Here’s a sneaky shot I took of Suga, 6am, headphones on, in the zone, working on her new VW Golf Forum before having to go to work. When she comes home from work she’s straight on the computer working on VWgolf.net.au ’till late too! Obsessive! I approve!

Yeah it looks like I’ve got Whooping Cough, crap aye? I’m a huge whinger too and being a grumpy bum and whinging heaps doesn’t make it any better but my lovely fiancé (She’s the bestest!) bought me this little fella:

Haha so cute huh?!

Cough even comes with coughing facts.

I really really really really want this.

A few nights ago Christina and I had a discussion about starting an Australian specific Volkswagen Golf forum. A few glasses of wine later (!) the snowball effect kicked in and we were on the laptop looking for domain names. The very next day we were at the department of fair trading office registering a business name.

A quick Wikipedia search on the VW Golf concreted our excitement: The Golf has been manufactured by Volkswagen since 1974 and marketed worldwide across six generations. It was Volkswagen’s first successful replacement for the Volkswagen Beetle and historically, it’s Volkswagen’s best-selling model and the world’s third best-selling model. The GTi is also the world’s first “hot hatch”.

Founding a community might be a hard thing for many but I’ve so far successfully founded three of them (Australian INfront, JDM Style Tuning and Bikes Move Us). Graphic design and web design is what we do, and to us it comes naturally. It’s also “free” for us as we don’t have to pay designers and coders to do the work for us.

Yes, the business name registration, domain name registration web hosting and VBulletin forum software cost us a few hundred dollars, but it’s nowhere near as much as setting up a physical business and it’s money we’re willing to lose so long as we have fun along the way and so long as we give it a mighty good shot at succeeding.

The concept behind VWgolf.net.au is simple. An Australian based Volkswagen Golf forum which embraces all models of Golfs VW has ever made. Hopefully the organisation of offline meets will be made easy through the forum, as well as sharing experiences and information relating to VW Golfs.

One thing I’ve learnt with communities is that you can’t get very far without people. Apart from investing a lot of time into design and the creation of content a call to action has to be made. Specifically inviting respected VW Golf owners from other internet forums is a good start and inspiring new members to spread the news and invite fellow Golf owners to sign on is a must.

So yesterday was our first day. We redelegated our new domain name to my web server, bought the latest version of VBulletin, uploaded and installed it and we’ve been working on it all night and will most likely continue to put a lot of obsessive compulsive energy into it for the next few months. We’ve launched the site without an identity, we’ll be designing the identity as we go along as it’s the internet afterall, liquid as you can change anything and everything as you go.

Please visit and check the progress of: www.vwgolf.net.au

Last night I had an impromptu Chinese New Years dinner with the Locks. Kenny sold his restaurant in Epping but he’s still running his takeaway shop which has been around for over 20 years.

Communal table.

Soup, which was all I felt ilke eating (partly because of my teeth!). I’m also still coughing. Mum’s cough has developed into whooping cough so I’m hoping that’s not what I’ve got?! If I’m still coughing next week I’ll book myself in to the doctors.

When I was a kid I visited the dentist a lot in a very short period of time. He was in Randwick, Dr. Silvia was his name and he pulled a whole lot of teeth out before they needed to come out. His kid was the same age as me and he still had all his first teeth where I had none. Turns out they shut the guy down as he was a crook, he needed the money and he just worked me (and my teeth).

My 2nd dentist wasn’t any better. And since I was 10 I’ve only been to the dentist twice, until yesterday, which was my 3rd visit to the dentist since I was 10.

Christina took (forced) me to her local dentist. He had me on the chair before I could argue (smart guy). He outright refused to believe my gums were hyper sensitive and he refused to give me happy gas (damn), or injections to numb the pain (bastard). I paid him out for being a sadistic fucker, that dentists must enjoy this shit, he wholeheartedly agreed!

Tools of death. ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!?!?!?!?! Fuuuuuuuuuuu!

More tools of death.

OK, so yeah it wasn’t so bad (especially now that it’s over!). My teeth are in good shape and he was pretty gentle on me so here’s a free plug for the guy.

Best corn fritters so far. Better than Bills, easy.

Christina’s first registered business name.

I removed these really ugly clear protector stickers off the rear quarter panel on the Skyline and on the passenger side they came off perfectly. No difference in colour too, perfect!

BUT…

On the drivers side the bottom sticker on the skirt came off perfectly but the one above it took off some clearcoat?!?!?!?!?!?!

WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!

I contacted JDMST forum sponsor/detailer DaveXR8 from Reflect Effect who came over earlier today to work his magic on it.

He had a paint thickness meter which determinded that the paint on the drivers side rear quarter panel was thicker than the OEM paint on the rest of the car.

Great! (not). So the panel has at some point been resprayed by a dodgey panel beater that didn’t bother to take off the clear protection decal, instead they just cleared right over it!

The only thing Dave could do was reduce the very visible and sharp and crisp line between the OEM clearcoat which was under the clear decal and the thicker clearcoat on top.

He went at the car with wet and dry sandpaper and a lot of water, he used the paint thickness meter a lot to make sure he wasn’t rubbing back too much and he also used a special cutting compound and sponge.

It took about an hour all up, great guy, great conversations, great job. Looks like I’ve found myself a new detailer!

Free plug: Dave from Reflect Effect:
http://www.reflecteffect.com.au

Christina and I set up a new joint bank account today which will pay for all our bills (direct debit of-course, lazy but so efficient!). Westpac were awesome to us, set-up was easy, lady was lovely, heaps of great internet banking features to save on charges too (perfect!).