MEMORIAL WEEKEND

Finally found some time to blog about last weekend. Memorial weekend was pretty short. Was at work on Saturday and Monday. We decided to BBQ at the shop. Steak and oysters...best combo ever. Every Monday should be like this.





Fresh oysters. My mix is fresh lemon or lime juice, salt and pepper. They say it is an anphrodishiac, I know why now.



FIRE FIRE FIRE!!! HE HE HE HE HE



mmmm......


Kenneth was caught looking at gay porn.



Best thing after a long day of BBQ'ing..... Street Fighter!!!!



I got in the way of Adam and Fred during the game... nyuk nyuk.

FREAK MPG

Gas prices suck. Yes. It sucks not only because it is over 4 dollars a gallon nowadays, but it sucks because the engine in my car requires 91 octane, the most expensive grade of gas.

Today I was shocked and happy though. I had to fill up on the way back home from work. My trip meter was at 220 miles. My tank was at a little below half. Usually, this would be at 160 miles on the tank. I pulled into the cheapest decent station that I normally go to. Filled it up while I was cleaning the windows. Not even a minute, the spout stopper clicked. The meter on the station read 5.483 gallons @ $4.249 gallon.

In my mind..i was like WTF??!!?? Full already? Finished up the windows and finalized the transaction, I sat in the car calculating my MPG.

220 Miles / 5.483 Gallons = 40.124 MPG. Holy SHIT! 40 miles to the gallon??!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. At that moment I wanted to flip off all the Toyota Prius and Hybrid cars at the station. Screw youuuuuu, I got 40 miles per gallon while still having some dignity with horsepower and torque. HAHAHAHA.

In reality, I left the gas station with a huge grin on my face because this freak MPG happens once in a blue moon.

LONG WEEKEND....NOT REALLY

Well, I didn't really know it was going to be a long weekend. Memorial weekend that is. Work seems to be owning every day of my life recently. But I dont mind. At least I'm working for myself and not for somebody. Didn't really have plans for the weekend anyway other than family gathering on Sunday. Traffic was light, and the workload was light today. I guess everyone took off early on their vacation.

Here's a random pic I found from last weeks Eibach meet that one of our customer's/friend took of me off guard

950 MILES, 100+ DEGREES, 5 HOURS SLEEP

Saturday 1230-7pm...

Well, my weekend started Saturday morning with a friend's baby shower. Had to drive up to Fairfield which was about 75 miles north of Fremont in 90+ degree heat. My A/C decided to crap out on me in the car and made my trip halfway unpleasant. It was great seeing thy friends up north. Played some pool and a little bit of Rockband before I had to leave for socal for the huge annual Honda meet at Eibach the next day. Left in the afternoon and drove another 75 miles back home to meet my co-worker to drive me to my partner's house for the carpool down south. Drove about 25 miles down south to his house.

9pm - 330am

From there we took 101 to 152 to I-5 to Los Angeles down to Corona where the Eibach facility is. Eibach is a major automotive spring manufacturer. They hold an annual Honda meet every year (this being the 5th).

4am-930am

About 5 hours of sleep (which wasn't quite enough as I felt very groggy) we had to wake up and prepare to checkout and leave for Eibach. There was a free breakfast at the hotel lobby that ended at 10 am. Took a quick shower and headed out for some breakfast.

10am-3pm

Headed out to the Eibach facility to the parking lot. We set up tent with a popular socal car group called "Phaze2". They provided the gazebo and tent with a portable a/c unit (a/c didnt work..which sucked). About 300 or more cars showed up to the event.

-Picture outside the parking area with cars and people setting up...



A norcal customer/friend who sported our banner...



Plate frames and shirts...hanging in the 100+ heat....



DUMPED!!! ... Andy of DSR sporting our banner on his EK Civic hatch...



Phaze2 and Weksos cooking in the heat. Check out www.riceboytv.com for a short plug of this event. Pictured is a few Phaze2 guys, myself and James.


Somebody took a shot of my sexy assssssss......


4pm-1am

--packed up and left Eibach to grab some food and make our way home. We grabbed a early dinner at Roscoes Chicken and Waffles in Pasedena. Left socal at about 530pm. At about 10pm we were at or near Coalinga and stopped at Harris Ranch for some fresh Prime Rib late dinner/night snack...hehehe.

Got stuck in traffic for a good 45 minutes right before the 152 Junction. Pissed us all off. Got back to my partners place at about 12am for the trip back up home. Arrived home at about 1am. 700 miles later + another 25 miles home, the next picture shows exactly how I felt....


Got home tired as hell and had about 6 hours after I took a shower to get ready for the work week again....I was dead tired.

3 days later, today I finally felt a bit more rested as I tried to catch up on some needed sleep. Finally had time to write this blog. It didn't help that work occupied me 12 hours a day the past 3 days. I did receive a nice little package of toys though. More Mighty Muggs Star Wars!!!...woooot

HEAT

Havent been able to find time to blog in the past few days. Been super busy with work and stress. Our website was down due to some coding error on the server. Long story short...money was lost due to technical issues. Should be corrected pretty soon.

Right now, the weather has been super hot and humid. I hate hot weather. Cannot stand it. Been trying to make time to find a portable air conditioning unit. Havent gotten a chance to even look.

They say its going to be near 100-102 degrees the next few days. I am a super wuss when it comes to hot temperatures. I start whining at 80 degrees.

Here is a random picture I took on the drive home from tonight. You know its going to be hot when the clouds are fire red in the sky during sunset.




Hopefully I find some time to blog about the new kiks and compare it to the older ones I have this weekend. In the meantime...I am going to find some way of getting cooler air in the room so I can at least sleep for a few hours before work again.

New Kiks: Part Two

Got the second part of my iD order today. Air Max 95. Seems like they changed it a lot from the last time I got the AM95. The gradation is all leather now..not the suede and the cloth. I was a bit surprised when I opened the box. It seems like iD is getting cheaper on the packaging also. I received the first two in a nice flip up box. The shoes came in a nice suede bag. This time, it is a slide out box with the shoes in regular shoe paper wrap. They even gave me a second pair of laces in a color of my choice. Not this time!! BOOOOOO!!!! Oh well...everyone has to make their money right?

Shiet....I bet Nike is making at least 200% profit off me. 5 dollars in materials and 5 dollars in labor.

I'll take pictures of the comparisons in a future blog. Overall..Im still happy...the shoes look great.

New Kiks.... more Coca Cola!!!

Got some new "kiks" today. Nike Dunk Low iD. Designed it myself about 4 weeks ago at www.nikeid.com. This one arrived early. Should be expecting another pair tomorrow. Will post pics when I get them.




Check the iD!!!


In case you didnt know...I collect Coke from all over the world. Here is my collection so far. 60% of these I have been to the country... the others were bought for me when friends or family visited. From left to right...by memory:

Singapore, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Spain, Japan and another Japan.




I recently tasted the Spain and the Japan Coke. Spain Coke is quite different. It's weird. I dont really like it. Japan Coke is almost perfect. It doesnt have the sweet nasty aftertaste that American Coke has. It is very carbonated and perfect. Not too sweet, not too bubbly. Very close to Hong Kong's coke which I think is the best.

I still think it is the real sugar ingredient they use instead of the fake "high fructose corn syrup" crap they are putting in the American cans/bottles.





Another random discovery....after chowing down on some junk food. Check out the kid drawaing on the Japanese cookie box....




Kinda looks like me when I was young....... WTF!!!!!

Just another Manic Monday....

Another day, another week....Monday. Monday's are the worst for me. Super busy at work catching up Saturday and Sunday sales. Didn't get to eat lunch today. First meal was at 830 P.M. That cannot be good.

Spent most of the weekend installing the HID kit as posted earlier. Here's a pic of the lights at night. Not the greatest camera, so it caught all the bluish hues. The lights are actually an absolute white (5000k color temp) which is very very close to factory HID color temp at 4300k.



Also received my order of toys I place about a week and a half ago through Hasbro.com direct. Saved me gas and time just ordering through the site than to hunt for these suckers at retail. I also got a coupon code for 20% off and free shipping. Sold!!!



They are called Mighty Muggs and look super deformed japanese style. Freaking awesome. The new wave was just released. Im still looking for Lando, Princess Leia...and if they are out...General Grevious, Jango Fett...and the new series of Indiana Jones.... Indiana Jones and his father Henry Jones.

Over the weekend between working on the car and feeling lazy..I watched and oldie called Demolition Man starring the very young Wesley Snipes, Sandra Bullock, and Sly Stallone. Their predictions of the future are somewhat almost accurate...which is kinda scary. I put it on Netflix to feel Nostalgic. I've been on a Nostalgic fix lately.



While enjoying the movie...I was munching on some Japanese goodies. My favorite Grape Soda (next to Fanta Grape, which is impossible to find) and some misc cookies.

HID's are in

After coming home from work, spending almost half the day installing the new HID bulbs in the car...I am finally finished. Thanks to the help of my good friend Alvin and his proper tools. I am going to need to invest in a good set of rachet wrenches and screwdrivers...and a good magnet probe. That magnet probe saved a few good sockets I lost in the crevices of my car. I'll post more details later.

H3 5000K (auto otaku)

On the way home the other day, I had a yellow Mazda pull up next to me at the stoplight. I saw in my peripheral vision that it was lowered with some wheels. I automatically thought it was some punk that wanted to instigate a stop light race. I saw the window roll down ...and he continued to honk his horn. At this point, in my head I was thinking this guy is either going to want to race, or ask for directions. I turned and saw it was an older asian man. I rolled my window down and was expecting a question for directions.

"...hey, nice wheels"

I was caught wayyyyy off guard. The guy commented on my wheels

"...who makes those?"

"..Work Wheels"

"..oh, Work, must be expensive?"

"..yeah, when they were new"

"...did you buy them used?"

"nah...bought them new"

[Green Light]

"thanks..."

And I had to take off due to the green light. That was a weird yet kinda cool at the same time. I never gotten complimented on my wheels ever since my first custom set back in 2001 when I picked up a brand new set of Rota Circuit 8's (Mugen MF8) replica. (Before the whole Rota craze took off). Sometimes I think I take things too negative sometimes. ..haha.


Also picked up a new toy today:


H3 HID bulbs for my new projectors. Since the H3 halogens are normally for fog lights, the output on the road is not as good as a regular halogen headlight bulb. The HID's should fill in the needed illumination for the setup. I have the HID H4h setup in my JDM Honda EG lights, but the setup has a lot of glare coming from the reflective housing. This new setup should fix the glare problem. I'll probably get bored one day and switch it back for the hell of it ...only b/c I get bored like I do with my wheels :p