PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

The 1995 refresh of the Ranger pickup was the same way. Rangers received an updated exterior and a completely redesigned interior for the 1988 model year. This carried on until 1992. For 1993 the exterior was rounded off and streamlined but the interior remained the same as in 1992 models. This variation was produced in 1993-1994 only. 1995 models were virtually identical in terms of exterior styling but the interior was again completely redesigned. 1995 models had the lid for the passenger airbag but only a driver's airbag installed. Dual airbags became mandatory for all passenger vehicles in 1998. The Ranger remained virtually the same from 1995 until the end of production in 2011. Just a little fun fact from the encyclopedia of automotive facts I call my brain.

 

The other night I was driving back from work in my 2009 DCSB TRD 6 spd. The posted speed limit was 55, I had cruise set on 57. I was passed by a semi which made me irritated because it was snowing out so I could barely see. I then slowed down my cruise control to 55, but the semi slowed down as well. Which left me wondering, why did this gentlemen in this semi pass me? Is it because he hates me? Or is it because he wanted to throw snow at my truck? Maybe it was a girl driving the semi. Well, about 10 minutes later I get passed AGAIN. Even worse, I get passed by one of those new Toyota Prius (man those things look good now). Which some how threw some snow up on my windshield as I was driving. I really hope they weren't trying to screw with me.. I made it home safely, but I decided to lock my doors.

 

Sarcasm about the new Prius looking good? I don't think ugly is the right word, but I think they are very weird looking. If I had to have a Prius, I'd opt for any 2004-2015 model.

 

I'd imagine most ppl would take it as a compliment once you told them what you're up to.

 

Yeah, I'm not at all a fan of the ass end of the new Prius. I'm glad my wife got the 2015

 

Did you read my whole post?

 

They're out to get you

 

@LocoLocal
@Plain Jane Taco
@Iamraiderpower

Most people do, a select few do not, like the guy with the black Ford Explorer back in 2014. I wrote about that in a comment somewhere on this thread.

Another time while in the parking lot of my bank, back in May 2016, some guy caught me taking pictures of his 2001 GMC Sonoma pickup. I had parked next to this Sonoma while conducting business in the bank, and noticed that it was still there when I came back out. I got in my Tacoma, pulled forward, and then positioned my truck with the left side facing the front of the Sonoma. I took maybe a dozen photos at most, and then I saw the owner coming out of the bank right when he yelled "Hey! What are you doing?" or something along those lines. He was not happy, but I'd defused situations with seemingly belligerent vehicle owners before and ended up with one of two outcomes. At best they either changed their tune entirely and gladly let me take picture or grudgingly let me take pictures as long as I blocked the license plate in any pictures to be used online. At worst they might apologize for acting the way they did but still ask me to delete the photos. they would. He made me very nervous and I tried to explain what I was doing but he wasn't having it. I didn't even get to mention that I planned to use the photos in a GM truck tribute mashup on YouTube. I nervously told him that I was a fan of GM trucks, I thought his truck looked cool, and that's why I was taking pictures. I've been called weird and told that my hobby was "shady as shit," but this guy wasn't backing down. Over the years I'd become quite good at reading people and I could tell that this guy was unable to be reasoned with.

He initially said something like "bye-bye" and walked away in frustration, and by this point I had my hand on the gearshift and my foot near the brake, not knowing what to expect but ready to throw it in drive and put the pedal to the metal if something went down.I kept my truck in park because the last thing I needed was my foot to slip off the brake while the truck was in drive and either roll into this moron or hit a parked car. I was hoping that was the end of it, but it wasn't. I thought he was going to get in his truck, and I kind of zoned out. Without warning he spun around, aggressively charged back towards my truck, and demanded to see my camera. I thought he was going to reach through my open window and try to grab my $700 camera, so I shouted "No way!" before throwing the gearshift in drive and flooring it. He yelled "Get the fuck out of here then!" as I drove off.

All that shit because I took some pictures in a public shopping center parking lot of a truck that I thought looked cool...

 

Nope

 

Darn..

 

I'm fuckin innocent!

 

@LocoLocal
@Plain Jane Taco
@Iamraiderpower

Another time in the parking lot of my college while walking to my truck after class, in September 2014, I took some pictures of a black 1997 Chevy S-10 parked in the same student lot as my truck. I initially took a few pictures of the S-10 from various angles without incident then proceeded to walk to my truck. All of a sudden, I heard someone say something like "Why are you taking pictures of my car?" Out of the corner of my eye I saw two pissed off looking guys heading in my direction. The next thing I knew they surrounded me and started circling me like they were sizing me up so they could throw down.

I finally had eye muscle surgery 3 days ago to straighten my right eye. Back in 2014 my eyes were still noticeably out of alignment. This did gave me slight double vision but did not effect my ability to drive safely. However, I was very self-conscious about my eyes and when I wasn't wearing my sunglasses I had trouble making eye contact with strangers. When I was wearing my sunglasses, I found that I had a high success rate in smooth-talking potentially volatile truck owners, I was only wearing my regular glasses and my prescription shades were in my truck. I nervously told the thuggish S-10 owner and his friend what I was doing and they seemed to ease up a bit, but one of them said "That's shady as shit" and that kind of upset me. I went off on a rant about how I was a normal, nice guy who loved GM trucks and that I was absolutely sick of people making negative assumptions about me just because I was walking around in public with a large high-end camera and/or taking pictures of vehicles. They took offense to this, but the owner initially grudgingly said okay to my plans for the pictures. We went back to our respective trucks, and I sat in mine for a few minutes while the A/C cooled off. The owner of the S-10 came back up to my truck, knocked on my window and scared the crap out of me in the process, and asked me politely to please just "delete the photos photos of the S-10." I said okay, he thanked me, and I drove away without incident.

Again, all this over a few pictures of a truck!

By the way, that was the one and only time I ever had a problem with a fellow student at my college with regards to taking a picture of a vehicle, like EVER. Most of the time I just took pictures of vehicles when nobody was present and never got caught. When an owner was present, I asked permission and always got a yes. The security guards were a different story, though they ultimately learned to put up with my hobby too.

 

Tacoma owners be like, "a few scratches, $32,000 firm."

 

You might not be guilty, but you sure as hell ain't innocent.

 

@LocoLocal
@Plain Jane Taco
@Iamraiderpower

Back when I was still taking classes at community college, one of my favorite pastimes was to walk around the student parking lot and take pictures of vehicles. Most of the time nobody was present and I just took pictures of a truck I deemed worthy of my tribute videos and walked away without anybody noticing me. A couple times students caught me taking pictures of their vehicles, but their vehicles happened to be unique and/or custom so they took it as a compliment. Numerous times I also encountered students hanging out in or around their vehicles and always got permission when I asked for it. I was at college way longer than I should have been because I changed majors once and had to take an algebra class twice. In 2011 I switched my major to journalism, and in 2013 or 2014 I wrote an article about automotive culture among students that ended up getting published. I interviewed three or four students about their vehicles. The article was an enormous success, and campus security became accustomed to seeing me walking around campus taking pictures. The head of a security, a former police officer who'd been into journalism at my age and both wrote and took pictures for his college newspaper, related to me very well and more or less said he didn't care what I was taking pictures of. His primary concern was confrontations with vehicle owners, which aside from the S-10 incident in September 2014 that I mentioned in another thread, was unfounded. 99% of students were fine with me taking pictures of their vehicles.

In February 2014 I had my wisdom teeth removed on a Friday. By Sunday I was driving again and on Monday I was able to go back to school. I think I missed maybe one hour-long class because of the surgery. That Monday, I got to school a little early and decided to kill time by taking some truck pictures. I had not gotten a lot of sleep the previous night and my mouth was still quite sore from my surgery 3 days earlier. Needless to say I was not in the best of moods. I parked my truck in the first lot and then trudged across the street and through the snow to the second lot.

I took quite a few pictures of some trucks and SUVs in that lot, and then while taking pictures of the lifted Silverado mentioned in the title, I saw an unremarkable but still rare vehicle parked next to the Silverado. It was an early 1990s Oldsmobile Achieva Coupe with the Quad-4 engine and factory 5-speed stick.

Ever the GM geek, I started taking pictures of the black Achieva and that's when I noticed the security guards heading my way in their Ford Explorer. On a good day I wouldn't have wanted to deal with security, but like I said my mouth was still sore from surgery and I was running on barely 6 hours of sleep. On top of that I would have been late for class if I had to talk to them.

I freaked out and ducked behind the Achieva, and then attempted to casually walk away. I was so focused on acting casual that I failed to look down, slipped on some ice, and tripped onto hard pavement. In another stroke of bad luck, I'd put on a pair of jeans with a small tear in the knee area in sleep-deprived stupor without realizing it. When I fell, the movement of my leg made the hole bigger and exposed my skin to a brutal scrape. Now focused on my knee instead of my surroundings, I continued limping to class and didn't see the two security guards in the Explorer coming up behind me. This one woman, who I actually knew, was driving the Explorer, and she swooped in out of nowhere and cut me off, like a Philly patrol officer chasing down a heroin dealer. Keep in mind I was on foot and they were in a 2-ton SUV. Just because you saw Mel Gibson do it in Lethal Weapon doesn't mean you should actually attempt it (awesome movies by the way).

I was scared and extraordinarily pissed, and I let those security guards have it. The man in the shotgun seat asked what I was doing and asked for ID, saying that I didn't have to show my driver's license and non-photo school ID was fine. I screamed "this is f*cking bullshit" as I fished my college ID out of my wallet. I then told them that I was in fact taking pictures of trucks and that it was for a perfectly innocent reason, but I would not explaining that reason to them because I was mad at them. The guy in the front seat looked at my ID, handed it back, and we parted ways.

I was afraid of future repercussions and guilt about overreacting ultimately got the best of me, so I limped to my truck with a half-ass bandage job on my leg and then drove to the security building. I was always cool with the head of security, and the second in command. The latter was there and I explained to him the whole situation. He said everything was fine and seemed more concerned about my knee. I didn't need stitches or anything, but it was raw and bleeding and the bandages were coming off.

I was allowed to go into the back room and talk to the woman who'd been driving the Explorer. She was not mad at all, and when I explained to her about my wisdom teeth removal just three days previous and not getting much sleep the previous night, she was even more understanding. Keep in mind I knew this woman and she admitted to knowing I worked for the school paper and that she had seen me taking pictures around campus before and figured it must be for an assignment. When she saw me taking pictures of the Silverado from different angle, she probably intended on just asking me what I was doing and letting me go on my way without shaking me down for ID. It was actually the older guy in the shotgun seat who asked for ID, and not her. She was dumbfounded as to why I'd try to elude them, but when I told her that I wasn't in the best mood and why that was the case, she put two and two together. There was no love lost between us, and I was quite friendly with her from then on, but I was still shocked that she would swoop in and cut me off with a large vehicle while I was on foot. Again, she was probably having hero moment and thought she would try something she saw in a cop movie.

The deputy head of security patched up my knee properly and I got back in my truck and drove home. Like I said I was on friendly terms with all security personnel from that point on and was able to take many more photos of trucks without incident. The problem I eventually ran into was that a lot of the students were long-term like me, and by 2015 when I graduated I'd photographed just about every truck, SUV, and van worth photographing.

Also, I'd like to note that how I behaved with the college security guards is different then how'd I'd have handled a similar encounter with actual police. The police in my area are generally very cool and obviously have better training in dealing with all situations. I may have started walking away, either back to my truck or in the direction of the nearest building, but I wouldn't have made it so obvious that I was trying to avoid contact. If it became obvious that the police wanted to initiate contact, I would have stopped, answered questions, and shown my license.

Like I said, police are very cool, and I've had police cruisers drive right past me while taking pictures in a public area and the cops either smile and/or wave, or seem to ignore me entirely. I took a few pictures of an unmarked DC Metropolitan Police Suburban with an officer in it during a trip to the National Mall in July 2014, and he either didn't notice or didn't care. One of the reasons I respect police so much is because they are trained to analyze and assess a situation to determine if it warrants attention.

 

They were just being cautious you can never be too careful anymore. Can't trust people with your belongings. It may seem innocent to you but to others it looks suspicious until they get the story. No big deal cuz it's harmless I think it's cool what you do.

 

Can you play video games? Or read or something?

 

@LocoLocal
@Plain Jane Taco
@Iamraiderpower

It was back in November 2012 when I still had my 2009 Nikon D3000. My parents bought me the camera at Cardinal Camera, and the closet location to me at the time was in the Montgomery Mall. Knowing how hard I was on cameras just through everyday use, my parents wisely purchased a 3-year no-questions-asked accidental damage warranty, which I lovingly refer to as a "Shit Happens" warranty. My camera was starting to fall apart by the summer of 2012, and taking it with me on a swamp boat tour in Louisiana that July probably didn't help. First, beginning in June 2012, the lens fell apart, and Cardinal fixed that for free. During the airboat tour, the lens fell apart again but still worked. I sent it in for warranty repair again and got it back. In October 2012, as if somebody flipped a switch, the picture quality just completely deteriorated. I will post some pictures from October 2012 in the near future. Most notable is a red 1996 Chevy 3500 dually I found in Doylestown that the owner let me take pictures of. From that point on no matter what I tried, the camera just wouldn't focus.

Pictures of dually (note blurriness of first two photos on left side, at front of truck)…



After dropping it off at Cardinal yet again in November 2012 and getting it back a short time later, and something weird happened. Before making the 20-minute drive from the mall back to my house, I figured it would be wise to take some test pictures.

I'd had minor run-ins with mall rent-a-cops in the past back in the early days of exploring the hobby of photography, so I opted to take pictures of my own Tacoma. If security guards saw me taking pictures and gave me grief, I'd tell them to take a hike. In my opinion, a mall's draconian no-photography policy does not apply to a privately owned vehicle parked in their lot during business hours, and a clear title in my name trumped mall rules no matter what.

I started taking pictures of my truck and realized right away upon looking at the pictures that the pictures were still blurry. I adjusted the settings and managed to get a few acceptable pictures. Satisfied, I got ready to leave and that's when I noticed an old man and his wife heading to their SUV, which was parked right next to or one space over from my Tacoma. The man started looking at me really hard like I must be up to no good, so without saying a word, I gave him an annoyed look, detached my key from my belt loop, unlocked the door, and opened it, going out of my way to make it painfully obvious that this was obviously MY truck. He never said a word, but he didn't stop staring at me suspiciously until his wife drove off and disappeared from my sight. At some point I was given a Nikkor 18-105 zoom lens as a loaner while the 18-55 kit lens was in for repairs yet again, and I determined that there was nothing wrong with the camera at all. My parents had decided to just buy me that lens, but then...

On the day before the warranty expired on my camera, the shutter failed. My parents and I drove to Cardinal yet again and even though Cardinal honored the warranty, my parents decided to just buy me a whole new camera. This one was a Nikon D5100. They traded the 18-55 kit lens that came with that camera and got a discount on the 18-105 Nikkor. The D5100 provided three and a half years of trouble-free service, though I knocked the camera off of the VIP bar at Puck and it landed on the concrete floor. Camera body was fixed good as new under warranty, but 18-105 lens was never the same again and it was almost my birthday anyway so my parents bought me a Tamron 18-200 lens. I still have that lens today and use it with my Nikon D5300.

 

Yeah, English has always been my best subject. I was on the honor roll for all of 4th and 5th grade, and briefly in 10th grade. I love to read. As for video games, I own a PS4, a PS3, an xBox 360, and a Nintendo Wii. I bought the PS4 with my own money this past November (Cyber Monday Sale), the Wii and the PS3 were both Christmas gifts from the parents in 2007 and 2010 respectively, and a rich friend of mine who had at least three xBox 360s lying around gave me one of them when I gave him one of my lava lamps. I don't game anywhere near as much as I used too though. I also have a 14-year old PS2 lying around somewhere but I haven't seen it since like 2009-2010.

And I do realize why you asked what you did. I think hanging out on TW is a much better use of my time than playing PS4.

 

Great writing!
I seriously thought it was going to take a drastic turn somewhere and segway into some soft porn with the female security officer.