F@c& Facebook

So I quit FB a few days ago. It made me think. If I don't put my thoughts somewhere its going to drive me nuts. There is always Instagram, Twitter and Google +. The next day I got a renewal for www.mindofmacias.com and I thought, what the hell. Time to throw some thoughts down on the ole' blog. I mean, before it was all cars and minitruck shit on here, I used to to put my thoughts down. So that what I hope to do. Make my slow comeback to the blog world. We'll see how it goes.

Ernie and Bert Vegas edition.

Camp N Drag 2012

Crowd Favorite, Kyles 1956 Lincoln :/

CLICK HERE FOR THE COMPLETE FLICKER SET OF THIS SHOW ALMOST 500 PICS

Getting to this show for me was probably the craziest day I've ever encountered in my travels. It's the kind of thing movies are made of. My day started at 3am as I headed to the airport. It was dark so I couldn't really see anything but I loaded up my bags and headed out. It didn't take long before I knew I was driving on a flat. I pulled over on the freeway to check things out. Just as I suspected it was flat, and I knew I didn't have the tools to change the spare. Luckily right then a tow truck came by, I asked him to put air in it so I could make it to the gas station one exit off the freeway and he did. Thank goodness he stopped. At the gas station I could tell I was loosing air already so I tried putting Fix a Flat in it, but that was a disaster. Has anybody ever had any luck with that crap? I know I never do, the damn feeding tube thing broke, but I knew I managed to get some of it in there so I just topped off the tire to 40 psi and hit the road hoping I didn't get a blow out. After 25-minutes I had made it to the airport time to head off.

Ill make this next part short and sweet, I could write pages on this day, but it went something like this; I jumped on my flight to Denver, no problems. Get to Denver, board my second plane and while were on the tarmac, it breaks down. OK, well I'll go to customer service and see whats up. Two choices, is what they offer me, stay in Denver and fly out six hours later, or get re-directed to Charlotte, North Carolina and then bounce over to Indy. Hmm, Will my bags make it to Indy if I go to Charlotte since I'm going to another airline? Of course says the lady behind the counter, of course. So I decide to jump to Charlotte, what a mistake. Coming into North Carolina, we get crazy turbulence and then we hear the captain say, "sorry folks, sit tight as were going to have to circle the airport for an hour and wait for this storm to move on." Great!

Love the Neons!!

Models everywhere! lol

After that hour we land, I run to my next flight and I kid you not, I can see the plane!!! It's still there!!! Hallelujah!! But no! "Sorry sir you just missed the cut-off" Damn you US Airways. The next flight is in four hours you say? Great. So off to kill time and eat. They even got my burger wrong at Burger King lol.

Oddly enough, this was my favorite, why? Because I love simple and clean.

Eventually I make it to Indy and I find out my bag is in Chicago. "But I'm going camping," I exclaim. I need that damn bag. I had to file a claim with US Airways, United and American Airlines. Eventually American says they will have the bag thrown on the next flight to Indy for me If I can just wait an hour. So I did. A couple of my members showed up 45 minutes later at the airport to pick me up and brought me a drink. We literally sat around for a few minutes and the damn bag showed up. Off to the show!!!

As far as the show is concerned it was everything I anticipated it would be, bigger than last year, and twice as fun. Friday night was a blast, we raided some BBQ chicken in our camp and sang the star spangled banner, don't ask.

 Saturday, the show was amazing. So big in fact I didn't get to shoot every truck. It was hot, I really need a golf cart for this show. (hint, hint, somebody hook me up next year) But I managed to shoot most of it. After the show we hit the lake. That was fun, it was my first time in four years I went in that lake. I'll be sure to go every year, but I'll also be sure to bring some water shoes. That sand feels like kitty litter.

Later that night was the "Bikini" contest and what a party that was. It was quickly followed by the night activities and antics, which are a huge part of this show.

Thanks to Bill and his crew for having this show and showing us all a great time. The park is great, the staff is awesome and all the mid-western mini truckers really know how to party. I look forward to next year!!

Camp n Drag memes

I didn't make this one, but it was easily my favorite.

Vacation Time is Almost Here!

The family and I are going on a cruise next weekend. One of the downsides to cruises is you can't bring alcohol on board and it's pretty expensive. We keep thinking of ways to sneak it on. I ran into this while on the net and just started dying laughing.

Out Of My Element, SEMA woes!

 As many of you know, I have recently decided to build my first full-size. Believe it or not, building a full-size is actually a bit different than a minitruck. There are so many more options and things to consider. Some of it might be because I'm building a brand new truck and other things, I'm just not familiar with.

My 2012 Silverado project not yet named.

 I suppose If I was building something older where parts were easily available at junk yards I wouldn't be having such an emotional battle with the question of if I should alter it or not. Deciding what to cut and not to cut of course has been an internal issue. I see a lot of people cut up on new trucks and things just don't fit right again. I'm not going to put myself into that situation. The minute I picked this thing up at the dealer I instantly didn't want to cut it. It was too nice, it was too new and I had an instant love affair with the truck. So I knew I needed to stop driving it and drop it off at the shop as soon as possible.

 The issue I'm having now is deciding what exhaust to run on my truck. Honestly with a mini I either didn't change the exhaust or because I was building a Mitsu I usually didn't have many choices. Not a lot of things fit under small minis. With this Silverado however, everything under the sun is made for it and will fit it. So where do I start? I started by asking a few friends what they recommended and not one of them said one single company. They all threw about 4-5 companies at me. So in reality that didn't help much at all. So right now I feel lost. I don't want to get the wrong one because that would be an expensive hassle.

 Then there is the intake. So now I'm in the same boat as with the exhaust. Which one do you get, by who? Maybe some of the readers of this blog hopefully might chime in with some suggestions. Intake, and Exhaust is the question? Who do you recommend for this truck. Of course, if you have on installed on your ride already I'd love to see some pics. In the meantime, I'm going to back to the Internet to get lost on the pages of all these manufacturers.Wish me luck!

Showfest 2012

 

Showfest 2012 goes down into the History books as yet another historically awesome good time. The crew from Assorted really know how to put on a good show. The location was great, the weather was slightly hot but better than most shows still. And this year it didn't rain which was a huge positive. 

CLICK HERE FOR THE COMPLETE SHOW COVERAGE

Beautiful 64 Cadillac

 I rolled in on Friday after getting picked up by my homie Carlos as is has become the norm. This year however my trip in was not nearly as good as usual. This year I was sick as hell. I had a terrible sinus infection and it turned into an even worse monster once I was in the plane. I got horribly sick. Let me tell you right now that flying while having a head cold or sinus problem is a horrible idea.  The pain is no joke!! I'm not even kidding, if this happens again, I'm staying home.

 As friday continued I decided that I needed to hang out and get out of my room so I started drinking with my friends. I can be the first to say though that drinking while on sinus medication was probably a bad idea. I ended up blacking out, getting into shenanigans and loosing all my money for the whole weekend in the casino. Boy did I learn a lesson the hard way.

relic from the past found under some primer.

Keith Thompsons 720 came back this year with a fresh new interior. My favorite truck from last year and still one of my favorites this year.

 Saturday was show time, and boy was it hot. But it wasn't Texas Heatwave hot, it was just Mississippi hot lol. The weather didn't stop the arsenal of badass trucks that rolled in though, especially the small army of Severed Ties trucks that rolled in. Cool trucks were scattered through out the 600+ vehicles in attendance. I actually don't know how many were there, but I'm sure the number is ridiculous.

Oliver Porter took home the Mind Of Macias choice award with his kick ass Tacoma.

More bling than  you know!

66 Cadillac got it's logo into NR this weekend.

Well I can't wait for next year. I've already been assured that I will be returning to my favorite show, and hell if things go right, I might even be driving to the show next year in my new truck. At any rate, make sure you make the trek also, and if you do please don't load up early and leave early, it really affected the judging and the show results. Make an effort to hang out, at the end, it's worth it. 

Proper sticker right there!

Working hard all weekend!!!

I was memorized by the hair.

Awesome trophies

Masa came all the way from Japan to party way too hard and miss the show. He spent a lot of time on this bench.

Lowlife Days

No trip to Japan would be complete with out one of my partners in crime, Mr. Mike Alexander.

 I know that posting blogs, in the middle of the night is pointless. Well, not completely pointless since our brothers in Australia are up, but for the most part, it just means that most people won't see it. I'm going to take my chances though since I really want to share these shots. I've came to the conclusion that I have enough pics to post for a year.

Our early trips to Japan were all business. We found ourselves working all the time.

Here is Makoto cruising in his truck.

This is the time when my brain seems to spin the most. I've had a few drinks, and it's almost midnight. But after a very brief discussion with my good friend Mike Alexander about blogs this weekend and my lunch with Max Fish today, I got motivated. Looking for pics to help my buddy Steve Wilk from Wilk Worx I found a ton of cool pics. So I figured why not share. 

We were on our way to a photo shoot.

One of the many clean ass Japanese trucks we shot.

I found some pictures from my Lowlife Video/Mini Truckin' Magaizne days. I know that these days are gone and behind me, but they sure were some good times. My favorite days were probably spent traveling in the south, hanging with my friends from DIB and hitting all those southern state shows. But my trips from Japan come in close second. These trips were priceless. I honestly think they were so awesome, that they never even sunk in. I mean, here we were, a handful of American "jerks" doing our think in Japan. We didn't hold back, maybe we should have. After all the customs (I don't mean the cars/trucks) in Japan are so different. But here we were, being assholes, tearing shit up and attracting the cops (literally). All in all we never held back and were true to ourselves.

 Check out a couple of candid photos from some of our trips. 

I don't think a moment went buy that we weren't screwing around. Bobby from Sadistic Iron Werks most likely gave Makoto a nut shot here.

The Lowlife Mike I remember.

You should see this thing now. It's come a long way. This is when it was shot for MT magazine the second time. I think this thing has run three times in MT now.

Love this 720. Nissan 720's are very popular in Japan. Picking a clean one to shoot is easy, since most of them look this good.

I didn't shoot this thing. Mike Alexander did. I took advantage of the set-up though and sneaked this shot in.

I did shoot this thing. Shooting in the middle of the day isn't always something you want to do as a magazine photographer. But in Japan you shoot when you can, especially on our crazy schedule. But getting the train in the shot was painfully timed and I love this shot.

Strange photo shoot. The dad was here, and his hot daughter was the owner.

Believe it or not, this is the effect I was going for in this shot. The subject is Takuji Murayama, the President of No Regrets Japan. We were cruising in his body dropped Toyota Pick up.

I absolutely loved this photo shoot. I had to ride with the owner of this truck for what seemed like forever. He didn't speak a word of English and I didn't speak a word of Japanese, but we both spoke minitruck.