Our landlords are planning to sell the house in a year or so. The rental market here is absolutely out of control, and I have no faith that whoever buys the house won’t immediately serve us an eviction notice to live in it, or more likely, demolish it.
My significant others parents have a rental house that’s empty at the moment, and offered to give us a deal on rent so that we don’t have to move way out into the valley, or out of the lower mainland altogether. So we’re taking the opportunity and moving into the upstairs of this little old house. Built in 1913, renovated in the 50s and then again in the 70s.
Part of the deal is that we’ll be doing the work to fix it up a bit.

So far we’ve pulled up the carpet in the living room and hallway, next week we’ll be picking out some new flooring and some fresh paint. Then some baseboards and other misc trim.
Railing for the back stairs, power washing…the list goes on. But it’s worth it to not be in a basement and to be in a good area.
As a bonus, I’ll be living on the same property where my Volvo has been stored.

1998 4Runner SR5 V6, auto, with a rear diff locker, not in retirement beige......with 358,000kms on it. One owner.
The thing runs amazingly and drives really well. It might want new shocks and it’s getting aall its fluids changed soon. Everything works, even the back window as you can see. Totally straight, some surface rust on the frame and running boards but really minor.
Weak but working AC, cruise control, power mirrors, power locks with a remote....

I’m excited. I’ve been looking for a long time, and while this isn’t what I was looking for in the first place, I’m happy with this for the next while I think. I can’t wait to get on some FSRs again,

I’ve been putting it off basically since I got the 4Runner. I loved it and wanted to keep it, but I have limited space, time, and money. Basically I had to either ditch the Raider, the E28, or the Volvo 144. Of those 3, I wanted to keep the Raider the least. I was just worried about finding a good home for it. Luckily, the first person to contact me was a woman who’s been wanting one since her friend got one new in 1989. She restored a 66 Bronco a couple years ago, and decided now was the time to find a Raider to restore. So instead of sitting around and being driven once or twice a year, it’s gonna get restored and be a daily.
I’ll leave you with some of the pics from my ad.

It’s been a day and a half activity, but the 4Runner has fresh new suspension

With the help of my dad, my girlfriend, and a couple longer pry bars, it’s all together.

I forgot to measure from the ground to the fenders with the stock height suspension, so I don’t know how much I actually lifted it.
First impressions are that it’s diving less under braking, squatting less under acceleration, comfier, and more controlled. We’ll see how much it settles over the next day or two.

I don’t even know what to say about this. How could anyone think this was a good marketing strategy.

I’m gonna go ahead and stick with this era of BMW

Got a raise, the biggest bonus I’ve got so far, and was put up in the top floor of a hotel downtown after our work Christmas party. Everyone who wanted to got to stay in the hotel, but I was the only one on the top floor....

I’ve worked my ass off, and I guess it’s not going unnoticed.

Bonus pics: Lots of wood at the place we had brunch at this morning

I made it almost 3 years without catching it, and it just had to get me right before Christmas.
Me, my girlfriend, and my dad got it last week. My dad and I only had a couple unpleasant days, my girlfriend had it even easier. But it meant we couldn’t spend time with her family on Christmas, which was quite unfortunate. We could at least spend time with my parents, so it could’ve been worse. This is also the driest Christmas I’ve ever had, I think I’ve had 3 beers since last saturday.

I know there are worse problems to have, but covid wasn’t exactly how I wanted to spend most of my 2 weeks off.

So it was a friends birthday this weekend, and we were supposed to go camping near Eastgate, in/around Manning Park. Unfortunately, the Garrison Lake wildfire is too close for that to work out, so we decided to make a day trip of doing Whipsaw instead.

I was apprehensive, because Whipsaw is claimed by some to be the hardest trail in BC, and I’m in a stock truck that I haven’t had very long. Still, our friends in their heavily built JL assured me we’d do just fine.

Long story short, they were right, and it did really well.
A little over 100km of trail done over 8 hours, with more than half of that time being genuinely tricky off-roading. I was the least experienced of our little 3 vehicle convoy, so our friends spotted me through the toughest sections.
I was pretty nervous since I don’t have skids yet, but I came out of it almost totally unscathed. The exhaust tip is a little bent, and the left rear control arm mount got scraped up, but that’s all. A stock 3rd gen 4Runner with an E-locker is a very capable little thing,

Now without further ado, here’s a video and a bunch of photos.

I wish the difficulty of terrain and steepness came across better in photos and videos. We also didn’t get any photos or videos of the hardest parts, since we were too distracted with doing it. But for some idea, the video of the section I was being spotted through was half as hard as the trickiest stuff we did. I’m really really impressed with this thing.
And best of all, once we came out of the trail into Coalmont, we had a comfy, quiet, air conditioned ride home. One hell of a long day though. Left for the trail at 7:30am, and got home at 12:30am.
I’m tired.

Edit* Forgot to add, on the way home we saw one of the wildfires high up on a ridge beside the highway. Never seen it before, it’s surreal. The whole area was lit up red, it felt very apocalyptic.

Also a new battery

I’ve neglected this thing too much. But luckily, after blowing the cobwebs out, it’s running like the glorious tank that it is. God I love this car. So much fun to drive.

While the majority of my non-phone @Photography is on film, I do still have a little dslr, a Nikon D5300 with the 18-55mm kit lens. It's not brilliant, but sometimes I get results out of it that pleasantly surprise me.

Maybe I should send some of these to Toyota and see if they want some promo photos taken

@frinesi2 My coworker used to work at a furniture maker and they didn’t tell him how to dispose of rags after oiling the wood, he chucked them in the dumpster out back. One day a fire started in the dumpster, luckily it was put out before it burned the woodshop down

@facw It’s shaped like a car, but it’s bloated and tall enough that it registered as a car-shaped crossover like an X6 or X4 or whatever the Mercedes equivalent is

I didn’t realize these were available here yet

It’s not pretty. I’ve seen a fair number of imported Toyota Crowns here, and nothing about this seems like a Toyota Crown.
At first I thought it was that EV they have now with the name that’s just random letters and possibly numbers too, I can’t remember.

@AkioOhtori medium format is usually anywhere from 6x4.5cm to 6x9cm, they all take 120 or 220 film. I’m not sure why it’s called that, but it’s not mm. 220 film is twice as long as 120 film, so you have twice as many shots but they’re the same size as if you were shooting 120. The image size depends on the camera, or the back on cameras with interchangeable backs. For example I had a Mamiya 23 with a 6x7 back, but you could also get a 6x4.5 back or a 6x9 back.
There’s also panoramic cameras that use a huge chunk of 120 film at once and take a 6x17 negative.
Medium format is also the largest roll film, once you get into large format it’s individual sheets of film.

@hayzer911 hahah that’s amazing

@Shop-Teacher Oh I loved the 4.3 in my Blazer, I just don’t know that I’d want it with more weight

@jminer Not crazy miles either…most nice ones go for way more around here

@EssExTee I tried that, but my significant other reminded me that I did that last time we moved, and I sold it for less than I bought it for…and this time I have a 3 ton box truck at my disposal. Still tempting….

I’m currently occupied with a mild reno, will be occupied with a move right after, and have two stagnant project cars. Surely I can’t be looking for impractical and unnecessary purchases?

Those side pipes though

I don’t need a van, I don’t have space for a van, I don’t need a fourth vehicle in general…

I’m lucky it’s not a V8, otherwise I’d be dangerously tempted

@ranwhenparked According to the project manager showing me around, low wages for aircraft techs is the main reason. There’s another technical school with an aviation tech program in the lower mainland, and there just isn’t enough demand for two programs. Why take all the schooling to be an aircraft tech for maybe 65k when you can get into plumbing or HVAC and make 100k+….