Blog
Ramblings from the man in charge.
Hurricane Season The Tampa bay region managed to dodge another hurricane, this time it was Fay. It royally sucks for the people on the other coast of Florida the got a monsoon's worth of rain, our thoughts and prayers go out to them for a speedy clean up and recovery. Luckily were half way home this hurricane season and no one has had to deal with another katrina (knock on wood). Hey, if its hurricane season, does that mean we can shoot them? Just a thought.
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Happy Birthday America Yea I know its a little late for a july 4th blog, but better late than never right? On the 4th we took out the ole camaro for a breakfast tour with PINMAR. Its basically a mini version of the tour that we did back in january with about fifty cars and roughly a hundred people. Dad drove, mom navigated, and I manned the camera for the scavenger hunt. We didn't win but we did get nine out of ten questions right. I'll be one happy man once we get the pickup up and running cause cramming me and my camera gear into the back seat of the camaro wasn't the best idea in the world. While I was eating my knees I managed to click off a couple of good shots of the cars in the cruise when the route doubled back on itself. I just needed help getting back out of the car. Icyhot is a wonderful thing. The picture below was taken with the new camera on a 70mm lens f5.5 if memory serves.
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Lost in time 6.25....08 Has it really been a month since my last blog post? Yea I guess it has. Lets see here where did all the time go. We had to attempts at getting the june heads up madness in. My sister got hitched and her and her husband moved in with me until he heads to the air force in august or september. All of that on top on the usual work schedule. Yea I guess it has been a busy month. Work on the studebaker truck has come to a screeching halt when we put the new rear wheels and tires on. The clearance between the tire and the fender is to tight that a 0.125 feeler gauge wouldn't fit between the two. Now we gotta find some wheels with a different offset before we can get the the shock mounts welded on. Ah the joys of a project car. I'll leave you today with a picture of a former prostock truck verses a former prostock camaro wheels up from the first attempt to run the June race at Sunshine. A huge thanks to Rob from Devastation Motorsports for allowing me to get a wall pass for this event. Check out his website at www.devastationmotorsports.com and pick up a dvd of the event while your there. |
Its a sickness I know you've all been waiting for new pictures from the awesome new camera. Well, you're just gonna have to wait. I've been in some sort of sick since the St. Petersburg Grand Prix, and its not gotten better. In fact the guys at work are starting to notice that I'm not up to par, which sucks cause if they decide to send me home, it'll put me in an awful hard place, since I'm paid hourly and not salary. I'll just have to block it out and do what I can today and cross my fingers, that I can shake this upper respitory thing that I've got sooner rather than later. Because I'm exhausted when I get home (more so than normal) I literally crash on the couch and not get up till morning. So the camera is out of the box but I haven't charged the battery yet, or gone and bought new compact flash cards. Maybe I can fool around with it sunday. |
NEW GLASS!!! Well I bit the bullet and picked up my very first dslr camera. I got a Sony A300X it came with a f2.2 18-70mm lens and a f3 75-300mm lens. Its a 10 megapixel camera which was a requirement for me anyway's was to upgrade to a larger megapixel sensor. Even though its only a 4 meg jump from the point and shoot Panasonic DMC-FZ7 I've been using, it should provide for much clearer shots ( I hope). The reviews that I've read have all been positive and some say that's its on par with the cannon rebel xti. I will post some pictures some time next week with the two cameras for comparison purposes. What am I going to do with the Panasonic? We'll currently dad have been getting frustrated with his four year old point and shoot konica minolta, I'll probably give him the Panasonic to use when he needs it, then take it back and use it on trips so I don't screw up the new Sony. On another note we got the studebaker put back together and you should see it at the checkers cruise-in tonight. The engine turned gold leaf studebaker logo turned out to look pretty dang good. While we had the tailgate off for the new vinyl I knocked some of the larger dents out of it with the hammer and dolly set dad got back in christmas, it ain't purdy but its a good ten footer now anyway's. |
Pull the 'chutes Heads Up Madness once again gave nothing left to be desired. Outlaw 10.5 was turbo vs. nitrous both cars within 5 hundredths of each other all night. Stock Suspension had the blow thru on top in qualifying but they couldn't get it to hook in eliminations, while the Pirez's had a bracket car all night. Pro-Mod had one of the biggest fields in a while. And the new classes Real Street put up one of the best shows I've seen in years, big wheel stands, close races, upset wins, yea and a big crash, and I'm glad Mike Miller is a-ok. Open Outlaw only had 6 cars but that's all they needed, the first ever side by side three second runs were recorded at sunshine. Even more impressive is that it was a dragster and a funny car, not two dragsters. I highly recommend checking this out next month.
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New and maybe improved. Man what a project this turned out to be. What started out as a simples layout overhaul turned into a four day thrash into the unknown. And was it worth it? Quite honestly I'm not sure yet, I need a day to step away from the site, then come back to it. If I still like it then this is how it will stay for a while. If I don't like it, expect more changed around here at HSG central. On the drag racing front, don't forget to check out the Heads Up Madness Event over at Sunshine Drag Strip. Rumor has it that they will be racing Real Street on as well as all the usual classes, and that they have 23 cars confirmed already. I'll be there with the camera loaded, ready to rock. |
Why on earth did you do that. That is the question of the day. Why on earth did I screw with a good thing. I decided it was time for a change and when I get something in my little head it usually wont go away until I or someone else fixes the problem. I thought that was a good little site I had going, but it wasn't great. I think this site has a chance to be great. Its actually harder to update, albeit not by much. I just think it looks much more professional. So that is why I done it. |
Well, that was different I sat down and got to work this morning on a few projects that needed to be done, ones that I figured would at least take me a full day to do maybe even two. And here I am at 11:00am all done and sitting here spinning a pencil like drumstick thinking of things to do. I don't think I've had this problem in years, I've actually got all my computer based work that can be done today done, and done way ahead of schedule. OH crap that hurt I just stood up to stretch and rolled the left ankle again. Hopefully I didn't break it, but man that hurts. People are looking at me like I'm insane cause I went down as quick as I stood up. Somehow my shoe lace was caught under my desk, and the desk kept my foot from moving and my body kept on going resulting with me face planting on my desk and twisting my foot around like some crazy circus freak show. I'm out, I gotta see the doctor. |
Back Breakers I picked up the extra keyboard that Pierced wasn't using currently. Its a top of the line Alexsis, and it plays like a dream, and is darn near as heavy as a baby grand. Ok maybe that is a slight exaggeration but the thing is REALLY heavy, and hauling it from the parking spot to my apartment/recording studio took forever. I gotta stop by and pick up the pedal tonight and I'll be back on track recording. This has been quite fun actually, but now the hard work begins. I've got the basics of each song in place, format and rhythm wise, now I need to add those little things that seem to make or break the songs, like the fist pumping drum/guitar solos, or the angelic sound of a violin in the background, you know the small things, lol. My next real project for the web site is to put the blog on a blog platform. Right now I'm just using dreamweaver and as nice of a program as it is, it doesn't have the user friendly features that say wordpress has. Oh and Chris I didn't forget about you man I've got the wallpaper of Archie's wheel stand done. I'll have it posted tonight when I get home from work, I hope you don't mind that I took a couple of liberties on it. |
Things to do... Another weekend in the books with almost nothing accomplished, that was planned. The old merc left me stranded at 10:00 p.m. at a local target. I wasn't inside the dang store 15 minutes and I open the door and the dome lights didn't go on. I thought "We'll that's strange." Next thing I know the car wont start. Luckily I got a hold of my parents and dad soon arrived with jumper cables. We drove the car to his house seeing that it would need to be jumped again in the morning to get to the shop for a new alternator and battery. The rest of the weekend included work, work, and more work, although the band did get to play for the contemporary service at church in place of their regular band on sunday morning. Sunday night came around and I realized I haven't shot anything for this photo contest coming up, so at 7:30 I grabbed some water and camera to get some pictures of the sunset. Since none of which came out as hoped for I decided to improvise, I grabbed a flashlight out of the car and used it to light up my water bottle from a distance. The rules of the contest stated that the exposure had to be three seconds or longer, so I had to set the camera on the railing of the dock and I stuck the bottle and flashlight on the railing of the other side. The result is what you see below, I hope I don't finish second to last like I did last time. lol Now that I think about it this is the first time I've used artificial lighting other than what's on the camera.
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Sicker than the dog What a weekend that was. The Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on friday, Heads Up Madness on Saturday, and work all in between. Between being outside all weekend and the lack of sleep I wound up getting myself sick, but it was worth it. Watching the ALMS and Indy cars sliding into turn 9 on the street course has got to be one of the coolest things I've done in a while, the only thing separating you from the racecars is a little bit of chain link fence and a three foot tall concrete barrier. Needless to say it got a little exciting when some of the drivers not used to road courses went into the corner a little too hot. The only thing cooler is watching some of the best outlaw street cars in the country race at your local drag strip, which happens every month around here, on one of the toughest tracks to get down in the country, Sunshine Dragstrip. And that happened the following day, man you gotta love florida.
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Glutton for punishment In what could be a vain attempt at making a record, I'm going to get the old drum set set up in my bedroom and start in on recording a CD. What is going to be on it I haven't a clue at the moment, seeing how I am not the greatest singer in the world, not the greatest drummer in the world (in my mind is another story lol), nor am I the greatest bass player in the world, but what the heck, I've always wanted to have my own name on the front of a disc. It maybe an hour of drum solos, but that could be boring to hear. My budget for this self inflicted abuse, $0. I'm going to attempt to do everything myself, cover artwork, discography, write produce and play all the music that I can, and package the cd when its done. Best case scenario is that I've got a ton of late nights composing, recording, producing, re recording, mixing, mastering, compiling, to make a cd that probably will sell a dozen copies at $5 a pop. Worst case scenario, is that I get to go through all that trouble just to put one minute intro on the site. I must be out of my mind to even think of doing this but, I'm getting tired of playing drums in a band that reaches out to the same twelve kids every week, albeit I love each and everyone of them. As selfish as this sounds, I want a new challenge, and I think I've found it. Hey you never know I might make it on the radio, I'll never know unless I try. My inspiration for this insane endeavor, is Max Hsu the mastermind behind Superchic[k]. This guy has got it figured out.
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So vintage its an antique The family took out our two show cars to Heritage Park for the antique car show. Funny how our vintage camaro, which is forty-two years old, is not old enough to enter the show. But they allowed us in and we parked near the general store with both the stude and the camaro. This was the first outing for the studebaker pickup to a real show, and I gotta say for a beat to death daily driven fifty year old pickup it sure turned some heads. I think it was because it was the only studebaker on the grounds, but I could be wrong. The weather man forecasted for rain late in the afternoon, and for once he was right (grrrrr). We've never had the truck out in the rain since acquiring it late last year and no one was really sure if the windshield wipers worked or if it would have nasty lack of traction in the rain that plagues most pick ups of the era. It seemed to do just fine on the way home in the rain, I was following in the camaro so I still don't really know how well it drives in the rain, dad never spun the tires or skidded under braking, although the wiper blade on the drivers side was slowly coming unglued from its backing. I did lock the brakes in the camaro on the way over to the show once but that was because dad's brake lights went on and stayed on for the entire trip, so it made it incredibly difficult to follow him. The show itself was really nice, more that 140 cars and trucks showed up despite the threat of rain. The clouds did present a challenge for the photographer side of me, it did diffuse the light a bit but it never really got strong enough light to make the colors pop, I did find that setting my flash for -2/3EV brought out the detail on some of the cars that were hidden in the shadows or had dark paint jobs. I managed to get a few decent shots off before the rain made me pack it in for the day.
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T-shirts My good friends from Proud Let Down asked me to design a simple two color t-shirt that was stylish enough for someone to where everyday. AKA not your typical black and white band shirt. So away I went delving into Adobe Illustrator to see what I could muster up. Inspiration came from a quicksilver shirt the lead guitarist Jim was wearing at one of their shows. I managed to come up with a couple of pretty decent designs, I thought anyway but I'm not a clothing designer not by a long shot, lol. Here are two that didn't make the cut.   |
The Mac Attack I went to the the Toby Mac-Jeremy Camp concert Sunday night. All I gotta say is INSANE, it was the last show of the tour and they tore the place down. My sister and her soon to be husband won a contest to be on stage during Toby Mac's part of the show, that's gotta be pretty sweet, being on stage during the show and having members of the band talk to you in between songs. Toby Mac had everything calculated out, and I mean everything, right down to the smallest of moves, it was obvious that he knew what to do and when to do it, the guy is a genius when it comes to putting on a show. |
Status Quo I remember when I could get up in the morning, grab a bite of food, and hop in the car and go off I go to where ever that day would lead me. Then be home by 6:00pm and crash behind my drum set or computer and just let the creativity flow, what ever inspired me that day I tried to translate into music or art. Yea I'd be lazy from time to time but the vast majority would be spent either writing down nasty drum licks, or maybe painting a skin for some random racing game. Ah the good old days, when I was guaranteed that I'd have three meals a day in front of my face, a puppy dog to bug the snot out of me, and weekends off. I'm so busy nowadays, Lord knows when I'm going to get my next real meal, yea I'm talking prepared food, not some burgerbiggie mega-chain preprocessed patty, or when I will have time to play with the new kitten. So with the blog I'm going to attempt to bring some normalcy back to my life, sure I still might not get weekends off, but who does around here anyway's.
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