life’s a whirlwind

it's been a while since i posted. not my fault.

first i've been and still am silly, crazy busy at work. all the extra hours have kept me from the shows and from posting. all the extra hours finally caught up with me and bit me in the shoulder. my desk wasn't set up ergonomically since i got moved to my current location. so i've been sitting wrong, resting my arm on the desk and i guess my shoulder was getting too much motion as well as being in a weird position. so my nerves got tweaked, and i finally couldn't lift my arm higher than my rib cage. couldn't use two hands on the wheel driving home. that was fun and scary in rush hour traffic.

so i stayed home, and a cough that i've had for a while finally had a chance to catch up and turn into a nasty cold. and nasty colds keep me away from my computer, since i can't be near my elderly mother-in-law when i'm sick. she lives with us. so i have to be somewhere else, computerless.

anyway, cold is gone, back in the house for the first evening in about a week, and right back into the fire at work. so here's a quick post.

this tornado is almost the same model i used to drive. mine used to be blue, but a ’65. like driving a friggin' tank. man do i miss that car.

backlot

my better half thought i had taken this at some hollywood backlot. nope. i stopped at the anaheim show at the promenade. first time there. probably the last. giving points because i was early, but with all the tall buildings around, most of the shots look like this, half sun, half shade. dramatic, but sucky at the same time. maybe if i'd shown up later, after the sun was down and the street lights had come on, but then there would be more people there for the live band in the center intersection.

i found it funny that several of the cars i saw here, i also saw drive in to the garden grove main street show, and then even later, one showed up at ruby's in whittier. and i thought i got around. ain't it great to have more than one to choose from, if not all to go to on a summer evening?

anyway, there were several really great cars there. the location could be better at different times of the day, i suppose. it would have been nice if the old guys behind this one would have moved to let me shoot the back end, as that planter made it hard to get there otherwise. but oh well. i didn't feel like asking them to move, and they seemed pretty oblivious otherwise.

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and i'm still pissed at my computer for crapping out on me yesterday; was up until midnight reloading the whole freakin system and still am working out tweaks. even with all that, it still had the nerve to lock up as always in the middle of playing with this picture. and my screen is too dark, the colors are odd. i'll have to calibrate; hope it doesn't look too bad.

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and to the bungholes that have been trying to bury comments on old pages with links to sell their own shit...go suck it. i'm in no mood to put up with you. go buy your own advertising space.

ain't she sweet?

didn't feel like getting up today. knew i had to go to work for a few hours, and was really dragging my ass around the house...perfectly happy to stay home. also knew there were two car shows today that i hadn't been to in a while, and there was a 70% chance of rain throughout the day.

finally decided to skip the first show, expecting half of those cars would end up over here at the original mike's show in santa ana. i arrived about half an hour before the scheduled start time, and pretty much knew it was going to be a short show. i did see a few cars drive in or by, then turn back around after seeing the turnout vs the darkening sky.

i decided if i was going to get anything, i might as well get out there before they all left. i shot several angles of this little '54 nash, and then a few of duke's ’50 olds 88 back there before the rain got started — about 15 minutes at most. i didn't want to risk messing up my remaining working camera, so packed it up pretty quick.

surprisingly, quite a few of the owners stayed, either waiting it out in the car, especially the ones with convertibles (quickly cranking the roof up), or having lunch in the restaurant. heard a few owners muttering they were glad they drove the rain car instead of one of their other cars. must be rough to have to decide which car to drive today, huh?

the lady who owns this car was one of those that stayed, wasn't worried about a little water. she related a story of someone who had taken a picture of her car up at the citadel once, with water on the ground, and a ray of sun hitting it just so. also told me it looks good in black and white. well, thanks for the info, but i'll do it my way, and i'll be just as happy as can be.

time warp

 

so, on this last day of the year, i think back to times past. flipping through my parent's photo albums, i found these.

i vividly remember this oldsmobile tornado. the thing was built like a tank, and had huge tires, at least relative to my size.

that's my younger bro and me in the snow, when we lived in virginia beach. i look a bit evil in this shot, but i think i was just trying to look at the camera and keep the snow out of my eyes at the same time.

my dad was pretty stylin' in that plaid jacket. lol. that must have disappeared before i was born, as i don't remember ever seeing him it or having it in his closet.

every year, back before seat belts were required, my dad would drive us 10 hours to my grandmother's house in west virginia at thanksgiving. i'd be crawling around on the floor space under my mom's feet up front, sometimes with a pillow and taking a nap. lots of leg room, or was it that i was just small? we'd have to put snow chains on sometimes to get over the mountains, and my dad drove like a maniac then...and still does now. he never wanted to stop, just drive straight there, but with kids, my mom wouldn't let him; kids get really cranky when they're hungry or have to take a whizz.

we'd stay a few days there, get the creeps down in gramma's basement, which always smelled like mold, and was always very cold. then we'd turn around and do another 10 hours home. joy.

i wanna say there was space under the back window, behind the seats you could lay on and watch the clouds go by, but maybe i'm thinking of just the back seat. i'll have to ask my brother with the seemingly photographic memory.

i don't know why, but every year, maybe every other year, my dad would have us out sanding all the paint off, and then he would primer it, then sand it again. then paint it with a couple of coats of the same blue every time. i don't remember it having scratches or anything, he just seemed to like using his paint gun, and maybe he was just bonding with my older bro. guess i'll have to ask.

when i was old enough to drive, i finally got the keys to it. i drove it to work for a couple of months, before it went christine on me. i think the brakes went out as i was coming to a four-way stop. fortunately, there wasn't anyone at the intersection and i somehow wrestled the thing into a parking lot and whacked it up against a curb to stop it. freaked me out so much, i don't think i ever drove it again. he sold it a year or two later.

he also had this 1959 oldsmobile 98 for a while; i think that's the tail end of it in the picture with my brother, but i don't remember it at all. my mom says it was their first car together, and it was pretty nice. i would rather he'd kept that one, but oh well.

 

hope you all have a safe and happy new year!

blue 88

i took it easy this weekend. had intended to go to an early show in riverside saturday, but didn't hear from my son out there to meet up for lunch after, so didn't get up early and go. he's a busy college boy with his own schedule. no big, i'll catch up with him another time.

then today, had intentions of getting up early and hitting the enderle show in tustin...again was persuaded to “sleep in,” in spite of the time change. anyway, i'd read about the 2nd annual platinum custom car & bike show up at bob's in downey, which fit better into my schedule, and headed up there with my better half. this was a treat, as he's kinda burned out on car shows, and it was a rare occasion to get him to go. now i wish we'd have gone to the enderle show...always lots of cars to choose from...

so when we got to the broiler i was kinda bummed at the turn out and selection. sponsored by elite corvettes, i had expected a lot of those anyway. well, there were about half corvettes, and half mostly older chevys of various makes, with a few other manufacturer's older models thrown in. and the ever insistent raised hoods. ugh. and i don't recall seeing any bikes at all.

i like the older cars, so i didn't mind passing up all the newer model corvettes lined up along the main viewing area. but it bugs me to no end when the owner is nowhere in sight on a car i want to shoot, and the hood is up. don't mind shooting 50's chevys, bel airs in particular from the back, they have cool fins and lights, but come on.

my husband had spoken to the owner of this olds 88 and shot from this same corner of the car before i got over to it. i'm curious to see what he got, but after seeing mine, he's thinking of deleting his memory card. i hope he doesn't mean it.

anyway, said owner told him he drove 60 miles to be at this show. doesn't usually drive to many shows down here, and i'm not clear on why he made the exception for this one. hubbie hinted that the owner should close the hood, but clearly, the guy didn't understand, or just didn't want to move out of his chair.

love this weather – makes for awesome skies. supposedly going to rain tomorrow, but not scary enough to bug out the car owners from the show.

it was a cool car, intensely reflective, as i hope you can tell here.

duke's baby

i've seen this 1950 oldsmobile 88 fastback at several shows now. this was last year at the ruby's in whittier show. the owner (i'm pretty sure his name is duke for some reason) spoke to me briefly at the geezers show at the garden grove elk's club back in march. said he was the original owner, and had bought it brand new back in the day. it looks like it drove off the line today, if you ever get to see it in person. just remarkable condition.

it's funny looking through these images from last year—maybe the second car show i'd ever been to with the camera—to see so many of the cars that i've gotten to be very familiar with in the last couple of months. actually, i think some of those shots that day are better than what i've been getting lately, since it was september, the sun was setting earlier, and there were really cool clouds blowing across the sky that night. i do remember it being so very warm that night, and packing up early.