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| The door to the office at MT mag around 2007. Memories! |
"Cruise & Enjoy!"
Friday, April 29, 2011
Relaxing in So Cal
You can find me here this Sunday. This is always a great show. I won't have a booth, or anything cool, but I will be out there shooting pics and features. I'll also have Mind Of Macias Stickers!!! Looking forward to some .50 cent tacos.
See you there!
Pony Power
I think I'd rather own this mustang than a new car. They sure don't make cars like they used too. This thing just screams power. Id love to be a CEO of some big company and drive this thing daily.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
What if....
You could go back in time and pick up a brand new mini? What would you get? I'd head straight to the Mitsu dealer, suprise, suprise, and pick up a 95 Mitsubishi Mighty Max Macro Cab Sport in black. I wish!
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Mitsu Cover Shoot, behind the scenes
I don't have a whole lot to share lately because the last few weeks have been kind of slow.
I did however find these shots from when NR 1 was shot in the studio in October of 2002. The truck was later on the cover of Mini Truckin' Magazine on February of 2003. I remember the date of the shoot so vividly because I wanted the truck to debut at Octoberfest, the Severed Ties show that month but decided not to rush the truck and instead get it shot and debut it at Reso that year.
The story of how this truck got shot was actually pretty cool, especially since you always hear people complain that they can't get shot unless they're in a "big" club. Well it's nonsense. Mike Finnegan first approached me when my truck was in primer to shoot it. He told me he was a fan of Mitsus and wanted to know what I was going to do to it and when I would finish it. After me drooling and tell him a whole big ass story he told me to stay in contact with him and that he would shoot it when i finished it. That gave me a ton of motivation and withing weeks of that talk I pushed to finish it first by body dropping it. Later that year in September of 2001 my truck was in construction zone. At that time No Regrets was a single chapter club with only about 6 members. We were very unknown to say the least. Again, Mike told me to stay in contact with him and when I finished it he would get me a shoot. He never said cover, but I had my sights set on it. He told me Lance had a soft spot for Mitsus and would love to see it in the mag finished.
Months later I sent the truck to paint and kept the ball rolling, by chance I one day found out through a friend in Forbidden Fantasy that Lance was at a local shop where they were building the desert dragger. I decided to stop by and show him the truck with paint to see what he thought.
When Lance Martz first saw and asked me to shoot the truck it actually wasn't done. The truck was only painted, no interior, no chrome, no polish, nothing. He asked if he could shoot the truck and when would it be done. I told him I would probably finish it sometime in 2003. He chuckled and said if you can finish it in two weeks he'd put it on the cover that upcoming issue. I chocked and said yes. WTF was I thinking I thought to myself. What had I got myself into? With no time to spare I sent the truck to interior the next day, and gave them a timeline of 6 days to finish it. In the meantime I gathered up parts to get chromed or polished and painted. The interior guys ended up being a few days late, but who can blame them.
In the meantime I remember talking to one of the Editors on the phone when they called to check up on the progress and he said "If you had the chance to choose, what model would you pick for your cover shoot?" Quickly and without hesitation "Jamie Medeiros" I blurted out. "What are the chances?" he said. "That's who I got." Jamie had been on the cover with the previous Mitsu in 2001. It was a yellow Mitsu built by the Chop Shop, one of my favorites of course.
9 days or so later we got the truck home. We took it all back apart, ripped all the suspension out and went to town detailing the shit out of it. Steve Wilk a good friend and member of No Regrets spent an entire week at the house cleaning it up, looming it and whatever else was necessary while I went to work. Eventually we got it done and just in time for the shoot. I have so many great memories from this shoot it's amazing. I remember pulling up to Mike Finnegan's house at about 5 am or so. He asked where we parked the trailer. "Trailer?" I said, what trailer lol. We drove the truck there, and he couldn't believe it. I remember following him to the shoot at the studio and dragging the truck a little bit on the 91, I had to show off.
When we got to the studio I remember how amazing it was to me, a young mini trucker from so cal getting his unknown truck and club onto the cover of MT mag, it was incredible to me. To top things off Jamie was hotter in person than on the cover. As the photographer did his magic I remember pulling out a disposable camera where I was able to get a few shots off. The thing about this is it would later get Mike Finnegan in trouble and cause a bunch of problems for mini truckers in the future. Because of me, no more cameras were allowed in the studio for a really long time after. You see when I got home, I had the pictures developed and later popped one of these two shots on the net with the caption, coming soon. Word got back to Lance, and well, he was pissed. I got a call from Finnegan asking me to take them down. These days it's very common for owners to post shots of their trucks being shot, but back then it wasn't.
An interesting fact about my shoot is it was the first Digital Cover for Mini Truckin' Magazine, before that they were all shot on film. I wish I had more of these shots, but unfortunately I do not. Enjoy!
I did however find these shots from when NR 1 was shot in the studio in October of 2002. The truck was later on the cover of Mini Truckin' Magazine on February of 2003. I remember the date of the shoot so vividly because I wanted the truck to debut at Octoberfest, the Severed Ties show that month but decided not to rush the truck and instead get it shot and debut it at Reso that year.
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| When I took this pic, the flash popped. I knew I was in trouble then lol |
The story of how this truck got shot was actually pretty cool, especially since you always hear people complain that they can't get shot unless they're in a "big" club. Well it's nonsense. Mike Finnegan first approached me when my truck was in primer to shoot it. He told me he was a fan of Mitsus and wanted to know what I was going to do to it and when I would finish it. After me drooling and tell him a whole big ass story he told me to stay in contact with him and that he would shoot it when i finished it. That gave me a ton of motivation and withing weeks of that talk I pushed to finish it first by body dropping it. Later that year in September of 2001 my truck was in construction zone. At that time No Regrets was a single chapter club with only about 6 members. We were very unknown to say the least. Again, Mike told me to stay in contact with him and when I finished it he would get me a shoot. He never said cover, but I had my sights set on it. He told me Lance had a soft spot for Mitsus and would love to see it in the mag finished.
Months later I sent the truck to paint and kept the ball rolling, by chance I one day found out through a friend in Forbidden Fantasy that Lance was at a local shop where they were building the desert dragger. I decided to stop by and show him the truck with paint to see what he thought.
When Lance Martz first saw and asked me to shoot the truck it actually wasn't done. The truck was only painted, no interior, no chrome, no polish, nothing. He asked if he could shoot the truck and when would it be done. I told him I would probably finish it sometime in 2003. He chuckled and said if you can finish it in two weeks he'd put it on the cover that upcoming issue. I chocked and said yes. WTF was I thinking I thought to myself. What had I got myself into? With no time to spare I sent the truck to interior the next day, and gave them a timeline of 6 days to finish it. In the meantime I gathered up parts to get chromed or polished and painted. The interior guys ended up being a few days late, but who can blame them.
In the meantime I remember talking to one of the Editors on the phone when they called to check up on the progress and he said "If you had the chance to choose, what model would you pick for your cover shoot?" Quickly and without hesitation "Jamie Medeiros" I blurted out. "What are the chances?" he said. "That's who I got." Jamie had been on the cover with the previous Mitsu in 2001. It was a yellow Mitsu built by the Chop Shop, one of my favorites of course.
9 days or so later we got the truck home. We took it all back apart, ripped all the suspension out and went to town detailing the shit out of it. Steve Wilk a good friend and member of No Regrets spent an entire week at the house cleaning it up, looming it and whatever else was necessary while I went to work. Eventually we got it done and just in time for the shoot. I have so many great memories from this shoot it's amazing. I remember pulling up to Mike Finnegan's house at about 5 am or so. He asked where we parked the trailer. "Trailer?" I said, what trailer lol. We drove the truck there, and he couldn't believe it. I remember following him to the shoot at the studio and dragging the truck a little bit on the 91, I had to show off.
When we got to the studio I remember how amazing it was to me, a young mini trucker from so cal getting his unknown truck and club onto the cover of MT mag, it was incredible to me. To top things off Jamie was hotter in person than on the cover. As the photographer did his magic I remember pulling out a disposable camera where I was able to get a few shots off. The thing about this is it would later get Mike Finnegan in trouble and cause a bunch of problems for mini truckers in the future. Because of me, no more cameras were allowed in the studio for a really long time after. You see when I got home, I had the pictures developed and later popped one of these two shots on the net with the caption, coming soon. Word got back to Lance, and well, he was pissed. I got a call from Finnegan asking me to take them down. These days it's very common for owners to post shots of their trucks being shot, but back then it wasn't.
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| The outcome! |
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The new whip!
I've been driving a 95 Mitsu for the past 3-4 months. I love the truck but I promised it to my brother. So I needed to buy a new car. For a while I was looking at actual "new" cars. But then I thought, why do I need a new car, i should just buy something used and economical. So of course I started looking at Honda's.
Originally I wanted a early 90's body style coupe. You don't ever really see those. I didn't want to build it or anything I just wanted something to drive. Then one came up for sale, which I could pick up for pretty cheap. I just had to wait two weeks. I didn't really mind waiting. I still had the Mitsu and everything was good. Until last Saturday when the drivers side window decided to break on the truck. Now I had to drive around in the cold with no window. That was annoying, so I decided to pick up a car now and not wait.
I started looking on craigslist with the help of my buddy Jay. He pulled up a few Honda's here and there and started sending me a few wagons. As I thought about it, I realized that I knew an OG member of No Sympathy who had one that was on cylinders that he had been sitting on for years. I knew he didn't drive it anymore so I called him up and we struck a deal. I am now the proud owner of a 91 Honda Accord Wagon with 170,000+ miles. Not bad for a car that's 20 years old I guess. Plus it's on air, how can you beat that?
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| The car has been sitting for about 5-7 years. It's only had 300 miles put on it in the last 5 years. |
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| Old School wheels, I'm selling them, because I hate them lol |
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| Billet grilles, with tuner wheels, I'll fix that. |
NR 1, update!!!
Status Customs from Texas just posted this on their facebook wall yesterday!
You can visit their page by clicking here: Status
They are finishing up the interior and then the truck heads to Houma, Louisiana where Zak and the crew from No Regrets Louisiana will be repainting the truck and doing a few other goodies to it to get it ready to show this upcoming year. Be on the look out for more updates soon!
You can visit their page by clicking here: Status
They are finishing up the interior and then the truck heads to Houma, Louisiana where Zak and the crew from No Regrets Louisiana will be repainting the truck and doing a few other goodies to it to get it ready to show this upcoming year. Be on the look out for more updates soon!
C25K, Week 5 Day 5! "Couch to 5K"
Today was a pretty big milestone for me on the treadmill. It started out like every other day at the Gym. I got there and started walking on it very slowly as I got my set up ready. Got my phone, plugged in my headphones, turned on Pandora, and got ready to set the treadmill to run. As always I turn my C25K app on last. Today I was on Week 5, day 5, and I wondered what it had in store for me today. The longest I have ran without stopping since High School PE is 8 minutes. Which I only did two days prior. Today however, it said, walk 5-minutes, jog 20-minutes, walk 5-minutes to cool down. "20-minutes!!!" I thought, holy cow, I don't know if I can do that.
I decided I was going to do it. What I did was cover the board on the treadmill that shows time and speed, and flipped my phone upside down. I didn't want to think about the time, instead I started thinking about my day, my cars, and what I needed to do the upcoming weeks. The time flew by. I just ran and ran until I heard a ding in my ear. It was my app telling me my 20-minutes were up. I couldn't believe that I had just ran for 20-minutes. I know that ain't shit for a lot of people but for me it's a big deal.
I haven't looked at my phone to see what the next week will bring on my way to running a 5k without stopping, but I can honestly say that after today, I'm really looking forward to it.
Today I ran for 2.31-miles and burned 398-calories
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The 66-65 Cadillac Hybrid lol
Back in or around 2000 i went with Max to see an old friend of his. Max was dropping off some caddy parts and suggested I go with him because I would love the place. When we got there, I was amazed to see that their was about 50 Cadillacs or more on this guys property. Immediately I fell in love with a 66 Coupe that was sitting under an Orange tree. I was drawn to it. I didn't say anything at first but just before we left, I asked him about the car. "That thing ran about 14 years ago but it had a bad tranny, we parked it until we could fix it." Well it never made it out of that spot, to my surprise the new tranny was already sitting in the trunk for the car. I was even more surprised on the price, $800!! Of course this was way back before the whole Cadillac craze. I had to have it, I told myself.
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| These were the days! No Regrets 1, parked next to the Caddy. |
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| Getting the side markers shaved |
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| Classy interior with the ugly skulls, and cracked dash! |
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| Parked next to one of the many Mitsus I've owned. |
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| Repping NR |
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| Great license plate lol |
Over the next few weeks, I saved and saved, and even borrowed money from my WIFE (That word is big and bold like that because it originally said "girlfriend" then my wife flipped out and made me correct it because apparently we were married when I bought the car lol). I finally had enough money to go out there and get it. I took it home and it sat in my driveway for about 6-8 months before I was finally able to get it running. It ended up needing a carburetor and the transmission and it then ran like a champ. I drove it all patina for about six months, just lowered on some wide whites. One day I ended up working out a deal with Max for some trade work. I traded him a 92 Acura Integra LS for an air ride setup and a paint job on the Cadillac. At the time I think the only one I had ever seen around was Kurt's from Severed Arizona and the one that Max had. I had owned a Cadillac before but not bagged. Boy did I love that car.
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| The 65 Taillight conversion |
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| Love the 66 Stacked headlights, It's definitely my favorite year! |
I ended up blowing a head gasket and parking it for almost a year, fixing it then selling it for $7,000. I tried to buy it back several times with no luck. The unique thing about this car is that while it was at Max's I had him install 65 Cadillac rear bumpers and lights. It's not exactly a direct bolt on mod, but almost. Their is some slight modifications that had to be made. It was the first of it's kind. Of course we shaved off a few goodies also. The car ended up getting painted white, I saw it about six years later, and of course, tried to buy it back.
p.s. My buddy Brian just reminded me that He was one of the dudes that helped me pick up the car. I didn't remember that part of the story because after all, I am getting old!
Wow
I suppose that living on the West Coast we sometimes take for granted that we can easily find most styles and types of trucks. We don't have to look in old fields to find our next project. Whether its from the 80's or the 20's the next project is usually as easy as pulling up craigslist.
When I first saw this Ford F100 i was blown away by it, but when I saw what it started out as I was just amazed. I wish I could give credit with a name but I don't have it, and couldn't find it. But if you know whose truck it is, feel free to post it in the comments.
When I first saw this Ford F100 i was blown away by it, but when I saw what it started out as I was just amazed. I wish I could give credit with a name but I don't have it, and couldn't find it. But if you know whose truck it is, feel free to post it in the comments.
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| Before |
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| After |
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
This is soo freaking cool! Karmin
This girl gets down. Besides being really hot, she can really sing.
Team Lillie!
Lilie is the daughter of Chris "///Lucky" Brewer & Julie Brewer. Lilie is a 4 months old that suffers from 2 congenital heart defects: ASD (atrial septal defect) and VSD (ventricular septal defect). Lilie will require open heart surgery as soon as the Doctors say she's physically able to undergo the operation in the next few weeks. To help support Lilie and her family during this pivotal moment in life, "TEAM LILIE" sitckers (3"x3") and Team Lilie bracelets are available for $5.00 each w/ free postage. Paypal donations can be made to: teamlilie@comcast.net (Please send payment as "GIFT" & make sure to include your name/mailing info) Thank you for the support!
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| Make sure to click these pics to read more on Lilie! |
NR 1, the original build
I really wish, that I would have taken more pics back in the day, but all I can remember is what a pain in the ass it was to develop film, not to mention expensive.
The truck is currently sitting at Status customs back in my possession. Look for full updates on this truck soon and maybe a story or two in MT magazine!
Here are a few shots I took of the Mitsu while it was at Bio Kustumz, back in 99-2000.
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| corners shaved, check. Toyota bumper check |
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| body dropped bed, check! |
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| Bigger Back Window!!! Yes please! |
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| Not the first one, but definately one of the first. |
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| Caddy tails the hard way, before taillight fillers! |
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| Reverse four link, it sure rode nice though. |
This whole truck was built on trades. Originally I traded Max a 1969 Cadillac to bag and four-link the truck. I rocked it like that for a while, then realized that it wasn't nearly low enough. I worked at Dairy Queen at the time making chump change so I clearly couldn't afford a body drop. Me and Max talked about it and I traded him a 92 Acura Integra to body drop and shave it up. I think I had it in primer for only about a year after that.
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| This picture was taken at Davis Dam just before it was shot for Construction Zone, which was in the September 2001 Issue |
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| And of course, this was taken the day before it was sold in 2004. |
The truck is currently sitting at Status customs back in my possession. Look for full updates on this truck soon and maybe a story or two in MT magazine!
Couch to 5k Week 5
In case anybody was wondering (because I know you are all so attentive to this blog) I have been doing the 9 week Couch to 5K program for five weeks now. Well, I just started week 5 today and I love it. I started the program on the street but quickly worked my way into a gym where I have been loving it so much more. Its healthier and safer.
Today I walked for 5 minutes, ran for 5 minutes, walked for 3 minutes, ran for 5 minutes, walked for 3 minutes, ran for 5 minutes, then ended with a 5 minute cool down walk. I ran 2.35 miles in rough 27 minutes and burned 365 calories. To give you an idea of where I started i started off running about 90 seconds and walking 90 seconds and so on, all on intervals. The fact that I can run 5 minutes without stopping for me is quiet the accomplishment.
Just after West Coast Nationals last year (September 2010), I weighed in at a whopping 251, which is nuts considering I graduated from High School at 145. I'm currently at 227 and hope to continue going down. Loosing weight was the main reason I started this blog, because I knew that If I talked about it and put it out there, it would force me to continue this time. We'll see what happens!
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| I'm hoping to get down to 180 lbs, my current weight is 227 lbs. |
Just after West Coast Nationals last year (September 2010), I weighed in at a whopping 251, which is nuts considering I graduated from High School at 145. I'm currently at 227 and hope to continue going down. Loosing weight was the main reason I started this blog, because I knew that If I talked about it and put it out there, it would force me to continue this time. We'll see what happens!
Thursday, April 14, 2011
The Wifes 1965 Cadillac Coupe De Ville
I told myself I wouldn't build anymore Cadillacs. This 65 Coupe just sort of came into my life though. I wasn't looking for one, and I definitely didn't want one. My wife on the other hand seemed kind of excited about it, so I told her she could have it.
I acquired the car from my friend and fellow club member Steve Wilk. He owned this car with no motor and a 65 four door parts car with a running 429. Since he owed me a couple of bucks, we decided that the car would be an easier deal. He agreed to give me the car in running condition so I figured I couldn't loose on the deal. I plan on bagging it and repainting it over time. The first thing it's going to get is a nice pair of shoes and the seats re-wrapped. I'm looking for a nice set of 15-inch wires for it. The interior will be done by James at A&C Upholstery in Nuevo, CA. I'll post some updates as it comes along.
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| In Steve's garage getting the 429 installed, we actually got it in with a tranny in about 15 minutes. |
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| That is Steve's 64 Lincoln in the background. It's bagged, painted and it has a bitching interior. |
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| Yes, these are custom roses etched into the glass, and yes, I am very excited about that! |
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| The body is in great condition and all the missing trim is inside the car. |
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| The interior is all intact minus a few things. It needs the cover for the seat belt on the drivers side in blue, and it needs the dome light covers. It also needs a new glove box latch |
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| These are the kind of wheels I'm looking for for it. |
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| I would change the center cap out for some spinners |
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| This 66 Coupe is my inspiration for this car. (If we keep it long enough) |
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