If you haven't figured it out, I drive a '97 4Runner. It's the vehicle I have poured the most blood, sweat and tears into and it has always come thru afterwards. Coming from the world of VW, it's been a glimmer in the dark waters of vehicle ownership for me. I've spent more on maintenance than fun parts on this vehicle, so it's a little bit of a basic/boring build, but I like how simple/capable it is.  Decided I'll blog about it here document what I've done or am doing to it. Suspension/Chassis Fronts:  Bilstein Shocks with Eibach coils (very firm ride, will rattle your teeth out on the right surface) Rears:  OEM Land Cruiser Tokico shocks with 8 wrap LC coils Misc: JBA upper control arms Sonoran Steel - Adjustable panhard bar (a must) one of those didnt know you need it til you have it mods. 2nd Gen 4Runner swaybar endlinks for the front, moved my stock rears to front (they're longer to accomodate the lift) 4Wheeler Parts diff drop Spidertrax spacer...

So apparently I am a logo designer now? Not by choice, I design sports apparel for my day job and recently I've been tasked with a slew of logo design challenges for some new brand ambassadors that our company is bringing on board to help promote our brand. I've also had a couple of our clients request some logo designs for their teams. This has forced me into learning a little more of the ins and outs of sports logo design.  Here are five tips I've picked up on my quest to become a faster logo designer.  1 - Sketch ideas out FAST Spend no more than one minute for each rough sketch and sketch for 10 minutes. Pick out a few of your favorite forms to develop. This also prevents you from getting too carried away and stuck on one design or putting in too much detail. If the logo reads well, after only a short amount of time then thats what you want. 2 - Give your logo's elements a house Thick bold line work is the name of the game here. While there are tons of successful me...

Who the heck is, Benjamin?  Benjamin, refers to the 18 year-old, whiny, Subaru in the image above. And this is my introduction to my favorite of all the vehicles I've owned thus far. I'll also be documenting its journey of hopeful restoration here, inspired by my friend,  @Peeeels (instagram), who is meticulous when it comes to his cars and documenting their modification journeys.  How Benj-aru really looks I inherited Benjamin from a good friend of mine for exactly $100. Yes, $100 worth of turbocharged, AWD, automatic (shhhh we don't really talk about that), WRX goodness. My boring driving experience, which typically is that of a 3rd Gen 4Runner (Second favorite car I've owned), has never been the same.  Hearing turbo noises always brings a smile to my face and I find it hard not to push the pedal down a little more than I'm used to when I'm behind the wheel.  Before the Covid quarantines and working from home became so prevalent, Benjamin had me to and from wo...

 Hey there, my name is Mark and I am all over the place. I decided I would start blogging for a variety of reasons, but for now I kind of want to treat blogging as an experiment and use it as an outlet. We'll see what happens.  When I say I'm all over the place I mean, like everyone, I am into a lot of hobbies and interests. I was thinking the other day about how to get away with putting all my interests into one outlet and arrived at something I'll call a macro-niche ...an oxymoron maybe, but let me explain.  If you spend anytime on social media with an aim to make a living, then you'll know, or have heard about, the term niching-down . This is where you figure out what you want your specific focus to be and what your target audience is and then you cater your content to that specific niche. Well what if you have a lot of hobbies, in my case cars, art, pop-culture, video games, firearms, social media and tech, AND you know there are a lot of people who are into...