It’s a sad thought but Joeyredmond.net has NOT been updated or maintained at all so I am going to move the blog to one of the “Staff” blogs at Wrecked Magazine. Currently as the head editor/part owner of the magazine that is where I seem to spend all of my off time from doing client work so it makes sense to stick my blog over there. Now go visit the blog, I promise you this one will stay updated!!!!!!!

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

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Quite frankly words cannot describe how I feel about the Atlanta Thrashers moving forward into 2008. A failed defensive stacking….no coach….horrible owners. Someone please do me a favor and can we get some owners with a brain and perhaps passion? I mean let’s let the Atlanta Spirit manage the Hawks because no one in Atlanta cares about them last time I checked? Marian Hossa is playing for the Penguins when he is still on every piece of advertising related to the Thrashers in Atlanta! Let’s get a new owner like Mark Cuban!? Does he want to run a hockey team?  Aside from my random vents on hockey in Atlanta I have to thank Seth for the great seats he scored for the game.

The view from behind our seats into the suites.

Someone a penalty was actually called in our favor at one point in the game where  the Thrashers were able to receive a penalty shot! We even managed to score on it and almost win the game until we blew it in OT. At least we got 1 point!

After the game I got ready to say bye to Atlanta and head to SXSW in Austin, Texas.

I met up with Michael and Brittany at the Dome and got ready for AMA Supercross! We took our place up in the box and got ready for the start. We had a perfect view of the whole track from our seat.

The introductions went off with a bang as Ricky Carmichael graced the crowd and ran some freelance laps as this place went nuts.

Here is a bunch of guys racing for the holeshot in the lite race.

Finally we got treated to the main event and the race was off.

At the end of the main event  Chad Reed took home first place and here he is crossing the finish line at the Georgia Dome.

After about 4 hours in Atlanta I headed back to the airport to fly out to St. Louis and do a photoshoot on Susan’s R34 Skyline for an advertisement.

Chuck picked me up from the airport and we headed to a place called Pio’s in St. Charles. It’s a family owned resteraunt from the 50’s and had some fantastic veal parmesan.

After Pio’s we hit up Ameristar Casino for a long night of card playing. After that we headed back to the house and rested up for the big shoot tomorrow.

It was nice to spend a day relaxing and enjoying the Super Bowl at a friends house out in California.

Super Bowl Sunday was luckily in a dome or it could of been plagued by some bad weather. It rained most of the day in California.

His girls didn’t care much for football so found as many other things they could do to bother us during the game. Gotta love little kids. I think they are all convinced that I am their annoying Uncle who only comes for certain event and takes random pictures of them for no reason.  Here they are enjoying the Super Bowl.

Shortly after the game I rushed to LAX to catch my flight back to Atlanta so I could grab some clean clothes, switch to my camera gear and fly out on the afternoon flight to St. Louis.

After filming I hung out in Socal for a few days to catch up with some friends and get some business done while in town. I woke up and brought our equipment to the UPS Store and got a good laugh at these guys trying to box it up.

After that I swung by LAX, back to Anahiem and then headed to Hollywood for lunch. My friend is leaving Five Star Suites off Argyle where I have spent many nights on the couch. This place will be greatly missed!

This is a view out his living room window. If you look carefully in Slide America we shot one of the time lapses outside this window that made it into the final production of the film.

I have actually filmed a ton of stuff off his porch as well. The sun rises straight behind the downtown LA in the morning and it looks amazing.

We headed to my favorite resteraunt in Hollywood called Bossa Nova. It is a Brazilian place tucked away on Sunset and La Brea. A very small place with a nice open air dining area and delicious food.

After lunch I made my way out west to Pasadena. I snapped this photo driving down Sunset Blvd. while sitting in excruciating traffic that went no where for at least two hours.

I finally made it to the Pasadena Production Studio to return some equipment from our shoots and walked down the street to a friends office complex. After catching up on some work we hopped in his car and went to pick up his girls from school and took them to Jumpin Jammin!

Once we brought his daughters back home I got unpacked at my new place and got ready for dinner with my friend Kate and we headed back to old town to eat at Louise’s Trattoria! After that we made a quick trip to Hollywood to pick up some camera equipment and then headed back home.

Our last full day in Japan we had no work to do and we were allowed to roam free around Osaka. I had some pretty comfortable bearings at this point with Japan and how to order at McDonald’s so I went and ventured out and about.Here is the map of the subway system in Osaka.

I was with Dave Pankew and we hopped off the subway in Shinsaibashi-Suji where they have an excellent promenade mall.

Everyone in Japan is hyped on Pachinko it seems like. It is a way more fun form of gambling than slot machines so we need to work on getting a ton of these in Vegas.

My second favorite arcade I found was here and it was called Big Joy. The one downside is it lacked some of the automotive games I wanted to check out but was very fun nonetheless.

We came across a SanRio store that had a geisha Hello Kitty out front which was awesome. I also bought a friend some ninja hello kitty stuff.

Then we paid a visit to Car Studio which is home to D-max Body Kits and several other companies.

The best arcade we found in Japan was owned by SEGA. It was in the middle of the mall and they had Initial D 4 and Maximum Tune 3. They had some old throwback SEGA video game machines which were a ton of fun.

This was a big Kate Spade advertisement in the middle of Suji. I had to take a picture of it for Beth because she is a Kate Spade fiend!

Right by the Kate Spade sign look what pulled up at the light as we waited to cross the street in Osaka. I cannot wait until the BMW 1 series comes to the states.

A Honda Odyssey on sick Work Wheels! The Odyssey in Japan has a chopped roof compared to the USDM one and it has a more aggressive front end similar to the Honda Integra Type R. This is an older model of the car but they were heavily modified all over the place in Japan. I found a StyleWagon book on them at Super Autobachs that I have been thumbing through.

We also checked out Rays Engineering on the other side of town very quickly with Yoni.

I got around to visiting downtown Tokyo finally on Sunday after the Auto Salon. It was a blast and very similar in style to New York City.

This photo was taken right outside the convention center.

A huge ferris wheel from the subway just down the road from Magic Kingdom in Tokyo.

We arrived in Roppongi Hills after a long subway ride from Chiba and found a sign to Hollywood Plaza. Hollywood in Japan?

A Mercedes Benz in front of the Armani store in Roppongi. An Aston Martin V12 Vanquish flew by me while taking this photo.

This is one last shot from Roppongi Hills while walking on an overpass. We were trying to find a resteraunt that I am pretty sure didn’t exist.

We headed to the center of Tokyo after leaving Roppongi to grab some dinner. We scored some food at a place called First Kitchen which was fantastic. I had an egg hamburger which was awesome.

I spotted a DC2 Honda Integra Type R from the window at First Kitchen. I was way to excited about this to begin with but here you go…….

Here were some guys playing urban soccer that we found.

This was a sign at the subway station.

This was an advertisement for a movie called Taxi 4. Aside from missing Queen Latifah an actual taxi, the advertisement has a car flying through the air!? I dunno, it looks more like Crazy Taxi the movie. Someone do me a favor and send me this from Japan if you come across it in stores. I am anxious to see what it is all about.

This candy is called G Fresh! It is basically like those gummy Coca Cola bottle candies you can buy but they were like the Fanta Grape version. They were pretty good.

So I arrived in Japan around 4:00pm off my Northwestern flight. We hung around till about 5:30 when we hopped on the bus to Chiba. I Chiba we got a taxi to our hotel which is about 20 minutes from the Tokyo Auto Salon. We didn’t get to see/do much because most of the guys from Exedy were dieing due to jetlag and the fact that it was the wee hours of the morning back at home in Detroit. I took this from our taxi cab in Chiba, 711 in Japan!

and our taxi cab in Chiba.

For diner we ate at a local steakhouse that served beef from Australia. It was very good, I had the “thick steak.” They also served glass Coca-Cola! I went for a little stroll with Mr. Uno and our hotel happens to be right by a Honda dealership. This Honda Integra Type R was sitting right outside on the front lot. It’s list price was right around $2,000,000 yen. What a deal….I wish I could buy one of these in the states.

This is in our elevator, I think I might visit the public bath in the morning? Haha, I hope that is a swimming pool…..

Last but not least is myself sitting at my miniature desk in my hotel room. I went to the mart and scored some excellent Coca Cola products and this orange candy. No idea what it is but it tastes really good. More from me tomorrow, as we are going to the Tokyo Auto Salon! I cannot wait.

I swung downtown to check out the World of Wheels show with a couple friends and enjoy the rat rod/old school car scene. It was a great time and fairly large show with about 300 cars in attendance. We managed to dodge the crowd and attend Friday afternoon which was a great move.

Here are some shots of the rat rods from the show.

Here is an old school Ford.

I had to save the best for last….and if you know me I have been going on and on about these 50’s Oldsmobile coupes and how I really want one like yesterday. This one could use a better color scheme but here she is.