WELCOME!

I decided to start this blog to as an avenue for me to be able to post about some of the fun things that I do from time to time. It could be a Car Show revue, what I did on Vacation, what I like about this or that automobile, my experience with a photo shoot, what I have in my Automobilia collection, or whatever I think of at the moment. I hope you like it! All feedback will be appreciated.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Had a great Sunday!

Well I made it home late last night. Very tiring day at school thanks to getting very little sleep once again. Anyways! This is about my great Sunday and not how tired I am.

Ferrari 458 Italia

In the morning I got up early to get from Anaheim to South Central L.A. to pick up my brother by 6:30. After picking him up we headed up the 101 to Woodland Hills for the every Sunday gathering located at the Westfield Promenade Mall parking lot. This event is Supercar Sunday. This event is from around 7:00 am until about 10:00 am, or whenever everyone decides to actually show up, and when it's time to go home. If you are ever in Southern California, this event is a must attend. If you are down for a trip and want to break away from the typical touristy crap that you always seem to be stuck doing, here is the site for information - http://www.supercarsunday.com/ - ... To help plan it for yourself to go, it is about 20 minutes away from Universal Studios. So if you are planning that on your Holiday/Vacation agenda, why not go here for a couple hours in the morning to see some great cars. My only issue was that it had rained, and was still someone drizzley and it kept all the cars from coming that were to be there. It was the 1 year anniversary of them moving to this location, and the Ferrari Club was to have had a large number of cars coming. STUPID RAIN! I was able to meet up with a friend though. Also saw several individuals that I had met at various events in the past. Even though the rain ruined what could have been a spectacular event, I still had a very fun time. There was a decent amount of cars. Finally around 10:30 we were able to head out and get some breakfast before we headed to our next destination. Here are some of the photos I took at the event. If you want to see more, I will be adding them to my online photo hosting site that you can access by clicking on the link on the left that says "speedtrap73's photos".

Some of the Ferraris that actually made it
 
Lamborghin Gallardo LP550-2 Valentino Balboni
  
Ferrari 599 GTO - Chassis No. 175960

Porsche 911 - Gotta love the color!
After breakfast we then headed up the 405 to go to the Museum District to spend some time at The Petersen Museum. On the way I decided to get off the 405 onto Sunset and take a drive through Beverly Hills and check out the beautiful scenery of some very nice houses. We drove around with no particular plan and had some fun. I then took my brother to Rodeo Drive so he could check it out. After about an hour or so of driving around, we finally made it to The Petersen Museum. I had been wanting to go for the past few years, but for some reason never made it. On one occasion they were closed when I had gone by. Since I was spending the day with my brother, I thought it would be cool to take him there, and I would finally get to see the place.


Troy Ladd - "The Black Widow"
 Once we had entered the front door, there were 2 of the coolest custom Hot Rods that any car guy would love to see. One was built by Troy Ladd and the crew at Hollywood Hot Rods. This was The Black Widow. A 1926 Ford Roadster Pickup built based on a Monogram model kit that had never actually been taken from a real vehicle. This truck is why Troy won the award at the 2009 Grand National Roadster Show. That trophy was for "America's Most Beautiful Roadster". After seeing this thing, I could see why he had won the trophy. This is one Very Cool Hot Rod Pickup.

We walked around the museum with drool dripping from our chins as we saw some very beautiful examples of machinery. I had seen a few of the cars on display before at car shows, but no matter how many times I see them, it just seems to never be enough. Specifically, there were 2 of John D'Agostino's custom creations on display. "The Egyptian", a 1958 Oldsmobile Super 88, and "Elvis II", a 1959 Cadillac El Dorado Bairritz Convertible. These 2 cars were stunning! Then we got upstairs got to the Movie Cars. It was cool to see a few pieces that I truly enjoyed seeing. A 1982 Ferrari 308 GTS that was used for Magnum P.I. for the '82-'83 seasons, the 1972 Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spyder that Raul Julia drove in The Gumball Rally, but the mirror had been put back on, and 2 cars that were driven or owned by Mr. Cool himself, Steve McQueen's 1956 Jaguar XKSS and the 1967 Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow 2-Door Sedan that was used in the Original 1965 Thomas Crown Affair. Then we were off to see the surrent special exibit of "Supercars". Fitting, since we had been to "Supercar Sunday" in the morning. The examples on display in this area were once again some beautiful creations that are very rare. A must see before it is changed to something else. After about an hour looking at these rare pieces we moved on to the Drag Racing exibit. Seeing these vintage machines was a special treat. I grew up hearing about some of these cars, but not enough to really know too much about them. I wish I had spent more time reading the display placards to learn more about them. I just wanted to get in some photos. We then saw the Hot Rod History display. There are some sweet rides here. The Doane Spencer Roadster was the best of all. Such history with this Roadster. Also on display are some beautiful Boyd Coddington and Chip Foose creations. getting the opportunity to see these cars was a very special treat. All in all, my brother and I had a very great day running around being gearheads all day long. To finish off the day we drove up to a neighborhood and got shots of us with the Hollywood sign in the background. Then I took my brother home and hit the road back home. I finally got home around 1:00 AM or so, hit the bed and got up early to make it to school once again to get some education.
1994 Bugatti EB110

Magnum P.I. 1982 Ferrari 308 GTS

The Gumball Rally 1972 Ferrrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona Spyder
1962 Greer-Black-Prudhomme Dragster
 
I would like to thank whomever for reading this. If you would like to see my photos from museum, same as stated above, you can click on the link that says "speedtrap73's photos.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Long Days!

So far the last 2 days have been all about getting up early and staying up late. After the long 6 hour drive to get to Anaheim, we got up early on Friday morning to get breakfast here at the hotel before the crowd of cheerleaders took the place over. To make it worse for me, I couldn't get to sleep the night before (see previous post). We spent the day at Disneyland until about 3:30 pm. The crowds in the morning weren't to bad, thanks to the rainy weather.

We left and got a little relaxation, something like 15 whole minutes, back at the hotel until we headed up to South Central Los Angeles to pick up my brother for dinner. It had been 17 plus years since we last saw one another. Thanks to a little bit of his stupidity and then getting a conviction. I won't get into that! We went to L.A. Live up by the Staples Center, and of all times to go, there was a Lakers game. The area was just crowded with fans eating dinner before the game. For the 3 of us that went, we had decided to eat at the Yard House. I have never had such an unbelievably awesome Turkey Burger, anywhere that I have had one that would even come close to the one that I had there. We ended up just hanging out and talking for a bit until we decided to leave and go grab a coffee at Illy's inside the JW Marriot hotel. We talked for about another hour or so and then decided it was time to head out and drop my brother off back at home.

Today, Saturday i got up around 6:00 an once again and for ready and headed off on my own up to Cars and Coffee to see what beautiful cars were showing up for the every Saturday morning ritual. I must say this visit was not my best, but it was pretty memorable. Its not very often that one gets to see a sweet, white on white Lamborghini Countach 5000S anywhere. One gentleman also brought out his very clean Ferrari F40 and an early model, mid pillar mirror, Ferrari Testarossa. I was able to get some Black and white shots of the TR, but missed out on getting the F40. I did however get some shots with my 40D. After talking to one spectator for a while, I finally got out by about 9:00 am. By that tome there was only about a dozen cars left. I then headed back to the hotel and dropped off the car.

By the time I got done screwing around on the way back, I finally got to the hotel by 10:30 or so. I then jumped on the bus and headed up to Disney's California Adventure to meet back up with the family. After spending a lot of time doing the usual stuff, we got out to Downtown Disney for a great dinner at Ralph Brenna's Jazz Kitchen. I had never been to this restaurant in the past, but I am glad the group decided to eat here. I was very happy with my dinner. After dinner we walked around for a while and headed back into California Adventure to watch World of Color. By this time, my feet were toasted. The show was very good though and it kept my mind off of my sore feet for a little bit. Once the show was over we ended up going back to the hotel. Now I need to get to bed so I can get up early once again. Leaving early to pick up my brother again so we can head up to Woodland Hills for Supercar Sunday and then some other stuff afterwards. Goodnight! Thanks for the reading.

An Automotive Enthusiast

Friday, March 25, 2011

Can't Sleep!

Well it's just after midnight and I am having trouble falling asleep. I did fall asleep for maybe 30 minutes, but can't get back to sleep. So I figured I would get out of bed and write something.

My wife I drove down to Anaheim after I got out of my Autobody Refinishing class on Thursday afternoon to meet the rest of her family for a weekend at Disneland. After the 6 hour drive, and keeping myself from falling asleep on the way here, my mind is a mess. What a way to clear my mind!

My wife and I are spending most of Friday with her parents, as well as her brothers and their wives at Disneyland for our nieces first visit. Then in the evening we (wife and I) are going to head up to L.A. (South Central) and pick up my brother for dinner. I haven't seen him for over 17 years, due to him ending up in prison. I never had the opportunities to go see him while he was there. No real reason why, I just never went to see him. I'll post more on the experience of seeing him again later.

Saturday I will be driving down about 30 minutes or so to Irvine for the every Saturday morning event, for those in the area, that has become world famous. I'm spending a couple hours at Cars & Coffee to drool on some absolutely beautiful machines. The last couple of times I have been down here I made sure to go. I will post later on how much of an awesome time it was. I'll take tons of pics too. I'll be out of there by 9:00am and then head back up to Anaheim to get back to Disneyland.

On Sunday, since I have to get back home for school classes on Monday, I will be heading up to get my brother once again so we can hang out together. I'm picking him up around 6:30am and heading up to Woodland Hills for another event. Same thing here. It's the usual every Sunday morning gathering of Gear Heads that just love to hang out for a couple hours and share the beauties that they love to drive. After leaving there, the plan is to get some breakfast and then run back to L.A. and go somewhere I've been wanting to go do a long time. The Petersen Museum has been on my list of places to visit for years. I went by once a couple years ago and they were not open. Now I hope to scratch that off my lust if "Must Do" things.

Anyhow! Since I'm using my phone to write this, I hope this doesn't look cheesy. I'll post some updates as the weekend progresses, but I won't be able to post any pics until next week.

Thank You for reading!

An Auto Enthusiast Life

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Started the tare down on the S15

Well today was one of those days where you are tired from not getting enough sleep, but just seem to keep going. I went to my Autobody Collision class this morning as I do every Monday and Tuesday. I couldn't get to sleep last night until very late and had to to get up around 6:30 to be at school by 8:00. Class was good, but I just wasn't in the mood to do more dent repairs. Yesterday was no issue, but for some reason today I didn't feel like doing it.

I ended up getting home around 12:30pm, and when I got home I decided I'd better start to do some work to my '88 GMC S15 Extended Cab (My Project). A few weeks back I had a nice Heater Core blowout that soaked the passenger floor. Well I got that fixed but just didn't have any opportunity to removed the soaked carpet until today. The carpet was very nasty anyways, so this gave me an excuse to get it the hell out of there. I removed the ugly seats, tore it out, found a pine cone, some fries and some change from whomever owned the truck before. Oh yeah! I found some plastic green car that was junk and tossed it out too. Then I decided to somewhat fix some of the holes on the bed rail. The previous owner must have had a camper or a rack on it. The holes are raised a lowered and needed to be fixed. All 32 of them! I'll get around to spot welding the holes in and smoothing the dents out later when I actually know how to weld. After that I cleaned the nasty dirty bare floor of the cab and put the seats back in. Then I needed to put a couple of quarts of oil in it and adjusted the Hood Latch so I had less of a problem trying to release it. Now I got all that squared away. My next job is to removed the hood and fenders and get them sanded down and primered. From there I will start the bed repairs and see where I need to go when I get that done. I just need it to get me through until October. Then the serious stuff begins.

That's all I have for now! Off to get some rest so I can get some more stuff taken care of tomorrow before I head to my Photography Class in the evening.

LATER!!!

Friday, March 11, 2011

Another day goes by

Well, since this is my first time writing a blog, I'll try to keep it short and not to boring. The basis of my blogs will be a little bit about my schooling, some odd things, and my great times and experiences at the race track, a car show, a trip, or just whatever I had fun doing.

It's been a somewhat long busy day so far. I got up this morning added more photos to a new site that I can actually not have to pay to put them on. To top it off, I'll eventually make some money from it. After that I ended up watching the news for a couple hours when I had found out about the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. I'm not usually a news watching person, but this was something I had to watch. I then decided to eat and go for a walk, since I'm on a diet/excercise trip for at least the next few months. I need to lose some weight. I've never weighed so much. My goal is to lose 30 pounds by the 3rd weekend of May. More on why later.

After my walk I came home and watched some shows I had Tivo'd on HD Theater. Once I finished what I wanted to watch I came up to my office and decided to get more photos uploaded to the site, get cleaned up form sweating on my walk, and get back on here and screw around trying to figure out this AdSense stuff. I'm thoroughly confused! Eventually I'll figure it out. Now I just need to run around town for a bit to get away from the house so I don't go crazy. It will give me something to do at least until my wife gets home from work.

As far as why I'm in need of losing 30 pounds. I weighed myself last week since my wife had asked if I would be interested in participating in a "Biggest Loser" thing that they do at her work. Why Not! I feel like a fat, overweight, groggy pig anyways. Since I started school last Fall, I think the little bit I had lost has doubled back. OY! Thanks to the crappy food that is cooked by my mother-in-law (I'll explain that some other time), I've now had dick-do for the last 6 years. No wonder I feel like crap, don't want to get up in the morning, and can't sleep. It's probably the reason why I've been so moodyWell it's time to get myself back down to a reasonable weight before I start my 3rd season as a SCRAMP Volunteer at the world famous Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. "CORKSCREW ROCKS!" I want to see those pics that I sometimes get in of me not looking like such a fat slob. I also want to get myself to where my size 36 pants don't feel like I'm wearing a size 30. Hopefully by then I'll be in a decent shape that I'll enjoy it a little more.

Thanks You for reading my non-sense.

TODD