Glory Days…
Well, it is indeed Tuesday now so I guess I should start off with an excuse to why there was no Monday update, haha…. To be honest, I really wanted to throw an update up as I do every Monday, but I’ve lacked the adequate amount of time and content to do so. You guys have heard me say it numerous times already in the past couple weeks, things have just been moving at a slow pace…events-wise anyway. There was a small event this past Sunday, but I spent Saturday helping DPK David move into his new place and Sunday was basically the only day off I had with May to just not do anything and relax. I have been working the past week as well so I didn’t get much sleep during the week and took the time on Sunday to sleep in. Formula D is this coming weekend though and since I’ve missed out on the Formula D Long Beach events the past two years, I’ve decided to check it out so I will have coverage from that event…
The site has moved slow but on the days where you may not see an update here, I invite you to check out The Chronicles Facebook page. Even if you don’t have a Facebook page yourself or just plain don’t like Facebook, I still would love it if you guys would go on there and bookmark the page. If you don’t see an update here, most likely I am busy working on something. Even when I am working however, every free moment I have I’ll try to throw something up on the FB page. The FB page has been moving consistently lately so you will see photo uploads there often. It’s much easier for me to upload something to The Chronicles Facebook page on my phone or when I’m on the road than uploading something to the site…
Anyways, work has picked up quite a bit lately. I am currently working on finishing up a story for Honda Tuning magazine but last week, I spent much of the week working on the annual Super Street Honda Issue. This year’s Honda Issue has a different feel to it than the past two years where I think this year’s is much more diverse with Hondas ranging from all over the world. The stories I finished up for that issue are from Japan and the east coast. I think you guys will enjoy it and it’ll be great like every Honda Issue that comes out from SS every year. I also finished up a pretty lengthy feature last week for the international magazine that I contribute for, Total Honda. I’m really happy with how that story came out and I’m excited to see how the photos and everything come together when it goes to print. I closed out the week doing a story for Honda Tuning about a Honda from the midwest and am currently knocking out a story from a really clean CR-Z from out here in the west coast. Once I get that knocked out than I will be working on some pretty interesting builds from Japan for Import Tuner magazine… My hands are pretty full with work but things are good right now and I am enjoying it. I’d love to take on as much work as I can because it’s great to see different builds from all over the world. One of the great parts of having my job is that I get to see a lot of diversity. While I focus a majority of my time on Hondas for The Chronicles, my actual job has me devoting my time to vehicles of all makes from everywhere…
I don’t want to leave you guys without anything to look at so I took the liberty of taking some photos yesterday from my day down at the Rywire facilities… My buddy Takeshi Kobayashi made a surprise trip out here from Japan for business so we’ve been trying to dig up some time to hang out with him. He just went home to Japan a little over two weeks ago but then a customer of his requested that he find a Acura CL from over here in the states. He located one in the exact condition that the customer was looking for and arranged to complete the sale and transport immediately. He came back out here and hit us up so of course we were going to spend some time with him. Takeshi is one of our good friends from overseas that we often don’t see for months at a time so it’s important that we make him feel welcome while he’s in the U.S. Though he was out here on business, he even stopped by Saturday to help David move into his new place. That shows how close of a homie he’s become to us over time. The man is out here from Japan and he’s still down to help move. There are people out here that know David for a longer period of time that aren’t even down to help, haha…
He’ll be on a plane on his way back to Japan by the time he sees this but yesterday, Takeshi met up with me over at Ryan’s shop because he had to pick up some Chronicles t-shirts for his customers. We were going to meet up to make the exchange and also to meet up for a final dinner before he headed home today. After I arrived, a couple of the other homies showed up for dinner as well so I just decided to stick around for the rest of the day. Takeshi was capturing some photos with his camera so I felt inspired and decided to take some photos. I always bring my camera along with me to Rywire anyways since there are times when Ryan needs me to take product photos for him. There aren’t any particular back stories to a majority of these photos, I just took them for shits and giggles. The ones that I’ve posted up where there is a meaning behind I’ve left comments, otherwise, they are just random photos from stuff that I saw around the shop… Enjoy… There are a lot of photos of incomplete builds that are currently in progress. While I’m sure you may have questions about certain things related to the builds, I will address them at a later time when I get photos of the cars in more completed states. If you must, you can always ask a question in the comments section and I will try to answer them for you…
For those inquiring, the first two shots were shot with a Canon 70-200mm L-series lens. The rest are from a 50mm 1.4…I am no expert so I probably can’t answer any of your other photography questions, haha…I am however, randomly listening to Taylor Swift’s first album while I type this…why? I don’t know, I find it quite enjoyable and I still haven’t gotten over the fact that TBS stopped showing Saved by the Bell episodes from 3-5am…
Thanks for looking…
This is actually Alex Doan’s S2000 from the shop next door, Ballade Sports, which operates out of the L-Con facility…he’s the guy that used to own the completely Spoon’d-out black S2K. This is his current project…
Rywire Ryan’s Acura NSX on custom black Rega Evos….
Our Japanese buddy, Takeshi Kobayashi, checking out DPK David’s EJ1 Civic coupe…
Supertwinz John’s E-AT Civic build…progress has been slow on this project but he’s been busy with regular life stuff as well as with his job over at AEM…
His mil-spec harness mount and power connection to his battery…there is just so many cool details about this build that will be unveiled when he finally finishes this thing…
Speaking of slow progress, DPK Darryl’s EM1 is still posted up at Rywire… Darryl’s been working on it slowly but as you can tell from the passenger side window, this thing is getting no love…haha…
The engine bay is starting to really come together…he went with an interesting valve cover choice which some of us like while others are still on the fence about…
DPK David’s TE37s showing some of its age…eventually he’s going to re-do the wheels in a different finish so new decals will go on the spokes when the time comes…
Just a man alone with his thoughts, perfecting his craft and building his brand…
Always good to see Ryan’s CR-X at the shop…. word has it that this may not be his car much longer. It may have a new owner and the car will undergo a drastic transformation so this vanity plate may be appearing on another one of Ryan’s upcoming projects…
Darryl’s Mugen Active Gate brakes…
Absolutely love John’s re-conditioned BBR Comps….
Darryl’s Mugen lip for his coupe…
If you haven’t noticed, Darryl is quite the Mugen-whore…
I thought this was a cool shot…I might be wrong…
Darryl kept insisting that John put his front bumper on for photos but I think that we’ll have plenty of opportunities to see this Civic with a bumper on later…for now, it’s cool to see it in its raw state…
It’s only right that a AEM employee run AEM products…
Checkerd Sports steering boss on John’s E-AT…
Supertwinz John catching up on his NWP4Life content before we headed out to dinner…
Random but there was an Accord fully decked-out with a Black Widow body kit getting dropped off at Ballade Sports for a new transmission… It was transported to the future from 2001 since transmissions were too expensive a decade ago for these cars…
As stated, it was Takeshi’s last night in America so we all decided to get together for dinner. A couple more of the homies showed up for dinner and it turned into a full-on guy’s night out. We didn’t want to make everyone drive everywhere so we decided to grab dinner at a local spot called Brodard. If you follow this site then you’ll note that we’ve eaten there on numerous occasions. Takeshi is from Japan so he doesn’t have very many opportunities to try out Vietnamese cuisine so it was a good chance for him to expand his palette…
One of the guys that decided to come out to grab some dinner with us was PG+K Jay. Jay’s made the move out to the west coast so he’s gonna be a regular here on The Chronicles. He’s always been a regular but now you get to see more of his mug and the shit he eats when he’s out with us now…
Brodard is famous for their Vietnamese spring rolls so we always get a couple orders of that when we are there….
Jay ordered a 33…
Brodard isn’t your traditional Pho noodle spot where you just have noodles, broth and meat. Their food is from a different region so their menu varies from the average…above is my Pho Thai that I always get there…
J.P.’s beef stew came with a French baguette…
Takeshi ordered a more traditional broken rice platter…
After we grabbed dinner, we headed back over to the shop to chill some more before we said our good byes to Takeshi…I shot some more photos…
John’s battery and custom battery mount fabricated my Louie from L-Con….
Another shot of the BBRs on John’s E-AT…
For those wondering about specs, they are 15×6.5 +45…. I am a fan of them on his car but he also has a set of Mugen NR10Rs which are just perfect for this E-AT….
Ryan’s AP Racing brake caliper for his ITR… yes, it’s still over at ASC and no I don’t really have any news on the progress…
Random snap of Ryan’s Bride bucket…
Supertwinz John’s coil-on-plug set-up with the Rywire coil-on-plug mounting plate…
We were talking about E-AT Civics and got to chatting about John’s other car, which is an E-AT straight from Japan. He bought it off of Yahoo! Auctions Japan a couple years ago and it’s also been a slow work in progress. John was describing to Takeshi how mint the car was and then showed him some photos of it the day it left the dock in japan and was shipped over here to the states…
After looking through some photos it was time for me to head home to finish some work I had pending…. Here’s a shot of a custom coffee mug that belongs to J.P…. pretty cool stencil of him and his EG from his Honda Tuning shoot years ago….
That’s a wrap…
Weekend Warriors…
While the last couple weeks have been a total snoozer, this past weekend proved to be quite an eventful one for all of us… I really didn’t have that many things planned because I was busy organizing a surprise birthday party, but everything sort of came together and produced a pretty memorable weekend. The weather here has been pretty strange lately but the sun was out long enough on Saturday where I actually had the opportunity to get some work done… As for the site itself, I apologize if there has been a lack of heavy consistent updates lately, but there just isn’t that much going on. In terms of automotive events, this month as well as the next will be few and far between. Everything will pick up in the summer time so I guess we can just chalk up this time as the proverbial “calm before the storm”. There are meets here and there and I will try to get out to cover some of them but I don’t always know about them until a day or so before and there are times when I already have regular life events planned but trust me, I will try my best to get out there… Now, onto what happened over the weekend….
It was May’s birthday this week so I really wanted to throw a surprise party for her. She’s thrown a couple for me in the past so I thought it would be cool to try to surprise her. I didn’t go in with high hopes because she tends to ask a high volume of questions for everything but I just decided to do what I could to surprise her. I just needed a couple of distractions here and there. She took a couple days off from work for her birthday as well which made things more difficult to organize but luckily I have some great friends who were willing to lend a helping hand. We went out to dinner a couple times on the nights leading up to the weekend, which we all hoped would lead her astray from thinking we had anything planned. I also had to take care of some stuff for work so it was good timing that the girls had to get together in the morning to go do their thing…
I woke up early in the morning to meet up with DPK David to shoot his EJ1 Civic coupe for a U.K.-based magazine (Total Honda) that I recently started to do work for. Many of you who are familiar with his coupe know that it’s been featured twice here in the states within the last 6 years or so, but I thought it would make a good feature vehicle for an overseas magazine. It’s a popular build here in the states but I feel that it is still mostly unknown outside of our borders. We’ve always talked about me doing the story on his build in the past, but things just never came together for that to happen. When his car was featured back in ’06 for Honda Tuning, I wasn’t even working in the industry yet and when it appeared in Import Tuner mag a couple years ago, I hadn’t started doing work for IT yet. I don’t feel that the U.K. has very many well-known K-swapped Hondas yet, especially coupes, so I thought that it would be cool to get David in there. I think a lot of people sleep on his build too because of the fact that it’s a coupe and not the more popular hatchback. In any case, the opportunity came up for me to finally man the feature for his build and I seized it. It’s cool of Total Honda U.K. to put their trust in my abilities to pick a good car and that’s why I like doing work for them. Hopefully their target audience enjoys the story. If not, it’s all good though because I would have shot the car just for fun anyways. He’s recently added a couple new things here and there and this current look is probably the best yet….
We got to the shoot location around 7am and the sun had just risen. Rodrez from Honda Tuning was also shooting at the same location not too far away from us as well so he stopped by to hang out for a bit after he finished. The weather was surprisingly pleasant compared to the last couple weekends I had shot out in L.A. so I wasn’t interrupted with constantly having to blow my runny nose… It took a couple hours but I was pretty happy with the overall results. After Rodrez took off to go home and take care of his baby, my buddy Jae Bueno randomly cruised by to say what’s up. Jae runs his own blog as well (www.jaebueno.com) where he does something similar to what I do here, but for the ever-popular Socal Lowrider community. Jae has been a fan of this site for quite some time, even though he isn’t a Honda head himself, and has always been very kind to me whenever we have run into each other at events. He also shoots for Lowrider magazine and he was down in L.A. that morning to shoot a car. He set-up down the way from us and after I finished shooting David’s coupe, we cruised over there to check it out…
We loaded-up my camera gear and drove a couple feet down to where Jae was. His wife was busy shooting the model alongside the Chevy pick-up and I chatted with Jae for a quick minute before he was called over to help. I asked if it was cool if I could grab some shots for the site and he obliged. The location was a perfect spot, I think, for the shoot but I don’t envy him having to shoot a build that had dark paint which mirrored everything around it. The curves of the truck also looked like it would be challenging since it would reflect everything around that area. On Saturdays it also tends to be busy because the adjacent businesses are still open, unlike Sundays when it’s a ghost town in the early mornings…. Click here if you want to see a larger version of the above photo….
I only stayed for a couple of minutes because I didn’t want to intrude but I remember Jae Bueno telling us that this model drove all the way out from New Mexico just for this shoot… With the way gas prices are, I would imagine it would have been better to fly but she didn’t want to miss out on the chance to be in Lowrider magazine so she hopped in her car and made the trek out to the mean streets of L.A. in her bikini, haha… Click here for a larger version of the above photo…
After saying bye to Jae Bueno and his wife, we decided to get out of the area and head back home. Rodrez had mentioned that there was an event going on that afternoon at one of the Source Interlink offices so I hopped on Facebook for some details. It wasn’t a heavily advertised event but it wasn’t too far away so I went. It was a small meet that Super Street and Import Tuner put together to coincide with the Formula D tech day that was going on down at the Irvine offices. There was an interesting mix of cars but it was a pretty small turn-out in comparison to most meets. They didn’t expect much from it anyway since there wasn’t much promotion behind it….
I’ll be perfectly honest, I don’t follow drifting much these days and I didn’t even know when Formula D was taking place, but it was interesting to see all the new drift builds popping-up. I am not even involved enough to know if drifting is even remotely as popular as it once was but apparently there is still a pretty strong following… I didn’t recognize any of the cars besides the Garage Boso S15 so I used that day as sort of a re-introduction into the drifting scene…
We stayed for maybe an hour or two and I managed to get a pretty solid batch of photos. I’ll post them up tomorrow when I finally get a chance to go through all of them but this is all you guys will see from that event today. The SC430 drift car is supposed to be a pretty big deal and from what I saw while I was there, this thing is pretty intense. Just the custom fabrication alone was impressive. It didn’t matter that the car wasn’t finished and without a colorful graphical livery. We chatted with some people that were more familiar with the car and they said it was Achilles Tires newly-sponsored drift vehicle. I got more pics, but again, I’ll post them up tomorrow…
The girls coincidentally were in the same area as us so they drove by and met up. Rodrez and Tes also came by with baby Maddox…
This little guy is growing up so fast and will be the first Chronicles regular before he’s even spoken his first word, haha….
Most of us had woken up early in the morning so we parted ways to rest-up before the night’s festivities. Everything had come together pretty easily for May’s surprise birthday party so it was just a matter of getting to the restaurant that evening….
This photo was taken this past weekend but the owner of this Civic, Sam Ip-Nguyen, is the owner of the restaurant that we’d be having May’s party at. Sam is a great guy and was more than happy to host the surprise party for us. His girlfriend Linh also helped out and prepared everything from the food to the decorations for us so I basically had nothing to worry about. For those wondering, Sam’s restaurant is called Hoy’s Wok and it’s on Sunset Blvd. It’s a Chinese food spot and the food is great. He’s there 7 days a week as the main chef so I highly recommend going there if you like Chinese food. The guy knows how to cook and has great taste in cars. Support your fellow enthusiast and stop by when you guys get the chance. Peep the website for his restaurant here….
As usual, we got there a little late but it worked out since a couple others were also stuck in traffic on Sunset Blvd….When we got there, May was greeted with our usual car-friends as well as her old friends from high school. It’s rare to have everyone in the same place at the same time since both are completely different groups of friends but I was really happy to see everyone together…I don’t always throw surprise birthday parties, but when I do, apparently they are pretty successful, haha….
The birthday girl was all smiles as she cut her cake…
Random but May’s cake isn’t your traditional birthday cake because these cakes from “Nothing Bundt Cakes” are one of May’s favorites. I figured people aren’t always down to eat regular birthday cake anyway so why not just get something that May would eat even if it wasn’t her birthday. Nothing Bundt Cakes isn’t really close to my area but Rodrez and Tes came through in the end and picked it up for the party….
Hoy’s Wok isn’t that big but Sam reserved half of his restaurant just for us…There was probably about 25 of us when it was all said and done….Kind of hard to see everyone but guys like Ejay, Rywire Ryan, Supertwinz John, Parnell Navarro, Rodrez, Big Mike, Downstar Frank, and PG+K Jay where all there to celebrate….You can also see Rodrez sitting all the way in the back with Tes and the baby while DPK David was chillin’ against the wall…
Big thanks to everyone that came out…I really wanted to get a group shot of everyone that was there but there were a couple that had to leave a little early due to prior engagements… Here is most of the party outside of Sam’s restaurant….
After we departed from Hoy’s Wok, a couple of us met up down at Diddy Riese in Westwood to grab some of their famous ice cream sandwiches. It was pretty cold but the girls sure love their ice cream… Sunday was pretty uneventful for us since we knew there was a huge storm coming. We stayed in and just watched TV all day…but….
Meanwhile, at the DUB Show in Anaheim…
Holy shit…haha… Jae Bueno mentioned that there was a DUB event this weekend but I had no idea it was on Sunday. I jacked these photos from my FB buddy Jose Romo, who apparently decided to go check it out….When you think of the DUB show, you imagine seeing stuff like this…
I am unsure of what this is, but it was taken hours before the storm hit Anaheim, CA….
You would also expect to see stuff like this…which also actually happened at the DUB show that day…dogs standing on girls asses? Sure, why not, it’s the DUB show. There was probably a couple of fights that went on as well as a concert…but torrential downpour? Nooo…..
Shout-out to all the people that stuck around but fuuuuck, that shit looks horrible! Haha…I can’t even imagine standing in that and attempting to have a good time. Take a look at the pic two photos above again, that pile of blue mess was once a fold-up canopy! What a mess….
At least these guys looked like they were having a good time…Shit is coming down hard…You can even see the Chrysler 300C with the Camaro front-end I posted from Hot Import Nights not too long ago in the background, haha…. I was curious so I looked at some coverage online of the DUB event and they were dry for most of the day but damn, when that rain came down, it wiped out the whole show….Props to those that got through it…I’m all for rain or shine events but a lot of those builds that regularly attend DUB events aren’t ever meant to see water or spend a lot of time outdoors. I don’t know what steps they took to prevent their cars from getting hit with all this rain…Imagine Lowriders with 10K+ paint jobs with no tops and custom interiors…plus a rainstorm…yikes….
That’s a wrap for today. Life is good, I can’t complain…
Little acts of kindness…
Before I begin my story, I just want to tell everyone that this story is 100% true…I wouldn’t make up anything like this and even if I fabricated this story, it almost wouldn’t seem realistic… I normally wouldn’t even write about something like this but I think it deserves to be mentioned because one man and his family did an incredibly wonderful thing, on a completely random Sunday… It’s acts of kindness like this that helps restore my faith in humanity when so many terrible things are happening in the world. On a broader spectrum, it probably means very little to a lot of people, but again, it’s worth a read and I hope it kick starts your Monday and gives you some good vibes…
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
How it all started is a little mundane, but here is how the story goes….
As you all know, I am a freelance writer/photographer for various automotive publications, and one of the main books that I work for is Honda Tuning magazine. Rodrez is the head editor over there these days but even though he spends much of his time putting every issue together, he still continues to shoot many of the stories in the Socal area. I will shoot for him occasionally, but for the most part, if time permits, Rodrez will knock out the shoots. I received a text message from him last Wednesday and he asked me if I could shoot for him over the weekend because he had a prior engagement in San Diego. He notified me as to what car it was and the owner and I remember chatting with the guy at the Evasive Motorsports open house, so I told Rodrez that I would do it. May was out of town in Dallas, Texas on business so I had some free time on my hands. If I could occupy that time and make some money, why not? I try to help out Rodrez whenever I can now as well because he has a newborn baby and I would much rather he spend that extra time with his family than shoot a car when I can easily knock it out…
Randomly during the week, I also found out that our buddy Takeshi Kobayashi from Japan was here in the states. He flew out to handle some business matters but he would have time in the evenings to hang out. We always try to spend time with him whenever we can because he’s just a good guy and we want to show him around. I notified the owner of the car I was shooting that I had to push the shoot back to Sunday because not only was it a complete ghost town on Sundays where we shoot, it also gave me some more time to hang out with Takeshi. We only get to see him a couple times per year so it’s important that we get to see him. The owner was cool with it so we were set to meet him on Sunday morning. Come late Saturday night though, I was a little hesitant about shooting early because me and a couple of the guys were having so much fun just hanging out at DPK David’s house and catching up with our Japanese friend. I made my way home, got everything packed up for the morning and went to bed for like, 3 hours…I got up, threw on my contacts which made my eyes burn from the lack of sleep and set out to Downtown L.A. for the shoot…
On Sunday mornings, this particular area is just DEAD… I mean, it’s an industrial area and located down in the warehouse district so the majority of the businesses aren’t even open on Sundays. The owner arrived on time (which tends to be sort of rare these days) and I found a spot to shoot at. It’s a familiar spot, I’ve shot there a couple times and this location dates all the way back to the days when DPK David got his first magazine feature (not shot by me because I didn’t even know how to turn on a camera then), and that had to be like 2006 or so. After I had set-up my light stands, I grabbed my camera to catch a candid shot of the owner and his car. He was busy preparing his car and that’s usually when I try to get some behind-the-scenes photos for this site….
I snapped this photo and it wasn’t particularly good, but whatever…my eyes were still pretty tired from being up late the night before so I just looked around to see if anything caught my eye in an attempt to snap me out of my early morning funk…. In the distance, down the street, I spotted a puppy walking around… it wasn’t very big and it’s furry white appearance instantly grabbed my attention. I didn’t think anything of it, other than it being a little sad to see a puppy run about in a ghost town by itself…
So the dog ran off, turned a corner, and the owner of the car was ready to shoot, so I got to work… I had him position his car at the angle I wanted and started snapping away…I wanted a low angle profile shot of the car so I laid down on the ground. After getting the shots I wanted, I got up to stretch, looked around and saw the puppy again. I guess the dog had noticed us too and came a little closer to see what we were doing….
I snapped this photo of the puppy just hanging out in the distance. It didn’t want to get too close to us because we were complete strangers and it probably didn’t even expect to see any one in that area that morning, but it sat down on the pavement and watched us… As the minutes turned to hours, the puppy started to come closer, to the point where it was now walking around right next to us. I continued to shoot but my attention was turned to the puppy often, and every free moment I got while I had the owner re-position his car, I spent it staring at this puppy. It just seemed happy to have some company…it had no idea what we were doing, but it didn’t matter… you can tell that the puppy was lonely, tired, hungry…but undeniably friendly, fearless…as I walked around to different areas to get different angles of the car, the dog would follow me. I don’t think it expected anything, it was just cool to be around another living being. The owner of the car I was shooting took out a bottle of water and poured some out for the dog, and it happily obliged…
There was some broken pieces of plastic on the floor, probably from a child’s toy that had been run over by a passing car, and the dog snatched up a piece of it with it’s mouth, and started to play. It seemed excited to have company, which gave her energy to be playful. It’s fur was tangled and knotted, and the rain from a couple days before had probably stained it’s fur and gave it an almost greyish appearance. Even though the dog was tattered and dirty, it still had a cute face… I snapped the photo above after it had stopped for a break from running around the car….
A couple hours go by and I figured I had taken all the shots I needed for the magazine feature, and started to pack-up….Again, I was pretty beat in the morning from lack of rest so I had to cycle through the usual shots I take to see if there was anything I missed. I was half finished packing-up when I realized that I needed to get a detail shot of the wheels on the car so I pulled my gear out again. I usually have a towel that I kneel on or lay on top of when I shoot so I don’t get dirty, especially on the streets of Downtown L.A. For the wheel shot, I had to lay down and shoot upwards so I laid the towel out. I pick-up my camera from my camera bag and I walk back over to my towel, and the puppy is laying on top of it. It probably hadn’t had anything soft to lay on top of in awhile so it laid down comfortably on the towel. I let it lay there for a little bit until it decided to get up. I took the spot, got the shots I wanted, and packed up the rest of my stuff once again. The entire time, the puppy was hanging out in our area, as happy as it had been in awhile…
I walk over to my car and the puppy followed suit. It didn’t bark or even make a single sound the entire morning, and just seemed to be a really kind, friendly puppy. It didn’t try to jump in the car or anything, but it didn’t seem like it wanted us to go…I shake hands with the owner, chat with him for a couple seconds, and send him on his way. He gets in his car and drives off…
I think the puppy knew that we were leaving so it looked up at me as I toss my camera bag into the car…I will be the first one to admit that I am not a dog person, by any stretch of the imagination…I am not even a cat person, but I have two cats that live with me because my sister just loves cats. I’ve grown to really like cats over time, but dogs were just not animals that I ever thought of as a pet. I never wanted a dog and I have no idea really how to even take care of one, but I was completely enamored by this puppy. It just seemed to project this sense of innocence. It was so friendly, quiet, fearless…it needed a home…but I just wasn’t the person to provide that home…I felt really bad about it because I knew I would have a whole lot of regret to deal with later on. I captured this last photo of her to remind me of this once-in-a-lifetime meeting with this little puppy…
There was a point in time when I wanted to take the dog, but I had no idea where to take it…an animal shelter would have worked, but I don’t know what would happen to a dog like that. I don’t even know anything about animal shelters or their procedures…what if it ended up in some kennel where they would put it to sleep? Shit…I wanted to take the dog, I really did, but tossing an animal into the car with an unknown state of health from the run down streets of Downtown L.A. just sounded really sketchy. I could make an endless amount of excuses for not taking the dog, but it didn’t make me any less regretful…
I said bye to the puppy and it just stared at me, still never making a sound…. I got in my car and began to drive off. As I drove away I looked into the rear view mirror and saw the puppy chasing after the car…I felt so bad…I think I even got a little choked-up, and I’m usually a pretty emotionless guy… I made a right back onto the main street and looked behind one last time and saw that the puppy had stopped running. It just stopped and stared, realizing that it couldn’t catch-up to me…it probably just didn’t have the energy to…
The whole time I was driving home, all I could think about was this dog. I had completely forgotten that I was just so tired and needed to go back to sleep…When I got home, I pulled my memory card out of my camera and moved the photos of the puppy to my desktop…. I felt compelled to tell my story to someone, so I decided to make a post about it on Facebook. The second photo of the puppy staring at us in the distance was a story that could be told without words…
I wrote a little blurb about it and it instantly attracted the attention of my Facebook friends…More than I expected… many were sad, some were upset that I didn’t take the dog with me, and a couple people even wanted to know where the dog was because they wanted to go get it. One of the first people to ask was my buddy Arn…
Arn (pictured with all smiles above) is the owner of a K-swapped Integra that you all should be pretty familiar with. He lives deep in the valley, way north of Downtown L.A., but was willing to make the drive to go get the dog. In the comment above, you’ll see that he makes reference to picking up the dog for “jr.”…”Jr.” is his baby boy and Arn had recently started a family. Being able to have a puppy in the family sounded like a perfect piece to add to the puzzle of his life. I commented back right away with the address where I shot at, described the surrounding areas, and laid down to get some rest. I laid down in bed, constantly checking my Facebook updates to see if he had actually gone down there, as well as to read the rest of the comments from the post…There was abour 40 people that had something to say, and I was genuinely surprised by the reaction that this little puppy generated…I eventually dozed off though and fell asleep on top of my phone. I think at one point Arn even called me because I turned and heard a faint “hello?…hello?” on the phone in the midst of my slumber…
I woke up a couple hours later to a text message from Arn, which he sent probably an hour after I knocked-out…
“cant find dog
“
That was it…all hope was lost…
I responded and told him that it was okay…he tried…and he was a better man than me for making the effort. I also apologized for falling asleep and missing his call. I hop back on Facebook to see if there was any updates…Another person on my FB page also decided to head to that area in search of the dog. In an attempt to further his search, I once again posted-up more details on the surrounding areas where I last saw the puppy…
A couple minutes later, I received a text from Arn…
“found and rescued looking for a groomer who will clean her up”
What?! He found the puppy!! What great news it was after it seemed that all hope was lost. Looking back at the timelime of messages and during the time that I fell asleep, Arn must have been down there looking for a couple of hours….There were a lot of sad faces on Facebook in regards to my story on the puppy, so I decided to update everyone with great news…
The comment I put along with the photo said it all…. Arn was indeed the man, he did what almost seemed to be the impossible. For those of you who don’t know what that area looks like…trust me, it’s a very vast area. A lot of buildings, a lot of cars, though it was empty throughout the day, finding anything is difficult. There were also a lot of places where the dog could have hidden, even a train and train tracks not far away… I was just so happy to hear that Arn was able to locate the dog and take it home. I text him back and I told him to give me updates when he could and also send me a photo of the dog after they had it cleaned up…
The other individual that made his way down there also posted and said that he had no luck finding the puppy, and that he was happy to hear that it was picked-up when his wife saw the update on Facebook and called him to let him know. He too deserves some praise for making the long drive down there in an attempt to give the puppy a home…
As I said on Facebook, in this instance, social media actually did quite a bit of good for a change…for all the bullshit that we see on Facebook of people posting up stupid ass shit, we were finally able to make some use out of Facebook and changed a life in the process…
I sent him a text message to see where he found the dog and he quickly responded…
“a few streets down under a car. u were right she is super friendly”
Well, I assumed the dog was a boy the whole morning and it turned out to be a girl….
“thanks joey, anthony (Arn’s baby boy) has a new buddy now! by the way we’re naming her Joey”
If anything, Arn should have named the puppy Arnette or something because he deserves all the credit for saving her… I did nothing but tell a sad story about an encounter I had with a stray…nonetheless, I was honored. The post in response to Arn finding the puppy was just overwhelming. For all the sadness that people felt early that morning, they were all amazed to hear the good news. Arn has been a great enthusiast to look up to for his automotive endeavors, but we will always know him as a hero and a utterly amazing human being for what he had done….
Some time passed by into the late evening when I got a notification on my Facebook application on my phone… It was from Arn…
The little girl cleans up pretty well I must say! Haha, doesn’t even look like the same dog after she got all cleaned-up. She was still very frail and thin, but still dressed to impress, and she had food and water. Apparently she seems to be pretty photogenic as well!…Seriously, you can’t even make this kind of stuff up…
As for the post I was notified of on Facebook, I’ll let Arn tell you his side of the story…
Here’s the post that I copied and pasted. I figured it’d be easier to read here than on a screenshot….
“whoa, what an adventure today. i started my day as usual on facebook and found joey lee’s post about this dog that caught his attention. i asked the boss if she wanted a dog and thats where our journey began…
we drove from the SFV to downtown LA in search for this special dog. we got to the area where the dog was last seen and slowly drove around the cuts for about 45 minutes looking her with no luck. so we took a break from the search and went to lunch at aloha cafe.
after lunch we continued our search and in the last minutes of the hour we found her under a car, trying to keep cool from the hot sun. i pulled out some leftovers and began to feed her. she ate everything then with no hessitation she let me pick her up to put her in the back of our SUV.
when we got back to the valley we wanted to get her cleaned up so we drove to 3 groomers to find that they were all closed. luckily the people at pet people they were able to direct us to a groomer that was open on sundays. we got to top dog groomers in northridge and dropped her off to get pampered. a few hours later they called and told us that she was ready for pick up.
so without any further adue…we welcome JOEY L. (Lucky) REYES to our family. =)”
You just can’t help but smile when something good like this happens…. It was definitely an emotional ride, and I’m just happy that this story has a happy ending….I know it’s not your typical car story you’ll see here on The Chronicles, but it’s good to remind ourselves that we are all human sometimes, and outside of all this madness with cars, there are a lot of great people within our community. Congratulations to Arn, his family, and his new puppy. I hope she lives a long life and they make great memories together…
Year.Three…A Chronicles Celebration…
Larger Version (1400x799px) *Please don’t post this up anywhere else yet because there is one more final revision I would like to make!
Today, I would like to formally announce the official date, time, and location for The Chronicles’ 3-Year Anniversary Celebration…Man, I can’t believe that it has already been another year. Seems like only yesterday that we all gathered together at the Eibach Springs facility in Corona, CA for the 2-year anniversary meet which I dubbed “2YRS”. To go with a similar type of theme this year, I will deem this event “Year.Three”….creative right? Haha…with the three and the year…you know… Anyways, this meet will be basically the same format as last year, being that last year’s was so simple and easy to organize. We will be returning once again to the Eibach Springs facility because they have been generous enough to offer the lot to me once again, and because the size of the lot makes it very easy to get cars parked and people inside. The annual Eibach Honda Meet is so successful every year, many of you have become very familiarized with the venue so it should make it very easy for you guys to find. I am making the announcement today because tomorrow will make it exactly one month until the event will take place. Believe me, there’s been quite a bit of planning already and there are some pretty cool ideas floating around in my head so it’s definitely not going to be a last minute thing…
I make the announcement with it being just one month away because like last year, I want to keep this meet relatively small (compared to some other events) and keep it so that the people there are there because they are fans of the site and not merely going just because it’s just some car meet. I want you guys to know that I really do appreciate all your support over the years and I hope you guys respect my wishes and invite people that you know that actually know what The Chronicles is. It’s like bringing some random ass fools to somebody’s party who have no idea who the other person is, you know what I mean? Things will flow much better if we keep it to the people that follow the site, because they know what I’m about and those people know what type of attitude I expect from people. The lot was kept very clean last year, everyone was respectful to one another, and the meet was just a overall great time. If you plan on bringing some friends, please let them know that I don’t want them to act a fool, or to bring a dog and allow it to shit on the floor without anyone picking it up, or to change their babies or some shit and leave the diaper on the floor. I hate that shit, and the people over at Eibach hate that shit even more, because we have to clean that shit up and I don’t pick up shit for my own friends let alone some stranger…
I will be adding a couple new things this year just to make it more fun but for the most part, it will be very much the same as 2YRS. May will be making her treats once again for everyone to enjoy so make sure to say thanks to her for slaving away in the kitchen to put snacks together for you guys. I will also have a very small number of vendors this year as well who are hand-picked by me, who I feel have supported my site since the early days. Please don’t hit me up for a vendor spot. If I want to have you there, I will ask you personally. I think also that I might even throw out a couple awards this year like “Best of” or “Best Engine Bay” or some shit, I’m still working on the final details on that. As for parking, it will be the same as last year, parking around the rest of the Eibach lot is free, but if you want to park up front, there will be a fee. It won’t be a crazy amount like a car show or whatever, but this helps in the organization process of parking cars as well as paying for various things for the meet, like port-a-potties, materials for certain things, etc. Again, it is up to you if you choose to park in the front. IT IS YOUR DECISION TO MAKE, so don’t fucking bitch about having to pay for a parking spot. It’s going to be a decently-sized meet so parking will be limited. If you want to act like an asshole, believe me, you will be asked to leave promptly. As for it being an “only Honda” affair, like last year, it won’t be but the ones that aren’t are usually friends of the site or heavy supporters. If you guys know me or are friends with the other homies who are basically a part of The Chronicles family, then by all means, you are invited…
I will post up more details as I get to them. I’m currently down in SD attending to some personal matters but I will post up a FAQ section like last year when it’s ready….
Thanks for looking, and I hope to see you there on October 22nd….
Reading is Fuel for the Soul…
Ahh, I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t spend a couple moments out of my week to bombard you guys with some self-promotion…haha…In reality though, I love what I do and I hope you all appreciate the efforts that I put forth every month in your favorite import automotive magazine. Despite all this internet craziness with the blogs these days and car forums, and other social media sites, there still is no better feeling than looking in your mail box or going to your local convenience store and spotting the newest issue of Super Street, Honda Tuning, and Import Tuner. It’s just a cool feeling you know…I mean, it’s not like touching a hot girl’s titties or anything, but shit, you get the warm sensation inside of you (probably excitement) when you first flip through that new publication and I certainly hope you have an even better feeling when you take it up to the cash register to pay for it. That’s why I always say “SUPPORT PRINT”. We all work very hard on these magazines every single month to bring you what we feel is an amazing product. Every month I try to give you guys a good introduction to the latest issue as well as give you guys a bit of a preview of what’s inside….
With that said, I am proud to say that I can now put down “Import Tuner Magazine” on my list of publications that I have done work for. Charles Trieu, who was once a vital part of the Super Street magazine staff, has since moved onto become the head editor of Import Tuner and I guess he liked the work that I did previously, because he asked me to jump on board and do some work for IT. It’s a pretty cool feeling to say that I have written and shot for Super Street, Honda Tuning, and now Import Tuner. This month’s issue (on newstands now) marks my official debut over at Import Tuner and I’m proud to say that I am very happy with how my first two stories over at IT came out. I’ll fill you in on what exactly it is that I did further below…
On another note though, I was contacted by Jereon Willemsen (You know him from SPEEDHUNTERS) via Facebook early yesterday morning with a very pleasant surprise. He’s over in the Netherlands so it’s probably easier for him to get a hold of the mag but he let me know that The Chronicles is in the newest issue of Performance VW magazine as “The Site of The Month”. What I’m doing in a publication solely dedicated to Volkswagons is beyond me but apparently the editors over there found my site one day and enjoyed it so much that they decided give me that honor. It’s pretty crazy to think that not only is this a VW mag, but it’s also a publication that’s not even from the United States. It’s wild…I gotta say though, it is quite an honor for them to even mention me in their magazine. Jereon even sent me a couple photos of what the spread looks like…
They ran a couple of the photos from my event coverage on the page as you can see…. It’s so random but pretty amazing that they would give me that kind of recognition so I have to thank the guys over at Performance VW… They also emailed me too that same day that Jereon did and let me know that they were going to send me a copy of the magazine. If you’re from Performance VW and you’re reading this…thank you very much, I truly appreciate it….
Now, onto this month’s reading material…
If you haven’t already done so, make sure to pick up the October 2011 issue of Super Street magazine. Not only is it “The Stance” issue, which I’m sure many of you will love, it also marks the 15-year anniversary of Super Street magazine. They have a story inside with some of the more notable import models from the last 15 years and it’s a pretty good read. Also there are some pretty good shots in there so some of you guys can re-live your younger years and beat off to some classics…haha…it’s like reuniting with an old friend with your penis…
In this particular issue of SS, I shot Dennis Kongvongsai’s Subaru STi from Team Hybrid. I’m sure you guys have heard me mention his name a couple times in my coverage of events. I actually had never met the guy until that day I cruised down to San Diego to shoot his car but he is a pretty chill guy. The car looks good on those mag blue Volk RE30s and the car has a whole is a different look from most usual Subarus that you see on the road nowadays with some fucking Rotas on them and shit… The story is pretty good too where I talk about the current “state of stance” and sort of give some good insight on the whole “stance” movement…
While Super Street’s current issue deals with all style and wheel fitment, Honda Tuning this month has devoted an entire issue to all things race-related. Just like last year, Rodrez has put together “The Race Issue”. I’m sure there are those of you out there who have absolutely no idea about how to make a car go fast and only care about how your car looks but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t pick up this issue. It’s a very informative look at some of the top Honda/Acura race cars in our industry today. I did a story on a FG2 Civic race car from Segs Motorsports and even I managed to learn something during the process and I usually have zero ability to learn shit…
One of the coolest stories in this issue is about Tony Palo and Chris Miller, who today are at the top of their game in the drag racing world. They fill you in on their thoughts on drag racing and their rivalry in an interview from Rodrez himself. The cover features an Amuse widebody turbo S2000 and a K-swapped Civic hatchback, both owned by Ryan Novak. Also in the issue is a cool story about the Spoon Sports Civic Euro R democar…
My debut in Import Tuner magazine actually features a two stories, one of which I also did the photos for. Charles is always trying to feature Hondas so he hit me up to shoot a very clean Honda Civic that belongs to Brian Jacobe Arias from the AS1 crew…
Nothing crazy, just a very simple, street-spec Civic. I know there are a lot of you out there who aren’t into the track-themed builds these days or the cars with the crazy tucked bays and this is the Civic for you guys. There’s nothing trendy about this car and it’s a Civic that will probably be relevant in any era. Brian is also one of those very quiet, humble guys and he was super stoked when he found out that his car was going to be featured. He’s the type that actually appreciates stuff like this and doesn’t go out of his way to constantly ask for a feature or expect it, which is also VERY refreshing to see, especially considering how a lot of enthusiasts are these days….
The other story I did for Import Tuner was on this Lamborghini Giallo Orion Yellow widebody Amuse S2000…I personally have never seen or heard of this particular build before so when I first saw photos of it, I was pretty blown away. I mean, you see a couple Amuse S2Ks floating around these days but the thing that really impressed me about this car was the engine bay…that shit is CLEAN. You expect S2000s to always be supercharged these days with a half cluttered engine bay but this one is definitely not one of those. It’s turbocharged and the bay itself is completely shaved and tucked. I would go as far as to say that it’s probably one of the best S2000 engine bays I have ever seen. I’ll give props to Sheepey all day for having an AMAZING bay, with the crazy dump tube set-up and all, but you guys have to see the bay on this yellow S2000, it’s fucking clean. Both are very different cars but if you were to compare the engine bays…ehhh, it definitely makes things interesting. It’s not really a competition though but I’m just saying, people are going to compare… Also, there is some fucking money in this car…every aspect of this S2000 has been touched-upon; motor, aesthetics, custom audio….EVERYTHING. It’s a sick S2000 build….I would have gone a different route with the wheels but fuck it, it’s not my car…my opinion isn’t important, but seriously… If there were some bronze Volk CE28s on this car, I would spontaneously combust, haha…
***oh also, let me add this…ATS Ben brought it to my attention that the horsepower and torque numbers on this S2000 in the story are incorrect….that is not MY fault. It was an error on their part and there was a mix-up when they were doing the numbers for the Auto Select Skyline on the cover and this car…It is in no way a claim made by me or the owner of the car that it makes 800HP and 650lb-ft of torque. If that were the case with this S2000, I think the owner would either by Tony Stark aka Iron Man or Jesus…haha. Just don’t come complaining to me and thinking I’m an asshole for making up some wild numbers for this car…
Anyways, make sure to go pick up these magazines and give them a good thorough reading. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t have to shit at that particular moment, just sit on the fucking toilet and read the shit outta these magazines…SUPPORT PRINT ALWAYS!!…
Thanks also for supporting my ass… 
Status of your orders…
Umm, just a quick update before I head off to bed for a bit. I’ve been hard at work trying to finish up all these orders so I can go to the post office and drop them off. Thanks everyone for your support and continuing to buy merchandise. If you haven’t received your order yet, you will in the coming days, I promise. I usually try to send them out in large batches so I don’t have to go back and forth to the post office. Hurt Feelings shirts are flying off the shelves so make sure you pick one up before they are all out. I’m pretty sure the only ones left are the larger sizes too. The mediums and larges went really quickly….
I know a lot of you are wondering what happened to the “HELLASUNK” decals that I’ve been selling for awhile now. They’re not available currently in the storefront because my vinyl cutting machine is still a little screwy so I am only selling the stickers that I have on hand. I do have a new HELLASUNK decal in the works though and once my machine is fully operational again, those will go up on the storefront. Anyways, if you guys ordered something and have yet to receive it, it’s either on it’s way already or about to go in the mail box to go out to you guys. There are two orders where I have to issue refunds however, because I had an error in my inventory and those items are out of stock. I will contact you soon if you are one of those two individuals. I apologize for my error and you guys will get your money back as soon as possible….
Alright, time for bed…thanks for your support. If you missed the NWP Summer Nights 2011 coverage, it is below…
The Chronicles Storefront Re-Opened…
Taking a break from coverage updates for a couple hours because I’m busy finishing up some stories for Honda Tuning magazine. In the meantime, I did manage to catch up on all the back-ordered items from the store and have gotten every single order out to people that bought stuff. There are a couple of them there were a few weeks late but with so much going on these last couple weeks with the three shows, merchandise orders were piling up. Those are all mailed out now so thanks everyone for being so patient. I’m having some issues with my vinyl cutter still and when I have a spare moment, I will take it apart again to try to resolve the issue. In the mean time, I have put up whatever I have in the storefront for you guys to purchase. This includes the brand new VERSION II of the popular HURT FEELINGS t-shirts as well as the limited edition “Battleship Grey” Nisei Showoff 2011 Chronicles stickers. Everything in the store right now is available and if you guys have any order that is over $25, I will include a GENERATIONS decal from the Nisei Showoff event…Cop it now, the shirts are like, incredibly limited in availability because I don’t have that many sizes left. Only a couple of each size I believe…
THE OFFICIAL CHRONICLES STOREFRONT
Thanks everyone for their support…Part 1 of the Motion Auto Show Coverage should be up late tonight/early in the AM…
Attention!! Help Wanted…
Man, this is so fucking ridiculous…I’m still sitting here in disbelief. Alright, so earlier tonight the DPK guys, Big Mike, Supertwinz John, and I all went out to go meet up at Teastation in Cerritos/Artesia area to go grab dinner and chill. I mean, we haven’t had everyone together like this in awhile so it was cool to see everyone. Some of the guys that were there we might not have seen like in the past year or so, so it was kind of a big deal that we actually got everyone together. Anyways, one of the homies had to return a set of black Volk CE28s to another homie and since we were all meeting up for dinner it was the perfect time to do it. We were there probably from like 8pm or so until 11:30pm. We chill outside for awhile and shoot the shit like we usually do, and then Jared from DPK walks over to his white Integra to go move the car so that the wheel exchange could occur. He walks over there and we kind of just see him in the distance stand there, but we don’t think anything of it. After awhile, something doesn’t seem right so I call over to see what was going on, and to make a long story short, somebody bashed out the passenger side window and stole the fucking wheels. The back windows are tinted pretty dark and it’s not exactly easy to see inside, but they still managed to jack the wheels. I didn’t even know shit like this goes down over there because we’ve been there plenty of times. It’s crazy. They didn’t take anything else, didn’t seem to have messed with anything, but the wheels are gone…
I’m making this post, because we need your help. If you know anything about this, heard something from someone, or have any information regarding this matter, we would all appreciate it if you would contact me and let me know. We are offering a finder’s fee, so don’t worry about that and it will be completely anonymous. If you have any information regarding the theft of these wheels, please let me know. It fucking sucks when stupid shit like this happens and if it ever happened to you, I’m sure you would want to know where your stuff is. Again, completely anonymous…I won’t narc you out on the internet or anything. If you know the whereabouts of these wheels, we would really like to know where they are. Everyone please be on the look-out if you know someone selling a set of black 16×7 Volk CE28s or sees an ad or whatever where a set of these suddenly pops up for sale. There are certain things on it where we will be able to identify whether or not they are the wheels in question. Any information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Where it happened: City Plaza in Artestia area off of South St. (Where Teastation, Sweetee Thai, Micasa Bakery are located)
When it happened: Between 8pm – 11:30pm
What happened: A set of black 5×114 16×7 Volk CE28s were stolen out of the trunk of a white DA Integra
If you know anything about this or can direct me to where we can locate these wheels, please contact me at stickydiljoe@yahoo.com or contact me on Twitter.com @stickydiljoe
Fuck thieves!!!
I Came…I Saw…I Seent it…
Finally got a chance to hop onto a computer since being away in Nashville, Tennessee for the entire weekend. It was definitely an interesting time. I just looked through the photos straight off the memory card from the weekend and I must say, I am very happy with the results. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but damn…toot toot muthfuckas…Tomorrow will begin the first day of the Import Alliance 2011 coverage. I will be bringing you unprecedented coverage of the entire event and for a majority of you on the left coast, you will finally get a good taste of how the entire IA weekend was from the travel, to the parties, to the event itself, and much, much more. I really doubt anybody has managed to cover this event the way I will present it to you and I’m very proud to say that I went out there and did it. So many times people have told me that I never go out there to show them support or why the west doesn’t care about IA…well fuck, I went out there and did it. I saw it and I will tell everyone my thoughts on the event. Whether it be the good, the bad, or the out right odd shit that was going on, I will speak on it, no matter how awkward or uncomfortable it may be. I can honestly say that it was a good time and a VERY interesting look at how the community is out there. Some of you may not like what I have to say but hey, if you don’t like it, you can always just look at the photos and move on with your life. The event itself is pretty crazy, I’ll tell everyone more about it tomorrow. I’ve been catching up on some much needed sleep and reacquainting myself with everyday life back out here in the west…
West, east, south, whatever…Got it covered. The Chronicles IA 2011 coverage coming tomorrow. Later ya’ll….
This Post Is Useless Without Pictures….
Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday. I usually try to toss something up on a Monday because I’m sure you guys are all expecting something at the beginning of the week. If you follow this site for more than a couple months or so, then you know that I usually always try to post up something during the start of the week. I was actually out the whole day yesterday because I had to shoot down to north county San Diego to meet up with a guy to shoot his car for Super Street. It would have been much easier if my phone was working but it took a shit the day before so I ended up having to borrow my sister’s phone throughout the day to make sure that the guy didn’t get lost and/or if he was going to arrive late for the shoot. I dropped my phone and broke it a couple months ago and got a replacement through my insurance but the phone they sent me apparently was a refurb unit so it didn’t last very long and just quit working altogether. Anyways, I decided to have the guy meet up with me down at Autofashion USA because it’s a well-known spot and if you’re a SD resident who is into car shit, then you probably know about Freddie’s shop. I had IMed Freddie on AOL Instant Messenger to inform him that I was coming down and the first thing he said to me was “hey asshole, why didn’t you take any pictures of my HKS Ruckus from Wekfest?” I told him that I didn’t even know about it because I was busy running around Wekest the whole day and just totally overlooked anything Ruckus-related that day. He said he was just joking and I’m sure he was lying, haha, but he said it was cool for me to head down…
I haven’t driven down to San Diego for a shoot in a long ass time but since it was a Monday, it just made more sense for me to head down there to shoot instead of having the guy whose car I was shooting head up here to LA because of all the traffic. That and he would probably be unfamiliar with the area and it would just be difficult to shoot the car in the short amount of time that we had. So I get all my shit ready and take the hour and a half drive down to Autofashion. I get there and say what’s up to Freddie and check out the shop, being as I hadn’t been there in quite some time. I see his Ruckus with the HKS livery and it’s pretty nice. The whole HKS theme is very vivid and pops and it works for the Ruckus. Definitely something different for Ruckus guys, you know? Of course I didn’t think to take my camera out at that moment to take a picture of it to show you all so it essentially makes this entire post useless without pics; hence the title of the post…
I don’t want to keep describing things to you guys without anything for you to look at because it would just be generally boring so I hopped on Photoshop and drew some pictures. This should better help you visualize what I’m telling you better and make your Tuesday slightly more exciting…
Here is what I came up with for his Ruckus, it’s definitely not a very good drawing and absolutely nothing close to what it actually looks like….But it’s as close as it’s going to get to anything HKS or Ruckus-related for today…
Not too bad right? Haha…In real life I think the seat is wrapped in Recaro or Bride material and the frame is purple. This rendering probably looks more like my boy Billy’s HKS IS300 more than the actual Ruckus from Autofashion but just based on pure memory, that’s the only HKS livery I now…
Alright, moving on… So I was just hanging out at the shop for about 20 minutes and then the guy whose car I was supposed to shoot (Dennis from Hybrid) arrives. The only form of communication that Dennis and I have had the whole time was limited to text messages so it was my first time talking to him in person. Really chill dude who was about the same age as me and since we both grew up in San Diego, we were able to talk about all kinds of random shit like high school, people we knew, etc… When he arrived, it was still pretty sunny out so we hung out at the shop while we waited for the sun to go down…
Here’s a rendering of us hanging out. Freddie is smoking a cigarette like usual and me saying something funny and getting zero reaction from him…
About another 40 minutes go by and I decide to go take a stab at shooting the car. I told Freddie that I would come back to shoot the Ruckus but I guess he ended up having to leave and had no way of contacting me since my phone was busted…
Here’s a little preview shot from the shoot for Super Street. Overall I think it went well. White cars are usually really easy to shoot so I came home and was very please with how the photos came out. Right after the shoot, I drove all the way back up to the OC to make some food and got right to work on processing the pics. That’s about all for today, now I gotta get back to knocking some stuff out before I head out of town again this weekend…Thanks for looking…
This is cool…
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…
All Orders Going Out This Week…
Just a real quick note before they shut my power off here for the day…shits been getting bad over here and they need to do some major maintenance and upgrades to the building that I’m living in. Power was supposed to be shut down like 15 minutes ago so if this all of a sudden cuts off, you’ll know why. I jumped on here real quick to inform EVERYONE that their orders will be going out definitely this week. I just sent out like 50 or so orders and another 40-50 will be going out tonight. I’ve been having some major issues with my vinyl machine and it’s just been wrecking havoc on the pace on which I get the orders out. First the rolling mechanism cracked and I had to order another unit from Arizona. Then as soon as that came the part had a cheap ass metal screw which was very brittle that bent, which resulted in me using a screw from the old mechanism. It was just a mess. With the two different screws an issue of alignment came up and I’ve just been spending much of my free time this past holiday weekend getting it all situated again. It looks to be working fine now so the rest of the orders will go out for sure in the next couple days. I’m going to go ahead and shut down the store at the end of the day too so that I can take a break and focus on getting my car detailed and ready for Wekfest Long Beach this weekend…Should be fun times since I won’t have a booth at this event and I can actually spend some time with the people that matter in my life. In any case, I better get going, I hear the power guys running around outside and the power is about to get shut off for the day…The rest of the ItsJDMYo!!! 1-year Anniversary Coverage will go up as soon as the power is back on…
Thank you everyone for being so patient, it’s a one man show over here with these orders but I’m doing my best to get them out to everyone, even guys from Japan and what not who have ordered…expect it soon!!
Peace…
We the best!!…
It rained, it poured, there was some Hurt Feelings, and a car was towed…all in all, with all that occurred, it was another great Eibach Honda Meet. The 2011 version proved to be quite an interesting one and you can read all about it here in the coming days. I’ve finally had a chance to sleep and though I’m still very beat, I’m already back and trying to go through over 300 photos from this past weekend. I had a blast and I have to give it up to Ryan Hoegner and Rodrez for once again putting together an amazing event. These two guys have been taking time out of their schedules to put these events together since the very beginning and it continues to get bigger and better than ever…
The rain early on was probably the most surprising occurrence of the day, seeing as Eibach events before have proved to provide some pretty hot weather. It didn’t stop people from coming though, that’s for sure…
Before I get back to work on these photos, I must MUST give a huge thanks to May and Tony Lee for helping me run my booth and knocking out merchandise sales all day long. Running a booth isn’t easy and I didn’t want May to have to do all the hard work so I asked Tony to help me out and the guy came through for me big time. It is because of these two that I was actually able to walk around for as long as I did and take as many photos as I could. Even in the harsh weather in the morning, May was still working tirelessly to help me set up and that’s why she’s such a huge part of my life. I know that she would do anything for me and I couldn’t ask for any one better to help me continue to make The Chronicles an even better site. She was sick all weekend as well but she was clutch and manned the booth with Tony and was able to get merchandise out to anyone that wanted something in a timely fashion. Gotta thank Rodrez as well for providing me with the booth space. Its always cool to be side by side with the NWP4Life booth. Hope everyone that attended got to enjoy some of May’s baked goods as well, she worked really hard on them and it is much appreciated.
Okay, back to work on these pics. Big thanks to everyone else who also came by to say what’s up and others who spent some time at my booth coercing people to buy shit, haha. It’s good to see everyone and I’m happy that I had a chance to speak to people from all over the country and other parts of the world. Oh and I was very surprised by how many people from the Northwest came to Eibach and were hitting me up for those “Get the fuck outta mahh caaarrrr!!!” stickers…you guys are crazy haha….
Back for more this whole week!…Stay tuned…
Speedhunters’ “West Coast Hondas and that JDM Word” Discussion…
I’m sure you guys have heard me talking about the whole interview thing with Speedhunters a couple days ago and today the whole thing went live on Speedhunters.com. It’s like a round table discussion about the west coast Honda community, how things have changed over the years, and what’s to come in the future. It’s a pretty cool deal to be a part of it and to be considered for the whole discussion is truly an honor, considering the other guys that are on the panel. Check it out and let me know what you think. I wrote a lot more originally but it had to be edited for length, so a lot of the usual shit talking I did was cut out to make me less of an asshole, haha. Anyways, take a look at it and feel free to leave feedback…
Link to Speedhunters’ West Coast Hondas and That JDM Word Discussion…
Birthday Season…
It seems like there’s been more birthdays lately than there have been shows/meets to attend. It’s always good to see everybody though and attempt to talk about other things non-car related. The greatest thing about what we do in this hobby is not the cars but the people that we meet. I’ve met plenty of great people in all my years doing this that I am proud to call my close friends. We really shouldn’t need birthdays just to celebrate our friends but it’s always a good reminder of the people that are important in our lives.
This past week as DPK David’s birthday as well as Keith aka Keychain’s. I hardly ever drink anymore like I used to when I was around Keith’s age so for David’s birthday, I had planned to go on a complete bender at David’s house party and just wreck myself. I devoted the day after to recovery and feeling like absolute shit but it turns out that it was totally unnecessary. I don’t know what it was but I’m pretty sure I drank for a good 5 straight hours, drinking mixed drinks and taking shots, and it just did absolutely nothing to me. I even had Big Mike assigned to be my designated driver but at the end of the night I just drove home because I was completely sober. Oh well, in any case, it was a great time and it was good seeing a lot of people I hadn’t seen in awhile. Even guys like Mike G. showed up to hang out and that dude doesn’t show up to anything anymore, haha. It’s actually a good thing though that I didn’t get wasted because I had a better time just being alert and sober. It worked out anyways because I didn’t really know about Keychain’s birthday until Tony told me about it. It was the next day at noon and I definitely wouldn’t have made it if I was piss drunk. We did the Korean BBQ thing and the food was great. Just good to spend time with friends on their special day and show them that they are important in our lives…
May had the Canon S95 with her so she took care of taking pictures from David’s birthday. If you guys care or want to look at pictures from that night, head on over to her personal blog here…
For Keith’s I really didn’t bring a camera or attempt to get photos because I was too busy eating copious amounts of meat. This Korean BBQ spot called Cham Sut Gul was one of the best KBBQ spots I’d ever eaten at and I’ve been to quite a few. It was a good meal and there was cake provided by one of Keith’s friends so that was cool. His other friend Rocky, was nice enough to get a shot of us with Keith after the meal…
Cool photo, especially since it was the first time David wore a shirt that had a color that wasn’t black, haha…
Happy Birthday to both Keith and DPK David, hope you guys had a good one!!…
Figured you guys would want to see at least one thing related to Hondas so here’s a recent shot of the homie S2kJay’s S2000 from ATL. The car was headed to the IA Spring meet and is looking as good as ever with the addition of a J’s Racing rear wing…This guy is always doing big things and it’s good to see that he’s finally decided to get some Rywire products on there as well…
Spontaneous Photographic Moments Captured By A Digital Camera…
Damn, my fucking back hurts. Probably because I haven’t had much time to rest or get any sort of sleep as of late. Again, sorry for the lack of consistent updates this week. Still finishing up some stuff for the Super Street Honda Issue and by the time you guys read this everything should be ready to go to print. It’s been an interesting couple weeks, that’s for sure, but all the hard work will definitely be worth it when the issue drops. I’m going to need some time to catch up on the orders from The Chronicles storefront so if you ordered something and you haven’t received it, believe me, it is on it’s way. I’ve just had to set aside some time to knock that shit out. Right now, there doesn’t seem to be enough hours left in the day to do everything that I would like to do. I’m completely focused on work at this point but once that’s wrapped up, everything on the site will be my priority.
While I was looking through one of my memory cards, I found an older picture that I shot a couple months back that I really liked. I wanted to post it up but it’d be weird for me to just post a singular photo without having anything to say about it. All I see nowadays are other sites/blogs posting up photos they find somewhere else and call it “Random Snaps”. I think it was Speedhunters that started this but every other site/blog has seemingly stolen this idea and also deemed whatever photo they post a “Random Snap”. I like to post original content as well as come up with original titles for my posts so instead of “Random Snap”, I’ve decided to use the most unnecessary, exaagerated version of the title “Random Snap” and deemed it the “Spontaneous Photographic Moments Captured By A Digital Camera”. Yes, stupid long but it takes very little effort for people to show a little bit of originality nowadays and that just seems to be lost among the sea of bloggers.
Anyways the photo I was talking about was this one…
It’s a re-edit of a pic I had posted once before but I like this picture not only because it has my car in it, which is rare enough in itself, but also because I think it really captures what we do on a regular basis. I really make a concentrated effort to give you guys a feel of our lifestyle out here, whether it be doing car shit or just hanging out with the homies. I’m not trying to sell you an image or a facade of what I think is a particular “lifestyle”. We are genuinely friends that hang out and enjoy each others company. Car shit, while definitely important, comes second. This isn’t one of those sites that just has a bunch of random fucking dudes on it that don’t even know each other. Nobody shoots for me or does any of the work on this site but me, so it’s real, you know? I do my best to capture our lives and give you guys a sense of reality. A photo like the one above encompasses everything that The Chronicles is about. It’s life as we know it…
This site started out as something I just did in my free time. I really never expected it to develop any sort of following. I was talking to Big Mike a couple days before and tried to figure out where things “took off” so to speak and we couldn’t really put our fingers on it. Maybe it was the event coverage, Big Mike’s Prelude rebuild, or just me writing about dumb shit in the Honda scene that I wasn’t particularly fond of, who knows, but we managed to generate some interest along the way. I couldn’t be happier with the direction that the site has taken since I started and it’s presented me with some great opportunities in my life…All I can say is that I’m grateful for everything and I thank you all for continuing to come here and read about our lives. You are all witnesses to the lives that we live and that’s a wonderful thing.
On that note, here’s a look at what’s been going on this week. Yes I’ve been busy with work but I’ve also taken time to do stuff for the site. You may not have noticed because I haven’t been around to update but I’ve definitely stayed busy…
I was eating dinner with May in the valley and she mentioned that she had to meet up with Tina to give her some stuff that she ordered. I called up Mikeyyyy and Salem and they told me that they were going to this meet. It was a Tuesday so it was kinda random to have a meet but when I arrived, the meet was fucking crazy. There were so many cars in this random shopping center that the cops had to come and break the thing up. I had the Canon S95 with me so I attempted to take some pictures but the meet was broken up so quickly that I didn’t get much. When I get a chance to go through the pics, I’ll post them up. The pic above is after the meet was broken up by the police and we were also on our way outta there…
As many of you guys know, I’m not much of a photographer but I do spend some time shooting cars for the site as well as for publication. Cars are what I’ve spent the majority of the time shooting but when I go to meets and stuff, I do take pictures of people. The candid shots are usually my favorites because I feel that they do a better job of capturing the moment. Tony from ItsJDMYo!!!called me up a couple days ago to let me know that he was given the opportunity to shoot over at Mastermind and he wanted me to come along to check it out and to help out with some shots. He was planning on doing another run of posters so he had a couple models come out to shoot with the cars. I don’t know how to shoot models nor do I have any experience doing so but I did manage to get a couple good shots here and there….
I mentioned candid shots being my favorite because the above shot is one of my favorites of the day. It was at a moment when I was testing out the lighting and position of the car so it didn’t really require Amy Fay to do anything but stand there. She had just put her outfit of choice on and was just waiting around for us to set-up. While she was standing there texting whoever, I kinda just stood there, looked around while the timer on my camera was doing it’s job, and I was asking myself what business I had being there. After all, I was a guy who ran a site dedicated to Hondas with no experience ever shooting models, yet I was there taking a picture of a car that most certainly wasn’t a Honda, with the next big thing in the import modeling scene…The girl is on a steady climb to blowing up so it was cool to be there at that moment…
Of course, whenever I shoot, I usually have Big Mike with me because he does a good job helping me set-up and the dude just likes being around…
Here’s another good random sna….err, spontaneous photographic moment captured by a digital camera. AMYFAYxBIGMIKE pinky-swear collabo…where else would you see some random shit like that? Yep, only on The Chronicles…
Did I mention that I had a chance to spend the whole day at Mastermind with both Spirit Rei Odyvias? More on that soon…
Life as we know it…and I wouldn’t have it any other way…
Hell week…
Okay, the title of this post is a little exaagerated because I’m making it sound way more tumultuous than it actually is. I’m actually having a lot of fun with everything that’s going on lately. It just happens to be a lot of work. My proverbial “plate” is never really full because I can always manage to do more but it’s pretty close. Over the past weekend, I had a meeting with head editor of Super Street, Jonathan Wong, to discuss the 2011 Super Street FF Battle. I don’t have the official date with me but it will be towards the end of July and we got together to figure out what worked in year’s past, what didn’t work, and how to improve this year’s event. Many an idea was tossed around and I honestly feel that this year’s will be the best yet. Wishful thinking of course but I think with careful planning, and most importantly, early planning, the event will be a success and be a much bigger draw than the last two years. The cars and competitors are always great, we’re just looking on ways to improve general attendance and to get the community and it’s enthusiasts to be more involved and interested in the event. I should be pretty involved with the FF Battle this year so when I hear more about it, I’ll be sure to let everyone know what’s going down…
If my hands weren’t full with that, my week started yesterday with a flurry of writing jobs. I have a couple of stories to knock out for Honda Tuning and I am also working on the annual Super Street Honda Issue, which is an annual special and always a hit with readers. The Honda Issue is special to me of course because Hondas are what I enjoy writing about the most and I’m all for the growth of this community and it’s enthusiasts. I love Honda Tuning because every month I write about amazing Honda builds and being able to do that in an issue of Super Street that’s specifically geared towards Hondas is a great thing. I’m very excited about it because we’re working very hard to make this the best Honda Issue yet. It sounds like I’m blowing smoke up your asses because I just said the same thing about the FF Battle but fuck, I don’t go into these things just to kick up a few puddles…I’m here to create some fucking waves. It’s cool when people come up to me or hit up my Facebook to tell me that they just saw the latest issue of Super Street or Honda Tuning and they see my work all over it. It means I must be doing something right if magazines like to use my words and photos and pay me for it. For the upcoming Honda Issue of SS, I am very much involved and there will be a lot of work from me within those pages. I’m pretty excited about it. I’m trying to make it my pride and joy and it ain’t even my mag…
Speaking of Honda Tuning, I really think you guys should go out and cop the latest issue. The cover car is none other than Angel from ATS Garage and his insanely aggressive Honda S2000. Even if you don’t know the owner you should all recognize the car by now. I’ve never seen an S2000 be so aggressive and pull it off so gracefully. The car is a work of art and a great example of how to not do too much to a build and still manage to take the collective breathes away from an entire community of Honda heads…
Angel’s S2K already makes the issue worth buying but if it’s not what you’re looking for, this issue also features an indepth look at Back Yard Special of Japan. You’ve seen their parts throughout the years but now you can actually get a glimpse inside their shop and meet the owner. Also in the issue is BaconLettuceTomato aka BLT and his gold Civic hatchback and an H22-swapped Civic Wagon with a custom ragtop. Rodrez even managed to squeeze in Wekfest 2011 coverage and is probably the first to have coverage of the event in publication. It’s a good ass issue. I mean, every issue is good, especially since I’ve been around but shit, go buy this. Don’t just pick it up at 7-11 and then put it back down or whatever, that’s just lazy and cheap. If you buy it I guarantee you that it’s at least a three-shitter. I mean, there’s so much good content in there that you may be able to extend it to 5-6 dumps depending on the speed and velocity of your bowel movements. For your sake I would hope that you can sit down and enjoy at least one feature per shit and not have to worry about crazy backsplashing of water onto your anus or wherever it goes. Angel’s S2000 is so aggressive that the turd might just shoot out at lightspeed but I implore you to just chill out on the bowl and read the story about the build…
This shouldn’t really be news since the Wek’Sos guys are so good at flooding my Facebook page and everywhere else with all things Wekfest but the official announcement for Wekfest 2011 Long Beach has been made and registration has even been opened up since April 1st. Junior is actually down here in Socal this week so I might go meet up with him and the rest of the guys for dinner to discuss Wekfest Long Beach but for now, you guys can get all the information you need on the event from the gigantic images of the Wekfest flyers below. It’s gonna be a great event so make sure you register if you plan on showing your vehicle or make sure to come out just to check out the event. Shit is going to be more amazing then the first time you rubbed a girl’s butthole while you were doing the nasty. Like smelling your finger afterward, Wekfest Long Beach is a game changer. Read the flyer already and stop reading this nonsense that I’m writing…
Look at all those colors!!…If I was an artist I’d tell you that those are great earth tones but I don’t know anything about that stuff…
West Coast should be two words!…haha..I’m just kidding, it really should be though…Anyways, there’s a lot going on over here on my end so I’m gonna catch some shut eye and then back to work I go…
WWW.WEKFEST.COM
WWW.WEKFEST.COM
WWW.WEKFEST.COM
Eibach 2011…
Wekfest Long Beach 2011…
Super Street Honda Issue…
Super Street FF Battle…
Honda Tuning always bringing the heat…
What a year! All this hardwork and sleepless nights is totally going to pay off. Thank you guys for all your continued support, no matter what capacity it is in, whether it be just this site or you guys going and supporting whatever work I do outside of this site. Because of you guys STICKYDILJOE.COM had it’s best month of all time (since 2008) and we hit well over 129K in hits. Hopefully as the year progresses I can continue to repeat this statement but with bigger numbers.
Rest for now…PEACE.
Slow week…
Ah it’s been kind of a slow week. I’ve been in and out a lot because I’ve been taking care of May after her successful venture through the 26.2 mile Los Angeles Marathon (SPONSORED BY HONDA). It was quite a proud moment for her and it was great to see her finish, even though the storm was going fucking crazy. DPK David and a bunch of the other DPK guys were on hand for us to witness her finish and it was cool to see her accomplish something that she’s always wanted to do. She’s been recovering the last couple days and it was also her birthday yesterday so I’ve been taking care of her and taking her to eat and what not. Real life shit you know…Anyways, here’s a shot of us from the marathon the day before. It’s a crappy photo but I don’t want to pay $59.95 for a photo that I could have taken myself…haha….Congrats May and her homies…
I know it’s been slow but it’ll pick up this weekend with the Need For Speed: Shift 2 release party and car meet at the Source Interlink offices in El Segundo. Check the info below this post to read more about it…
For what it’s worth, some good news…
Oh man, so much heartbreak and devastation going on over in Japan. If you’ve been around to read the previous updates, you’ll know that the homies and I have been anxious to hear from our Japanese buddy Takeshi for the last couple days since the earthquake and tsunami hit. His home is in the city of Sendai so we feared the worst for him and his family. Luckily for us, our other Japanese friend, Tetsuya Yamaguchi was able to get in contact with another friend of his that had spoken to Takeshi and notified him that he was indeed safe. Even so, we still had no idea of his whereabouts and how he was doing. Yesterday, he finally was able to jump on Facebook real quick to let us know how he was doing…
Takeshi Kobayashi via Facebook:
Hi , everyone. Sorry for I cant reply each message,but me and my fam are okay.I was locate almost pacific ocean ,it was very close to TSUNAMI…I drove my ITR to downtown Sendai right now ,where I live ,still no elec power and no cell phone connection / internet ,no gasoline , no food …anyway thanks for kind words and we appriciate.
So he and his family are okay and he was also able to drive his USDM ITR back to his home, which was not affected other then the current loss of electricity, phone, and internet that most of that area is also experiencing. Him bringing his car home, unfortunately, might mean that his business was damaged or lost but we will have to wait and see what he says. I saw on Tetsuya’s Facebook page that he says that he expects some damage to Takeshi’s business. Either way, with everything else going on, material things are the least important and he can eventually rebuild. It’s just nice to know that with everything that I’ve seen on TV the last couple days that someone was able to at least recover something that wasn’t completely obliterated by the earthquake and tsunami. In any case, we here are all just happy to know that he is alive and well and his family is doing okay and he still has his home.
So at least we can breathe a sigh of relief for the moment…
I’m considering putting together a charity meet to help the people of Japan but it’s going to take some planning. Every little bit helps though so I’m sure all the work will be worth it. We will see though. Location above all else is an issue right now but I will keep you guys updated when I figure anything else out.
Back later today with some coverage from the NastIE Garage Meet…Totally didn’t expect to go but I wanted to make sure you guys had at least something to do when you came on here besides read bad news. It was either the meet or the XDC Remix show so I chose the meet because it was the lesser of two evils. I don’t really feel like paying to go to a Remix show because I’m not really into wasting my money. Haha, I heard they were under new ownership this year and the Extreme Autofest guys are doing those shows now, which makes it really unappealing. I don’t really support those shows too much anymore because I don’t really like the direction that they’ve gone in throughout the years. The meet was ehhh, “interesting” to say the least but it was a good chance to chill with the homies which always ends up turning into something fun. I’ll toss up those pics later after I wake up…
How you can help…
Photo: REUTERS/Yomiuri
Photo: JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images
It’s pretty apparent that Japan is in a state of emergency and it needs help. So many lives lost with the numbers continuing to grow by the day and so many are still missing. People are displaced and no longer have homes, many who have lost everything that they worked so hard for their whole lives. There are times when everything we do everyday all of a sudden seems so terribly insignificant because of tragic events such as the recent events in Japan. This is going to take quite some time for them to recover and while some may never regain what they lost, every little bit helps and you can help these people. For all the differences we have in the world, we are all human. Just sitting by and watching all this unfold is heartbreaking. Let’s get the ball rolling on this people. Text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation to Japan Earthquake and Pacific Tsunami Relief….Thank you.
American Red Cross: Donate Funds
Unbelievable…
UPDATE!!! As of 3:45am PST, Tetsuya Yamaguchi informed me that he has spoken to a friend and that the friend has notified him that Takeshi is indeed safe. What exactly that entails I do not know as of this time. He’s alive and well, which is great news. Hopefully his shop and home and what not are also safe and haven’t received significant damage. I’ll give everyone an update as soon as I hear anything else in the morning!!..
As most of you have heard by now, a 8.9 magnitude earthquake hit Japan at 2:46pm. I’ll spare you the details because it is all over the news, TV, etc. and you can easily find out information about it. The death toll continues to rise and a couple of hours from now, I am sure even more information will be released regarding damages and what neighboring countries and islands will be on Tsunami watch and/or evacuation. I personally, am especially worried about our friend and fellow enthusiast, Takeshi Kobayashi. Takeshi always makes the trip out from Japan for all of the biggest events out here and I always make an effort to speak to him and spend some time with him while he’s out here. When I found out about the quake, I quickly hopped on Facebook to see if Takeshi and our other friends like Tetsuya Yamaguchi were affected. Tetsuya posted up right away as soon as the quake hit and he’s notified many of us stateside that he’s okay because he is in a different area of Japan, but I am sad to say that we still have yet to hear from Takeshi. He’s actually from the Sendai area, which is near the epicenter of where the quake hit, which makes me very, very worried about his safety and whereabouts. I immediately hit up Tetsuya on Facebook to see if he had come in contact with him or had heard anything but he too tells me that he is anxious to hear from him. All we can do now is wait…I will try to update everyone as soon as I hear anything, but for now, there’s nothing else we can do but hope for the best. It’s crazy to think that I just spoke to him and hung out with him for a bit recently at Wekfest 2011 before the show began and now a disaster like this occurs directly where his home is and none of us have any idea if he is okay or not…That was just a month ago…
Here’s a picture of him (far left) from last year’s Eibach 2010 event with Tetsuya Yamaguchi and HeyMikeyyyy…
I know this may seem far removed from most of you guys that just casually look through this site, but for me and the rest of the homies, we are all hoping for the best. We love seeing Takeshi out here in America on the west coast and it’s a pleasure to have him in our company. The guy is always such a huge fan of what we do out here and I enjoy his enthusiasm. One of the greatest things about doing this site is that I’ve been able to meet people from all over the world like Tetsuya and Takeshi. These guys are what make this community so great and remind us that such a simple hobby like cars can result in us making friends with people from all parts of the world.
Even if you aren’t a person of faith or religion, please pray and have the people of Japan in your thoughts… If anyone has any information or hears from Takeshi, please leave a comment or email me to let me know if he is okay. Thank you and thanks to Tetsuya Yamaguchi for constantly giving us updates as to the situation overseas….
Human…
If you guys are here for coverage of the Showstoppers USA grand opening from this past weekend, I apologize, because I didn’t go. With all the car stuff and events that have been going on lately, we had quite a bit of stuff to catch-up on in real life so I promised May that we would be spending the weekend up in her area so that we could knock some things out. She had been wanting to reorganize her place so we took the opportunity to do so. I normally have something for you guys to read or look at on Monday but today, I must take a break. When I was younger I was one of those kids that got sick often and always had a sensitive stomach. Whatever I ate, there was a chance that my stomach wouldn’t agree with it. Through large amounts of drinking and late night mexican food sessions between the ages of 20-25, I have grown immune to many things and I just wasn’t as sensitive as I was when I was a child. Trust me, those of you that know me now think that I’m very laid back and chill but there are witnesses to attest to my destructive behavior when I was younger. Anyways, last night, I finally broke my streak of not throwing-up for over 9 years. I’m not one of those guys that you see sick very often now and I was pretty proud of myself for not vomiting through all this time, even when I used to party a lot. I was like, the fucking Lance Armstrong of not throwing up, haha, if that makes sense. Well on Sunday, I ate some bad chicken and I really fucked myself. May had eaten it with me as well and she didn’t feel very well early on, but I didn’t think anything of it because I was fine. The rest of the day, I started to feel worse and worse. I hurt my back a little while back after Wekfest so I just thought it was the back pain that was acting up, but my stomach started to feel very odd and I started to get pretty strong headaches throughout the day. We went to Target and bought some things for the house and when I got back, I took an Excedrin and a Gas-X pill, to help with the headache and the quizzy stomach. I felt a little better and May and I enjoyed some TV time and then she went to bed. Before she fell asleep, she told me to take a shower before I went back to my own place as she thought that it would make me feel better or at least a bit refreshed. I forgot to mention that throughout the day, I had been extremely cold and had the chills even though I was really warm and May checked to see if I had a fever. My face was all red but I was cold as shit. I wore my NWP4Life hoodie and thought that it would make me feel better but I was like randomly hot and cold. While I was showering, I kept making the water hotter and hotter but I was still freezing cold. I began to burp a lot and I knew it was all downhill from there. I quickly got out of the shower to dry off but when I was walking to towards the towel, I got incredibly dizzy and almost fell to the floor. Things were not good. I rarely ever get like that so I sat down on the toilet to regroup myself. I really didn’t want to throw-up because I absolutely despise it and it’s such a painful thing, but I eventually gave in and knew that getting the food out would make me feel better. I haven’t yacked that hard since the last time I pounded Patron while eating Adobada Tacos. After I finished, I thought it would make me feel better but I was still shaking from having the chills. It was getting pretty late and I wanted to get home to put some orders together from The Chronicles Storefront but it just wasn’t happening. I kinda just laid on the couch and knocked out for a bit until around 2am when May came out because she heard the TV in the living room still on. I assured her that I would be okay and I made the drive back and here I am now. I sincerely apologize for not giving you guys something car-related or anything interesting to read for that matter, but I still feel a bit under the weather so I am going to lay down now and hope I feel better in a couple hours. Thanks to May for taking care of me and being so worried. I’m usually the one that’s trying to take care of her and make sure that everything is okay, so she was a bit freaked out to see me in such bad shape. In all the time that we’ve been together, she’s never even seen me sick because I try my best to take care of myself. Anyways, I’m off now. I’m pretty sure either May is going to call me when she sees this, or my mother is going to be calling me. Yes, she does read this site, and she reads EVERYTHING. Haha… Stickydiljoe, human afterall….
I’m out for today. See you guys tomorrow…
Day in the life…
Wekfest 2011 is just a couple weeks away so I’m busy preparing for that as well as knocking out some work for both Super Street and Honda Tuning. This week has been a busy one and I’ve been everywhere. I just wanted to give you guys a glimpse of what goes on regularly out here and some of the things that I’ve been doing. This isn’t really a personal blog of what happens in my everyday life but whenever I’m doing car shit I like to give you guys an idea of what goes on…
The week started out early in the morning over in Ontario, California at the Buddy Club facility. Rodrez had sent me out there to shoot one of their personal demo cars and there was a lot of phone tagging involved with their marketing agency until we finally decided on a day to shoot. Monday worked for me, but I had no idea it was going to be at 9-10am. I usually barely start heading to bed around that time so having to drive out to that area to work was a total opposite of what I’m used to….
Tucked away in their small facility was this R35 GTR. Really nice car, had a bunch of carbon pieces that I guess is their new theme as of late. I really didn’t have much space to work with inside their facility because the car I was shooting had some issues running because it had just recently broke on the track so we had to push the car back and forth. Plus, it was pretty sunny that day so shooting outside wasn’t a possibility. This R35 ended up getting in my way actually and we had to stockpile some product in front of it to get it out of the shot….
…Also lurking in the corner of their facility was this Toyota Chaser race car. I’m sure many of you know what car this is by now but if you don’t, it is basically a 4-door Supra that was released only for the Japanese Domestic Market. Unlike the Supra though, it runs a slightly smaller 1JZ-GTE motor and not the 2JZ like the Supra. I’ve always loved these cars and have always wanted one. About ten years ago while I was in Japan, I actually got to sit inside one at one of the Toyota dealerships. It was a great experience and it’s something I’ll never forget. This particular race car variation of the Chaser, has been sitting at Buddy Club for years now. I was talking to one of the guys there about it and I think he said that it’s lacking proper engine management to get it running. That and it’s been sitting so long that they have no real plans to ever get it working again. He even let me pop the hood and in the bay of this Chaser was not a 1JZ but a 3S-GTE engine from a MR-2 or Toyota Caldina. Not really sure exactly why they had to go with a smaller motor, probably for Japanese race regulations for the particular series it ran in. Cool car nonetheless though, I love running into random ass stuff like this…
They also had some “interesting” posters on their wall to look at. No signs of any pictures of race cars or Buddy Club stuff, just girls in all their glory….
Most of the rest of the week just consisted of me catching up on orders and finishing up features. As most of you know, I run basically everything on this site by myself, which means I also produce all of the merchandise myself. I’m trying to prep all my inventory for Wekfest so on a daily basis I’ve just been cutting sticker after sticker. It’s a lot of work but I enjoy doing stuff like that and making sure that my own product is of the best quality. That and when things sometimes get fucked up, I have no one to blame but myself…
Anyways, come Thursday night, it was time for the first-ever Phaze2 vs. As1 Bowling Competition. Yes, Phaze2 is still around, we just have been dealing with real life shit and haven’t really messed with cars too much. We do find time to actually spend time with one another though because we are actually friends. I don’t know how the whole bowling competition came about, probably just random shit talking amongst friends but they decided to get together and see which group had the better bowlers. I just went to talk shit and hang out but I somehow ended up bowling for our side. I can’t really bowl for shit but I guess it didn’t matter because we had the win in the bag long before we even started, haha…I’ve attached some pics below of the action but all you need to know is that Phaze2 ended up taking both games by a pretty decent margin. All in all, it was just good times with good peeps. I’m happy we got a chance to do that, competition or not, and it’s always good to just spend time with people that matter….
The battlefield…
Big Mike repping The Chronicles as usual…
Dougie as well…
Yogi, manager of the Fatlace LA boutique, took some time out of his busy schedule to hang out and add up the scores for us…
As1 bowling adversaries…
Yogi keeping track of the greenbacks for our competition…
Norman from AS1 getting down with the leg kick…
HeyMikeyyyy doing his signature launch…
Salem with a practice stroke…
Alexisthelush and Norman watching the pins on the Phaze2 side go down…
Doug trying to get a spare…
AS1 vs. Phaze2 stare down…
Salem bowling for the win…this was the clincher right here that set us on the path to victory….
Big Mike, who was the As1 hired gun, trying his best to rally the team. He did well despite not bowling in nearly a decade…
Overall, it was a great night and I can’t wait to do it again….That’s all for today. Thanks for looking…
