grahaml89

this entry is about as cut up as the scars on my wrist.
i throw my pen, and clench the paper like my fist.
where the fuck are you god? where the fuck am i?

family = crazy.

friends = same situation.


im so glad i got fucked up friends that love being fucked up with me, with fucked up families that stress them out so much that they fuck up everything that really doesnt matter.


once all of the fucking is out of the way, you get down to the nittie grittie of life.



monday night ruled. i loved it. so stoked. cant wait for the zombie party. i know right?





the octopus project is amazing. amazing.

i bet you 20 bucks my st pats day was better than yours.



now im getting my shit together so i can ride my bike to concord to hang out. miss all of you. fuck everyone else. clown ass faggots.

the alley cat was hella fun. i was really baked last night... but the ride was great. perfect weather. i crashed later on in the eavining. my foot fell out of the pedal cage, and i ran into a curb. now myleg is hella bruised. im so glad its the weekend!

family.

cant wait till its over.


i got myself into this.
cant wait to get the fuck out.

intake manifold is a pain in the neck to get on... probably cuz of the new head...



this motor is hard to deal with.


i'm never building an engine by the numbers again. you spend more, get less, and more problems. this is a major hassle.

i'm gonna go work on the 64.

i got a spending problem! im learning theres certain auot part stores, where its just a good idea for me to stay out of...


haha.
new aeromotive fuel system...



trying to get the intake on tonight, as well as distributor, and once thats that, that means i'm callin s&s for that appointment. this is gonnna feel so good to have out of the way.

what was up with the club last night? crazy. i almost got raped by a cougar. she might have jsut been a puma, but she was a good 10 years older than me EASY. way too aggresive. some blueberry vodka drink sucked ass, tasted like rotten honey flavored tea. only 5 bucks... no hangover. dancing is so funny.

baby steps.



baby steps.

The IRS gave me a bill for 3 Thousand Dollars.


this is the biggest bill i have ever have ever had.
by far.

tryin to fight it... they billed me on my college money, but only 2 years after i used it. why 2 years?

california covers my eyes.

holy shit it feels like its all coming together. just got my block back from s&s, they did a killer job. picked up some crazy new headgaskets... 80 bucks each! ouch. other projects are coming along too! wish i could tell you.


i swear to God i'll do my best to not take anything for granted...
i've had like 8 good days in a row... this is crazy! i really hope this all works out!

sleep makes me feel like a slacker.

look at how we've changed! holy shit!
all the x's in our names. all the times we changed friends. i admit how much of a hypocrite i have been. damn boy. life is such a tangled knot, but i am more determined than a mexican on a bike in the rain. my life was spectacular. its too easy beat ourselves up for not knowing.

way too many abstract things happen to make me doubt that there was meaning.

LAST YEAR:
-wanted to marry laura
-hated iraqis
-hated the idea of smoking pot
-annoyed by gays
-stessed from other ethnicities
-wanted to go to iraq
-thought israel was just
-rooted for bush
-did nothing to my camaro
-did nothing to 'my' impala
-did nothing to my triumph
-lent my brother $12k
-lent my brother $7k
-was locked up in a room for 2-3 months
-thought God was calling me to join the Marine Corps
-couldn't forgive heather
-was annoyed by jack
-thought i knew what valuing friendship meant
-got fat
-played WoW with steve


This year
-cough cough. laura. yeah.
-love iraqis <3 seriously. love them.
-enjoy bud with friends!
-dont care about gays.
-respect other ethnicities, weird. me? its true.
-want to go to iraq to save lives, and protest the war
-fuckin hate israel.
-is it a crime to want to kill bush?
-building the 396. FINISHING the ole' camaro
-bought my own '64. FINISHING it, few touches.
-building the triumph. whole shot.
-straightend things out with my brother. finally.
-still have constant dreams about military
-learned alot about entering and exiting world's most feared fighting force
-realized heather's p.o.v. miss her alot. she was right.
-still annoyed by jack =)
-realized i had my head up my ass
-gym/leaned up
-that stupid video game.

list goes on, but those were what came to mind first.




reid is going to djibouti, in africa. next to somalia, and saudi arabia. he's goin with the navy soldiers. he's leaving sunday. 7 month deployment. man i'm so tired of the military. hope he'll see it.

I OUTSMARTED THE FUCKER AGAIN!!!!!!



cant believe it. i'm so sick of my brother trying to control me, and trying to manipulate me. i'm done with it!

gotta find a triumph pre-unit frame. just get it cut up to the point that i want. then were golden. that bike is his last effort to try to control me. after that. he's got nothing. ftw.

made it to the gym. feels good.

i feel hella rushed to get my act together. the past 6 months have been such a wake up call. i've never hustled like this. kinda hard to communicate when nobody knows what the hell you're goin through. its pretty crazy how my views have changed. literally everything is 180. i cant believe it. i know its for the better, because of the rate i'm getting things accomplished.

1. cheapness
i used to have a hard time spending 20 bucks...

2. effort
i dont want to even admit...

3. judging people
i can see how me being upset with my dad for smokin' just made him smoke more.

4. morals
i care about iraqis. 1 million of them have been killed by us.

5. health
used to sit on my ass. video games, no cardio. fat-ass.

6. sensitive in the wrong ways.
the biggest. used to be sensitive about my own feelings, and dense towards others. this was one of the better parts about the marine corps. it allows you to tune out all stress and pain, and focus on keeping others alive. it allows you to overcome sleep. being sensitive to others feelings is all that matters.

i've been such a hypocrite. i cant believe anything that i've ever done. but if i never did it, i'd never understand its value. learing the hard way is definately learning.







last night i got the interior of the '64 completely stripped. its ready to go. i layed out the carpet for it to take form, for proper installation. i'm stoked!! its gonna be baller. its almost there!!!!!!! FTW.

drove out to san bruno today after work, to get a low mount engine cradle, to transport my 396 short block to s&s. turns out that they got to put it on a CNC machine to bore out the hole that has had the crooked helicoil installed. this is a major snag. but it ain't stopping me. its nothing compared to the heads.

i'm dying for the summer to come. i've never put effort into enjoying a summer. i cant wait to see all my friends. its gonna be so good to be done with cars. southern california. further on up the road.

STOP SLACKING OFF!



didnt go to the gym this week. slept in. ate french fries, and all that bullshit!

plan of attack (tomorrow):



i wish steve would stop playing world of warcraft.
going down to santa barbra to pick up new frame!!! stoked. yee-haw.

Snag # 32,253

Helicoil - N. - a coil used to replace damaged threads.

putting on my new cylinder heads. one of the helicoils was inserted crookedly... dont know how the guy that built my engine before me managed to do this, and get the heads on, but now i got to take my motor to the machine shop, for one stupid helicoil. I managed to get the helicoil out, but i still got to bore it out, cut new threads, and install a new helicoil. bum-out.

just bought a vivalo njs track frame that i probably should have held off on. but i really wanted to get a bike back together. plus this one is lavender. and njs. not that it matters to me. Naw, but the point of this one is that its in santa barbra. way to go. tryin to get the kids together down there... and have some fun. us and our fixies. i feel so embarassed to ride one sometimes....  but so much fun.

i'm off to sunol to get more work done on the '64.

3 day weekend. this last week was hard. not as in emo, but hard as in working 8 hours at IQI, and 6-8 hours every day on the '64. the dash is fully sanded & polished. i have to touch up about 2 minutes worth of work left to do, and its time for the gibbs. i have painted this dashboard 5 times now, and sanded it afterwards every single time. there must be too much dust in the air in sunol. gotta outsmart that shit. the next plan is to come up with a way for it to match the lt. blue interior. what im thinkin is puttin the gibbs over the polished bare metal, and then run psychadelic scallops over and around the curves of the dash, in a dark blue metal flake, with white pinstripe outlining. i'm distracted by heidi from the hills on tv right now. anyways theres only 2 hours or so left in that.

V-Day... wtf? worlds biggest pillowfight on the embarcadero? pretty fun... sat next to a mexican lady on the bart ride there, who was hiding a mexican kitten in her mexican purse. that cat kept MEEEEEEEE'ing. it hadn't quite developed the "owwww" yet. she looked so scared, and kept rabling on. butbackto the pellowfight... it was hard not to think of the phrase "smear the queer". nearly impossible to find eric, jon, and xiomara. got some classy vodka + tonic afterwards... mmmmmm..... how classy! but it wasn't so great on a empty stomach so i got a neopolitan ice cream sandwich. by that time things were slowing down, and my head was getting heavy. xiomarra inspected my treat, and decided that the chocolate end was eatable. the next thing i know, derek from some 41 was with us, and we were walking for like 4 miles to a bullshit club, popscene, that was full of old people with nothing better to do than to act as if they were 18. that was gay, so we decided to walk across the city to club x, which was even gay-er. literally. it was gay night, on valentines... and was 10 bucks to get in, so no dice! got home and hot tubbed. felt so good to go to sleep.

Friday. Picked up my heads from S&S. got them cc'ed and milled to fully balance. they hooked me up, and helped me out. i treat those cylinder heads like they were my successful children. when i got there, they were dyno'ing a 632 all motor tall-deck big block, 2x4's, no nitrous, naturally aspirated, putting out 1250hp!!! bohemoth! however the fuck you spell that stupid word. but they did a great job on the machine work. this means that i am ready to put my baby back together. saturday afternoon aka. tomorrow!! shootin' for a dyno run in march.

ordered new bassett DOT chrome steel wheels. kinda nascar style but chrome. these have the correct offset so i can lower the rear end. also had to switch leaf-spring-plate in order to eliminate old traction bars.

seann mf'n glaspy. my little brother. kid is straight up authentic. my pop's tryin to convince me to pick up the glass business, down in so cal. i'm pretty set on startin up a business of my own, but just got to get this shit out of my way first. 94% of the way there. anyways, saw seann for the first time in a few weeks. he's talkin about goin' to JC after wyotech, hopin to move in together. buildin' bikes and shit. bruce from hollywood bobbers wants me to come by next week for frame design on triumph pre-unit. i'm stoked. ordered drag pipes on wednesday.

its kinda crazy living in an area where literally nobody your age understands what its like to ride an old bike (bobber/chopper/etc). everyone is too caught up in the xHipsterx scene.... come to think of it, its actually probly better that way. think of all the fixed gear bicycle kids tryin to look all tuff on a '53 panhead! hahaha. fuck internet forums that tell kids how to be cool hahahaha.

i cant wait for life once im done with all of these things. talk. talk. talk. talk. talk. talk. hahahah. its coming. lets celebrate tomorrow!!! i've been in the mood for jaeger and a bonfire. and steak. medium rare steak.

just got a 1500 dollar ticket reduced to 200 bucks. sha-wing. i got the craziest luck out of anyone i know. i can't play poker for shit... but when it comes to things that are important, i'm one of the luckiest people i know...
    Vegas was awesome tho. we manhandled the system. for anyone going to vegas, the best thing to to is get in on your own table with your own friends, and play some texas hold'em. since everyone at the table is your friend, you give eachother back the money that you lose in the game...TAKING COMPLETE advantage of the free drinks. I had over $150 worth of some tastie cocktails that night! after drunken spending, and my hand at poker i came out about even. free irish car-bombs, free white russians, free sobe-vodkas. enough said.


    things are getting alot cooler between andy and me. buying my own '64 totally aside from him eliminated alot of the tension that had been caused by me not doing what he wanted. i'm so close to getting all of my projects finished. i cant wait. its neat too, because everything that i had invested in the old impala are going to great use in the new one. I'm dyin' to see the light blue interior put to action. Original paint white, with light blue interior is looking better in my head than any other combo. The weather lately has been way to wet and cold to lay a successful coat of paint on the dashboard. that has been my only hold up. i'm havin another stab at it tonight once i get home. Im thinkin about takin it up to the autorama show this weekend. we'll see. i got to focus on getting the dash painted, the next step is to find some '64ss hubcaps, and slam the fucker. there's something about that car, that is unlike any other car we've had so far. it has this classy feeling...

with all this said, i can say that i'm definitely learning. I guess i'm a late bloomer, but my path is very different than most kids. all of these opportunities. i never knew how hard you had to work towards things, but in the end, its definitely worth it.

intro


3 years ago, i decided i needed to follow through with building the camaro to the best of my abilities.

Andy found a '53 Panhead (Harley) that was a sweet bike. i was 18, and all my friends left for school. i thought he'd be my best friend, and he sure acted like it. we went out cruisin every day, until that bike went up for sale. and it was pricey. he had to have it. i would have done anything for him, and i did. so there went my college money. ha!

(most of it) he stopped talking to me, and the months went by. 6 of them. boy i was bummed. best way to get college money? not the marine corps. I did get alot out of it. but i decided to come home. iraqi's dont deserve to be shot at. i wouldn't kill one. not the right reasons. my bro got a wakeup call. he sold his '64, and payed me back. i guess he missed me. first month i was back he found an original '49 chevy fastback. it was only $7k, i could lend it to him. again. wow. 2 weeks after that, he was screaming at me calling me spoiled...

he sold that car, and got my money back to me. the cars were getting out of control. '64 impala ss, '64 impala ss convertable, '66 impala, '64 impala project, '54 chevy, '49 chevy... the list goes on and on. i needed to get mine out of the way. they were holding me back.

my main projects were the camaro, a '64, and a '57 triumph bonneville.

it had been my highschool dream to build up the '64 and cruise it down to the beach. my brother "gave" me that car, and i had my dreams set on it. but everytime i tried to put it together, he'd stop me. i never knew why. he never gave me what i needed to register that car.... for a reason.

the camaro needed the correct engine, so i tracked down its legendary L89 396.

in 1968, they equipped 135 top o' the line camaro's with aluminum head 396's. and one had my name on it. so i got one, and built it up. Went down to S&S for them to check over my build, and Dyno it. got it up on the dyno, but it turned out that one of the heads was bad... this was one big deal, being that only 135 sets were made in the year. roughly ten each month. i already had 2 that month.

The guy i got the engine from felt so bad he helped me out.

i lucked out. that week, i found one, and that guy bought it for me. i couldn't wait to have it sent to me.

the package came, i opened it, and it the head was cracked... this happens so much. so i took it to Bob Gromm, and he set up the heads for me, with a new valve job, and built them good, and repaired the weld.

to be continued...