Bal Harbour Beach in Florida

Beach Patrol, a photo by Mark A. Vargas on Flickr.

These women are health conscious. They seem to take a brisk walk on the wet sands of the beach at Bal Harbour. While they walk through the sand and the lashing small waves, they seem to enjoy talking and laughing too. That is a nice way to burn away some excess fat deposits and fight obesity.

Unlike the name suggests, Bal Harbour is a village Florida’s Miami-Dade County. Most of the traffic running south to north through Bal Harbour is Collins Avenue, that is, the Florida State Highway A1A.

Bal Harbour is an small but affluent Village that is home to Bal Harbour Shops, one of the richest shopping areas in the world in terms of revenue yield per square foot area. It is home to some of the topmost international designer brands. Interestingly, the neighboring Indian Creek boasted of the highest incomes in the United States in the late twentieth century.

Fernando Botero: Reclining Woman

Reclining Woman Statue: Fernando Botero Sculptures Exhibit, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Coral Gables, Miami-Dade, FL. This is Fernando Botero's "Reclining Woman" statue displayed at Fairchild Garden.

Hot US models' photoshoot for customized cars

Customized cars are very popular with the well-heeled and the younger generation automobile users. Customization can be for many purposes, either to modify a latest model vehicle to meet personal choices and styles, or to modify and use vintage cars or classic automobiles. It is not limited to cars but, anything that runs on the road mechanically, including bikes, trucks, pickups, trailers, etc. can be customized.

A passenger vehicle can be modified in many ways. A custom car may be altered to improve its performance by altering or replacing the engine and transmission. Or, a car may be a personalized as a personal style statement by the re-styler or re-builder of custom cars. They make the car look unique, dissimilar to factory finished cars. Customs are distinct from hot rods, the typically American cars with large engines modified for linear speed.

To begin with, the development of hot-rodding, the change in the design of the cars being modified, was for pre-World War II cars, with running boards and simple fenders over the wheels – running boards allowing people to stand on it even while riding. Then they were further modified by removing running boards, either removing the fenders entirely or replacing them with very light cycle fenders.

The objective was to put the most powerful engine in the lightest possible frame and body combination. The suspension was usually altered to make the car lower. The front was often made much lower than the rear. Gradually some hot rods and custom cars swapped the old solid rear axle for an independent rear axle, often from Jaguar. Only rarely was the grille of one make of car replaced by another. The original hot rods were plainly painted like the Model A Fords from which they had been built up, and only slowly begun to take on colors, and eventually fancy orange-yellow flamed hoods or candy-like deep acrylic finishes in the various colors.

However, for those who like custom cars, there is no limitation of anything, only your imagination, fashion and style requirements to suit your glamour quotient, the depth of your pocket and, of course, a skilled, knowledgeable re-builder, make all the difference. If it is a style statement for the well-heeled, it is a big business for re-builders of custom cars.

Hot Import Nights 2008, Miami

Photoshoot with Carolina Spidel

Photoshoot with Carolina Spidel, Miss HIN Orlando 2008, in Orlando, FL along with an Infiniti G35 and Acura NSX.