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funky, cold...

last weekend better half and i made our way out to santa fe springs, to check out the los angeles bombs car show.

still slept in a bit, and arrived after sunrise, but the skies were fairly cloudy for the morning, which kept the heat away for a few hours. worked as a big soft box, so that was an added bonus, unless a real ‘pop’ in colors were desired.

started off shooting the club’s cars out on the street, then moved inside the gates at air products, to see what else had shown up while our backs were turned.

still early on the roll-in time, there were sparsely parked groups of cars here and there.

saw this blue ford huddled down on the ground along the wall. turned out ron medina jr. had recently bought this car, and maybe this was it’s first time out. i saw him before realizing this was his, and fully expected to see the orange suburban sitting nearby.

well, this one is nice too, and i like it’s big, round back end. [that’s what she said].

low men in yellow coats drive big, shiny cars

a stephen king novel, this isn’t, but this kinda feels like a car he would mention in his novels, driven by bad men. polished to a brilliance of hot honey in a fall heat wave.

he often weaves intricate narratives that explore themes of life and death. there are parallels to the allure of shiny cars that represent freedom and aspiration. glimmering under the sun, these cars evoke feelings of nostalgia and excitement, much like king’s vivid characters who navigate the thin line between the living and the supernatural.

oooh, slipping into collegiate term paper lingo for a sec. <shake it off>

this car, at the día de los muertos car show, was in primo parking at the front door of the show host, casita del pueblo.

many altars were set near cars, celebrating loved ones who have passed away. sugar skulls and marigolds were in abundance, though i think it was too early in the morning that this guy hadn’t set anything up yet. i think he might have moved to another location later—i’d have to look through photos of that day to remember.

redundant theme, if you’ve read much of this online confessional, is a continual fight to balance too much work and not enough sleep.

i have shows i hope to get to on the calendar, and another couple that club members have asked if better half and i could attend. i’m always having an internal struggle to yank myself out of a nice, warm bed and get my ass to los angeles super early to shoot some pics.

better half has been exceptionally eager to go shoot his camera and some lightly used glass, but if i don’t go, he doesn’t seem to go. he loves to tell a whole, now often embellished story of the one time i sent him to a viejitos show alone because i was sick—the gist of it—i sent him to the correct location, just a week early. lol.

he’s retired, gets plenty of sleep, and has all the time in the world.

i still have a few years to go until i hit some magic number, where i’m comfortable enough to consider retirement. it’s bad enough that i wake up every morning wanting to say eff it and quit, but i think most everybody dreams of that.

been doing more than forty hours lately, going to sleep late, and juggling time at home vs time at my mother’s house. sometimes helping one of my kids out with my time as well.

car shows fall by the wayside until i have more energy, or just have the need to do something creative and not work related.

sleep gets interrupted by thoughts of the next day’s workload, or figuring out a better way to complete a design problem. what’s a girl to do?

at least better half and i have been trying to exercise more and eat better. he’s lost a lot of his “equator” by getting to a swimming pool for a couple hours most every morning, rain or shine. i could join him for maybe an hour, if i really wanted to, but i just can’t convince myself to hit the pool when the weather is in the forties. or if i did make it into the water, it would be too cold to get out of it.

maybe when summer comes.

i’m so tired. my freshly washed hair is about dry enough, i guess i’ll try to catch the sandman.

asshole

excuse the title, it’s not about this beautiful car, out at mooneyes open house in 2019. slammed to the ground. would win the dollar contest between the car and the ground. shiny as shit too. nice nice nice.

no, i’m still fuming about a neighbor who seems to think the open parking spots next to his condo are his personal spots. he came out to bully me after he saw my better half drive away. they’re first come, first serve. if unavailable, drive to the back of the complex, sir. a little walk might do him good.

said he was going to complain to the hoa. i told him i was going to complain about he and his wife always parking for hours in the fire lane next to the fire hydrant.

useless security company won’t come out except if they have a car in the area, and cops won’t come into the “private property, ” so what are we paying for exactly?

i’m sending a strongly worded email to the hoa contact. he won’t do anything, but at least i’ll have it documented in case the guy decides to do anything to our car. better half had been covering his, but thought someone might have pissed on it last night.

so mad. and now i have a headache. never had issues before, when i parked out on the street. newer cars now, one goes in the garage, one in the complex. space happens to be open, we’re going to park there, asshole.

rats

saw this interesting rat rod in one of the parking lots surrounding the race track, er, the streets of downtown riverside. seems to be a work in progress.

lots of little details to find here and there.

bullets, guns, rats, chains, skulls…it’s just a fun car to look at.

owner was a nice enough guy, and was happy to point things out to us.

split

this chopped, custom, slammed hudson was out at riverside last weekend.

shooting into the sun, doesn’t show you that it’s actually blue, with blue metallic flake on the roof. they even split the back window. just a tad different than your average hudson.

fyre

speaking of vail headquarters, here’s an interesting car from the limited amount of time i spent there in the middle of the summer. before i decided to have a heat stroke.

damn, it’s hot out there in the summer.

maybe it’s the flames on this car.

at least my kid showed up with his family and got some pizza from the shop at the back of the complex. highly recommend that place. kinda hungry right now, come to think of it…

sunshine

life can’t be all chevrolets and rainbows. sometimes i shoot the bikes, if they are more remarkable than off the shelf.

caught this one just before the gang were either getting ready to leave, or to just hang out by the bikes. had to change the angle of the shots to try to keep most of them out of the picture.

love the airbrushing and chrome. i hope they got it home before the rain started.

weekend in riverside

here’s a brief selection of images from the riverside show and go last weekend. started with friday evening cruising around several blocks of downtown riverside, followed by more of the same and competitions on saturday. i have a few more pics, i or my better half promised to upload…as soon as i can get the time.

compared to the last time i went, this show had more than expected. lots of cars that i was interested in, to balance out the newer cars and hot rods that i could care less about. saturday’s cars overflowed the streets. i think they may have actually sold out, with six hundred cars cruising and parked along the route.

since we stayed at a local hotel, we were able to come and go as we wanted. it also allowed me to skip the sunrise shooting i’d typically want to get, since we’d gotten the sunset pics the night before.

better half ended up staying in the hotel on saturday while i went out, as he’d hurt his back. he literally couldn’t move without searing pain. figured it was best to just let me go and get my ya yas out, before it got too hot. he waited for the ibuprofen to kick in, but it really didn’t help. think he has a slipped disc.

we took it easy for the afternoon, when it really got too hot for me to deal with at the show.

got up early on sunday, and out of the parking garage, just before the gate guard got there…free parking for the weekend! yippee. and off to see a doctor…

it was an accident, i tell ya

the end of our journey down route 66 had us out at the wigwam motel in san bernardino. cute, but kinda crap part of town. homeless people hanging around just outside the fence, having to be chased out by management. small room, as expected inside a “teepee.”

just so happened to be less than ten minutes from huffarama, the day we check out. time crunch, as we have a rental car to return in the afternoon, but we still managed a few early hours after talking our way in.

this was one of the first pics i shot. the finish on that gold one…like buttah.

better half got boxed in on street parking xmas day. car in front of him right on his bumper, and in front of a fire hydrant.

he called the cops. they dispatched an officer. better half pleads his case. officer asks where he was going on xmas day? he says, i have family to go visit. officer seems perplexed. why would you want to do that?

officer finally just says he’s not giving writing a ticket on xmas day. even for parking in front of the fire hydrant.

these cops really just don’t want to enforce the laws here. too much paperwork.

better half misses whittier pd, at least they’d show up and tow cars for violations. and he would get his schadenfreude on.

unplanned, i promise

sooo, we recently returned from a short vacation—not quite a full repeat of last year’s trip—just up the coast to portland, and across on a train, to chicago; then back in a car on route sixty-six this time.

we knew it was going wonky from the get-go. i’ll have to write up our tales of woe, the trials and tribulations, crap weather, and the fun and food we had sometime. but for now, i’ll just say, we saw a lot of new things this time, and stayed in some of the places on route sixty-six.

seriously, wasn’t thinking when we’d booked the wigwam motel in san bernardino, on our last night before heading home. i was riding shotgun in the rental car, flipping through instagram, checking out car show flyers, as i do.

i’d written off a few shows while we were out of town. then my brain started working. huffarama. san bernardino. the day we are checking out of the wigwam. turned out to be a nine minute drive away.

better half accused me of planning it that way. swear i didn’t.

it was just before seven a.m., when we arrived at a gate at san manuel stadium, and the kid there said we needed to go around to the other side. that gate turned out to be where the cars were going to be going in, and the guys in the couple of cars that were first in line there, said the other photographers were already inside, and had gone to the gate we just left.

so back around we went, and told said kid that we were sent back to this gate. he let us in, and were directed to park in the furthest end of the parking lot for vendors. we paid our admission when we walked back over to where the club guys were, and got to shooting. the club guys didn’t remember us, even though my better half had given one of them a free print of his car when they had been out to the uptown whittier car show several years before. i think the one guy thought we were from texas because of the plate on the car.

of course rey was already inside shooting. that dude is everywhere and knows everyone. lol.

attending this show was unplanned, so we didn’t have all of our gear or bags or lenses, but we did have our tripods and wide angle lenses, and a limited amount of time to shoot. still had to get the rental car down to the airport, so gave ourselves three hours to see what we see, allowing for drive time, emptying the car, and filling the gas tank. we hadn’t even had breakfast yet.

i liked the sun hitting this beauty early in the morning. it just feels quiet. i’ve shot this car before, but usually it’s up against a building, or surrounded by other cars.

this is why getting out at sunrise is my favorite. and also my bane…i just want to sleep in on weekends anymore.

anyway, we left about ten-ish. and we did get the car back with about forty-five minutes to spare.

now if i can only find the time to get more than a couple of the shots worked up and posted. and look through all of the vacation pics too.