what's up?

cookhouse

this one is far from perfect, but it’s a perfectly fine car.

i love the crustiness of the paint, the imperfections all over. the beat to hell ornament. i wonder if it still lights up?

i think it fits in with the surroundings far better than the perfectly shiny impala to the side there. oh it’s difficult to choose one over the other.

i’m enjoying the gloom outside the window. more rain coming. i’m bundled up and feeling sleepy, but it’s too early for bed. i guess i’ll watch some random television until a more proper time to sleep. back to the grind tomorrow, at least for half a day. we’ll see if i’m feeling up to a full day of work yet.

still coughing up some bitter lung butter.

what holiday?

so i’ve been sick since my mom’s birthday on the twenty-first. better half got sick after getting back from visiting his sister, so he sent me over to stay at my mom’s house.

then come xmas eve, she wasn’t feeling good, so i mentioned she should take a covid test. she didn’t really want to stick a stick up her nose, but she finally did. yup. positive. so no matter how i was feeling, i was stuck in quarantine with her. didn’t want her to be alone anyhew.

so, cancel xmas, xmas dinner, new year’s dinner. better half started feeling better, so would drop off food for us, and any groceries needed.

sister and brothers couldn’t drop in cuz we had cooties.

sort of narrowed down her covid to a church function she attended. best we can figure. hallelujah and amen. another reason to stay away from that stuff for me.

so many phone calls from relatives, checking on my mom. she had a mild case, so she got lucky.

i never did test positive, but she officially tested negative today, new year’s day. she’ll still stay in for a few days, but i finally went home, still with a cough.

i’m sure the house is much quieter without me coughing in it.

i was supposed to have the week off. i was supposed to have fun. i was supposed to book a trip somewhere and drive away, but nooooo. sick sick sick.

it was fun sleeping all day, and staying up watching stupid movies with my mom until late in the night. i sort of got on her usual late schedule.

it’s going to suck on tuesday, when i have to start work at six am again.

now i’m home again, backing up files. finally back to playing with pictures from ramble on the ranch a couple of weeks ago.

hoping to post a few pics, but i sort of liked this one right now. i like how the shot is framed up. i like the car, the branches of the tree above it, and the pizza place…really good pizza. kinda sorry i didn’t get any that day.

did see one grandkid, my son and his wife. the doggo yowled, and went for a ride with me to pick up lunch before the show. the other kid slept the whole time. oh well.

down at the ranch

a car show at vail headquarters is a good excuse to stop and see my grandkids. unfortunately, one was already napping, after a hard morning of potty training. she likes the idea of it, just won’t participate in the actual location it should be going.

the littlest one i only got to hold for a short while, before he too, went off to take a nap.

so after a short lunch with my son and his wife, i headed over to the ranch.

quick post, as i have to go stay with my daughter’s dogs overnight at my mom’s house, and they’ve just arrived. she says she’s out of oil, but nbd. maybe i misunderstood, that it’s just the light that signals it’s time for a change, and not that her engine is about to seize up. wondering why she wants me to check it and add some, if she’s just going to head over to jiffy lube? what’s an extra five miles on a dry tank?

putting this one up, since the guy sitting in the chair asked me what i do with the pictures. he obviously saw me taking it, he watched me take it.. curiosity killed the cat…

i believe he said it was someone else’s car…maybe his brother’s? must be nice to have someone let you drive their car around.

sraining

it rained half the night, into morning here today. better have says i slur my words a lot, so i’d say it’s “sraining.” how very elvis of me. more rain coming tonight, and half of tomorrow. i love it. cold and gloomy.

stayed home most of the weekend, wrapping the eternal/infernal xmas tree with the usual ten thousand plus frigging lights. my hands and arms are scratched from the wire branches, and even my ankles have been shanked by the lower branches this year. maybe socks would help. thousands of little fruity lights. perhaps you might remember the tree just a block from uptown whitter. probably could have seen it from a plane.

anyway, it’s my gift to my better half, to get the thing wrapped with lights, since he’s been so busy with work lately. it makes him happy, to remember how much his mother loved xmas and that damn tree. so there you go. it will be up to him to decorate to whatever theme—did toy story again last year, so something else from storage and his mother’s ornament collection.

another car from the bomb club show. i hope you’re not tired of them yet. i have more to post. perhaps i should dip into the archives and post old ones?

nah, it was overcast that day, so it fits with my mood and the current weather, so that decides it.

nice car, and i managed to get no one moving thought the shot here, off to the side of the field.

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…

i'm tired

i’m thinking that i need a new computer and more hard drive space. hoping to get to more shows in the future, and this camera pops out big files—but not as big as the files on my better half’s new camera. he’s already got himself a new gift for the holidays, and hopes to join me at some car shows.

he came with me to the bomb club show in october, and had a good time. was using his old camera with a lens he hadn’t used in a while.

we both shot this car. i just saw it over his shoulder, on his computer. he’s thinking about posting again on his website, which he’s ignored for far too long. not sure when or if he’ll share his version, but i like mine.

cars are moving in the background, and the owner is in the car, so this from the end of the show and drive out.

i’ve had a cold since thanksgiving. probably a bit earlier than that, when i complained to my doctor about my earache. earache, my eye. she said nothing was wrong then. nothing is ever wrong when i bother to go to a doctor’s office.

this thing moved from behind my eyes down to my throat and has pretty much stayed there. i’m coughing up a lung, even after two weeks, though i have no other symptoms. tested negative for covid at least four times now, so just a boring old cold, i guess.

i’m hoping to shake it off before the next vail headquarters car show in a couple of weeks. all the better reason to go out and see my grandkids there in temecula.

as you would expect, if you’ve read this blog for a few years, i’m not in the mood for xmas, and haven’t even looked at buying gifts yet, if at all. i’ve got some time off coming up, so maybe we’ll get out of the house, or help my mom put the decorations away after the holidays.

can’t believe my dad will have been gone four years come xmas eve.

wildfire

last shot i promised to post. also the last shot of the night, from the field.

almost gave up, as a group of people kept milling around behind it. finally just said screw it, and shot a couple of sets of exposures. people walking through the shots come out as blurred figures, but at least they were behind the car.

the owner had originally been in the driver’s seat, getting the car started, to get in line to exit the park. seeing me set up my tripod, and basically stand there waiting on the exposures for several minutes, got him to turn on the lights, and out of the car.

he spent the time chatting with my better half, who always seems to explain what i’m doing. most people are happy to give me some minutes to shoot. my better half is more chatty than i, and better at it, anyway.

i like the glow, hence the game of thrones reference. better than “pyromancer’s piss.”

cool burn

i’m just going to post up a few pics that i’d promised from the bomb club show, then sift through others that i liked.

here’s the third one we had a chat with before we left. i should write these stories down within the day of the event, as the details start eluding me rather quickly.

what i think she said was that they’d just gotten this truck back from either getting the paint job and / or other body work, and that otherwise, they only take it out for car shows. i believe it wasn’t a daily driver; better half thinks she said it was a daily driver. looking at that paint, i’m more sure it isn’t.

beautiful flame paint. driving it would put too many chips in it, i would think.

in the kitchen with dyna

1938 buick roadmaster

1938 buick roadmaster speedometer

1938 buick roadmaster steering wheel

1938 buick roadmaster interior

1938 buick roadmaster dynaflash 8

another from the bomb club show. the owner told us he’d won a prize. said it was mostly original, except for the record player he’d installed, though he said it was of the same period, and played forty-fives.

he popped the hood to show my better half the engine. i don’t usually bother shooting under the hood, but it was pretty clean, and he was taking to time to chat, so why not?

he was very proud of the car. congrats to you.

on the home front, still no car for me. sort of a stalemate until it passes smog and light tests. pretty sure it has a bad bulb or socket. the shop has found a couple of things so far. hoping there is nothing further to at least get it back on the road. i know there are a few other issues to deal with, expected with an older car.

been borrowing mom’s van or my better half has been driving me to lunch and/or getting me to and from my mom’s if she isn’t doing the same.

took the opportunity to donate a couple of van loads full of junk from storage, and rearrange things, to get rid of one of my storage units. yay. one less thing to pay for.

better late than never

after being at work for a week, following a two week vacation, i decided to sleep in. my better half was up and running early, as he usually is, and had already been out for a walk, before i got out of bed. he was then off to do some shopping as i sat and read flipboard, emails, and tried to wake up.

better half got back a little after noon. i decided i wanted to go to a car show. i’d known that huffarama and the bomb club show were both going on.

having moved away from whittier has makes it more difficult to get out to as many shows as we’d used to go. ultimately decided to go to the bomb club show at santa anita, as it was closer, and it was already early afternoon.

he said he’d like to join me, so we both got about preparing our gear. fortunately, there was still juice in the camera batteries from vacation, though one of the cameras needed the date and time reset, from disuse.

after taking the quickest route, per the gps, we arrived close to two in the afternoon. had run into traffic, and it seemed to have taken forever.

i guess he hadn’t gone with me last time, during one of the summer blasts, so he was happily surprised at the location and turnout. i really loved that it was overcast and cold. it gets so hot in the summer, that i usually am out the door by noon, before i melt in the heat. was only sad that we hadn’t gone earlier.

we ended up not leaving until close to seven in the evening, when cars were driving out through the tunnel. we made one more turn around the grounds. better half was playing with a couple of lenses he hadn’t used in a while, so was enjoying shooting the cars, lights, and people.

saw this chevy sitting with his lights on, waiting for his friends to join the line to get out.

we recently took a two week vacation back east; a few days in chicago; a few days in dc. weather was perfect, and rain only came to both cities, the days we were leaving. overall, it was a much needed break, and was great. we only got short changed with our feet giving out much too soon each day, from so much walking.

i’d returned to find that some asshole had stolen the catalytic converter from my car, which i’d parked in front of my mother’s house. the neighbor has cameras, and found they’d done it during the first week we’d been gone, about five-thirty in the morning. needless to say, many expletives later, i’d had triple-a confirm my opinion, then began with the insurance company.

so, i’ve been busily getting estimates for the repair all week, only to have the insurance company declare it a total loss, and mark the title a salvage. a week of arguing with them about an otherwise perfectly functional car with new tires, has made me very tired. i’ve decided to get it fixed, for a settlement lower than i would have to just scrap it. i should have just fixed it in the first place and saved all the headache insurance has cost me.

the car show was a lovely diversion.