what's up?

meet the palms

honestly, this was an accident, but it does make me laugh. beautiful cadillac convertible, trying to find any angles to shoot cars and not have a basketball hoop or pop-up tent in it.

to do so, many times, i have to get the tripod down lower. the first twenty minutes i was there, i could not loosen the screw on the center post, couldn't get a good grip on the twister. almost felt like when my better half tightens up all the bolts on the thing, and i can hardly move the legs. he is the brute squad, and doesn't know his own strength sometimes.

at some point, i finally was able to loosen the damn thing and to get it down fairly low, but not as much as i would like. palm trees and cars were preferable to the hoops.

did not purposely, nor did i realize i'd lined this one up so mr and mrs palm are in the front seat, and the twins are in the back (or is it triplets?). lol.

having a hell of a time deciding what to do on my vacation week. everywhere i'm thinking would be interesting is about to be snowed in, or it's raining. was considering a road trip back east, but i don't want to drive in that by myself.

i will either end up in san diego, san fran, monterrey, or just sitting at home. anywhere is fine, as long as it's away from work. need to clear my head.

walking backwards

i took a long walk today. gonna rain tomorrow, so figured i'd stretch my legs.

ended up taking an old familiar route, that ended with me passing my old high school. my kids graduated from there too.

the main buildings haven't changed much, but you could also say everything has changed. new additions, portable crap classrooms--class in a box--they change the landscape in my memory.

the youthful faces of the latest crop of students pass by me. listening to the bird-like chatter of their hormone-crackling voices, and the little conversations about the "big" events in their universe, make me so glad i am not that age again.

i have changed, but i have not. never did fit in, and still do not, not really. and i'm fine with that. didn't have many friends, and have not kept in touch with any of them directly. once in a while, i'll look people up online, to see where they ended up, but they really are strangers now, so i leave no messages.

i used to be so freakishly skinny, and now i'm so, so average. really hating growing old and soft. the number of years doesn't bother me as much as the ball of fat on my belly, and the general pudge all over...it just gets in the way.

youth really is wasted on the young, as they say.

looked toward the baseball field, where i could see the team practicing, running the same bases my kid ran not so long ago.

i decided enough of this depressing trip down memory lane, and turned around to head back to where i belong, or at least where i exist now. the wind shifted, and the sticky, fetid scent drifted up from the school farm, of the beasts being raised by the "future farmers," bound for the summer fair, blazed more memories in my head, of people i haven't thought of in years, as well as my daughter's stupid sheep that she raised there too. they work hard for those 'easy' credits. pretty sure not too many of these kids end up on a farm, but my daughter does work in veterinary offices, so there's that.

but mostly, the thought that shit still smells like shit, was what blew through my mind.

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found this old cadillac between the buildings at the super cruise, kinda parked next to some newer cars. it was in the path less traveled, so i don't know that many people noticed it.

don't remember seeing around, and not quite sure of the year.

donuts

no car shows for me today. got my taxes done instead. looks like i can either take a small vacation or put new flooring in my place, maybe new kitchen cabinets. decisions, decisions.

changing my work hours starting tomorrow too. hoping my drive home will get closer to an hour more consistently, instead of more than two. i can't take it anymore.

saw this pink caddie last week. pepto-bismol pink. or rather, donut box pink. helped that they happened to have a donut box next to it, to confirm.

sitting on my ass

early light. it's soft. it's warm. shadows drop gently off into a blur. it passes so quickly, and i move as quickly as possible to the cars catching it to have any chance of seeing the picture my eyes see.

at this show in san fernando, i get there early. so far i've managed to get inside pretty early, though they always run it down the line questioning who/what i am doing there, and should they let me in. promise not to get in the way, pay the entry fee.

this past year, not so many cars were there early. i ended up criss-crossing the football field, to the select cars i wanted to shoot.

this cadillac vaguely reminded me of another cadillac i used to shoot (now he drives a buick), mostly because of the color, not the year.

i liked the reflection of the sky and palm trees across the trunk.

i've spent my day alternating between sitting on my ass doing nothing, sitting on my ass futzing with a revamped website, and sitting on my ass driving out for lunch.

woke up with rain falling loudly outside the windows. rain that they had predicted earlier in the week, then moved to monday. stupid weather people. good thing i had no plans.

better half wanted to walk uptown for breakfast, but it was still lightly raining, and i didn't feel like it. maybe tomorrow.

i wondered if the latin gents still did car shows on the first saturday of the month, but didn't find any hint of it online, so with no other reason to drive to westminster, decided to stay put. still another week till the swap meet in pomona. now i'm wondering about the swap meet in long beach tomorrow. are there cars there, for show, or just parts?

spent the majority of the day figuring out how to make the updated website do things i wanted it to do, stuff that didn't transfer over from my original site. it's aggravating not knowing, or realizing limitations or stuff they don't support anymore. it's also satisfying when i do figure it out. better half wonders why i don't just call the twenty-four seven customer service.

no, nothings changed; right now you're still looking at the old version. i haven't hit the switch yet. maybe tomorrow, if i can figure out/remember how to transfer my domain.

even then, i will have to spend weeks tweaking it. aggravating.

am i right?

1958 cadillac coupe de ville

had this posted on flickr and instagram for a few days, before someone commented that i'd tagged it as a fifty-nine instead of a fifty-eight. i really do appreciate the corrections. makes it easier to search for what you're looking for, when it is correctly identified, especially when you want to see a picture of your own car.

i like the color of the car with the color of those flowery trees back there. i'd drive this, even if it is purple.

hoping to work from home tomorrow. only a few people in the office. was supposed to rain, but i think they've changed their minds and it will rain friday and saturday, but still. traffic will suck in the afternoon, because it just does.

in your face

cadillac

not many showed up at dia de los puercos toy drive. i think i had seen a flyer online for another toy drive there not too many days before, so maybe people had already given at the office.

i mostly think it was due to mooneyes the day before, and nursing hangovers.

don't usually shoot newer cadillacs, but this one remotely reminded me of one my mom used to drive, though without all the pinstripes and airbrushing on the trunk. kinda think she should have kept that one, but i'm sure it's bouncing it's way down whittier blvd or elsewhere now.

almost as old as me

1966 cadillac

another busy week. the older i get, the more they just blend together.

supposed to rain for the next couple of days, so will probably stay at my mom's. people drive like idiots on a wet freeway, don't they? i'd rather avoid it, if i can.

another from early in the day from the dia de los muertos show. donut shop end of the street always ends up being where we get started, since we walk in that way.

not my favorite year for a cadillac, but i liked the early light hitting the black expanse of the hood.

my mom used to drive a used caddy, but it was more like a seventy-three, with an eight-track player.

tail end

1960 cadillac coupe deville

i'm at my mom's, locked in my old bedroom, enjoying the snot-filled end of a bad cold. the possessed lucifer voice is losing it's grip blow by snotty blow. note to my better half: "bow to me faithfully, bow to me splendidly," morbid angel, god of emptiness. go listen to that song--that's what he thinks i sound like. watch the official video, the quality is so much better than others. i'll add the link when i get home to my computer.

doctor says its just a cold, and i just have to suffer through it.

work is piling up at the office, and i will be slammed from whenever i get back, through my road trip time in a couple of weeks. joy.

was going through old pics last week, and had this one waiting to post. shot at the pomona swapmeet a couple of years ago. just love the pointy fins and the twins.

didn't make it

1957 cadillac

thought about going to a show today. really i did. went so far as to get my cameras out, format cards, and clean the sensors.

was literally ready to walk out the back door, when the front doorbell rang. better half's nephew, wife, and year old kid had arrived from northern california. so, nixed that plan. it was already after one anyway, and hot.

i think they plan on going to disneyland tomorrow, so maybe i can get out to the show at legg lake for a while in the morning.

better half took himself to the doctor this morning. they gave him some kind of antibiotic, so he sick for reals. he still managed to walk uptown for breakfast when he got back. ran into a couple of people asking if i was going to the show today, but he had to tell them he had no idea, since i hadn't mentioned anything to him.

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saw this beauty at the sultans' show earlier this month. love those bullet tail lights, though from what i've read, didn't show up until nineteen fifty-nine models.

mexcadi

cadillac fleetwood

no, i don't shoot these typically, but the owner asked me if i would. he had two cars, this one and an impala, which i will post soon too.

i liked the plates on the cars the best.