what's up?

out and about

finally talked myself into getting out of bed last saturday, and showed up rather later than usual to the kustom car club’s monthly bbq out at legg lake.

saw several very nice cars leaving as i arrived. that always sucks that i missed shooting them, but it was my fault for my lateness. and i was taking the chance it wouldn’t get stupid hot outside after lunchtime. hate the heat. makes me all fainty, and burns my pale skin. give me a gloomy or rainy day anytime. i’m in a mood, i guess.

had a nice long chat with an acquaintance from san diego. far from home, but said his wife had sent him out for the day or weekend, while she visited with an ailing friend. said the brakes were out on his own car, so was driving hers.

there were enough cars to keep me busy for a bit. still not sure how long this old computer will last, but make hay while the sun shines, so they say.

i’ve had a long day at work, but feel the need to post something, before i’m forgotten. interesting mercury here. custom chop job. liked the tail lights and pinstriping.

i did have to boot up the better half’s computer to get my pics onto a hard drive, then bring it over here to this computer. haven’t decided if it’s worth using his computer instead; i don’t like the setup. and it’s only slightly less old than my own as well.

actually, i rarely turn on the computers at all lately. other things to do, and a day vanishes quickly when i get lost in the files.

can learn a lot about a person by the files on their computer, and how they’re arranged. smoke and mirrors. it was a nice dream, and now it’s done.

monterey

bomb club-06377And8more.jpg

bomb club2-8639.jpg

bomb club2-8629.jpg

looking back at the bomb club pre-show staging area at santa anita.

took advantage of the delayed entry into the tunnel, and shot pics up and down the three long lines of cars waiting, waiting, waiting. enjoyed the early morning overcast, and how it muted the colors of the cars.

saw this mercury amidst the other fine cars. it stood out for it’s interesting color, which was about the color i’d had my ex paint his vw bug once upon a time. also, don’t often run across these montereys.

monterey…wouldn’t mind taking a trip there right now, to escape the summer heat. at least the evenings have been cool…i suppose before fall, the nights will get sultry soon enough. oh, how i hate the heat. unless it’s a heated pool or jacuzzi.

i’m rambling. running on fumes, and should really be getting to bed, but waiting on my hair to dry, which i think is probably good ‘nuff now, so off i go to dream of other cars and trips and projects…retirement can’t come soon enough. so close, yet so far.

shoes

here’s a bright light on a cloudy day. it’s really, really orange. like fire. like fluorescent. it cuts through the gloom. it’s a fuckin’ beacon in the dark. everything is more drab because of it. i loved it.

and then it drizzled on it, and it kept on burning bright.

shoes on the wire above it, though you don’t really notice the dirty, dull white things so small in this shot, the car keeps your eyes’ attention.

thank you sir, may i have another?

i have too many cars sitting in the queue to posted, and nothing interesting to write about. so imma gonna just start throwing two or three up for a while, for no reason at all. make space for some fresh ones.

i have been getting a lot of emails lately from people asking for registration for shows or vendor sign ups. i then have to inform them that i only list shows i’m interested in, that i’ve heard about, or seen a flyer for.

curious as to why, i searched the internet. i think i know why—some bots have been crawling my site, and on some random page, and are showing me listed as the organizer. as if.

i end up digging up the flyers and sending them contact info. only a couple have written back to say thank you. they could have done their own digging, but it is my list, so i feel responsible. maybe i should take it down permanently, but it helps me remember what’s coming up, should i have the opportunity to get out.

this car is from a couple of years ago, at a fundraiser at jfk high school in la palma. been to a couple of shows there. usually a pretty good turnout. usually see some guys and cars that come out from closer to home, coming out and hitting up this show.

this one was just a beauty, and the color really popped under that sun that day.

sonata time

apparently, the xmas sonata is going on uptown. no idea what they’ve scheduled this year. usually at least a horse-drawn carriage and carolers. the carriage i could get into, but never have; the carolers, i could do without.

better half has hauled a buttload of xmas decorations into the house, and they are deciding what colors to use on the fruity tree. already know it’s toy story again for the theme, but now it’s what color balls to use <she said balls>. at least it gets his mom out of her bed and into her wheelchair.

i haven’t been home since last weekend, for random reasons, including rain and my mom’s garage door not wanting to open. this is the picture i was working on last week, when the fuse blew. yay the new photoshop actually does a decent job at recovering a picture after a crash vs frying the file.

knocked the color out, because the light flares were just oddly bugging me, but i still liked the car.

i probably mentioned it before, but it was odd the lot was so empty as compared to previous years at this time of morning. makes me want to sleep in too, but i like the early morning light too much.

i should talk. i haven’t been getting out to any shows at all for the last month. and the past weekend and this morning have been perfectly gray and cold. just not feeling up to it. i have all sorts of excuses, but i’ll just leave it at i haven’t had the energy to get out. miss you guys tho.

packed

bag is packed for a weekend in sf. one three hour meeting and i’m on my own until sunday. not supposed to rain, unlike here, where it started a couple of hours ago and will continue until after i take off tomorrow.

better half should hire someone to watch his mom and come with, but he’s had no time to even research that, especially on short notice.

no idea what i’ll do. taking the a6000, which isn’t my favorite camera. but it’s lighter and travels easier. i’ll take pictures that will never see the light of day, unless i come across a car show. haven’t looked one up and haven’t seen mention of one, so probably won’t happen.

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car from a lovely cloudy day last year that one time i made it out to a show at in-n-out in covina. don’t think they have it anymore…cops kept shutting it down i heard.

get baked

doing a lot of baking lately. stuff my dad would’ve liked. apparently, everyone at work is on a New Year’s resolution not to eat sweets. so then I’m stuck with this stuff and what to do with it.

Not going to sell it like the guy across the street, who says he doesn’t run a business from his house cooking stuff in his garage. going to ignore all the people that double park and pay him for something he’s not selling. he might be full of shit.

Better half is exhausted by the weekend and I always end up washing a load of dishes by hand in the sink, using gloves that fit his gigantor banana hands, but on me, feel like NASA space gloves. there are no fine motor movements going on here...i can hardly hold the sponge without it flying into the soapy water.

the thin womens’ gloves i usually use tore last time i used one to open a bottle cap—the rubber gives a better grip. (that’s what she said. ) i just haven’t gotten around to buying a new pair.

womens gloves are like one-thirty-second of an inch thick vs the one-sixteenth of stuff on his gloves. pretty sure he bought them at the hardware store and they are for like mixing cement or working with electrical cables.

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also had the weirdest whirlwind of a cold or flu over the weekend. had to leave the office early on friday cuz i felt like i was on a boat on rough seas, and i was listing to the right when i walked. fever jumped to not quite one-hundred and three that evening and for the next two days.

stayed home today with a lower fever in morning and a cough.

went to the doctor, who gave me cough med that will stop the cough but make me too sleepy to drive, maybe. plus, i’m still walking on a tipsy boat. see how things are in the morning. maybe i’ll show up to be shunned at work.

hey, i wasn’t patient zero this year…

do i still want to get a flu shot? no, never.

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missing my computer. here’s an old pic from last year at montebello park.

shadowy and windy. maybe it’s on the tipsy boat with me.

back home

finally made it home yesterday night. quite sure, i’ve completely used up my time off with pay for the year and then some. but an emergency is an emergency, and i am glad that i was there to help.

my brother is back home, physically all right. still a little on the loopy side, but hoping that will go away after he gets back on his regular schedule.

he has a lovely hospital bed smack in the middle of his office now, and will be visited daily by nurses or therapists or some such personnel.

hopefully i will not feel scared enough for him to have to fly back, but i would.

one more from dolphin park last week. isn’t it lovely?

countdown

i’m officially on vacation time, but still in town. already had a call from work yesterday, after one coworker realized i was still around. last minute edit to a poster needed yesterday evening. i was busy at the time, and had no access to work files, so got her to contact another designer, who lives closer to the office anyway. problem was solved, tragedy avoided. lol.

really, though, a few more days, and i’m gone, and really on vacation. i’ll be enjoying france and italy, while my better half stays behind with his mother. sucks. at least his niece and nephew will be coming down one weekend, to give him a short break from the monotony.

and for the new readers, no, i’m not planning trips without my better half; i sort of fell into it, taking the place of someone who cancelled on my kid. pretty sure i explained in some other post.

not sure what my connectivity will be over there, so i may not post anything until next month, not like i’m posting daily anymore anyway. i guess i really do need a reason to slow down and sniff the roses right now.

my dad has been in the hospital now, for two weeks, and about to get released to a nursing home for another week or two. pretty sure he will be mostly bedridden for the rest of his life, if he doesn’t partake of physical therapy this time, and really try to get off his ass more. hoping he’s around when i get back from vacation. mom has already said if something happens, it happens, no rush to get back. really.

another story i heard at work the other day:

coworkers were sitting outside at tables, eating their lunch. some guy, with an armload of packages, trips on the sidewalk in front of them. boxes pop open, contents fly everywhere.

turns out it was food.

the guy spends ten minutes scooping stuff back into the boxes with his bare hands, cleaning things up. he goes quickly back to his car with the boxes.

they go back to eating their lunch.

they see him again, this time carrying one of those food service delivery bags on his shoulder. hmm. they say.

he continues into the building. a few minutes later, they see the guy head back to the car with an empty bag, who gets in his car, and drives away.

a few ticks later, the male coworker, thinks, “hmm, did he just make a food delivery? of that food he just dropped?? OMG!!!”

they inquired at the receptionist of our company, when lunch was over, if there had been a delivery, and told the story of what they suspected happened. no one in our office. there are several businesses in our building, so security made some calls.

i think they figured out where it went, and security has footage of the whole food scooping incident, since he tripped right in front of one of the security cameras.

i’m gone from the office now, so won’t learn the rest of the story until i get back, if i even do then, since it was another company. hoping the people in that meeting noticed the extra grit in their meal and stopped eating it.

here’s a studebaker i saw about a month ago at ruby’s on a friday evening. i think i’ve only been there twice this season, and this particular evening was a piss-poor turnout. compared to previous years, there was hardly anything. don’t think there was a holiday, so i don’t know what was going on.

the front of these cars always look like they are smiling, so that’s the way i like to shoot them.

gotta get packing. i don’t know italian. i don’t know french. to quote my better half, who probably stole it from a movie, “i don’t speak french, i only kiss that way.”

waiting/stressing

why is it repairmen and plumbers always give you a two-hour window for their visit, knowing they will always be there in the last five minutes of said window? i know they are padding their time from the previous appointment, or are they expecting you to be the one running late?

i’m punctual. i’m on time. hell of a day going at work, and i had to get home to facilitate their schedule. dude has another forty-five minutes, then i’m just going to wait some more.

i will have to go back to the office to make up time, then probably stay later working on some hard deadlines.

the only bright spot in the day is that i knew about the staying late part. i brought my cameras, so i could possibly, actually make it out to the orange county cruise night at sonic in anaheim. i may be on my way back to whittier during show hours. hoping there may be a few cars to shoot anyway.

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here’s a merc i saw at pomona a few months’ ago. i liked the color. the fisheye distortion is a little much, but it just makes it look like it’s smiling.