Some day…

….some day, I’ll have my car exactly the way I want it. The paint will be perfect again, my kit won’t be scarred up from me hitting everything in sight, and my air set-up will be dialed in and I’ll never have to worry about it. For now, it still needs some work here and there but I’m actually way more satisfied with my own car than I have been in a looooong time. I’ve put more miles on it in the course of one month then I probably did all of last year. Reason being is that my sister’s car finally took it’s final shit and decided that it’s life in my sister’s possession had ended. A dead cylinder and 18 years of dedicated life to my family, her car met it’s demise in January of 2011 and she’s in the hunt for a new car. While we attempted to save the car though, she began driving the truck that I normally daily and that resulted in me using my Q45 as means of daily transportation. It had been sitting at Midnight Garage for the majority of 2010 because we were busy figuring out the kinks in the suspension and thanks to Shin and Airrunner, we finally got it back on the road. It was honestly a little strange getting reacquainted with my own car after such a long time. I had sort of lost a little bit of interest as well as trust in the car previously but I look forward to hopping into the driver seat every day that I use it now. These last couple weeks have been fun. The car saw the road and the 94K on the motor got to see an additional couple hundred miles. Alas it is time for it to return to the shop. There are a couple loose ends that we need to tie up and I would like to add a couple of things before February when, if all goes as planned, I will be putting a couple of thousands of miles on it on my way up to Northern California for the 2011 edition of Wekfest. For now, it’s back to the shop for a bit…

…some day, I’ll be able to pay full price at a fancy ass place like Fogo de Chao. For now, it’ll have to be the discounted prices that come with DineLA Restaurant Week. I’m a big fan of eating specifically in the meat section of the six food groups so a Brazillian BBQ spot is something I never turn down. It was quite a meal and I’m glad we have events like DineLA Restaurant Week so that I can experience places like this and absorb the ambiance of seeing people with a lot of money eat the same food as I do. You also run into all kinds of people there, including celebrities. On this night in particular, I happened to see a hot blond walk into the restaurant and practically the entire staff follow closely behind her until she was seated. I turned to my friend and with a look of bewilderment, asked him if he recognized the woman. He dug through his memory banks but managed not to arrive at any conclusion as to who she was so we continued to eat dessert. After the blond woman had gotten up to go to the salad bar, I saw the shorter male walking closely behind her and realized that it was actually Carlos Mencia. I’m sure it can be debated whether Mencia can be considered a celebrity anymore because he hasn’t done anything relevant in years but still, it was a television figure and it was a little weird and cool to see him at the restaurant. They say the camera adds ten pounds and apparently for Mencia, it also adds a couple inches in height because the guy looked much shorter than you would probably expect. The ten pounds were probably removed from the woman and added to Mencia as well because, unlike the photos on the net, his lady isn’t ugly by any stretch of the imagination…Another celebrity I ran into while I was there was somebody from our community, Parnell from Kosoku. When I walked in and sat down, I thought I recognized him but wasn’t sure since I hadn’t seen him in awhile. Turns out he was thinking the same thing as we both posted up on Facebook and mutual friends led each of us to realize who each of us were. He was kind enough to come up to our table and say what’s up. I chatted with him for a couple minutes and he told me the unfortunate news that he had recently come to the decision to possibly sell his car. If you don’t remember or know who Parnell is, he’s one of the guys that has one of the most recognizable DA-chassis Integras in the last decade…

This picture is from an older Nisei Showoff but most of you should probably recognize it. He built himself an Integra that is timeless and follows none of the popular trends that you see today. It’s a pleasure to see this car everytime and it’s one of the builds that helped me develop my appreciation for Hondas early on when I was building my own car. He told me that the car is literally just sitting in the garage nowadays and he’s slowly coming to the realization that he should part ways with it. It’s unfortunate because the car will always be relevant in our scene but hey, life happens and people need to move on. Whatever happens, I wish him the best and it was cool of him to come by and chat even though he was having dinner with his family. If you guys want to read more about this car, click the link here to read an online version of his Import Tuner feature from way back in 2005. When it came to DA Integras in the early to mid 2000s, it was Parnell and Randy Gagan. Randy unfortunately left us a couple years ago and last weekend, I had a conversation with DPK David where we talked about what his builds would be like today if he were still alive. Luckily we have guys like Ejay and Sid to continue to carry the torch for the DA guys…

…some day, I’ll be able to have a conversation with HeyMikeyyyy where he won’t send me pictures of his xB at a bodyshop where once again, his fenders are getting repaired. I always tell this guy to just raise his car up and not drive at the same ride height that he parks but he never seems to listen. I don’t know what business I have telling him that though since I recently just had my wheel push my fender out slightly because I was also driving too low. I’m happy to see that he’s finally found the proper resources to help him amend his fender problems with actual, solid metal work. Now he’s REALLY gonna drive with his car sitting on the floor. Phaze2 Tony also recently brought his latest project GS300 to a shop to get painted and he tells me that he’s reworked his fenders in a way where his can turn his steering wheel at full lock with the car completely on the ground. I don’t know what the fascination it is with our crew were we have to do crazy shit like that but I guess it’s cool to see that we’ve actually decided to have professional work down to modify body parts and not simply using the tire itself to do our bodywork for us. I remember a time when Mikeyyyy used to drive on coils and everytime  he hit a imperfection on the road, his wheel well would literally spark because his rim was hitting his rear quarter panel as he was driving. Oh those were the days….

….some day, I can be like Gene Tjin and travel to Japan for the annual Tokyo Auto Salon event. For now, all I can do is go on his blog to read all about his trip. I don’t peruse very many blogs these days because it was become incredibly watered down, but I always find a couple moments of my day to go to Gene’s site to read all about what he’s doing. The guy is deep in the industry and has put together more builds than most people will in their entire lives. He’s very knowledgeable and always a pleasure to talk to so watching him continue to succeed is a wonderful thing. Reading about his trip to Japan honestly makes me feel a bit envious but I think at some point in the near future, I will be able to make another trip to Japan and hopefully that includes me attending Tokyo Auto Salon. Right now, all you and I can do is read about his adventures here….

….some day, Sean will finally update his progress on his Integra build and we will all be blown away. That day doesn’t seem like it’ll come any time soon though because he appears and disappears randomly whenever he wants and lately, he seems more content with simply taking pictures of his cat….

If we all held our breaths in anticipation, I assure you we’d all be long gone by now. For now, all we can do is wait for Sunny from Franklin Autobody to finish painting Rywire’s Integra so that he can bring it down to Socal where I can begin to document his amazing build. For those who don’t know, his build is on some next level shit and it will be very interesting to see how it all comes together. Believe me, it’ll be something that you don’t want to miss….

END.