Best Of
Re: Importing a car from Japan
My turn to actually import one. My path was slightly different than BuddyJ's, but everything he posted is still valid.
Went searching on https://carfromjapan.com/. It's not an auction site, so there's no bidding. They have just about any kind of vehicle you could possibly want. In my case, I found a 1995 Toyota Hiace Super Custom Limited with 55,800km (just under 35k miles). The interior looked to be in great condition, and it even had a few surprise features like an ice maker and water heater between the front seats. The price was pretty good too.
Feb 27: Sent a message inquiring about the condition and had a good conversation with Mr. Ken. He assured me that it's in good mechanical condition, although the air conditioning didn't work well and there's a bit of rust due to the age.
Feb 29: Payment sent, name, address, and shipping port confirmed
Mar 1: Payment receipt confirmed
Mar 20: Export certificate sent electronically. It's in Japanese.
Apr 9: Export certificate sent electronically. This time it's the English translation.
Apr 23: Estimated shipping schedule received. It should depart Japan on May 14 and arrive in Freeport June 11. Final opportunity to make any changes to shipping instructions.
May 8: Bill of Lading released. Electronic copy sent.
May 14: Car departs Japan on the Hoegh Jedda, a vehicle transport ship. Fun fact: you can track almost any ship's movement via https://marinetraffic.com.
May 17: Contacted the freight forwarder (long story) and started the process to arrange transportation from Freeport to my house.
May 20: Shipping agent releases Surrendered Bill of Lading. Electronic copy sent. The real one will be sent via FedEx.
June something: Ship stays in port in Jamaica for an extra day or two. Maybe weather related, no idea.
June 3: BuddyJ's "Cost Group 2" logistics worked out with the freight forwarder and payment sent via wire transfer. They didn't offer a credit card method for some reason (didn't ask).
June 12: Ship arrives in Freeport, TX
June 14 @noon: Freight forwarder calls to say the vehicle is being picked up that day (Friday) and will be delivered early Saturday morning.
June 14 @6pm: Freight forwarder calls to say the driver arrived 15 minutes after the port closed, so he won't be able to pick the van up until Monday morning, but he will be at the gate when they open. Cool. I'm leaving for Detroit in the morning, so I gave him BuddyJ's contact information as well (and separately arranged for a couple of backups just in case).
June 17 @1pm: Got a text from the freight forwarding company stating the driver arrived at the port at 8am and got the van loaded at noon. Delivery would be somewhere between 9-10pm.
June 17 @9:15pm: BuddyJ sends two videos from my driveway. The first is the truck pulling up to the house with the van on the trailer. The second is the van starting up in my driveway. He parks it in the garage and lets me know the couple minor things he saw that need fixing.
And that brings us to today.
So, here are my thoughts on the whole process:
First, keeping in mind the CFJ folks are actually in Japan, response times are delayed, but Mr. Ken was very good about getting back to me as soon as possible. Any question I had he answered clearly and to the best of his knowledge. Would I go through them again? Absolutely.
Second, the freight forwarder I used was not the same one BuddyJ used. For some reason I couldn't get his contact to return my phone calls, and when I finally did get hold of someone, they said they don't do customs clearing. BuddyJ then recommended Penbroke Cartainer. I was able to get in touch with them through their Customs House Brokerage contact link. They've been around long enough and have a good reputation which is why I was ok with doing the wire transfer. They were very prompt with communication, charged very reasonable prices, and worked with me to get the cost down as much as possible - things like an itemized invoice to break the vehicle, shipping, and other costs to separate line items. They managed to knock around $300 off the initial estimate thanks to things like that. The cost to get the van through customs and to my door was just over $2k (the van was significantly more expensive than the Suzuki or the Beat). Would I go through them again? Yep.
I'll post pics when I get home from Expo.
![mertesn](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/976/nAGGFZ2MTOM10.jpg)
Re: Anyone still having fun with overclocking?
Hi, Marcus. I don't spend much time OCing CPU or GPU, as manufacturers have gotten a lot better at giving you everything the silicon can do out of the box. But memory OC is still pretty rewarding, and that's where I've been spending my time.
![Thrax](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/629/nT6WKEOCAJNOJ.png)
Re: Icrontic Board Meeting: 8 June 2024
We also passed a resolution officially thanking the Transition Team for their work last year! That was @BobbyDigi, @GnomeQueen, @Annes, @Winfrey, @Garg, @Sazbean, @primesuspect, & me. Thanks all!
The Board hereby resolves to recognize and thank the Transition Team for their hard work, insight, and dedication to Icrontic in the drafting of the Bylaws of the Icrontic Social Club thereby ensuring Icrontic’s continued success into the future. The Transition Team is: Brian Ambrozy, Lincoln Russell, Sarah Worsham, Jonathan Rush, Charles Winfrey, Anne Baynes, Jackie DiOrio, Bobby Cometa (aka Bobby Digital).
![Linc](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/279/nS5SVFJRG75KL.jpg)
Icrontic Board Meeting: 8 June 2024
Hello Icrontic!
On 8 June 2024 we had the second Board of Trustees meeting for the Icrontic Social Club. This was our first time meeting as a "complete" board! I was joined by @primesuspect, @sazbean, @ghoosdum, and @massalinie. We're excited to make a few announcements from our very productive 3.5-hour session.
First, we officially added @ghoosdum & @massalinie to the Board and selected board officers. For the term ending 1 Aug 2025, our President will be @sazbean, our Treasurer will be @ghoosdum, and I'll be our Secretary.
Second, we established an official system for club membership, Code of Conduct, and official communication channels. Those were announced separately.
Third, we approved the mission & scope for our first two committees. They will be the Membership Committee and the Moderation Committee. We'll explain them in greater detail and solicit volunteers in a separate announcement.
There's still lots to do! Our next Board meeting will be the first day of Expo, 19 June.
![Linc](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/279/nS5SVFJRG75KL.jpg)
Icrontic Membership: How to join Icrontic
Icrontic is many things, but at its core it is a social club made up of members.
Membership in Icrontic is not required to participate in the community, attend events, or game with Icrontic folks, but membership carries with it the benefit of having a voice in the shape and future of the community. Some of the benefits of membership include:
- Eligibility for board seats and committee positions!
- Swag! (Including a very nifty official membership card!)
- Receiving official club announcements and communications!
- Potential discounts on events and activities!
- Respect and admiration of your peers!
- A special role in our Discord server!
- Probably a lot more!
Membership is granted on an annual basis, and is $5 per year. If you participate in ANY Icrontic event that has a ticket cost or fees associated, that purchase also includes membership if you'd like (e.g. all paid Expo attendees are eligible to become members). Membership can also be sponsored by another member if you are unable to pay!
In order to be eligible for membership, you must be 13 years old and you must agree to the Icrontic Bylaws and to abide by the Icrontic Code of Conduct
To sign up as a member,:
- STEP 1: Fill out this form: https://forms.gle/g4wgq4bejo21TWP8A
- STEP 2: Until we have a better mechanism in place, send $5 to @Linc via Paypal, CashApp, or Venmo per the instructions on the form. If you have bought a 2024 Expo ticket, just fill out the form and we'll handle it manually since your ticket includes eligibility.
Membership is opt-in so if you DON'T want to be a member, that's fine!
Announcing the full Board of Trustees for 2024
We had a truly outstanding group of folks nominated to be on the Icrontic Board of Trustees. Thank you to everyone who nominated themselves and others!
The initial board (Sarah, Brian, and myself) sat down to consider them all on Sunday, 5 May and talked about how we hope to see things organized. After a thorough discussion of all the candidates, we realized we could move forward much quicker than planned.
We want the Board to strictly be an oversight body. They set the guardrails on governance, interpret the Charter, and provide a backstop for accountability. And… that’s about it. We don’t want the Board to get directly involved in things like organizing events, moderating Discord, or managing where we keep files & photos.
These areas and many others are (or will soon be) places for leadership in our community. We hope EVERY single person nominated volunteers for prominent roles in the committees that will soon be forming, because we need their support.
As an oversight body, everyone has to live with the results if the Board decides something. Who would everyone trust to make sober, considered but also emotionally intelligent choices when it really mattered? Empathy & curiosity were at the top of our list for priorities.
After thoroughly reviewing all the candidates, we had enthusiastically unanimous agreement on exactly two. We also decided it was best to start conservatively with a 5-person Board, leaving open the possibility of a bigger Board in the future if it’s warranted. Therefore, we chose to SKIP the planned interview process and move forward immediately with those two appointments.
We’re excited and pleased to announce that Emily McRae (@Massalinie) and Rob Updegrove (@GHoosdum) will be rounding out the first full term for the Icrontic Board of Trustees.
Please join us in congratulating our new trustees!
![Linc](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/279/nS5SVFJRG75KL.jpg)
Nominations for the Icrontic Board of Trustees are now open
Hello friends, I'm happy to announce the wait is over! You can nominate yourself or another Icrontic member to the new Board of Trustees using this form: https://forms.gle/JrxuiBqJfWsjyZcS6
Please make your nominations by the end of April!
Not sure what this means? Read the background: The path to the Icrontic Board of Trustees — especially read the charter attached to my last comment there!
We will be selecting no fewer than two additional Board members. Our process for selecting additional trustees will be for the current Board (myself, Brian, and Sarah) to select a pool of finalists from the applications received and conduct one interview per candidate at a time that's convenient for all 4 of us. We'll then make our final selections.
Joining the Board is an act of volunteerism for the community. It does not involve directly moderating members nor technically running our systems. It is the oversight body for all Icrontic business that appoints the leadership for those areas. Experience working as part of a committee is valuable but not required.
Feel free to post your questions here or in the Discord #meta channel.
![Linc](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/279/nS5SVFJRG75KL.jpg)
Hark! Icrontic's first Board of Trustees
As part of ongoing preparations for the Helium Wars, we've taken steps to ensure the continuity of our command structure. Please stand by for—
ahem. What I meant to say—
We've been working on a transition plan for moving the community from a private-ownership structure to a board-led structure. It's not about making big changes to the community, it's about creating a more predictable power structure & accountability that doesn't rest on one person's shoulders. We were all set to nominate our Board when I realized we had a chicken-and-egg problem. If we're trying to move to a less owner-centric model, isn't a bit weird to hand-pick the entire board without more input? On the other hand, we haven't even defined "membership" yet, and auditable elections would be an administrative nightmare on top of that.
Our solution? Form a minimum "first" Board to select the rest of the Board.
I am pleased to announce that as of last night (20 Mar 2024) around 8PM ET that Icrontic is no longer a privately-owned endeavor and, in fact, has a Board of Trustees. The inaugural members are myself (Lincoln Russell), @primesuspect (Brian Ambrozy), and @Sazbean (Sarah Worsham). We'll be choosing at least 2 additional Board members to be officially seated at the start of the annual term (per the bylaws), 1 August.
We met at La Palma in Detroit and signed the official paperwork. A bonus unimpressed @Pink is also included.
To do this bit of legal gymnastics, we added an Article 8 to the charter, establishing how we made the transition.
As there's still no legal club entity this is all symbolic, but I think it's an important one. Icrontic no longer has co-owners, it has a Board of Trustees. May it provide another 25 years of fun and shenanigans. Cheers!
![Linc](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/279/nS5SVFJRG75KL.jpg)
Re: Dune - What am I missing?
Its not for you.? I have never been able to read Dune because it was too dry for me but I do really enjoy those types of universes, BattleTech and 40k, even if I don't actively participate in them.
For me I enjoyed the movie over all because it felt like they totally nailed the universe. A feudal galaxy that can move slowly and grind the population of an entire planet up for power and control because people are just another resource to exploit but on a planetary scale. The story of Dune is one where multiple factions that have been planning for something over 1,000s of years are getting dunked on hard. I don't feel like I am gonna sell you on it but its the kind of high level aspects that really interest me regarding the long plot. Like 40k where a planet decides to not pay tribute and they think their freedom is true but in reality the paper work hasn't gotten high enough up in reports to warrant a space marine squad or inquisitor to show up and murder the entire ruling class and replace them. The grander scale of a galactic empires that have funky quirks in how they would operate due to scale and time is my interest.
I hate Blade Runner, original movie, but the book really pulled me in.
![_k](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/725/n89EUL0AOANYR.jpg)
Re: A path to an Icrontic Board of Trustees
Hello friends, I'm back with an update.
The transition team was appointed and began its work on 26 Feb. I really appreciated the amount of interest we got; we only ended up selecting less than half the folks who put their name in the hat so we could keep the group small and focused. Our transition team included, in addition to Brian and I: @GnomeQueen @BobbyDigi @Sazbean @Garg @Annes and @Winfrey.
I'm excited to announce we concluded our work in late August, having produced an initial charter for the establishment of a Board of Trustees.
The goal of the charter is to create a basic framework for oversight and serve as a legal tool for governance. It's purposefully vague on a number of things, like how things will be managed day-to-day. That's up to the future board to decide!
In the end, we chose a Social Club (a legal definition under the IRS) as the best way to organize formally. If you choose to examine the charter, you'll notice there are references to defining membership and membership dues. These are legal necessities; it's not foreshadowing that we're going to start charging money to be on the Discord server, or anything like that.
We paid a special amount of attention to defining what this community represents, so we could define that to the best of our ability in the charter. This is what we came up with:
Icrontic curates experiences in gaming, hobbies, self-care, and mutual support. Icrontic values being an inclusive and welcoming community.
It's very difficult to retroactively define a 20-year old community, and I'm proud of the effort and care the transition team put into succinctly defining it while being neither overly broad nor needlessly exclusive.
Beyond governing itself, one of the most important sections of the charter is the establishment of committees. Icrontic already has a few standing committees: Admins, Moderation, and Expo Planning. Eventually, these will be formally set by the board, and the board will govern (or delegate) their membership. Building processes around this will make it clearer how to participate in a committee, what the rules are, and how to make changes.
The initial board will be set by Brian and I, and will be self-sustaining thereafter, choosing its own replacements. There are no term limits in the charter, but we do specify 2-year terms to create a logical time for folks to retire. And of course, the board is free to change this process at any point in the future by amending the charter, which is also defined in the document.
I’m happy to answer any question you have about the charter publicly or privately. I do ask that you take a moment to read the entire document first and consider it; it’s a bit more complex than it initially seems.
My hope is to open nominations for the board soon and have a board seated by Expo and ready to begin their inaugural term on 1 August. We’ll share a form for you to nominate yourself or another Icrontian (with their consent, please) and then we’ll conduct brief interviews before selecting a final slate and announcing it to the community.
Thanks for your patience as we worked through this process, your daily support in making this community a desirable place to be, and especially to the transition team to their months of effort earlier this year. As we look forward to our 20th Expo, we’re as strong as we’ve ever been. I hope this charter gives us the tools to grow even further.
![Linc](https://icrontic.com/uploads/userpics/279/nS5SVFJRG75KL.jpg)