It’s nice having a truck

Someday, I will make a list all of the vehicles I have owned over the years. A truck has never been among them, until recently. After our neighborhood and my precious Crown was flooded in 2022 (the Crown is sitting at my mechanic’s place, waiting for me to save enough money for a proper restoration), I needed new wheels. Since both of our kids were studying in the USA at the time, I figured we could get away with a standard size pickup and got a great deal on the Triton. It’s been great for carrying stuff around.

An older lady in the neighborhood was giving away huge potted plants, so Nam and I headed over to her house after work one night.

She told us the local name of the plants, which I have since forgotten, and I have since misidentified them several times. We originally thought they were giant lilies (Crinum asiaticum), but that appears not to be the case.

We gave the two shown on the back of the truck to Nam’s mom and kept the twins in the pot on our driveway shown in the top pic. The twins were eventually infected with rust, so I had to do some serious leaf removal.

Celica GT

I found this beauty at one of my go-to breakfast places in town – it doesn’t serve breakfast food specifically, but it’s open from early, so you can eat whatever they make from the early morning all day. I usually order several bags of curry, stir fries, soups, and desserts to take home. But hey, I got all excited talking about food, and this is a car post.

This is an original or reproduction Celica 2000 GT liftback, reminiscent of a mini ‘Stang from the same era. It might have the legendary 18RG engine in it. I’m still heartsick about what to do with the Crown (it’s been sitting in the back lot of a nearby body shop since it got flooded), so I didn’t want to stick around and wait for the owner to ask questions. But damn, it was pretty. I generally like my cars black, black, and black, but this color really suits this car. If I found one in crustier condition, I would wide body it and immediately change the wing mirrors…

My Mitsubishi Triton at Sunset

@MSU old campus

I’ve been doing 3km walks capped with short jogs here every day recently… It’s hard for me to get out the door to exercise if I skip days, so it’s easier just to get in the habit of going every day. So considering side jobs in the evening (the only realistic time to exercise is wither before or after it gets sunny) and the weather (it’s currently thunderstorm season), I probably average 6 days/week right now. Although I did a three week stint without a day off, which felt like a big deal.

moblogging again

Its been nearly 20 years since I set up a moblog sidebar and posted tiny pictures from my Hitachi clamshell over iMode to my MovableType blog… But today I just got the itch to see where we are in terms of easy accessibility to WordPress moblogging.

It’s kind of in between rainy periods right now, which is hard on my lawn, since I assume it’s gonna rain and don’t water every day as I’m accustomed to doing the rest of the year. So yesterday, I performed my rain ritual and watered the yard thoroughly, and also washed the dust off my truck. It worked.