Triple Show Weekend

So, this past Sunday, I had a really tough choice to make. You see, there were three major events happening on the exact same day. There was the Annual Great Canadian Volkswagen Show; the largest Volkswagen gathering in the entire northwest, maybe the whole west coast. It was a must attend event for me when I had my Audi. I even entered it a couple of years and did pretty well (won my class).

Then, there was the Annual Gastown Motorcycle Show and Shine organized by the British Columbia Coalition of Motorcyclists (BCCOM). This is the 4th year of this event where they actually close off Water St. Entirely for this show, and parts of a few streets leading down to Water St. for dedicated, FREE motorcycle parking. The show is mainly a custom bike affair, but totally open to the public in a tourist area of town. So the atmosphere is definitely unique.

Last there was the annual Revscene Summer Meet. Revscene is THE forum for local spo-com/euro gearheads and the annual summer meet brings out all the wild rides from all over the Greater Vancouver Region to one place. Vancouver has quite a few wildly modified Honda Fits, and this would be the venue they're headed to. (like Felix's car pictured here)

It was a tough choice, but in the end, I decided to gear up, hop on my bike, and head down to the Gastown Motorcycle Show and Shine. The main reason being that it was the only event I had not attended previously. And plus now that I'm finally riding regularly this year, I feel like I wouldn't feel like such an outsider anymore. (plus I'd know what I'm looking at now).



I was not disappointed. The event was big (although I was told it's smaller than previous year), and took up pretty much the entire length of Water Street (minus maybe 1/2 block). Mostly custom cruisers and choppers, but there were a few vintage bikes and sport bikes mixed in. The amount of work that went into some of these motorcycles is just insane! I'm certain many of the bikes on display had more man hours on them than the cars at the other two shows. I highly recommend this event to anyone who has the time. Even if you don't know motorcycles that well, you'll be able to enjoy the works of art on display. And if you really want to know more, the owners, or even others who know, will gladly share their knowledge. Just don't touch or sit on the bikes without the owners consent first.

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Links to some photo galleries of the events (not mine)
Great Canadian Volkswagen Show
Gastown Motorcycle Show and Shine
Revscene Summer Meet

Animated Fit GIFs

I found a fun site called GifNinja where it will convert a 4 second WMV video file into a animated GIF right there on the website. So I decided to make a few quick animated GIFs for the Fit from the Honda quicky ads I had posted earlier.





I also made one from an edit of the Ferocious Dominator ad where the Fit swallows an SUV. GifNinja can also make animated GIFs from your pictures. Have fun.

Back from Caribbeans

Well, it's been a while since I updated I know. I just came back from a cruise in the Caribbeans where I swam with dolphins and snorkeled with sea turtles and other tropical fish. It was fun, but now I'm flat broke. So any larger purchases for the Fit might have to wait a while.

Before I left though, I did pick up a set of JDM style window visors from a good friend of mine. So I will install those probably fairly soon. In the meantime, I might start looking into some other "cheaper" mods such as disconnecting the A/C from defog mode, and maybe some interior lighting options. I might also break down and buy a cargo cover as well because I really hate that I can't leave things covered in my car when I park.

Happy New Year

Happy new year everyone! I hope everyone had a great holiday break. Aside from a small incident with my Fit, I had a great time. Tons of food, and a wonderful gift from my family and friends.

Alright, the Fit first. I was on my way to my sister's apartment for Christmas Eve dinner with my wife. While at a redlight, a mid 90's Jaguar hit me from behind. I wasn't sure if he couldn't quite stop intime, or was already stopped behind me, and just let go of the brake for a second. I'm inclined to believe the latter since the impact wasn't severe and I didn't hear any hard braking behind me. Anyways, once I showed him there was in fact damage on my bumper, we pulled over and exchanged information. Originally he said he'd pay for the repairs himself. At the time we both thought it was just paint damage. However, the next morning, when I got a better look at the rear bumper in the light and dry weather, I noticed the dent was more severe than I had expected, and there was actually a crease in the bumper.


After talking with my good friend Christmas night during dinner, he sugggested I report it to insurance anyway. He would still have the option of paying the insurance company on his own to avoid his rates from going up. So I reported it next morning. I felt it was better this way because then it will be a third-party assessing the damages. I don't want him to feel like I'm taking advantage of him by claiming extra damage we wouldn't see at the scene at night, in the rain. So I called him and let him know I had reported it. My appointment with the insurance adjuster is tomorrow morning. We'll see what they say.

And for Christmas, my family and friends pooled their money together to give me a pretty incredible gift... They're sending me to motorcycle riding school! I've wanted to learn how to ride a motorcycle for a very long time. I'm the type of guy who chose to learn to drive on a manual transmission car, and want to know how to operate a motorcycle just so that whatever place or situation I'm in, I can always drive, or ride any vehicle that are available to me. Some places on vacation are better explored on two wheels, while other places won't be able to rent you an automatic vehicle at all. And since my family and friends know my desire, they figured it was safer for me to learn to ride properly, through a certified motorcycle riding school. I am so happy about this gift, and I know this wasn't cheap either. I'm getting ready to contact a couple of schools that are closer to my residence for their 2007 schedules, and to start studying for my class 6 learners license.

The Fit Gets Even Smaller

Remember this from about a year ago? Making real cars into Micro-Machine looking things using Photoshop. I never really looked into how to make them, but I recently stumbled onto a very easy to follow tutorial. So I made one from a generic side photo of an Alabaster Silver Metallic LX, and ventured onto doing a 3/4 shot of my wife's dream car, a Jaguar XJR. After trying it, I realize it is actually much more simple than I had imagined. Basically you do the following:

1. Find a photo of your desired car, preferrably a side shot
2. Use the Polygonal Lasso tool around the front wheel, getting the wheel arch and shadow, then copy and paste it to a new layer
3. Do the same with the rear wheel, creating another new layer
4. Go back to the original photo layer, then go to Edit, Free Transform, and narrow the photo to desired size
5. Move the layers of full sized wheels to approximately where you wat them on the shrunken car
6. Use Edit, Transform, Distort to twist the full size wheel layers if needed
7. Use the erase tool at around 50% opaque around the full size wheels to blend the wheels into the shrunken background car

If you need more detailed help, check out this tutorial which helped me. It includes step-by-step screen captures, as well as a video example for reference.

Here's the original photo of the XJR I did for my wife:


And here's what it looks like after Photoshop: