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

@6 gearT444E
@ABA180
@Bishop84
@ColoradoTJ
@Empty_Lord
@Just_A_Guy
@shakerhood
@Speedytech7
@steelcity2

I would also like to point out that Toyota trucks are thoroughly underrepresented at the Carlisle Truck Nationals, and Toyotas as a whole are underrepresented at the Carlisle Import Nationals. As far as Tacos and Tundras, it's been the same people the last few years. I have only documented one 1st Gen T4R at Carlisle, the same one two years in a row, in 2018 and 2019 respectively; I have only documented two 2nd Gen T4Rs at Carlisle, in 2014 and 2020, respectively...

I documented one 3rd Gen T4R and one 5th Gen T4R this year, but no 4th Gens (there was a rather worn-looking 4th Gen owned by vendor parked on the fairgrounds, but the owner was in it and I didn't feel like asking to take pictures).

Dodge, Ford, and GM are obviously the most prevalent across all show classes, and there were more International Scouts at the show than Toyotas. In the import minitruck class, it seems like Mazda and Nissan far outnumber Toyota (though there was a stock 1994 pickup, a slammed pickup, and two slammed 1st Gen Tacos that I'd seen before. Even the Mitsubishi Mighty Max and Dodge Ram 50 seem to outnumber Toyota! I cannot remember the last time that I saw a T-100 at Carlisle.

Land Cruisers have also been fairly sparse, though I did a new one there this year that I got pictures of.

As far as the Import Nationals, which I have attended every year since 2021, Toyota and Lexus are very well-represented. However, after going four years in a row, it seems like it's the same vehicles year after year. Saab and Volvo take up multiple rows on the showfield, as does Audi. As far as the Japanese brands; Honda, Mazda Nissan, Subaru, and even Mitsubishi outnumber Toyota and Lexus!

I am thinking that Carlisle needs to start a "Toyota and Lexus Nationals" event!

 

Truck culture is different. Not many tacomas I see polished to the nines, and I find Land Criuser owners to be INSUFFERABLE.

 

I've actually never gotten my ass kicked. My dad was transferred back to Northern California in 1996 and since houses were so damn expensive out there, we lived in Navy-owned housing. When I was 7, not long after we moved into the first house, one of the neighborhood kids asked me if I wanted to fight. It wasn't a mean-spirited gesture at all, and I said "sure". I ended fighting with this kid (I think his name was Justin and he was a year or two older than me) for a few minutes, I didn't get hurt, and it was actually kind of fun!

When I was 11 (almost 12), I tackled my 8-year old friend (also named Justin) and beat the shit out of him because he had ganged up with his brother and some of the kids who didn't like me, and threw hard-packed icy snowballs at me. I had Justin in tears after a couple minutes, and guess what? He never pulled that shit again! I haven't seen since 2002 when we moved, but we are friends on Facebook.

When I was 14 or 15, my friend Josh and I were eating lunch. Josh thought it would be funny to burp in my face, to which I responded by half-jokingly pushing him away. His response was to just wail on me, almost bringing me tears. Josh was HUGE compared to me, and I turned my back to him to defect the blows. He pounded me in the back, closed fist, in full view of the whole lunch table. He then got up and ran off; I immediately found a teacher and told her what had happened, without about half a dozen other students backing up my story. Josh thought he could buy my silence with a soda, but I'd already told on him. Josh was hauled off to the principal's office immediately and got several days out-of-school suspension. Needless to say, my friendship with him ended on the spot and I never talked to him again for the rest of the time we lived in Virginia. That would have been in 2003 or 2004, and we moved back to Pennsylvania in 2005; I reconnected with Josh on Facebook within the last decade, and Josh has gotten help for his mental issues and is doing much better. He apologized for the incident and we made up.

 

I see what you mean by the second statement, but I certainly love taking pictures of Land Cruisers, especially ones older than 1998!

 

The last physical altercation I can remember being in was way back in 2010. My friend Tim and I were in the basement at my friend Taylor's mom's house, with Taylor a few other guys; Tim had a part-time seasonal job working at the Shady Brook Farm haunted hayride, where he would dress up as a zombie and scare people.

I love haunted attractions, and I will tolerate some of the more intense scare tactics used by performers, but outside of such an event I DO NOT like to be startled; Tim thought it would be funny to sneak up on me and practice his zombie act on me in Taylor's basement. The first time, I asked him politely not to do it again. He did it a second time and I told him to knock it off, this time not so politely; I let loose a few profanities, including at least one F-word...

Tim decided to try his luck and my patience; I was lying on the couch when he did it AGAIN. I leapt over the back of the couch, grabbed Tim around the neck, and slammed him against the wall; Taylor had to pull me off of Tim, who was not hurt. Needless to say, he didn't practice his zombie act on me ever again!

FYI, I guess you could say that I am still friends with Tim, but we hardly ever see each other and don't talk much; I parted ways with Taylor in 2012 after he did something that I am not at liberty to discuss publicly on TW. I briefly reconnected with him starting in 2021, but we never hung out and rarely talked. Amanda met him late last year, and did not like him at all, so that gave me the excuse I needed to further distance myself from him. We got into a huge argument on Facebook last month in which Taylor proved himself to be the same self-absorbed prick he was in 2012, and I severed ties with him for good.

 

Honestly I would have just ignored the guy totally, not worth letting someone get under your skin.

 

@PennSilverTaco That day I went to see that Fiesta ST the guy also had a Volvo. Strangely it had a transverse mount straight 6, obviously there was no room for a belt, so it had a power take off unit to run the alternator and accessories.

 

@ABA180
@ColoradoTJ
@shakerhood
@TnShooter

Also in 2010, but before the zombie scare incident, there was an incident involving Taylor and Tim that did not directly affect me; Tim had this loaded 1997 or 1998 Plymouth Grand Voyager with only like 110K miles that he had inherited from his deceased father. He had hit a deer with the van and done minor damage that he never bothered to get fixed, but the van was otherwise in great shape. Taylor had a DJ gig at a hookah lounge, and Tim drove him; I went along. Taylor was friends with these assholes named Tommy and Keith. Keith bought a 2003ish Toyota Celica as his first vehicle, but while the car was registered and insured, he couldn't legally drive it because he only had a learner's permit; Tommy had a license, so he drove the Celica. After the gig, I was in the van with Taylor and Tim. Tim was obviously driving, and Tommy was behind us in the Celica with Keith riding shotgun. All of a sudden, Tommy rear-ended Tim's van; I figured it was an accident, and asked Tim why he wasn't getting out of the van to check the damage and get insurance info. Tim brushed this off, and then Tommy tapped the van again.

There ended up being no damage to either Tim's van or the Celica, and it turns out that Tommy was just being funny; Tim and Taylor thought it was funny. This was 2010, and my Tacoma was less than a year old with maybe 5,000 miles on the clock. If Tommy had pulled that shit with my BRAND NEW truck, I would have saw to it that Tommy didn't eat any solid food for a very long time before I bothered asking for insurance...

Tim's a good dude, but Taylor is not, and neither were most of the people he hung out with!

 

You wouldn’t have liked me or my group of friends.
We did stupid shit like that all the time.

Backing into and rear ending each other was “normal”. Just little “love taps”
Done right and “carefully” there was never any harm done.
At least never to any of our cars.

 

@shakerhood
@TnShooter

Taylor was yet another Aspie that I met at the Coffeehouse back in 2009, and one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was introducing to two of my non-Aspie friends from outside the Coffeehouse. These two friends were Ryan and Tim. Taylor was spoiled as a kid, and got into a lot of trouble on three separate occasions for sexual misconduct between middle school and his late teens. He was a minor when the first two incidents occurred, and he managed avoid felony charges on the third incident, which occurred when he was 19.

Taylor hung around with a lot of people who were considerably younger than we were. I met Taylor when I was 19 (almost 20), and was 23 when something happened that broke the proverbial camel's back.

One time, Ryan and I went over to Taylor's house in 2010, and two of his friends were there waiting for us (Taylor had been with Ryan and me); Taylor was 23 at the time. I was 21, Ryan was 19, and we had no reason to believe that these two (a boy and a girl we'd never met before) weren't our age; I will admit that I initially thought that the girl was very attractive...

So, one of them asked me how old I was (I forget who); I found it weird, but I answered honestly, telling them I was 21. This kid then asked if I could buy them beer...

I asked how old they were, and both answered that they were 14; I did not freak out, but my body language told these kids everything they needed to know. The boy said "I think we should go", and both of them left. Ryan later told me that the girl had been flirting with him, and making him uncomfortable. Taylor had the balls to criticize me for telling them I was 21, because apparently these two were known for trying to get adults to buy them beer. An argument inevitably broke out, and Taylor ultimately didn't bring those juvenile delinquents around me anymore.

That was in 2010, and the incident that ended Taylor's friendship with our group took place in the summer of 2012, so I remained friends with the selfish prick for more than two years before I couldn't take it anymore.

Ryan got it into his head that the three of us were "amigos", and on one occasion in 2011 or 2012 (before the incident), decided to invite me over to his house without telling me that Taylor was also there; Taylor and I weren't particularly close at that time, and I'd been hoping to hang out with Ryan. I didn't take too kindly to being hoodwinked, but ultimately chose to stay. There was also a time in late 2013 where Ryan chose to take Taylor's side instead of mine, and stopped being friends with me for several months. He ultimately called me up out of the blue, we made up, and we've been friends ever since. Fortunately, Ryan doesn't really hang out with Taylor anymore.

 

Well, I'm autistic, and it was a brand new truck that was in my dad's name at the time and not paid off yet. That rear-ending incident with Tim's van was quite minor compared to the other shit that Tommy and Taylor's other friends did; I just got a very bad vibe from Taylor's friends who weren't part of my inner circle.

 

None of our cars were new. Teenagers and a new car. BAD IDEA.

 

In this case, it was a late 90s minivan and an early 2000s Celica; I didn't get my license until I was 22, and my new vehicle was a base model Tacoma, so I don't think it's anything like giving a teenager a brand new Acura...

 

My transmission started to whine, it was determined to be the oil pump, and I got a new one installed; 203K miles ain’t bad!

 

E. All of the above, plus people in general act like their actions are never unacceptable.

Sometimes that's a wise idea. Life happens.

Very true. I've lost count of times I could have put someone on the ground for being stupid and ultimately had to decide it's not worth the trouble.

I was also in that era and therefore not only do I try to conduct myself appropriately, I try to remember that even if I'm not the instigator sometimes I could be the one on my ass. Always possible.

 

Better get 203k out of the new one!

 

So if this transmission is to last the same amount of miles as the original, then in theory, I’ve got about 180K miles left…

 

So, Amanda has bronchitis, and I have a sinus infection that likely would have turned into bronchitis if I hadn’t gone to the doctor. We have both tested negative for COVID.

Amanda’s prescription medications are covered by her insurance, but her primary care physician doesn’t take her insurance. Amanda has to pay $85 out of pocket for doctor visits, and they couldn’t see her until Saturday, so I took her to the urgent care place in Montgomeryville that does take it. Testing confirmed that she has bronchitis, and she is on meds for it. She also has to stay out of work for one day, which won’t hurt her financially because she got so much overtime over the last couple weeks.

I went to my doctor, and the usual tests showed that I have a sinus infection; I have been put on a 5-day antibiotic regimen, and I am able to work since I don't come into contact with residents.

 

Bad time of year for that kind of sickness too.