Author Topic: New member in SW Riverside County (Read 8879 times)

JFanaselle · « **on:** June 18, 2014, 04:58:16 PM »

Hello Everyone,

Just wanted to introduce myself and say hello to everyone! My name is Joe Fanaselle and I purchased a 2010 Xterra S model 4x4 just over 3 months ago. I have been lurking around TheNewX forum for a little while now and recently stumbled upon SCCX. I couldn't be happier that there is such a tight-knit community of Xterra and Frontier people in Southern California, as I noticed there wasn't much SoCal presence on TNX.

Anyway, a bit about myself - I am 32 years old and live in Murrieta with my wife and our 2 year old son. I work full time in San Diego (Rancho Bernardo) for Sony Electronics and also moonlight as a freelance photo journalist, shooting professional quality photos and video of breaking news incidents and providing the content to local media outlets (Press Enterprise, Union Tribune, Lane Media, Los Angeles TV Stations, etc). I spent several years as a firefighter before moving into the corporate life, so the photo journalism thing is a way to keep me close to my past life.

I am also a licensed HAM and GMRS radio operator (KF6QBY and WQII921).

As I mentioned, my rig is a 2010 S model 4x4, white in color. I purchased it used from a dealership in La Quinta with only 33,000 miles on it, and it's still in mostly-stock form. I have completed a few modifications, but nothing major in the performance category yet.

So far, I've installed a 40" Totron DC Series dual-row LED light bar, a Xoskel Bumper Mouth Bracket with four HID 4" offroad driving lights (a combination of cheap "platinum burner" walmart housings and equally-cheap DDM HID bulb/ballast kits), a dual battery set-up with isolator, a ham radio (Yaesu FT-7800 with the radio unit mounted under the passenger seat and the head mounted between the dash and shifter), in-dash Sony GPS head unit, and forward and rear facing amber colored warning/strobes.

I'm currently working on a custom roof rack addition (just using some unistrut and aluminum flat bar - I don't have the skills or equipment to weld) and adding some rear and side facing lighting (I LOVE lights, in case you can't tell!).

Anyway, I am excited to be a member of the group and look forward to meeting many of you and ending up on some runs in the near future. I'm trying to break the wife into the idea of off road expeditions, and finally convinced her to take a day-trip out into the Mojave Preserve a few weekends back. It was a blast and she had a great time, but we still have a lot of work to do.