My dreams (and hopes) of owning and customizing a truck - possibly becoming a reality?

Ever since I was a very young child, I've always seemed to love trucks, especially ones with a diesel engine in them. I've always loved the sounds they make... the clatter, the engine fan, the mighty exhausts, the turbo.... I love it all. I've often dreamed of having one.

Well, recently, I've been thinking about buying one next year mostly for the sake of owning and driving it anywhere I want, but also working on and customizing it to my desires and for fun (and to learn a little bit). One potential use for it would be road-trips. I do have a car, but it seems much more enjoyable if I were to use the truck instead.

In the customization aspect, I want this truck to stick out a little bit from most surrounding vehicles on the street.

What I would do to meet that description is by styling the exterior a bit... with some stickers from some cool companies I'll buy products from for the truck, and putting some additional lights on it. I'll be wiring those lights so I could flick them on on when desired. I hope to turn some heads on the street and in parking lots with these modifications besides the truck being big.

In the interior? Maybe some enhancements, and a couple gadgets, such as gauges for monitoring the engine vitals, some switches, and possibly an aftermarket radio.

Under the hood? This is a fun one. As I mentioned, it's gotta be a diesel. I'm not looking to get a semi, so those huge engines are out of the list of considerations.... however, I'm hoping for something a little bigger than a traditional pickup. I'm looking at getting the type of truck that would usually be used in commercial applications. 

A while back, I saw a couple videos of some of them on YouTube and noticed their acceleration... it seemed rather lethargic. Naturally, I thought about tuning and increasing the power, but as it turns out, it's barely possible on these certain trucks. I've learned that the newer generation commercial trucks nowadays (1998.5+) are electronically controlled, and because of the different software they use (compared to consumer pickups), tuning options are extremely slim (from what I've seen). They are also de-tuned, compared to their consumer counterparts. (I know these trucks aren't supposed to be fast, but they also don't have to be too slow.)

I was slightly discouraged at first, but I ran across a commercial model truck on a website a few months ago, and when I took a deeper look, I learned that it houses what is known as a 5.9 Cummins 12-valve diesel engine, with a p7100 injection pump. This is the same engine and injection pump combo used in the earlier Dodge Rams from 1994 to 1998. (This engine is also personally one of my favorites from what I've seen and heard on YouTube and in real life.) The truck I saw was not a Dodge, so I wasn't completely expecting it. This engine has mechanical injection, and with some mods, higher power output is possible. (I will not be intentionally tuning for black smoke.) Perfect. That will be part of the list of possible future upgrades to the engine (and, well, the powertrain).

(Another option was the 8.3 Cummins that were usually used in bigger trucks and some military vehicles, but I haven't seen as much aftermarket support for those engines. I also want to be a bit lighter in terms of engine weight... so I'm going with the 5.9. I do know there are other options.)

This kind of project seemed far out of reach and out of my league for a while. Now, I feel that this is quite possible, and could be beyond just dreams. This is pretty much what I have dreamed of before! Though, the one issue I have.. is money. As it stands, my bank account doesn't have the sufficient funds (where I'm comfortable) to do something like this just yet.... but hopefully it will in the near future. I hope to have a truck to enjoy as much as possible.

 

 

Thank you for reading (hope you enjoyed) - and Happy Holidays!

Travis Scott’s career might possibly be screwed.

⚠️Content warning: graphic.

It seems as if Travis Scott is going to have a hard time with his career for a little while.

I’m sure most of you have heard about Travis Scott and his recent concert tragedy by now. I wanted to make this post to share some videos and my thoughts. Basically, there is a lot more that could have been done to change the potential outcome of this stampede.

To start off, one thing that rubs me the wrong way is how people were busting through security gates.

Where was security? Why wasn't there MORE security at the entrance? What about better gates for a high occupancy event like this? With him and his events being so popular, I think a greater amount of security would have been a proper consideration.

The biggest thing, though, is that he could and should have just stopped his concert. Not just for a few minutes.... stop, completely. Abort it (even more so after it was declared a mass casualty event). 

Instead, he decided to keep going even after there were people passing out, and chants were going on to stop the show:

Source of Videos (embedded): The Washington Post article 

I highly doubt that he didn't see an ambulance in the crowd, and possibly some unconscious people.

As a relevant pointer, he has stopped one of his concerts before, back in 2015... but only because someone took his show while crowd-surfing. 

 

(In my opinion, he overreacted there, and the spitting took it a bit too far. He also threw the mic, probably at the person who attempted to take Travis Scott's shoe... which was probably painful, and also a little too far. I can't help but be reminded of similar behavior being shown by bullies at school.)

And his apology video...

... does have a couple oddities. I'm not trying to defend him at all, but the head rubbing... I can sort of understand. He might be doing that because he's overwhelmed with embarrassment or regret? At the same time, it kind of seems like he's either tired or just woke up. I also notice that there's a grayscale filter on the video, which I thought was weird as well.

I'm not entirely sure how to feel about the video to be honest, other than the fact that it maybe could have been better executed.

Things are still unfolding. Travis Scott definitely made a mistake here. He now has several lawsuits filed against him, mostly from the people whose friends or relatives died in the stampede, and he's receiving a lot of backlash. I've seen that people are removing his music from their Spotify lists so as to cut down the money he earns from it.

Personally, I have enjoyed some of his music before, but I rarely listen to his music for other reasons (I don't listen to rap much).  The most I would hear it from is on my car radio.

So yeah... this is a huge situation that could hamper his career. I have, however, seen some famous people eventually get away with bad stuff like this and re-bounce, and that could likely happen for Travis Scott. It's still a little early to call what might happen next though. Only time will tell; we'll see what happens.