out comes Black Pie, Jared, and Darryl. I guess they randomly decided to make the drive to Norcal to hang out and the couples weekend that the girls were kinda looking forward to went right out the window, haha…

We all slept for about 3-4 hours and woke up to go eat breakfast and check into our hotels at the Dolce Hayes Mansion…

There wasn’t anything really good to eat in the area and we were gonna grab food again down at the Wharf later on that afternoon so we settled for McDonald’s…

After we finished eating our McNuggets, we were off to Dolce Hayes Mansion…

Here’s the view of the outside as soon as we rolled up. It was a pretty sweet spot to stay at. Very classy and had that nostalgic feel to it. Weddings are really popular here probably because of the backdrop and how it is sort of removed from everything else…Anh showed up to make sure that we were all checked-in properly before he went to work…

It was so nice outside that I decided to get everyone together to take a group shot. From left to right you have Jared, Ryan up front, Anh in the back with half his face covered, Black Pie is in the middle taking up all the space, DPK*David, Jackie, Darryl, and May…

Ferd from ATS wanted to go down to Fisherman’s Wharf with us so we headed over to his pad to meet up with him…

I didn’t know any of the Norcal heads actually lived in one of those houses that’s on some crazy hill with a driveway that is pretty much impossible …

Pie doin’ his thing…

I took the liberty of takng out complete shots of Ferd’s project because I wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted it out there or not…

Darry’s Element on TE-37 wheels…

Here we are just getting into downtown San Francisco…

May forgot her hoodie at the hotel and it was pretty fuckin’ cold so she went out and picked-up this “Hella SF” hoodie…

Jared attempting the reach-around on metal chilren…

Another group shot, this time including myself and ATS Ferd…

The girls took a picture together as well…

It was time for food again so I went to the usual spot to grab a shrimp/crab sandwich and calamari…May got the clam chowder and it must have been good because we both look super excited in the picture…

Ryan paperbagging it and looking as miserable as possible…

After we finished eating our seafood, we walked over to the old arcade museum because a couple of the guys that were with us had never seen it before…

Most of the games were old as shit but were still playable. This machine that Black Pie is playing with apparently isn’t used for arm-wrestling and it’s primary purpose now is to eat people’s quarters….

Ryan hand-cranking an old XXX machine…I imagine beating off was quite a task during the era when these machines were in use. I mean, what if you’re about to finish and then you have to insert another quarter or something. Then you have to start hand-cranking the lever again to build momentum and you lose your own momentum on the other arm and you can’t even blow your load on the side of the machine anymore…shits wack…

I’m not entirely sure what they were doing here. Probably a failed attempt at break dancing or something…

On our way to Ghirardelli Square, I saw this cable car operator snapping a picture of something. Not sure what it was since he probably rolls through there on more than one occassion everyday…

Our view on the walk over to Ghirardelli…

We got some free chocolate samples and David hung out with some of the ATS homies while the rest of us went to go do some wine testing. I don’t know shit about wine and I didn’t feel like drinking anyway so I just watched…

Jared, May, and Darryl wine-tasting…

It started to get dark and some of us separated from the rest of the crowd so that we could get ready for dinner with ATS Ferd for his birthday…

I ate at Osha Thai the weekend before with Rodrez so I decided to go back so that David and Jacky could try it. David said he was a big fan of Thai food so we definitely had to go…

May and Jackie after we all had a shot at Osha Thai…

May actually got some video during dinner with her Canon S3…Kinda random but I thought it was cool to capture the moment…

Ferd and David taking a shot of Patron for Ferd’s birthday. DPK David is a trendsetter and does the “lime before the shot” method…haha…it takes them awhile to do the shot because everyone kept trying to take a picture…

Here we are doing the birthday song thing to Ferd…It sounds like there were about 40 people singing the song but it’s just the 5 of us…and the waitress of course who just decided to lip-sync it and wave her arms around…

That’s about it for today. The shot above was actually taken before dinner. Ferd took us to the top where we could get a view of San Francisco. It was an awesome sight but it was also foggy and cold as shit. The shot is actually way clearer than the actual view…Anyways, I’m gonna post up the rest tomorrow of the ATS BBQ at Chris Sakai’s place. I was gonna post it all up in one day but I fell asleep like 4 times just doing the first half of this post…Alright, back tomorrow, peace…

Extras…

stickydiljoe — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 19:43:09 +0000

Just a couple of extra shots from Sheepey’s HT shoot a couple months back. Now that the issue has hit the stands and is going to be replaced with the latest issue, I figure I’d throw these up. Kinda gives you guys an idea how it looks when they shoot these cars in a studio environment…

That’s about it for today, RPM show tomorrow in Irvine, CA so make sure and come hang out if you got the time…

Setting up for the cover shot. You can see here that the cars are rolled in and pushed instead of driven around because of all the white floors and walls…Driving things in and out would just cause a mess…This is also where other mags like Hot Rod shoot as well…

Bumper removal and what not for detail shots…

Rodrez at work…

Here you guys can get an idea of how the room actually looks and the gigantic lighting apparatus… I think this whole studio was priced somewhere near like a nice home or more…It was cool to see it because it moves around however you like it too. Shit is serious…

Post-shoot, rolling the car back out onto the trailer…

The bay…

Big ass Bullseye turbine…

Rywire harness with AEM EMS, ignition box, and custom enclosed relay box…

You can tell from the last two shots that only one side of the wheels were color-matched. At that time Sheepey was still unsure of whether or not he was gonna keep it that way so he just did one side…

That’s all for today, have a good weekend everyone…

Super Street FF Battle 2010…An exclusive look at dyno day at Raceline…

stickydiljoe — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:04:57 +0000

Spent the majority of the day in Fontana for the Super Street FF Battle, things are slightly different this year in that the participants are much more evenly matched. It was a cool experience to see. Of course I can’t tell you any of the results or anything, it’s going to publication in a future issue of SS and you guys will get the full run-down of the cars and the people that participated. Today we’re gonna look at a more behind-the-scenes kind of look at the day before, which was the dyno portion of the event at Raceline in Temple City. I have some pics from the event at Fontana as well but I haven’t had a chance to look through them… In the meantime, check this out…

Reminder for those of you who are interested in checking out the final day of the event; there’s a meet today at Autoclub Speedway in Fontana and the cars will be running today as well. If you have the time, make it out there! A bunch of the heavy-hitters from Socal will be out and about checking everything out. It will be from 10am-2pm…come out to the meet!…

Raceline Civic coupe…

The front bumper of one of the best and most detailed builds EVER…

Jonathan Wong himself…

Morgan’s EK9…

Gil from Circuit Hero…

Morgan and Loi from Sportcar Motion bringing in their tires to get mounted…

Dyno results…

You have to see Gil’s Type R in person to truly appreciate the details and all the custom fabrication by ASC…

Nuts…

Will from Circuit Hero, Sean K., and Rhett…

Phil Robles is an older guy from Arizona who just loves to track his car. He built this hatch with all the right combination of J’s Racing and Chargespeed parts and it is all completely functional. This car is the shit and I love it on the Advan RGs…

Even Big Mike was appreciating it…

Ryan Der aka Airbag Club…car is fuckin’ amazing. I’ve seen it a couple times but sometimes it takes events like these where there is no one else around or no showgoers or whatever standing in your way and you can truly appreciate everything that Ryan has done to his car. I wish I could have taken more details shots of it so you guys can see but we were too busy eating and bullshitting with eachother…

Ryan’s Vertex wheel and AIM cluster…

Doin work…

Gil’s K20R sounded ridiculous…

Loi from Sportcar Motion…

The most inappropriate shirt ever at a dyno event….thanks Big Mike…

Will, Ryan Der, and Gil…

Hasport brought out this J32 swapped Civic on nitrous…

Ryan changing out his Volks to his beater track wheels….bronze Mugen MF10s…must.be.nice….

That’s it…there were definitely a couple more cars that I didn’t get because I was dumb and forgot to charge my camera battery…You guys still have a chance to see all the participants if you head out to the FF Battle today. These were just the select few that I was able to capture that I really felt stood-out from the crowd. Thanks for looking…Finally time for some much need sleep…fuckin’ exhausted….

Spocom 2010 Long Beach Coverage…The Extra Stuff…

stickydiljoe — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:53:31 +0000

Well the coverage for Spocom Long Beach from me is complete. The pics I’m putting up today were actually shot by May. She has her Canon S90 and likes to take behind-the-scenes random stuff, especially the people shots. There were some car pictures from her but I’m not really gonna include them in here because she was standing right beside me so the car shots look a lot alike. Today is just the extra stuff, just people shots here and there. If you’re looking for Hondas today there isn’t much of it. In any case, here we go….

Big Mike wiping his window so hard the “c” came of his Skunk2 sticker…

Our view at the show…

A shot of Salem’s car because I think I forgot to get one…well, one that didn’t have a girl in front of it…

Arnel again…

May and Tina…

Me and Norman…

When Salem and Doug finally decided to show up…

A good shot of the Sparco display…

=D…

Apparently Tina and May were bored…

Listening to Danny and Big Mike talk about the old school import days with the cotton in the fender wells and shit…aka shit they still do at DUB shows…

Tony getting his model creep on…

Getting a wheel shot…

DPK…

On the prowl…

Everybody got into the spirit of taking booty shots…

The line to look at models and random kids dragging things over Big Mike’s bumper…

Dsport model search area where the lady was laying all over the floor…

They were doing tandem shots with Chuck Liddell…

Kinda used the wrong watermark on some of the pics…oh well…

Tough guys…

It was nice to see her finally off the floor…

Doug doin’ work and getting the model shots that you guys saw in the previous parts of the coverage…

YES…

I finally discovered the reason why I got her the camera…oh man, this Falken model’s reaction is PRICELESS…

Haha…

Another pics for David…

Trying to talk to females and dude doesn’t even have flip flops that fit him…

=D…

Billy talking to the other Auto Concept guys after collecting his 1st place Lexus award…

Arnel finally showed up to the show at the end to pick up his car…

That’s all folks. Hope you guys thoroughly enjoyed The Chronicles’ coverage of Spocom 2010 Long Beach…it was a blast and I can’t wait to get out to the next event…