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

How many strip clubs do you guys go to

Which is your favorite

Do you sit up front

Do you get lap dances

Do you get private dances

Can you visually tell if a woman has std

 

At least half a dozen since 2010 (the year I turned 21)...

Double Visions in Horsham (where I got my Taco washed by strippers at a breast cancer fundraiser) and Club Risque in Bristol are my favorites...

Yes to all three...

No, which is why I always use protection. However, if you saw some of the women I'm referring to, you'd want scrub your whole body immediately...[/QUOTE]

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@HomerTaco
@98tacoma27
@ChadsPride
@PROseur

Part 3:

I would also like to point out that a guy who used to work as a bouncer at the aforementioned Irish bar now works at a beer store where I often go to pick up beer for the bar where I work. He carded me many times when I first started going to that bar, and we chatted a lot when he was working there, so now I don't get carded at the beer store, even when I buy enough beer to fill half the bed of my Tacoma!

As I said in the previous posts, I don't mind being carded when I'm trying to go into an adult establishment (bar, night club, strip club, casino, etc). I don't mind being carded when trying to buy alcohol or cigarettes. I've never smoked a cigarette and never will, but a lot of my coworkers do, and on busy nights they send me on smoke runs. I really wish my friends and coworkers would quit smoking, but I'm on the clock and thus getting paid when I make these smoke runs, so I've pretty much stopped complaining.

 

Part 4:

This is why I don't like showing ID in certain situations:

This is a classic Asperger's thing, but being asked "Can I see your ID?" or "Can I see some ID?" brings back memories of one of the most unpleasant experiences I've ever had. That experience took place on March 1st, 2013; The time I got stopped by police in Doylestown Borough for taking pictures. There had been like four daylight burglaries on the same street in less than a month, and the whole neighborhood was on edge. After I was stopped, I found a newspaper article with a direct quote from the police chief basically saying "Call the cops if you see anyone you don't recognize or anything suspicious. Do not not think you are wasting our time." I take responsibility for the fact that I didn't do research or properly assess the situation. Walking around taking pictures in a residential neighborhood, instead of the touristy downtown area of Doylestown Borough where I'd been taking pictures for the last 3 years and where people with cameras were a common sight, was not a good idea. To be fair, I did not trespass onto private property to take any pictures, and I only took pictures of old houses and the occasional truck. Last time I checked, photographing a house or a vehicle from a public sidewalk is perfectly legal, and that's why I was so pissed about this incident for such a long time...

I've never hated police, and having nothing but respect for them, but I am not going to lie. I had a great deal of disdain for police officers as a whole for many years after that incident, because I felt I'd been harassed for practicing an innocent hobby. I've largely gotten over it, but put yourself in my shoes...

You're walking back to your truck after walking around taking pictures. You see a police SUV drive past you in the opposite direction of the way you are walking and think nothing of it as it makes a left and disappears. You take a couple pictures of a parked Ford F150 and continue walking to your Tacoma parked just at the bottom of the hill. It's still winter and a bit chilly out, and the only thing on your mind is getting in your truck, starting the engine cranking the heat, and pointing the vents at your hands as you drive home.

Then, that police SUV reappears out of nowhere moments later, turning right from the street it disappeared down and heading in your direction. It pulls to the curb and slows to a stop. The lights and siren are not on, and you can't see what the cop is doing inside, but you know this isn't a good thing. The cop, who ends up being the Sergeant and patrol supervisor, gets out. You say hello, maybe he says hello back, and then the first thing he says is "Can I see some ID?" Knowing exactly why you are being stopped, you comply, thinking the cop will run your license, ask you a few questions, and let you go once he realizes you mean no harm. After all, you've never been arrested and have no criminal record. You've never gotten so much as a parking ticket or even been pulled over at this point in your life.

Unfortunately, you're now stuck there because he has your driver's license. You willingly answer his questions as he runs your information, and then another marked police vehicle shows up. Before long, three marked police vehicles, three uniformed cops including the Sergeant, and one plainclothes cop, show up...

As soon as the third police vehicle shows up, you start shaking uncontrollably. The plainclothes cop asks you the same questions the sergeant and one of the other two uniformed officers have already asked you, seeing if you change your story, then asks to see the pictures on your camera. You badly want to lie and say that the battery just died and you couldn't access the pictures if you wanted to, or just flat out tell him "No, this is my private property and you're not going anywhere near it without a warrant!" (Thankfully, for both my sake and their sake, they did not ask to search my Tacoma). But you're scared and once again you comply, making sure he doesn't see the picture of two Trane air-conditioners at a house one street over, because you are not in the mood to explain why you took pictures of an air-conditioner. You have taken a lot of pictures that day, and the first pictures are of trucks in the parking lot of your college. You tell the cops this and it brings on a whole new round of questions, including where you go to college. You see this as another easy way out, and waste no time in telling them that you are a journalism major, and as a writer for the school paper, you are effectively a member of the press.

You also explain to the cops that you're taking pictures for use in YouTube videos, which is the truth. The truck photos are for tribute videos, and the house photos are for a "Photographic Tour of Doylestown" video you are planning.

At some point, one cop sees you are rather upset and asks "Are you going to be okay?" This almost seems like he's mocking you at this point, and you want to scream "No, officer! No, I am not fucking okay! I was just minding my own business and the next thing I know I'm stopped and hassled by the police!" You don't say it, as tempted as you are to do so, and just say "Yeah," hoping they won't ask you anymore questions and just let you go.

You are asked if the address on your driver's license is your current address, which is understandable. You've lived there more than five years, so yeah, you tell them it's your current address. Then they ask you if you live there with your parents or by yourself. You think to yourself, "Why the fuck does that matter?" You don't say it though, and obediently say "My parents. It's their house." In your opinion, you could be living in your Tacoma and just having your mail sent to that address, and it would be none of their business.

At some point, the plainclothes cop explains to you that there have been a bunch of burglaries on the very street where you taking pictures, and asks if you understand why their sergeant stopped you. You say you do, but you make no attempt to hide your absolute annoyance at this point and in a rather smartass way, say something like "I don't know anything about any burglaries." After a few more minutes, you've finally had enough and in a very impatient tone of voice, ask "Can I go now?" A good 20 minutes have passed since the sergeant showed up. The sergeant hands you back your license and says "Alright, you're free to go." Before leave, again making no attempt to hide how pissed off you are and knowing a records check in your name would have turned up nothing, you ask "So, if someone has a clean record, does that mean the computer shows nothing?" The sergeant says "Yeah." You just walk off, thinking that those cops can all go fuck themselves for what they just put you through....

You get to your Tacoma, you unlock the driver's door, and you plop down behind the wheel. You weren't patted down, handcuffed, or placed in the back of a police vehicle, but you are still pretty fucking upset. So upset, in fact, that you don't even bother to start the truck. You slam the door and lock it. Too upset to drive the 7 minutes home, you call your mom, tell her what happened, and get nothing but the sympathy and compassion that only your mother can provide. You tell her you are too upset to drive, she says she understands, and tells you to just text her when you do decide to head home. You just sit in your Tacoma in silence, all sorts of angry thoughts filling your head. You want someone else to talk to, so you call your best friend's mom, who you are pretty close to, and who also happens to be the founder of the best organization for young adults with Asperger's in the country. She answers, you tell her what happened, and she also takes your side, thinking that it's absolute bullshit for somebody to be stopped in touristy Doylestown for taking pictures. You talk for a while, and at some point, you hear a siren and see lights as one of the same police SUVs that showed up to your sidewalk interrogation pulls over a speeding motorist just feet from where you are parked. As you watch the cop get out of the SUV and approach the speeder's car, you wonder if he happened to notice that guy he and his fellow officers just harassed is still sitting in his truck, too upset to drive. Eventually, you hang up with your friend's mom, and a short time later you are feeling composed enough to drive. You drive home, and immediately take to Facebook and go on a rant about how photography is not a crime...

Almost five years pass and you still don't full get over the encounter...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@HomerTaco
@98tacoma27
@ChadsPride
@PROseur

Part 5:

Whenever I'm asked for ID for a seemingly mundane reason in my daily life, it triggers memories of that encounter. Like I said before, I have absolutely no grievances with the police. The whole situation was just very traumatizing, and it's hard enough to forget it without some low-level retail employee or some asshole security guard asking to see my ID...

FYI, I have been pulled over twice since that incident; The first time I got pulled over was for doing 43 in a 25, in May 2017, and I was not very friendly to the cop, which resulted in a whole lot of hassle. I was oblivious to the fact that I was speeding, and I did not know I was being pulled over. I saw the lights way behind me and thought it was just a cop responding to a call. I pulled over to the side of the road expecting him to fly right past me, but instead he pulled in behind me. I screamed out the window "I don't know why the hell I got pulled over!" The cop was quite professional and didn't pull me out of the truck or anything, but he did slap me with a $180 ticket that would have resulted in 4 points on my license if I'd simply paid it. Luckily I have a friend who's a very good lawyer, and I consulted him the next day. The case finally went to court in September 2017, and it got bumped down to 5 MPH over which meant no points on my license or any negative marks on my driving record. I met with the cop right before the hearing, even before my attorney showed up, and before I even had the chance to apologize for my behavior the night of the traffic stop, he was saying he wanted to reduce it to 5 MPH. With my parents there, I apologized, explained how I had Asperger's, and shook his hand. I paid a small fortune between court costs, lawyer fees, and the reduced fine. But, my driving record remains clean...

After the first traffic stop in May, but before the hearing in September, I managed to get pulled over a second time on Labor Day Weekend! I was at a three-way intersection, at what I knew to be a notoriously long light. Specifically, the were two lights for the straight lanes, and a separate left turn light. I'd gotten stuck at this light before. I'd just driven 40 minutes home after spending the day at my Grandma's, and I was less than 10 minutes from home. It was after 11pm, there was nobody around (or so I thought), there was nobody coming from the opposite direction, I was tired, and I just wanted to home. The straight lights were green but the left arrow was red. I didn't even stop and treat it as a right on red. My dashcam footage shows that the cop literally appears out of nowhere and follows me for a couple of minutes before lighting me up. I was so tired that I don't think I even knew there was a car back there, let alone a marked police car!

The lights come on, and I say to myself "What the fuck did I do now?" My lights were on, my registration had just been renewed, and my inspection was good through the end of October. Then it hit me. Goddamn it! He saw me make a left on red. I'd learned what not to do during a traffic stop back in May. This time I was very respectful and also a bit more prepared. Like the previous traffic stop, I was of course 100% sober. I pretended to be more tired than I actually was and had misunderstood the traffic signal as a right on red, and heavily emphasized the fact that I'd just driven 40 minutes down from my Grandmother's after spending the day visiting her. There were three cigars in a ziploc bag in my glovebox, given to me by a neighbor like 2 months earlier, that I'd forgotten about. These came into view when I went to grab my paperwork. I think the cop knew they were just cigars, but he had to ask just to make sure. I told them that yes, they were just cigars. He asked how much I'd had to drink that night, to which I responded "Nothing, only water." It was Labor Day Weekend, what the hell did you expect? He also asked if there was anything in the truck he needed to know about. I said no, and he took me at my word. I would also like to point out that I live in this cop's jurisdiction, and the town on my driver's license was the same plastered on the side of his patrol car. I think this helped a bit. He went back to his car and appeared a few minutes later, saying he was only giving me a warning. I said bye, thanked him, and continued home...

Being asked for "license, registration, and proof of insurance" during a traffic stop is different than being asked "Can I see some ID?" while on foot. State law says that your license must be carried with you at all times when operating a motor vehicle. However, there is absolutely no law saying you have to carry an ID with you just to walk around...

(MORE TOMORROW)

 

Got to obey those traffic laws.

Being cool with the cops almost always nets a better result.

 

I'm sig'n this for a while

 

My dad is a member at BJ's and it just so happens that my dad's 2013 Honda Pilot, my mom's 2013 Nissan Murano, and my 2010 Tacoma all ended up needing new tires within a couple months of each other...

My dad bought Michelins for the Murano and loved them, so he replaced the Pirellis on his Pilot a bit early because they were noisy. Of course he got Michelins for the Pilot too. The Pilot is a fully loaded 2013 "Touring" 4WD with about 81K miles on it, and this is its third set of tires.

The Tacoma is just about to hit 78K miles as of this posting and the Toyos on it now just passed safety inspection, but three of them are rather dryrotted and one of them has a slow leak.

So, my dad has gifted me with new Michelins for my Tacoma!

So, while my Taco gets some new shoes, I get to see wander the wholesale wonderland known as BJ's!

I've been on a LEGO binge recently, so I picked up a couple LEGO vehicles, as well as three 1:18 scale die cast models and three books...


My models; A 1939 Ford Deluxe, a Ford F-150 SVT Lightning, and a 2014 Jeep Wrangler Willys:



I also saw this, and couldn't help but wonder why someone didn't think of it sooner...



I was about three when I was potty-trained and I remember it vividly. Just like most infants, I did not take it well at first. I remember being scared of the toilet in the powder room of our house in North Wales. My parents cut up a calendar featuring pictures of cars and hung them all over the wall of the powder room. They also gave me a Hot Wheels or Matchbox car every time I used the "grownup potty." I think that is how I got the red 1986 Rolls-Royce ("Rolls-Rice").

As I was hammering this post out on my iPod I spotted a model I'd missed before and decided to buy it too...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@HomerTaco
@PROseur

Just got into a huge argument with the service guy over taking this picture of my truck on the lift...



Apparently due to past "legal issues," photography is not allowed in the garage, even if the photo is taken from the customer waiting area. WTF?

Anyway, I was already in a bit of a bad mood because the guy called me about over an hour after I dropped the truck off (approx. time was an hour and a half) and said he couldn't get the wheels off due to the Alan wrench lock, and wanted to know if I had the lock. I haven't seen the thing in years, and my Toyota dealer, my body guy, and STS have never had any problems getting the center caps off...

By the time I got back he'd gotten them off...

The guys at STS didn't care when I took pics of my truck on the lift, so I took out my phone and pointed it at my truck. The guy immediately gets hostile and asks me what I'm taking pictures of and why.

I calmly tell him that I just wanted a picture of my truck on the lift, and continue to take the picture...

NOTE: I did NOT go past the desk seen in the picture below. I was probably right at the computer monitor when I took the picture:



Another exchange of words take place, and I end the conversation with something along the lines of "It's my fucking truck and I'll take pictures of it if I want."

I'd called my dad earlier and told him to bring his Alan wrench set, and he pulled up right about this time.

Still enraged, I started ranting to my parents about this guy.

After a stern lecture from my parents, my dad talked with the guy and I apologized. I also explained that I have Asperger's Syndrome. All is good now. My dad also gave me $5 to tip the guy.

This goes back to my first encounter with a mall cop at Oxford Valley Mall back in 2010, I'll because I was taking pictures. Since then, I've had a real problem with people telling me I can't take pictures at places that are open to the public, especially when they give a vague explanation or no explanation at all!

This is just one of those things that I'm steadily working to improve...

FYI: I fully understand "no customers in the work area."
Safety first!

But no photos because "you've had legal issues in the past?" Maybe you should work to improve any potential safety violations instead of confronting customers who are taking a picture or two for completely innocent reasons. I mean, what do they think I'm gonna do? Use the pictures to sue them?

I will respect this policy of no pictures if I come back here to get tires again, but the fact that I posted these pictures on TW should tell you many shits I give about the policy...

 

Yeah....the rules get a little murky when you're on private property. If their policy is no pictures it's probably a good idea to abide by that....even when your property is the subject matter

 

The problem is I had know way of knowing. Last time I got new tires, at STS (now Mavis Discount Tire), I photographed my truck on the lift and nobody cared....

What happens is people handle things very aggressively and it puts me on edge...

 

Gotcha

 

I was still at fault though... He was at fault, but I was at fault...

 

And also, there were no signs saying "No Pictures" or anything of the like...

 

October 30th, 2017:

According to my next-door neighbor, this happens quite often with outside lights...

This is one of the lights outside the garage door at my parents' house. This is our 2nd Halloween in this house, and the 2nd year I put purple lightbulbs in these lights. Half the battle is getting the damn things apart to change the lightbulbs, but I swapped out the bulb in the other garage light and put it back together without issue. When I took this light apart, the lightbulb popped out and dangled from the part that screws in (it worked moments before when I flipped the switch to test the first purple bulb, and came loose and shattered before I could take a picture ).

Apparently the adhesive crap bonding glass to metal wore out due to exposure to the elements...



Don't know how well you can see it, but here's what's left of the lightbulb...


What's left of the part that screws in...


My dad shut off the circuit breaker and got the metal part out with a pair of pliers, without doing any damage...


With the purple lightbulb...


Later that night...

 

Here's the rest of my setup...

The other garage light...


The sign hanging from the other garage light...





My pumpkins before I carved them...


My house on Halloween morning...


That yellow tape says "WARNING: KEEP BACK-JUST BURIED ALIVE."
The wind blew some of it around so I've gotta fix that before the Trick-Or-Treaters arrive tonight...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@98tacoma27
@ChadsPride
@HomerTaco
@sean266

Fall 2008:

Once upon a time, when 2nd gen Tacomas were just finally getting iPod/AUX inputs, the economy was the worst it had been since the Great Depression, George W. Bush was still in office, and the writer of this thread was just a reclusive teenager with no social life, no driver's license, and no idea what the hell he wanted to do with his life...

There was the IU (Specifically Bucks County Intermediate Unit #22)...

Don't get me wrong, the IU is a great program, and has improved a lot since I was there (2007-2010). There problem isn't the way they do things in general. After all, they work with some of the highest-rates school districts not just in Pennsylvania, but in the country. FYI, there are 67 counties in Pennsylvania and I think every one of them gets its own IU. The Bucks County IU is located in Doylestown, which is the county seat of Bucks County. Doylestown and much of the surrounding area is within the jurisdiction of the highly sought-after "blue ribbon" Central Bucks School District. Despite this, it serves all of Bucks County.

I could fill a whole page of this thread with my opinions about what was/still is wrong with the BCIU, but that's not that this is about...

Long story short, I spent most of my time in the IU in a nursing home...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@98tacoma27
@ChadsPride
@HomerTaco
@sean266

For privacy and security reasons, I will not be giving the name or exact location of this nursing home. All I will tell you is that it was located fairly close to Newtown Borough, and also not far from Bucks County Community College, which I started to attend not long after switching from the CREC to the nursing home.

I will explain what the CREC is later...

So, my initial introduction to the nursing home was in about April 2008, but I did not start attending the program there until right before Halloween of that year if I remember correctly.

The woman who ran it was named Gwyn. She was 35 at the time and married with two young kids, a boy and a girl. Based on some things that I said when we first met, Gwyn's initial impression of me was not very good...

I think I might have said something that was basically along the lines of "this program and the kids in it are too good for me" to my parents, and Gwyn may have overheard me...

Needless to say, for whatever reason, my parents and I decided on the other program (I've talked about that class and the guy ran/taught it before, and he was an asshole; I'll write a refresher post later).

The program did not work out for me, and the only other option if I wanted to stay in the IU was to go to Gwyn's program...

Despite Gwyn's less-than-stellar opinion of me (which I didn't know about until quite some time later), she accepted me...

 

@Plain Jane Taco
@98tacoma27
@sean266

A lot of you are probably wondering why they had a special education program in a nursing home...

Well, it's quite simple. The aim of the program was to give kids, and young adults like me, real world experience; This particular program was geared towards high-functioning individuals. Unlike the previous IU class I was in, all of the individuals in the nursing home class were borderline normal, just like me (at least from October 2008-May 2008 they were; this unfortunately changed in fall 2009; more on that later). All but maybe one or two of them had jobs. At least three of them had driver's licenses, though only one of them had their own vehicle.

The one with their own vehicle was this cool Jewish guy named Jared, who also had Asperger's and who I still keep in contact with. His car, which he still has, is a red 2006 Chevy Cobalt coupe, fully loaded (keep in mind that this was in 2008-2009, so the car was not that old). Jared got his driver's license in 2006 at the age of 16, and his mom bought him a brand new car (no strings attached; paid cash for it and signed the title over to him when he turned 18). Jared's one and only complaint about that Cobalt was that it did not have an iPod hookup of any kind (Cobalt came out in 2005 as a replacement for the aging Cavalier, and I believe the standard AUX input came along in 2007 or 2008). For an 18-year just out of high school, had a decent job that made decent money. For some reason, he was unaware that factory head units in most vehicles could be replaced, and that Best Buy would install head units over $99 for free. I suggested this to him, and before the end of the month, he had a decent single-DIN head unit with AUX input.

I've ridden in Jared's Cobalt before and he takes such great is care of it, that I can tell you that anyone on would TW would be proud...

Like I said, he still has it today. He's got over 100K miles on it and I don't think he's ever had to so much as recharge th A/C (I've ridden in it on a hot day before and the A/C in that car cranks).