I’m Still Here!!!

I’m not dead yet! I think this is the longest I’ve gone without having any sort of meaningful post. I apologize for the lack of any updates since Tony’s shoot… The weather has been pretty shitty every weekend. Whenever it’s nice out, I am way too busy and when I have nothing to do, it’s raining or snowing.

I think this is also the longest I’ve ever gone without washing my car in the history of me ever driving a car lol. It makes no sense for me to wash it because of all the construction going on – I don’t even have a clean driveway to get into the garage yet…

Anyways – thought I’d grab the camera and stretch its legs real quick and let you see just how dirty my car is. I’m almost too busy to even care to be honest… But hopefully the I got some upcoming shoots soon… Just waiting on that nice weather. Any day now…

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Matte everything.

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Months of no washing…

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Caked on dirt. I really want to just give it to someone to give it the TLC it deserves because I can’t!

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Breaks my heart…

Don’t lose faith in me yet! The blog will come alive when the weather starts to warm up!

Mode Luxe Pinstripe

Well, it happened. I couldn’t wait to get the decal on to see what it looked like so I ended up applying one side once I got home from work. I decided that it was “warm enough” and I could get one side done in no time. It was about -15C outside and just barely 0C in the garage so it wasn’t too bad. I know that it’s kind of difficult to apply decals when it’s cold cause it doesn’t stick well, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.

Because Bill had cut the decals into 4 separate pieces – fender, front door, rear door, and quarter panel – I had been trying to think of a way to line it all up properly without it looking like there was a break in the pinstripe. In hindsight, it’s a pretty simple idea but at the time, I couldn’t think of anything until I was in my car on the way home. I ended up using masking tape all the way from the fender to the rear tail light and lining it up just below where the decal would be placed…

Here’s a look at what I mean. Helped a ton… Without this, I’m sure it would’ve been a disaster.

Didn’t take too long to line it up. I basically taped it, pulled it straight and placed it down. I stepped to the side, made sure it looked good and made adjustments if needed. My car is a little different because my side mirror is on the body line so the pinstripe can’t follow that line like I had originally planned. Instead, it had to sit a little lower. Not a huge issue…

I started at the fender and made my way down. Bill cut it so that we would have some extra vinyl if we needed it which helped a lot.

A shot of the main piece on the rear quarter. By this point, I was pretty anxious to see what it was going to look like. Little did I know… this was the longest part of the whole install.

Here it is peeled off and it looks AMAZING. In this case, pictures don’t do it justice because the chrome/mirror finish is awesome and matches the chrome trim and the SSR’s perfectly.

A side shot of the decal – looks great! It ties in all of the chrome nicely. The most difficult part of all this is peeling it off and getting it to stick onto a cold surface. That, and when the vinyl is cold – it tends to start to crinkle up so you have to work quick. I ended up getting one tiny bubble but it’s no big deal and barely noticeable.

Shot of the fender – super clean.

And one more shot of the main piece – which is quite the eye catcher. Love it or hate it, it’s another one of my favourite little additions to the car this year that is rather inexpensive.

Thanks again to Bill for putting these together for us! Can’t wait to see it on JC and Punit’s cars!

Rain > Snow

Random shot I edited yesterday just because I felt like it. I’ve been thinking recently that if I can’t do anything to the car next year, I’d like to at least wrap it. Most likely not a matte colour, but a simple metallic… Although there have been quite a few bodykits popping up for super cheap, but I can’t cop those right now… Unless someone can convince Diana that a bodykit would be a good way to spend money.

The Christmas season is upon us! So I’m busier than ever lately… Christmas shopping, house stuff, wedding stuff. You know the deal by now.

And here’s my “rain > snow” pic because it seems fitting right now.

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Regina George Hibernates

That time has come. It’s that one day a year where you painstakingly clean the car, but this time with sadness rather than excitement that the car will be clean once again. I stopped driving the LS at the beginning of October but didn’t have enough time to clean it or anything so it’s kind of just been sitting there. Today I had a few hours to finally clean it up nicely and make sure it was all clean to tuck away into the corner of the garage. It’s bittersweet because it’s sad to have to go back to driving the Civic again but my wallet loves me a little more because the tab at the gas bar isn’t so bad. $45 every 2 weeks is wayyyy better than $75 every week lol.

Huge thanks to Jackie Tong at Zero Limit once again for hooking it up with this battery maintainer. Usually I just park it and pull the battery and store it downstairs and then install it again when it’s time to drive again. I’ve heard about trickle chargers and such but I’ve been too lazy to go get it. I know – I’d rather go through all the work to take the battery out rather than get a trickle charger… Crazy.

However, during Jackie’s shoot he asked me how I would park the LS with the air and such and eventually he suggested this battery maintainer. Simple hook up to the battery, plug it into the wall, turn it on and select a mode and voila! When you’re ready to drive it again, all you have to do is unplug and go. The cool thing about this is that it cycles the battery through several cycles making sure that it charges, discharges, pulses, etc. We’ll see how it goes next year!

Dirty ass wheels that haven’t been cleaned for weeks. Chrome wheels are such a pain in the butt to clean.

Raised up looks so dumb lol… but getting ready for a wash.

Nice and clean!

Tucked away as far over to the side as I could get it and aired down. I air it down mainly because the bags are assumed to lose air over time and it’s just going to end up sitting aired out anyway.

Hooked up and good to go.

The maintainer showing which cycle it’s at.

Easy connect. Nice and simple.

Good to go for the winter. lol @ the jack stand in the bay – it’s to hold the hood up so that it doesn’t come down and clamp the wires or unhook it from the battery terminals.

Well… So far, I’m doing OK with the transition… I know once it starts snowing and getting cold, I’ll be itching to drive it again. Until then, I got big people stuff to worry about. I think that’s why I’m OK with parking the LS away for now…

Until next year!