For site work I recently got the main part of Natasha Fabrics done and now I just need to clean it up, rename a few things, and then get the image viewer app they want to look good in there.  On Automoto I got the side staff image done.  I’d like to make separate links to everybody’s bios if they’d like one but that’ll come later when people request to have a bio.

Natasha Fabrics Site

1. Been working at Percepta now for quite a while.  It’s a decent job, I mean I can’t really complain about having in door work.  Things could be worse.  Sometimes the calls get annoying and always saying that we can’t help people when we should but so it goes.  When I get home all work gets left at work.

2. Automoto is going great!  So far we are up to 1050 fans on Facebook and our daily readers on the site are going up.  We have plateaued a little bit but it should pick up soon once I get back on the ball with it.  I’ve slacked a little bit lately but Mike has been helping me to get going by being totally annoying which I need.  Soon we will be hitting advertising from local companies.  Hopefully start signing up some six month contracts and get some income coming in.

3. My car is still running.  OMG.  Longest streak that the TDI has been running.  The B&G coilovers are on, I got a set of 17″ BBS rims, and that’s about it so far.  Now that the oven we call Florida has turned on it’s burners I need to get that A/C worked out and that’s next on the list but first I need to get the trailer moved and going because I picked up a 1997 Audi A4 Quattro V6 12v that’s not running.  The trailer is going to be taken out hopefully in the next weekend.  I just need to weld the ball onto the front so I can get it moved to it’s next place where it’ll get the cage put into it to make it more steady.

Camille and My Fat Face

4. GIRLS!!!!  After four to five years of being in the awesome lonely land of singledom I have found somebody that enjoys my company and I enjoy hers.  Her name is Camille and she’s awesome.  It’s kind of a weird situation in that she moves around a lot because of her occupation in music and we only had a month of being together until she moved away to New Hampshire where she is directing a program there.  She’s got drive, close to her family, and is smart.  I’m hoping she moves back to Florida when she’s done with her program but that’s about eight weeks away so it’s hard to tell what is going to happen.

5. I got a street racing ticket again.    So far things are looking up but I’ve spent what I think is a decent amount on a lawyer and I’m hoping I can get a plea offer to get it to anything other than a street racing ticket.

6. Installed my first legit copy of Windows 7 Pro.  It’s pretty nice and now I’m looking to upgrade my computer.  I’ve started playing Bad Company 2 and the system just isn’t cutting it.  I’ll probably be upgrading my processor and ram first and then my video card.  I know the video card is lacking and I’m really contemplating giving ATI a try.  I’ve always been a Nvidia fan but the new ATI cards aren’t to expensive and they blow the doors down on the new Nvidia cards.

7. I must head to bed now because I’ve written to much for a single update and it’s really late!

Audi A4 Rear End

Been really busy lately but finally starting to get into the groove of the 9-5, Mon-Fri work day thing. I have to be at work by 9:30am which is just about fantastic in my book.  I can go to bed around 1-2am and still get enough sleep which is great.  I’ve been doing one to two things after work every day pretty much and now that I don’t have to go down to LeHigh Acres any more for any weekends to take care of family things I’ll be riding it out pretty nicely.

So far work has been going pretty smoothly and has been fairly easy.  I think I’ve got the groove of things and just need to shorten my call times but other than that I have all of the other parts down.  I tend to be way to personable I think but hey, they’re happy even with a bad answer.  I hope to be in another department sometime soon any ways.  Just two more weeks in the training area and then we are in our main teams in which is about the time I’ll be starting to apply for career shadowing into other departments.

I sold a ton of parts which is awesome.  Between the extra TDI turbo I had, the Brock B2 wheels, and the payment from James I’ve been able to go on pretty well for the past two weeks.  I also got a one week pay check which was nice.  Another paycheck should be coming this week I think.  I’m going to be putting away about 150-200 a month to try and save.  I think that’s what I’m supposed to be doing.  :p  I might also give my dad 100 bucks or so to try and pay off some of the money I owe him every month.

The TDI is almost done!  Engine wise that is.  All I need to do is re-do the intercooler piping and adjust the vanes one more time and it should be done for good.  I still have a lot of work I want to do to the exterior to make it look really good but that won’t affect it being down to go to work or anything.  I’m actually really getting into body modification because I finally got the B&G’s back from repair.  It’s really low now and I have a few things I want to focus on immediately.  First off is rims and tires.  I need new tires soon and my rims are small 15′s so getting new ones soon would be very nice.  I need to finish my wheel well arches so that I can fit everything nicely, especially since my front fenders are cut up and look like butt.  Then there’s the interior but that’s for later.

Audi A4 Side

I think I found a car I want to buy.  It’s a project car so that I can stop dumping money into my TDI daily driver.  It’s an Audi A4 5-speed Quattro.  It’s really nice looking outside and is an awesome Red.  Motor is blown and tranny is apparently pretty good.  Great candidate.  I just need to speak with my father about putting it in the yard of course.

My grand father past away.  I wasn’t that close to him at all but it sucks that another family member is dead.  Especially the only one that had any kind of interest in my hobbies but he has really been dead for quite a few years already.  I got some tools from him that I use on a daily basis like the air compressor and the tool box.

I ran into a old friend from school that I’ve known since elementary.  I don’t really know if I can say friend but more like somebody that I saw a lot in school.  We never hung out outside of school.  She seemed really cool.  Great personality!  She got really cool as she got older.

Well, that’s about all that is going on now.  Time for bedz.  Peace.

I’ve been slacking on the weight loss.  Once I get settled into this job and get a hang of the times and what food I should bring so that I’m not mad hungry when I get home then I’ll be set.  I haven’t been gorging myself but I haven’t really been keeping it low enough.  The tracking hasn’t been done in two weeks but after today I’ll get that going again.

Work is alright.  Still in the boring training period but it’ll be better once I get to take the calls.  At least I’ll get great amusement out of the customers.  I hope to be able to get into some other department with in a few months.  I’ll post more later but just can’t right now because I gotta eat and get ready for work in 7 minutes. 

Old VNT Bracket

I bought a new turbo for the TDI because I think I blew the seals on the old new one that I had put in.  On top of that I broke off three bolts in all three of the holes that hold the downpipe on.  I really didn’t feel like dealing with drilling those out.  The new turbo I thought was identical but it’s not.  It was from a Jeep Grand Cherokee which also had the 320CDI engine in it from the Mercedes.  Same company owns the two.  The differences come into play with the size of the exhaust housing, the new one looks slightly bigger, the vanes are a different style and have a cage around them allowing for the exhaust side housing to spin 360 degrees so you can position it any which way you wanted.  The oldturbo had the vanes built into the exhaust housing which only allowed for certain angles to be set at.  I think this new turbo is a newer version and hopefully will allow for more power but if it’s the same then awesome.  I just hope it’s not less.

Along with the new turbo I have also made a new VNT actuator bracket.  The old one was just a L shape bracket and couldn’t hold the force.  It broke twice.  I welded on reinforcement pieces into it and it held fine then but was ugly and I couldn’t get the screws and nuts on all the way to hold it all together so I have made a new one with a new design and it’s stronger, looks awesome, and will hold more pressure.  I have also welded on a new flat flange onto the adapter pipe in hopes of fixing this exhaust leak that has been hounding me ever since I got the car going with the new turbo setup.  Lastly I have installed studs into the downpipe and bought high grade nuts so that the downpipe can be installed easier and won’t break anything off. 

The only thing I am concerned about now is the oil return line.  The reason for this is that I may have to take all this back off in order to replace it.  The current setup is a cobble of three different pipe fittings to make a 90 degree so that I can get it to the oil return line.  These fittings are fairly restrictive with the oil flow and I think that is what is making the pressure build up in the turbo and making the seals blow.  I’m not sure but I think that’s what is happening.  I am ordering a new aluminum 90 degree fitting that is all one piece and has a huge diameter that will have a barb on the end to connect to my big return line.  It will not only flow smoother but will be able to flow more and be easier to connect and disconnect. I am hoping this will solve that problem but I still need to call Garrett to see if I need any sort of oil restrictor but I doubt I do since this turbo is a journal bearing turbo.

Unfortunately my car isn’t ready for me to take to my first day on the new day job.    My dad was kind enough to offer me a ride and I took it.  Otherwise I’d be outside putting together my car right now.  I <3 Family, mainly my dad though.  Tomorrow I will be working on the car to get it drivable to work but not as a long term vehicle until i fix the oil return and all the boost piping.  That won’t happen until I get a paycheck or two.  We’ll see.

I had to do some research to see if I really wanted to do this costume.  First off I want to start off by saying I have no clue if I’m going to be able to pull this thing off in time for this years Halloween.  It’s a pretty big feat considering what I want to do with it.

First off, I’m making a genuine metal suit.  No plastic crap, no fiberglass stuff, no flimsy paper mache, and no corny cloth.  Well… there will be some cloth but not much.  The basic thing is that I want to make a pretty real suit of armor.  The preliminary research I did was to see if the following obstacles could be overcome.

1. The shoulders could be made easily. HUGE metal spheres are kind of hard to find for a decent price so I asked around on some forums and people posted a few suggestions such as WOKs, warehouse lighting domes, huge salad mixing bowls from cookware stores, end caps for propane tanks, and a few others I forget.
2. Secondly I had to figure out how to form metal for the basic chest pieces and every piece there is.  One very helpful fellow posted on my VW forums that I should model it in 3D and then do 3/4″ sectional print outs of the pieces. Place these on pieces of foam that are 3/4″ thick and then glue them all together.  Now you sand down the levels so that it’s all smooth and you have a foam mold.  Cover it with resin and now you have a hard mold and something you can work with.  I should be able to form some thin sheet metal into that.
3. Securing all of these pieces together was on the mind but quickly solved with some leather straps of some sort like with old school armor.

The cost is going to be pretty high but over the next half a year it won’t be to bad every month.  It’ll give me a hell of a lot of experience.  One good thing is that I found some 3D models in Google Sketchup which will save me TONS of time  with measurements and doing the sectionals.  I have also found some costumes of other people that have made Metroid suits but needless to say they all have some pretty cheesy aspects to them.

Real Digital Image of Metroid Suit

I’m going to start with a picture of the real Metroid suit from the newer line of games for the Wii.  As you can see they’ve added some detail to the suit with some special lights in the shoulders, chest, and probably a few other places.  This version is what I hope to accomplish pretty closely.  I’m not sure I can do it but I’m going to try.  I’ll be leaving the center torso section last because I am losing weight and that part has the biggest impact on size.  I’ll also be wearing a corset under this to try and get the look that the suit requires for that area, after all she is a girl.

Notice where the gun connects, height of shoulder spheres, and just general dimensions and lines of it all.

Metroid Costume 1

1. The worst of all of the costumes I will be bringing out.  It’s made out of paper mache or however you spell it.  Everything is pretty crude, the spheres have a flat spot, there are huge openings that you can see into, all pieces are painted in a single color, and the fitment of everything isn’t really that good.  The only good thing about this one is that the proportions are pretty good as far as shoulder to head ratio, where the gun is located along the length of the arm, and so forth.

Metroid Costume 2A

2. LOOK AT THE PRETTY GIRL!!!  Yeah, I wish I could look like that but… the costume is pretty good.  No flat colors and a good variety of change and wear and tear.  The  shoulders sit a little low and are kind of small in proportion to the helmet that she wears.  Also it’s made out of a lot of cloth which is a no no in my book.  It looks awesome on her but that’s because she has an awesome figure and I’d like to hit that.  There’s not much of a “mech” feel to her costume and it’s mostly spandex it looks like.

There are quite a few pictures on the internets of this chick.  Look up Samus Aran in Google Images and you’ll get a whole plethora of them.  It’s pretty intense.

Metroid Costume 3

3. This is getting more to what I am looking to do but this is all plastic it looks like.  That or else really well finished fibeglass/carbon fiber or something.  I’m not really sure.  There’s tons of hard pieces in this and they fit well together and follow the body just great.  The shoulders are a little low but not to bad and the proportions are closer to what they should be.  The only beef I have with this one is the solid colors.  If they had did some nice wear and tear on this suit it’d look fantastic.

Metroid Costume 4

4. Next up is this guy.  Great helmet, smaller shoulders, a little low, cloth under the initial chest piece, and the gun is way to far up the arm.  The work on the armor is pretty detailed if you look closely and the helmet came out great.

What I really like about this one is the blue gun barrel.  I’m not sure what I’m doing for this but I do know that I need to do something that is frigging awesome.  I know I’m doing something awesome for the back jet pack but more on that later. 

Metroid Costume 5

5.  Last on our list of costume reviews is this guy.  This looks like it had some thought put into it but not much at all.  The helmet has no character to it, the shoulders are WAY to small and WAY to low, and the proportions of the body pieces just don’t seem to match that of the digital image suit.  I’ll be trying to get as close to the dimensions as I can but I don’t quite know if I’ll be able to get close or not.

This guys legs are pretty good but the croth is kind of weird and extends down way to far.  The gun is silver and doesn’t do anything like some of the ones mentioned above.  How can you not have a cool lighted gun?

I plan on getting the dimensions correct to the digital images of the suit and modifying my body to match them or at least padding to reach the desired shape.  For my own twist I was thinking about making a small turbine engine inside of the jet pack some how.  I’m not quite sure how I could accomplish something like that but it’s definitely something I am looking into doing as it would REALLY make me stand out.  If I could put one into the gun too then OMG so awesome.  With an added afterburner in the gun I can make it shoot some pretty serious fire.  I just don’t know if I want to do all that because it’s SUPER unsafe and would take a LOT of extra work.  If anything I’d just do the jet pack and do some cool lights or something with lasers into the gun.

Double Compressor Turbo

This TDI has been the worst vehicle purchase I’ve ever made.  The 1971 VW Bus was less of a pain in the ass than this stupid car.  The past two days I’ve got some decent work done on it.  The new turbo came in and I got the old turbo off, re-clocked the new turbo, fabbed up a new and improved VNT actuator bracket, and have been trying to figure out my piping situation.  I don’t quiet know if I’m going to be able to get the TDI running before my job on Monday since I’m leaving tomorrow morning and won’t be back till Saturday night which only leaves me Sunday to work on it.  I still need to weld on the new flange, figure out a smoother oil return system, and get a lot of small pieces for it.  I could possibly get it done by cutting a few corners and not doing it all as cleanly as I want but I really hate doing that.

If I can make it the next few weeks the TDI will start to get some pretty good improvements and be pretty rock solid reliable, assuming I can take it off the road for another week or so to make the changes.  Oh yeah, today the bracket I made decided to fight back and cut me in four places on my hands pretty good.  The car is fighting back but I shall overcome it!

The picture for this post is of a variable vane turbo from a Power Stroke 6.0l diesel truck.  If you notice it has the compressor blade mirrored on the back side of it with an added intake tube.  It’s a sequential turbo setup all in one turbo which is pretty bad ass if you ask me.  I wish I could get one of those for my TDI but it has to be crazy expensive.

Conquest Mobile Home

Heading out to South Florida for Friday and Saturday in order to take pictures of my grandpa’s mobile home and clean it up for selling.  My aunt also lives down there and I haven’t seen her for over four years now.  It’s going to be weird because she has quiet a few kids and they are gunna be all grown up now.  It should be a good time because my aunt is a really good person.  Seeing my grandpa is going to suck though.  He’s dieing and doesn’t want to accept it.  He’s lost almost all of his muscles and looks really bad and isn’t going to be getting any better because he has a fatal disease.

This Monday I also start work.  I’ve been trying to figure out what I need to do for transportation because my stupid TDI isn’t exactly the most reliable thing in the world.  I’ve repaired almost everything that the previous owner has screwed up and now it’s just my wrong doings that are going wrong now and I’m slowly fixing those.  It shouldn’t be to much longer till it’s done but… I need something on the side to get me here and there and I’ve been thinking about getting a bike which is really looking promising.  The class is 225, gear for another 100-200 bucks, and then the bike for 1000 to 1500 bucks.  Total of about 2000 with title transfer and what not at max.  I also really want a truck for moving big parts around and towing cars but those will cost around 5000 to 9000 bucks for a truck that I’d want.  So I was thinking of getting a bike now and while I have the bike as my alternate I’ll be saving up for a truck and of course working on my VWs. 

Front Lace Corset

One thing I really want to get is a corset and I found a really nicely priced one that they’ll make to your dimensions on ebay.  It’s 130 bucks, front lacing for ease of putting on, and is a conical / Victorian design.  I’ve done some reading on body modification through corseting.  It’s not permanent unless you do it crazy extreme and it’ll help a ton.  I’d only get this once I’m down to 170-180lbs though.  That way my stomach will be much flatter and I won’t have to get another one for when my size changes.  Maybe after a few years I’ll be able to wear what is taking up half my closet.

I also started looking at some houses to buy because right now is a great time to buy but that’s really a long shot.  I doubt I’ll be buying a house anytime in the next year or two.  I really have no clue what I’ll be doing in the next year or two.  There is this awesome house down my street though for 75k dollars.  It’s on a .85 acre lot which is excellent and the house is a huge fixer upper.  I like this because I can go in and change a bunch of stuff and make it to how I like it.  Possibly fill in the pool area, re-do the rotting ceiling above it with a higher roof and make it into a garage and put a lift in it with 220.  It’s a good sized area.  But that’s all just day dreams.

Hot Chick Measuring

Decided I’m going to have a zero calorie day every week. Not sure if I’m going to keep it the same day every week or not but to do it I have to exercise every calorie that I consume that day. I did it yesterday and it wasn’t to bad. I was dead tired at the end of the day and thinking about food all day but I wasn’t really hungry per say. Just wasn’t satisfied.

I ran a mile straight but it took ten minutes. WAY SLOW! I remember I used to be able to do three miles in 18 minutes but I was also 160 pounds back then. I also did a ten down. Started with sit ups, lunges, leg lifts, jumpies, then push ups. Doing a ten down consists of doing ten of everything, then nine of everything, then eight and so forth until you are down to zero. It ends up coming down to 55 reps of everything. It took roughly 30 minutes to do it all and it didn’t leave me to sore today. Really works the butt, abs, back, arms, and legs.  Pretty much everything but it all depends on the exercises you choose to do. You also need to alternate so that you have to get up and sit back on the ground changing positions, it helps work you out more getting up and down.

The pic to the right, just a random pic of some chicks waist, also OMG it’s 25″.  SO TINY!  Some day I’ll be able to get down to a 28″ waist or so.  I’d have to try a lot but I’ll get there, just really slowly.