bling

quick post. been working too late, and then come home to work on a picture. gotta get some sleep.

maybe i'll write more about this one another day...

fly away

i'm pretty sure i didn't see the butterfly on the hood ornament the first time i passed this car. i think it got clipped on later.

my better half was spending a lot of time shooting this hood ornament on the car next to this one. he'd borrowed my macro, which when slapped on his full frame camera apparently kicks ass. anyway, i'd spent long enough just standing around waiting, that the lady who owned this one noticed i/we shoot with sony cameras. she was fascinated and full of questions. mainly because she was looking for what camera she should buy, and noticed i had a minolta lens one of mine.

when she started asking more techical questions, we waited for my better half to finish with the other pontiac. she and her husband said they'd owned more than 100 different cars over the years. this one, she said, drove like a pig, something about the power steering or non-existence of it. she'd made a deal with the proprietor of a car shop, where he spliced in an engine or front end of a car he'd recently finished, and some other parts, so now the thing supposedly really rips up the road.

i think she said it had a t-bird radiator in it too, which my better half joked whether it had an opera window in that as well.

of course, she may have been talking about one of her other cars, and i've just gotten them mixed up, just like the guts of said car.

i liked that the paint wasn't perfect; it was all scarred and pitted—a car that is driven and loved every day.

pug

this was a different truck. don't see too many of these around, though i did find other pics of this one on the web at other shows. apparently its a coe or cab over engine model, hence the shortened front end. but, to me, it reminds me of those purebred dogs or cats that look like they've run into a wall and have no nose. at least in a monster like this, you'd feel safer than driving in one of those "smart" cars; in an accident, i'd place my money on this one and still being able to walk.

the owner was a nice guy too. very happy to let you have a good look around the thing. thanks for moving out of the way, but i don't remember the guy standing next to me, if you can see me in the bumper. i think he owned the red muscle car you see reflected on the side. i didn't take any pictures of his car. psst. dude, close your hood – maybe i'd think about it.

thumbs down, uptown

i had already been warned that the whittier uptown show was going to be different this year. i'm not saying there weren't some nice cars there, because there were. i'm saying, the change was not good. they decided to segregate the show this year: today would be hot rods and muscle cars; next may would be the bombs and low riders. it almost felt gutted without the quantity, quality, and enthusiasm of past shows. what were they thinking?

happily, in a side lot, a group of bombs, low riders and the like, had staked out the lot the night before, and set up there, along with a tent advertising the show next may. while i do have more affection for these types of cars, a few had still managed to find their way in, out on the main street. while there were not so many cars, they had still blocked off just as much space as past years. you'd think they'd tell the guys to space the cars out...a lot. they still clustered them toward the center stage and judges' area, i suppose. the crowd was not so rowdy. the cops didn't notice the guys drinking beer out of the back of their van disguised in red plastic cups. there were a several whole blocks of closed, empty streets.

now i wonder if so many, of what they've determined to be the rowdy element, will want to come on down next may, after being so excluded. i'd be kinda pissed if i were them.

anyway, that's my review. a big pffft to the bigwigs in whittier, you've made a great show kinda boring.

-------

this one was over in the bomb lot. only a handful of cars back there, but the kind that i like. the owner kindly dropped the hood for the shot. i'm not sure that the guy that specifically asked for a shot of this car was just one of the working car show shlubs, or one of the organizers of the show. if an organizer, i've probably not made him happy by my review, but it's just my opinion, dude. and what do i know about cars anyway, aside from how to shoot them with my little camera here.

squee

so shiny. i don't usually shoot these ’stangs. they don't usually do it for me, but this one was too nice to pass by. i am laughing now, because as i look at this shot all i can see is that this one really needs a car bra...a big grannie one...it apppears to be real cold out, if you know what i mean. but then i'm told i'm a bit twisted anyway.

general

i think i've seen this truck over at jae bueno's blog at some point. here it is, hiding on a back pathway of the old world village in huntington beach.

i'm thinking the wheel covers aren't original, but they are kinda cool. wished the hood was down, but figured i better catch it while i could, from the side that was closed.

it was highly polished, like looking into a black hole, were it not for the blue sky above, throwing reflections all about it.

____

i'm in tradeshow hell at work again. i've worked a couple hours over for the last three days, and will probably continue doing so for the next month or so. makes it hard to get it up for a car show in the evening. i want to go, i really do, but if i stop at home first, i just don't want to go back out.

i do intend to hit the whittier uptown show this saturday. please do bring all your purrrty cars out for me. i miss you so.

grape ape

these guys were parked off on the end at enderle last week. i think the owners and a couple of other people were chatting about paint and body and other customization, but in the background of my mind it all sounded like charlie brown's teachers: "wha wha wha whaaa wha wha."

it was something different. don't think i've had the pleasure of catching a hudson that looks like this. all the curvy goodness is just fun for my eyes. not too flamboyant, and even in a simple monotone, i like it a lot.

of course that there mercury ain't bad neither. guess i'll have to post the close up of that one sometime too. polished to a shine on the hood of infinite darkness.

it's dicey

well, another weekend gone. gonna start whining about getting up early for work pretty soon. didn't get enough sleep, and i didn't even get to a car show. intended to, but didn't work out.

anyway, i'm flipping through the year's shots. i have a lot to choose from, which is good. i liked this old mercury, for no better reason than the color combination was different and interesting. and it was the first car i found, as i walked into town that day, just over the train tracks. it was the run what you brung show, in rialto. i'm not sure what that yellow car driving through on the right was, but i don't think i caught up with it later; maybe he just kept going.

swanky

remember when the show at the broiler was so busy, cars had to park in the back lot? what happened? in winter, they said it was too cold. now it's a fairly cool summer, and still not much showing up. maybe i just keep picking off-days – if i went back to going every week, would i be wasting my gas?

i don't know why i like this one. probably it was the tail lights. don't see too many of these. and the slight imperfections don't bother me either. the sign in the window says he belongs to the devils cc from venice. wonder what he was doing here, so far inland.

gots balls?

getting late, so i won't say much here. i'm always fascinated by these big engines and wonder why the balls in the pipes? so birds don't nest in them?

this one practically has a crown of pipes, at least from this angle. i just want to take those nerf balls out and have a water ball fight...it's been so hot lately. i think those were parking tickets plastered all over the windshield, but i don't know what the point was. maybe if i look at the large size again, i'd see what the joke was. and i love the table full of puckerbutts watching...can practically read what's going through their minds: "what in the world is she doing? why is she doing that? am i in the picture? go away..."

ever have one of those days, when stuff you said got taken all wrong and everyone is pissed at everyone else? well, i just had one; glad it's over, and man, my head hurts from even trying. i'll try harder not to care, and go back to being the wallflower that i naturally am, watching and silent in the background. geez.