back to school

yup, another bel air. i can. 

i just liked how i caught the car and the school sign, and how it framed up. could almost imagine that it's the 1950s, save for the overhead electrical lines...did they have those there back then? ditto for the school logo.

and that i got all my shots between groups of people walking down the sidewalk. patience pays off sometimes. must have been an early in the day shot.

second time i'd been out the july show in san fernando, this time on my own, as my better half was very sick. i know he hated to miss it. many more cars there than the previous year. lots of awesome cars, and good vibes. it is included on our do not miss list now, and we'll be there next year.

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countdown to turkey day, and i don't care. family gatherings test my introvert's boundaries.

if anyone has peeked at this blog over the last couple of years, you know how much the march up to xmas just makes me more and more morose. one year, before i remarried, i did just hide out at my house for xmas, because that's what i wanted. so everyone left me be. and i was fine with it.

no, santa didn't leave me any toys there, nor lumps of coal. i found the usual gifts from "santa" over at my parents' house, so curious that he always has had the same handwriting as my mom as long as i can remember. hmm hmmm.

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throwing in this pic of the real reason you guys show up at these shows, apart from the camaraderie. a very large table full of trophies. of the many categories awarded, i just don't know how the judges narrow it down to the lucky few.

candylicious

we used to frequent the other candy store uptown. they had a thing where everytime you bought candy, they'd add credit or punch a card, and once you'd collected X number of credits, you'd get some free stuff. so when my better half's niece and nephews came to visit, off we'd go to the candy store.

well, when we had saved enough credits and went to claim our free stuff, the owner said something to the effect of, "oh, we decided to end that program." like last week. no warning. no consolation prize.

so effectively, they lost a good customer, and we haven't been in there since. we've been to this one once in a while, since we've cut back a bit on the candy intake, and those kids have grown up a bit and don't visit as often. little farther to walk down the street, but they're more friendly here, and convenient to the movie theatre, if you like to BYOC.

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i took a long walk today. not feeling too good now. i spent the evening trying to decide what to post. running out of room on the computer, so started by looking at 2011 pics. i had a couple of hundred images i'd marked as favs to work on then. but there just wasn't one screaming to be seen today. same for 2012.

thinking i'll be pulling the 2011s off to backup drives pretty quick to free up 450GB of space for that year alone. it was a good year, is all i can say.

so back to 2013. i've already tagged over 400 images for consideration. then i whittled that down to 21 for today. then i had to ask my better half to help me decide from six that were standing out the most.

he liked this one best. probably because the colors popped. and they match the candy store...they might have parked there on purpose.

i've seen it a few times recently, at other shows. i considered another picture of it, but i'll save it for another time.

i like the minimal pinstriping on the front by the headlights, and on that air cooler thing.

and standing behind it was this guy, who must be friends with the owner. he remembered who i was, and said he'd seen me at one of the shows where this one was at a couple of weeks earlier. last time i saw him, he was at ruby's and said he was still working on his car. all it takes is money and time. and i'll be waiting to take another picture of it when it's done.

aliens

nighty night. at least its friday. i'd say at least next week is only a three-day work week, but i will be having to jam a full week's work into a shorter time. here's to hoping everyone is out of town, and traffic will get me home in under two hours. i doubt it.

so the sprinkly rain the last couple of days doesn't bode well for weekend shows. i don't have any one particular planned to go, so if its not raining, i may go see what's out there. or i could just as happily dip into my digital garage all weekend and try to post a few.

this car is from back in january at the broiler and the infamous red skies the camera picks up there. must be the lighting in the neighborhood. or martian atmosphere. what else could that purple thing be in the sky? invasion coming?

one family

when i was in high school, i had an armenian english teacher. he was funny. he talked funny, like he had a mouth full of marbles, he mumbled through the day. i took several classes with him during my years there.

he liked the way i wrote. so much so, that for one of my finals, while everyone else furiously wrote their minor tomes on whatever the topic was, he had me write a satire about the students in the class. i was already gonna get an a, so why the heck not?

i took classes on shakespeare and the classics from him. the papers i wrote for that class, i used for term papers in college. i knew how to write, i guess.

i think about him once in a while, joke with my brother about him too, since he took classes with him after me.

he was older then, so i can only guess that he's gone now. but i do wonder what he would think of this late night drivel i scribble without thought of order, more of a stream of consciousness than anything else. i suppose without wringing it out and editing it over days and hours, this is what you get. but i wasn't an english major, and i mostly just write whatever pops into my head at the time i'm sitting here.

and that had nothing at all to do with this car. this is anthony's car. i know his name is anthony because his shirt says "anthony" on the patch. oh, and that he spent a lot of time talking with my better half.

i suppose i should be jealous at how easily my better half can work a crowd, get into a conversation on a wide variety of topics, and come out the other side with lots of stories to tell.

but i'm not jealous. he's just that kind of guy, not shy. big, gregarious...greg-garious. lol. he gets more stories. i get more pictures. i'm the innie to his outie.

and to my dad, who seems to be reading this blog more often than i think, no, there's no competition with who gets better shots. just simply the joy of taking the pictures and for me, of getting out, trying to get more out of my comfort zone. but i'll never get as comfortable as my better half just chatting people up. my mouth freezes up, just like in high school, when we had to give a speech.

but it all depends on the person who wants to converse. personality trumps shy anytime. or, if you're a richard, i'll just stare at you in amazement and write about it later.

back to the car. clean, basic, classic. the guys were sitting on the curb behind it eating their mickey d. i was perfectly happy to just squeeze down nearby and shoot the car, but they politely moved their feast away from the car, happy to have someone taking a picture of it.

yes, my better half took a similar shot. his is better. my opinion.

ditman and first

the owner of this truck stopped me up the street and asked if i'd shot it and where he would be able to see pics. i hadn't been there long, so no, i hadn't at that point. i asked which car was his and got "the black truck down there," as he abstractly waved his hand toward the street.

so i'm assuming this black truck was his, since it was parked with the other bomb club cars and he happened to be wearing a bomb club shirt. there were other trucks up there in the vagueness he'd motioned to, but i don't think there happened to be another black one nearby.

i don't always take a shot just because they ask. depends on the person. some just assume i will. ask nicely and/or have a nice car parked in an interesting spot. he lucked out on all counts.

the car was clean. i liked the details.

was out of town this weekend, and had hoped for rain. didn't take my camera with me. woke up to a bright, sunny day. fine, as there weren't any shows going on where we were, and if no one tells me about one i missed it will be like it didn't happen, right?

dearly departed

soon after we arrived at the show on first street, we ran into a guy who asked about pictures we might have taken of his car at the whittier dia de los muertos show a few weeks before. he'd been looking for them online, but i don't recall handing him a card, so it would have been a bit more difficult to find it anyway.

wouldn't have mattered, as i hadn't posted too many from that show. haven't posted much at all, really, been so busy and sitting in traffic too often.

here are a few shots from that day. he was parked up toward the donut shop, at the end of the street, away from the street vendors and crowds and the other pod of cars at the next intersection.

yes, the door and trunk were open, and i normally would have not taken it. they're missing some dearly departeds, so i'll admire the shrine.

and i usually pass up cars when they have the dolls up on the bumpers too. just don't like them. not in the creep me out way, just kinda whatever.

i don't think i took one shot of the car from the first street show...it happens sometimes.

nash it up

another quick one. again. tired.

to avoid posting yet another truck, thought i'd post this one. he didn't actually talk to me directly; he talked to my better half, who had taken a picture of it at the bomb club show that i didn't make it to a couple of months ago. pretty sure i've seen it before, and if i did a search of my files, i'd probably find it.

i liked the hood ornament and the emblem on the front, with it's slight pitted imperfection.

east first

someone gave me a flyer for the old memories east la show out on first street. kinda wished we had gotten up and out earlier, because it turned out to be more than we expected. the veterans celebration took up four or five blocks of the street and included a stage and music.

lucked out and got parking fairly close and headed out to the end of the street and unpacked. first block on one side was taken up with bomb club cars. i've seen some of them before. several of the guys stopped to talk to me, so lucky you, i'll start with your cars.

getting late, so i'll just quickly start with another truck, since i think the owner was the first one to say hey. i think the shot from the other side was maybe the better view, but the sun had gotten too high, and my shadow was too close to the car, as was anyone who was walking behind me, so here it is from the other side.

happy that there some smallish clouds in the sky, they always make a better picture. better than the plain blue that is more typical, and they reflect so well in the polished slates that are the hoods of the cars.

why?

so this gorgeous truck wasn't quite in the show at st hilary's, but in the parking lot just outside. sometimes i find some extraordinary cars just outside of the best shows, in parking lots, on the street, around the block. 

i figure it's the entry fee, they arrived after the lot got too full, or just too late to enter the competition. otherwise, i just don't know. come on, guys like to whip'em out and compare them, so come on inside the gate and play the game.

the only thing i really don't like on this otherwise perfecto truck, is the stupid, asinine bullet hole sticker on the front, just next to the headlight. i just don't get those. you want a bullet hole on your car, just shoot it already.

who's afraid of the dark?

tired. friday. done. another busy week.

quick post. i don't do many motorcycles. they just don't get me going. but the occasional one does stop me momentarily.

this one was it's own flashlight. paint job was nothing special, with ubiquitous raider nation stuff emblazoned here and there.

what i did like was the engraving on the chrome parts and the ostrich leather custom seats. i liked the details better than the overall bike, and that can't be good.

but i just thought i'd share. another night time experiment with the newer camera. still not lovin' it like my a700s.