what's up?

bird feeder

i’m sitting here waiting on a delivery my kid ordered to the wrong address. the people on the hotline were too lazy to do their jobs, and didn’t want to bother changing the delivery location, so there we are.

out the front window, i have a hummingbird feeder. initially, it was very popular with the birds.

then i bought a new mix of food. not so many birds. then another brand, same.

there’s a cat, that likes to sit on the edge of the porch and watch the feeder intently. the dog barks at the cat everyday,

they went away for a while. my work day was a little more dull.

then i started mixing my own bird food with recipes from the internet. and i’ve found one they like. basically sugar water. so what i’m figuring, hummingbirds are just tiny little diabetics. or sugar addicts.

was confirmed this week that we’ll be required to be back in the office next month. i’ll miss the little flying spastics, the barking dog, and the cat that likes to pee in the neighbor’s planter early each morning. that neighbor is an asshole, so my hero, the cat.

i need to go shopping. i hate my old work clothes. i need shoes. i hate shopping. this will not be fun. i’ll miss working in my jammies with messy hair.

i had cut my hair the last time they said we’d go back to the office, then everything shutdown before we did. maybe i should cut my hair again…

i work late, because the work can’t wait, and my better half is still living in whittier.

they gave us a second computer, so i could still do work from home if needed.

better half gets to work from home permanently. he’s moving here next month, so the timing is great. i go back, and he stays home. sort of jealous.

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watched this beauty drive up and drop down. waited for people to move along to get a decent shot. it’s all right, i guess.

new camera. color is a little off, so i guess the color balance is a bit out of whack.

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these delivery boys are almost out of their delivery window. i guess i’ll hurry up and keep waiting.

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update: they just called. almost didn’t answer because of another situation. their truck broke down and had to reschedule. [shocker] did it really, now, or did you just not want to deliver at five o’clock? day wasted, sort of.

right. i’m off to whittier then. ttfn.

pizza

uptown whittier, just ordered pizza. so i have a few minutes to spare.

went out to the fundraiser for brother richard this past weekend. i’m sure i’d seen him around, but probably never spoke to him. he had a lot of friends, judging by the number of cars and groups of people attending.

weather was perfect for mid-morning. should have gone earlier, but things had need of doing first. still wrestling with the new camera and lens settings.

shot this car as i was heading back around to my car. better half was waiting at home—had to make a storage unit run—did i mention we are moving? his mother is gone and i get my condo back soon, so nothing holding us here. going to be closer to my mom now, where i am living ninety-nine percent of the time now anyway.

on-screen, full-size, this car glows. seems pretty sharp where i wanted it focused, but the lens does start fuzzing out towards the edges. need to find it’s sweet spot.

pizza ready. walking back.

tippy toes

quick post, since i’m up late, and only in town for the night.

made it out to pico park last weekend, for the together car club’s toy drive. met their president, who greeted me warmly.

i had only a couple of hours to get out, or i would have headed to another show, but there were enough cars there to fill the time.

i really haven’t been out to a show in a few months, so this was good enough, and not too far from the house.

i’ve seen this bike before, i think over at frisco’s a couple of years ago. it’s posted here somewhere. that was a night shot. here in the bright mid-day sun, you can really appreciate the paint and the airbrushing all over it.

i am sort of wondering what the thing above the headlights is; at this point, i’m calling it the sorting hat from harry potter. is this bike for slytherin?

who knows when i’ll ever have enough time to work on a lot of pictures again, so i’ll just go ahead and put up some preliminary thumbnails of some of the shots i took below.

also stopped at this one

since it was sort of on the way home from the veteranos’ show yesterday, and also on the way to in-n-out, i thought i’d just drive by the pico rivera veterans day show. had i not driven up the street, and found a nice, big space to parallel park in, i would have just kept going toward my lunch. but there it was, right on queue. guess it was meant to be.

i did stop, pretty much for about half an hour. saw a lot of my favs, and also a lot of cars i could care less about. i was starting to feel a bit wavy, so just did a quick run around half of the cars. didn’t go anywhere near the stage. didn’t even stop and chat with the usual people i would have spent more than a few minutes shooting the breeze with.

in spite of the live performance going on there, plenty of people were still milling around the cars, and i wasn’t high on patience to out-wait them. skipped cars i would have normally happily shot.

anyway, there were several bomb club cars there, and those guys are pretty nice, and so are their cars, so i shot a few.

trying to think, but i’m tired; probably shot this one before. just figured i should put up something from this show.

sure there were a few other ‘obvious’ cars that may be ‘better’ cars, but they are too polished, probably got an award from that crowd. maybe another time.

connect?

wth. i was just checking articles on linkedin, and who is the first person up as a suggested connection?

jae bueno.

now i’m just sad, though it does say he is still presently busy as a freelance photographer. yes, maybe, somewhere in the universe, but not here. and that sucks.

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old dodge hearse that i see everywhere. usually not like this, on it’s own, where you can sort of work around it for a better angle. was still too close to a wall/a hedge. but usually jammed between other cars, so this’ll do.

aches & pains

so many car shows lining up, while it's still not raining, and i have to go sprain my arm. makes it difficult to carry a tripod and pull a bag on my own.

i've been moving stuff from one storage unit, to a bigger one, in anticipation of moving my daughter's junk in with mine. at least until we figure out where she's going.

been mostly moving it after work, for a few hours at a time. anyway, reaching up to snag a box too high on the stack, another box fell down and whacked me near my wrist. was aching so much after a couple of days, i went to a walk-in clinic yesterday. x-ray showed no cracks, so i just need to wrap it up.

feel like i should wrap both forearms and pretend i'm a boxer, or better yet, wonder woman with those stupid metal things that she used to deflect things. nah, more like the metal things they wore in 300.

anyway, not sure how much i'll get out for a few weeks. still have a month to move stuff. guess i'll get my other kid to do it. piece of cake for him; probably can move all the boxes in a day and not break a sweat.

was talking to tudy a couple of weeks ago, and somewhere in the conversation he mentioned the showlows st hilary car show. said he hadn't made it there this past year, but his son had. described the car, wondered if i'd seen it.

looking through pics, yes, yes i did.

new day

sitting in the dark, waiting for my workday to start. contemplating the next few days.

my daughter is coming down to visit for the next couple of weeks, with her boy toy and one of her dobermans. she's leaving the albino one back at home. trying to find a new home for it...if you're interested in an untrained, unhousebroken sweet rescue dog, let me know.

i have a few doctor appointments coming up, so hoping to figure out whatever my issues are. hoping it will be just a take this pill and you'll be just fine, but that's probably too easy a fix.

at least it's relatively quiet at work. rare couple of weeks that i'm not busting my ass juggling projects. it won't last, so trying to enjoy that. have had to shoot several portrait/headshots, which mostly have turned out ok. will need to get a roll of gray background paper on the xmas list, and a dedicated room to set up some lighting...just making do for the time being.

people just don't sit still looking pretty, like a car, so it's been a bit challenging for me. different camera settings, with a camera i'm not completely familiar with. it's all good. keep learning, i guess.

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last few shows i've been to. have chosen different times of day, just for the challenge of pushing the camera to see what i see. mostly i get sunrise shots, like this one, because i'm out trying to get the pictures before the sun brings the heat.

slightly easier than the evening shots, where the camera settings just have to get dialed up to where i can still get an image and not have it too noisy without a flash, or the exposure so long, that people tend to just walk through the shot thinking you're not doing anything.

this picture kind of has an african plain feeling, but those porta-potties kind of ruin for me.

alex

out to st hilary's very early this morning, before the sun came up. watched a few cars head in before i got outta the car. so by the time i was shooting my first car, the sun was peaking out already.

got through two batteries before i got to this car. either they're going bad or i haven't been using them enough. more like the latter.

told him i'd post a picture of his car. he said he'd painted it himself, and knew it wasn't quite perfect. so it is good enough, your car doesn't have to be pristine to get a picture.

i used to help my dad sand his car every year when i was a kid. he always painted it some sort of steel blue, using some giant compressor he got from the navy scrapyard or something. not shiny, but did the trick.

owner of this car apparently has seen my pictures before, and probably reads this here blog, as he offered me a water pretty quickly. it was a hot day, and i was about ready to go find one and/or head out to eat. that helped a lot, i was getting pretty shaky about then.

so thanks for the water, alex. nice to meet you.

it's a harley, dahlink

harley davidson

away from home tonight, so i'll just put this one up.

took several angles of this bike, which are all just fine, but i thought this angle was just more interesting. not an extraordinary bike, but it was clean, and sitting off mostly by itself momentarily. not long after, the owner moved it in with the crowd of cars, where i never would have bothered shooting it then.

been busy as usual at work. i've been trying to squeeze in a walk before work, or climbing nine flights of stairs if i can. my legs hurt from sitting all day; i should get out for an afternoon walk like i used to, just block out some time on the work calendar and go.

really need to try an experiment and go cold turkey on the coke and/or pepsi. i like my caffiene bubbly and on ice, but it comes with a lot of sugar, which my body is apparently just converting into ass, boobs and belly. i could say i let myself go, out of some bizarre curiosity to see what i'd look like "with a little meat on my bones," same way i'd just see how long my hair would grow, but that would just be an excuse.

better half isn't complaining, but i'd like to be able to bust a lot of my old clothes out of storage, if i lost a few inches.

i spent a good part of a year working in what we called the dungeon, at a previous employer. was a huge project, with multiple companies working together, day and night. they kept a steady supply of snacks and soda, to keep the captives, er, employees, happy and working.

i used to joke, that i could just sit and mainline/iv drip the coke twenty-four/seven. was easier then; i was only a hundred pounds and burned those junk food calories without even trying.

i will miss it. i will be tempted every day, and it's just so easy to get my hands on the stuff.

gonna change to water. but it has to be ice water, to top off the ice water in my veins.

says the girl who chugged a coke whilest typing this missive...

good day, sunshine

chevy truck

another early morning shot from the showlows show at st hilarys. i think this is a dukes' truck, at least it was parked near a bunch of their cars. decided i liked this one better than the shot with the sun's rays glaring into the lens this time—the lens flares were going straight down the middle, and not that interesting.

queue the violins...

i've done nothing so far this weekend. yesterday all i did was sleep and deal with stomach issues. i don't know what it is that i get through the work week just feeling meh, only to get to saturday, and feel ick.

i had plans. i had wanted to go to the latin gents/dukes toy drive. it was wonderfully overcast here by the house, and assumed it might have been in cypress as well. the show was from one to seven in the evening, which would have been nice for a change.

instead, i watched the awesome sunset from the couch, and wished i had just gone anyway. oh well. judging from only one photographer's pics posted on instagram, looked like it was a good show, and that they had collected lots of toys.

only left the house once yesterday, for a late lunch. walked uptown. sometimes if i just get out and walk, whatever it is goes away. not this time. was tempted to call my better half to come get me, but i toughed it out, and walked back home, but not very quickly.

not feeling one hundred percent today. but i am hoping to go to the viejitos show over by legg lake—at least that is only fifteen minutes from home vs half an hour+ to cypress, if i start feeling queasy.