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…