1254 - Two Car Garage

I know I like to blog about dream car garages. I even do "attainable" posts. How realistic though, because honestly with the current times I honestly doubt I'd be able to save enough money, or earn enough to afford a car loan, to get a brand new car.

So here's something different. It's still a two-car garage but I'll be very realistic. Our 2024 Toyota Wigo G will be the first car since we already own it. So what would the second one be?

Obviously I have to look for a used car. If you're lucky you can find a decent one in the used car dealers or on Facebook Marketplace, I guess. Now what would I want for a second car?

My first thought was an MPV, which means it can haul people and a bit of cargo, or cargo and a bit of people. Then because of the recent flooding even with only monsoon rains, my priorities shifted to something else.

Maybe the second car should be an older, reliable SUV that you can install a snorkel. Like a 1st gen Vitara, or a 1st or 2nd gen Pajero. Unfortunately, an automatic transmission is still the preferred choice since between my wife and I, I'm the only one who can drive stick. And if I send my daughter to driving school it would be useless to have her learn stick when we don't have any manual transmission vehicles.

Now what would the point of the second car be? It would be our coding car and our bad weather car. Bad weather because the ground clearance should be higher than the Wigo, and sudden heavy rains should not make us worry if the car would be able to pass through flash floods. Now I'm not talking about waist deep floods or worse. Maybe ankle to knee deep if push comes to shove.

That's why I thought of the Vitara and Pajero, two capable off-roaders that have decent ride height. And they won't look out-of-sorts with snorkels on either. Plus if they are automatics with 4x4, I can probably take them off-roading once in a while.

Anyway, the old gen 1 or 2 Pajeros do have the MPV-ish capacity of being 5-to-7 seaters, and both could carry cargo as well. The Vitara not as much.

The big question with my current ideal choices for a second car is maintenance. Would these cost a lot to keep running and reliable? Would the vehicle I find (if I do end up buying one) be in good condition?

Fuel economy isn't really an issue here since my plan is still for the Wigo to be the daily driver, and for the second car to only be used when the Wigo is number coding. Unless it's raining bad.

Out.

1253 - A New Workstation

I've recently started doing some research for a new workstation, because I'm not really sure how much longer my laptop will last. Sadly the skyrocketing prices of RAM and storage means I'll for sure be spending a lot more than what I would want. And right now after what I've experienced with my current and previous gaming laptop I think I should listen to my practical side and buy a desktop instead.

I'm not going into specs here, rather I'll be blogging about my ideal storage set up. At the moment my ideal set up would be to have one M.2 SSD as the main OS and app storage (aka the C: drive) to handle all the operating system and apps. At the minimum I'd want it to be at 1 TB, and sadly that's the best I can get considering how expensive things are now.

The second storage would be for my personal files and save games. This would also ideally be an M.2 SSD at 1TB. Finally for the third and final storage, it would be a SATA HDD or SSD. I've seen some 2TB HDDs being sold for the same price as a 1TB SSD so that would be my first choice. The third storage would be for work files.

My current setup is just two 1TB SSDs and while it does the job, I'd rather have my work and personal files in separate storages just so they're separate.

Sadly this 3 storage setup will probably cost me as much as a decent GPU unit. Had I known RAM and storage prices would skyrocket because of AI, I would have just built this desktop workstation a few years ago.

Hindsight is always 20/20 and at the time I didn't know what I know now, not only about the prices of component but also of what happened to my workstation.

Out.

1252 - Used Cars and Flooding in Metro Manila

I've noticed that recently whenever it rains one way I try to distract myself from fears and anxiety is to browse Facebook Marketplace and look for old 4x4 vehicles. Three specific vehicles I look for are the Suzuki Samurai, the Suzuki Vitara, and the Mitsubishi Pajero.

Before continuing, a quick update on what's been going on in the Philippines and Metro Manila specifically. Classes are now getting called off for the volume of rainfall. My daughter has had onsite, online, online asynchronous classes for almost two weeks now because of the weather.

The flood control scandal that was exposed last year has still not led to any arrest of the masterminds. We still get really bad flooding, in some areas in Metro Manila the floods are really crazy high.

So back to the reasons why I'm looking for those three specific models. I've seen snorkels fitted on those three. The gen 1 Vitara and the Pajero has automatic transmission variants here that were locally sold. Plus considering they're relatively old, while I'd feel bad making them try to wade floods I wouldn't mind sending them to fetch family members if the need arises.

Also the ones I've seen on Marketplace are relatively cheaper than some of the used cars I like checking out, like the Honda Jazz. Quite a number of them though do need work done, and not some work, a lot of work. As long as they're running and relatively reliable that means we have a good starting point.

Right now when the rains won't stop falling and I start getting reports of light floods along routes we pass we have to use my folks' Grandia to get us places. That's our best vehicle for floods, and not something we would use for deeper floods.

Again, I'm not saying I'm going to drive the snorkeled 4x4 vehicles into maybe waist deep or deeper floods, but at least in case of serious emergencies I'd have a "break-glass-in-case-of-fire" option.

Out.

1251 - Toy Car Dreaming

I just realized recently that whenever the Philippines enters wet season and we start getting crazy amounts of rain and flash floods that my dream car suddenly becomes some simple 4x4 vehicle. Most recently I've been gravitating to a classic Suzuki Samurai long-wheelbase, similar to the one my dad used to own.

This is most likely a knee-jerk reaction to things going on around me, but to be honest the Wigo is just too low to consider braving any flood, no matter how shallow. The Grandia is too massive and not really an ideal car to use either, except that is our go-to when the rains are pouring hard since the car does have a relatively nice clearance.

So here we go with the Samurai and my resto mod ideas. As always, before anything else it has to be reliable and the body has to be in great condition, no rust spots or anything. The first thing I'd do, which might be overkill, would be to install a snorkel system for the intake, and possibly the exhaust too? Just to make sure it could handle floods, not that I'd wade it through.

Another thing I would do to the Samurai would be to add two sets of additional lights. Both of them would be PIAA 2000 series lights, with one being yellow flood lights, and the other set white spot lights. Based on stuff I've watched and read online, the yellow flood lights would be for heavy rain and additional visibility. The white spots would be used for really dark places just for additional illumination. I would still rely on the stock (or modified?) headlamps, and would only use these additional lamps as needed. I even decided the switch for both lights would be on a three-way toggle. Off, floods, and floods + spot. And these would only turn on if the headlights are on.

Actually the snorkel and lights are the only relatively extreme mods I'd want on this theoretical Samurai build. I wouldn't want a higher ground clearance, preferring the stock ride height or maybe a one or two inch lift. I'd even keep the wheels as stock as possible, meaning stock rim diameter and thickness, same with the tires. Not even going with all-terrain tires since I'll most likely rarely drive this off road.

Basically I just want a toy car that I can daily and possibly use to fetch people if flash floods do happen when they're out.

Out.

1250 - Work Rejuvenation

I was recently moved to a new project at work. It's not something I can discuss in depth but what i can say is that I am a bit rejuvenated with the new project.

I hope to ride this wave and learn new things that will hopefully help me out in my career as I continue to grow my skills not just as a 3D artist, but as a Unity technical artist as well.

Out.