My Ceffy

[Stang]

Some more daily duties.

I'm pretty sure this is a V35 Nissan Skyline, but it was sporting Infiniti badges.

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Followed by a drive in the southern hills with Sally, first stopping at a park near a stream in Clarendon.

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We then moved on towards Kuitpo Forest, stopping on Scenic Road for a few minutes.

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Armed with a picnic blanket and some food, we stopped in one of the car parks at Kuitpo Forest.

We then walked along one of the paths for a little while to find a nice spot to sit down.

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It's a really nice place to walk through, with hundreds of trees all around as far as the eye can see, and quite with a natural, earthy smell. Halfway up the gentle slope, I turned around to take what is probably the most distant photo of the Ceffy.

Once we'd reached relatively flat ground, we set up the picnic blanket, and I got some food out for Sally.

It was certainly a picturesque location for a picnic on a warm afternoon.

After spending some time sitting amongst the trees, we packed up and headed down to the carpark.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Stang

[Stang]

Daniel was spraying the meshies on his Pintara black, but leaving the chrome dish, so they would match and look a bit fresher. Pulling up at his house with Sally, his daughter Ella came out to see us. Despite being only 3 years old, she can tell the difference between my Ceffy and his Pintara by the exhaust sound, something a few of my friends can't do, which is rather funny.

She was doing a bit better after being in hospital for the surgery, enough to try and steal my car anyway. But as I mentioned in a previous post, she's a very sick kid, and any donations towards this project to improve her quality of life would be of great help: http://www.sayso.com.au/weddings/forums/t955/

[Stang]

In the garage, Daniel was busy masking and prepping his rims for painting.

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The new paint made the rims look a lot nicer.

Edited November 15, 2011 by Stang

[Stang]

A couple of days later I had one of those exciting visits to the dentist. My health situation threw him a little, after I said that I hadn't been able to eat or drink for about a year.

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A couple of weeks later I proposed to Sally, filling the Cefiro with bits and pieces in preparation to win lots of brownie points.

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It involved lots of candles and a coffee table book I made.

We went to church the next morning to tell people about the good news, and visited a few friends, as well as our respective grandmothers.

Edited November 16, 2011 by Stang

[DannyC33]

Hey thats awesome! nice work with the candles.

and a very nice ring

[Stang]

Cheers Danny..lucky I have a good friend who helped me with setting everything up. And yeah both pretty happy with the ring I bought.

[Stang]

There were some more visits to family and friends to tell them the news.

Random car spotting is always fun.

[Stang]

[Stang]

The Civic needed a couple of new tyres, so we went over to Bob Jane, who have a VE Commodore promo vehicle parked out the front, sporting what are probably the worst rims I've ever seen on a car. I'm assuming they did it to draw attention to the store.

[Stang]

October 4th 2011 marked my 27th birthday. On October 4th 2010, I was in hospital at the start of a long and horrific 7 week stay, with doctors deciding to wait until the day after my birthday to shove a naso-gastric feeding tube down my throat.

So whatever happened this year, it was going to be infinitely better than the previous one, which easily made the cut as my worst birthday ever. Being forcibly starved to death by a paralysed digestive system is no way to celebrate a birthday in your late twenties; or ever for that matter.

As I write this post, it's now been over 400 days since I've been able to eat any food at all. Literally. The last thing I had was a few spoonfuls of apple puree on October 8th, 2010. But since then, I've been able to drink about a litre or so; all my nutrition and hydration needs are met with the feeding tube, bottles of Ensure Plus formula and syringes of water.

Fortunately this year I woke up feeling quite ok. Given how horrendously trapped and helpless I felt last year being in hospital with tubes and sickness everywhere, I thought a spirited hills run on the open road would be an appropriate antidote to the memories of the year before.

So after loading up my cameras, I headed east towards the hills. One the way, I stopped in at Cameron's workshop to ask about another mild paint touch-up on the Ceffy. You may have noticed in previous photos, but the side bits of the rear bumper were a bit darker than the bumper itself. It was exacerbated by this part being dirty, but it still bothered me when I looked at the car, so I figured it would be good to fix it. His awesome FB wagon was parked out the front when I pulled up. After having another look at the rear bumper, we organised to drop the Ceffy in the next Monday.

[Stang]

After driving around in Prach's Chaser and Daniel's Pintara here and there, I noticed they both had a much nicer induction sound compared to the Ceffy. After having a look under the bonnets, it was clear that their intake piping was metal, while mine was rubber, which would explain the different sound.

On my way to the hills, I pulled over into a side street to answer a phone call. Taking off again to turn around, I saw there was a Japanese import wrecker/spares shop, which I thought might be worth a look. Then a little further, a whole carpark full of imports and several drift cars came into view, which stopped me in my tracks. I'd inadvertently stumbled across the Jaustech workshop, which is quite well known in the Adelaide import and drift scene.

[Stang]

One of the owners, Anthony Cece, drifts one of the best sounding Cefiros I've heard, with a hybrid RB25/30 power plant. Here are a few videos of him in action at Calder a week or so earlier at the Australian Drifting Grand Prix. As you'll see in the videos and my photos below, he's not shy about tagging the wall in the name of of a good slide. It sounds better in person than how it comes across in these clips.

Edited November 18, 2011 by Stang

[Stang]