Meet, Maintenance, and a Movie

Wow, what a blast of a weekend. I was able to rest, relax, and accomplish losts and lots of things I've been wanting to do for a long time.

Saturday marked the day of the first east coast CustomTacos.com meet in Fredericksburg. Planning for the big event had been brewing on the site forum for a couple of months and everyone was pretty excited about it. It appeared from the discussions online that we should have a turnout of around 6-8 people at the event. When we arrived at Loriella Park, we were pretty surprised to find well more than 6-8 people. In fact, we ended up having 13 trucks and well over 20 people there. It was better than I could have dreamed. And better yet, we had a great mix of trucks: 8 2wd (lowered or S-Runners) Tacomas and 5 4wd trucks.

The chemistry at the event was unbelievable. Throughout the day, I stood back and watched the people interact. Cross-pollenating, even. The lowered-truck guys checked out the big 4x4s and the 4x4 guys admired the craftsmenship on the 2wd trucks. Since everyone on the site has been interacting for months, I think everyone found it extremely easy to mesh with each other in person. I found myself smiling like a proud father numerous times.

So, the group grilled up some burgers and dogs, scarfed down some pasta salad and a ton of potato chips, then headed out to the parking lot to check out each other's rides. I got my first ride in a vehicle with air bags (Jake's bad-ass bagged double cab), and a glance at my future dream truck: a silver double cab with 3" of lift, 33" tires, and the perfect blend of customization and style).

Just to fill everyone in: I've had this image of the perfect next truck for me for a long time now. I dream about it. I daydream about it on slow days at work. THAT TRUCK pulled in the parking lot around 1:30PM Saturday. It was the silver double cab that I just mentioned above. I think Olivia was a little suprised at how excited I was about the truck, but when you've been dreaming of something for months and then finally see a perfect example of it in person...it's amazing. Here's a photo:

I know it only looks like a truck to most of you, but it represents a whole lot more than that to me. :)

Ok, the rest of the meet went really well. We all drove over to TGIFridays for some dinner and then parted ways.

Gizmo let us sleep in late this morning before he started meowing to wake us up. Once we finally got up and awake, we began a very productive day in which we changed the brake rotors and pads on her car, changed the oil in my truck, re-caulked the trim on the stairs and in the foyer, and a handful of other little things. Changing the front brakes on Olivia's car was about as hard as I had imagined. I think we both learned a great deal from the experience and I feel good knowing that I know how to do that now. In fact, Olivia did all of the work on the passenger side. Pretty impressive.

We just finished off the weekend relaxing and watching "One Hour Photo" with Robin Williams. Pretty good movie, I thought. And now I must mentally prepare myself for the week ahead. Should be an exciting one. More on that later in the week, hopefully.

Posted by Jeff at April 21, 2003 12:08 AM