elite green

chevy impala

this is a nice green car. couldn't get a good angle on it, since the front end was hopped up, and i'm not that tall, but this will do. lots of pinstriping and airbrush work. wondering if these are the type of wheels that they have to pull each spoke out and polish them individually. pain in the ass, i would think.

---

almost xmas. almost forgot that we had today off at work. all right, i really did not realize until last monday, when someone said something about the day off. which really screwed up my project deadlines, since i had factored in working today. oh well.

i guess tomorrow i'm getting baked, err, getting my bake on...a variety of edible xmas gifts. certain family members don't want things, but they do expect to receive their preferred baked treats. vinegar taffy for my dad...i'll do that last, as i'll burn my hands pulling that shit as it cools. but he likes it, so i'll make it for him. he says he doesn't inhale it all in one day like he used to, and his crowns on his teeth don't come out anymore, since he super glued them in.

my younger brother just decided he'd fly his family in on xmas day, so i'll have to make him a danish pastry. have made it for him every year since high school, except for last year, since he moved to the east coast right before xmas. i'm saying he's coming back just for that, but he won't admit it.

gave my kid the choice between some sticky, sweet, brandy-covered mexican bread or a loaf of carrot bread; he went with carrot. went to the market earlier, with a list, and yep, forgot to get the carrots. i'll go tomorrow.

and i think i'll make my mom some zuchinni bread, with cinnamon and nutmeg flavor.

apart from all that, i gotta make a batch of cinnamon rolls too. that takes all day, so i'll start those first. will be a busy day, and i'm going to make a big mess in the kitchen.

bodes ill

1956 chevy bel air

thanks panera for that flavorless egg sandwich with the eggshell spice. and the salt shaker that drops a teaspoon of salt with just a light tap. and the orange juice that tastes a bit off, with a lid that popped right off without breaking the safety ring. my lip is tingling now...probably all in my head, right?

if my day is starting off this well, i wonder how work will go? xmas came early there; my week started with a brand new kick-ass computer, with a couple of big curved monitors.

at least most people have already left for their holidays or are working from home, so it should be pretty quiet. me, i'm in the office. new computer to play with, and a new employee to keep an eye on, getting acclimated to windows vs mac. not a new revelation that i'm a terrible supervisor/teacher...ask my better half about how i met him.

here's my chance to fill this blank canvas, to train him on procedures the way i want them done. i've done things for so long, i do them without thinking about it, and have already forgotten to tell him a bunch of stuff. but then, if i think back to times when i started a new job, or observations of others starting, you see eyes glazing over from the sheer amount of info hitting them the first few days. so i'll just mention stuff as days pass or the questions come up.

---

here's another of the tj friends cars i woke up to see for the xmas parade. it should have been at the end of the line, to carry the fat guy in the red suit, instead of whichever political hack or parade host got to sit in it.

transom of my mind

1953 chevy bel air

better half was just reminding me about how he woke me up to let me know about all the cars lined up just outside the door. says he knew i didn't hear more than cars and front window. not the words "to the left."

i peeked through the curtains to the right. i was sleepy, ok?

he says i do that a lot. lots of random thoughts that tangent and richochet off whatever he is talking about, and i ask five completely different questions back to him in rapid succession for no reason whatsoever. i gotta be losing my mind.

he specifically mentioned this car when he woke me up, as one i needed to see.

dia de los puercos

1953 chevy bel air

wanted to get out today. there were a couple of shows to consider. chose to go over to covina, to the dia de los puercos restaurant. was supposed to be a toy drive.

got there after start time. there were only about seven cars and a cycle there, mostly from timeless classics club. ok, figured i'd just start shooting, and more would show up.

thought people were still recovering from yesterday's mooneyes and/or hangovers.

spent over an hour just shooting those cars. a couple more showed up. a guy on a basic black motorcycle showed up. he asked me what's going on. he was on his way to a motorcycle toy ride. he sat and watched and talked on his cell phone for a while before leaving.

i went inside, to have some lunch. food was ok. first time there, so i've only tried one plate of tacos, er, taquitos. sort of tasted like hot dogs in a crunchy shell. not really what i expected. guess i was hoping for something else, but i tried.

after, took pictures of a couple more cars that showed up, and then left. stuff to do at home, fun was over.

park it there

1967 chevy impala

better half got me out of bed yesterday by saying there was a car show outside the window. i'd decided not to go to moon eyes the night before—long week, stressed and tired—probably would have cleared my head to have gone, but too late now.

saturday was the whittier uptown christmas parade. was hoping to be able to sleep in, and not be woken up by the gathering high school bands and cars and city trucks with their barricades disturbing me. they've moved the parade start time to ten the last few years, so it really hasn't been so bad.

better half seems to wake up at usual work hours weekend or no, so he was up when everything started showing up. i guess he heard, then saw a bunch of convertibles show up, and park right outside the house. he giggled, and came and woke me up a little before eight.

i was going to skip the festivities, and go see a movie. i've got no spirit left for this stuff, but i do for old cars and photography.

i peeked out the front curtain, but didn't see anything, and figured they must have moved further down the street. apparently, i looked the wrong way, and when he opened the curtain, and asked if i was sure there weren't any cars parked outside, i looked again.

my bad. there were like fifteen old chevies parked in a couple of rows down the street. there for the pretty pretty princesses and parade dignitaries, i suppose.

my car was parked up around the block, with my tripod in the trunk, so i had dust off the old one i used to use, or appropriated from my better half, once upon a time.

so we both got our shit together and out the front door in no time.

some cars are better than no cars, right? especially when they bring them to you.

shot up and down the two rows of cars. a few more showed up. mostly members of tjfriends club.

better half talked to a group of the guys, who said half their cars were convertibles, so here they were, working the parade. i thanked a few of the guys for bringing the carshow here.

there's my better half telling these guys the funny story of the morning. i've shot these cars at other shows, but he's never met them.

pretty sure the kid they had working hard polishing the car was the same kid that approached me at the veteranos show, to remind me that he'd seen me shooting their cars at a previous show. probably should have had him pose in front of the car, in his shades.

---

oh, btw, the creepy elf tree won the best tree in a window competition. mother-in-law wasn't even trying, since they'd told her she couldn't win yet another year. three in a row, then skipped one. i guess it was ok to win again. congrats, mom!

i had to shoot a few pictures of it to show my own mother, so here's a peek.

---

we ended up shooting all the cars, dropping the cameras in the house, and walking back up the street with our other cameras, to get some breakfast. parade got started while we were inside—i saw it through the window.

after, we walked to the theatre. i managed to run across during a break between a band, a float, and a group of karate kids, performing for judges. better half took my camera back home with him.

went to see fantastic beasts... got there early for the second showing. walked in with my bucket of popcorn and drink, and basically cock blocked a young couple making out in the top corner of the dark theatre. i guess i could have left and let them get it on, or alerted an usher, but then i thought, no, ewww, i sometimes sit up in the top row, in the corners. didn't want to think about what might have been left behind on the seat. and it's more of a kid movie, so what if one walked in?

instead of the top row, which i prefer, i went to the middle center of the theatre, and just didn't turn around, in case they decided to just keep on keeping on. never have felt more my age and like i'd just mommed them.

fortunately, other people started walking in, so i didn't feel so awkward and alone.

movie was not that great. i liked the creatures. the story was kind of lame. i suppose the next few movies will continue the story, and make it more interesting. otherwise, its just a call for more money from studios that can't come up with anything new.

---

when i got home, my better half giggledly told me that after the parade, his mother looked out the side window, and there were all the same club cars parked again, right outside the window where i work on my computer. better half took some pictures, but i haven't seen them yet. he just thought it was funny that they were back, and i was gone. as if i'd have gone back out and shoot them some more...of course i would have...

cabal

1939 chevy master deluxes

this is a not so perfect shot of previously mentioned photoshoot at last week's old memories toy drive.

the other photographers who had asked the owners to pull their cars out into a loose semi-circle, seemed to have either been done, or were taking a break to regroup, so i quickly shot a few frames. it might have been during the time they were getting a certain little red truck to shoot from a higher elevation, up in the truckbed.

i think i would have shot this differently, had i had more time to do it. i mean, i shoot a wide angle lens, but i am not liking that i had to stand so far back to get them all in, and even so, i managed to clip either side, in my haste to get a shot.

the formation makes some sense, in that they fanned out, and allowed space so each owner could later be posed with their car in a group shot that i've seen by the other photographers. to me, it seemed to be missing something visually. can't quite pinpoint whether it's the one car not in the perfect formation, or that the others needed to be a little more haphazard. i dunno. i guess i'd have to mock something up with toy cars to solve the puzzle.

on top of that, this little cabal of thirty-nines seem to be up to no good, but that's just my weird imagination running away with me. and the bike in the background is the sacrificial beast.

watchin’

1941 chevy special deluxe

i do like cars when they are parked near overhanging trees. easy to frame up something nice.

others were shooting a group of cars farther down the parking lot, just out of the frame. i took the opportunity to shoot other cars, while everyone was over there watching the commotion.

almost everyone. at least two were left, watching me, shooting this car. caught them in the reflection.

---

we live in an older house. no air conditioning in the summer, and an ancient heating system for the winter. i get hot flashes more often than not, so i suffer through the heat of summer, and the old wall heater in the back room is basically dead in the winter. i put off using a space heater in our room as long as possible. the thing makes me paranoid that it will tip over and start a fire, and it also heats the room up a fair amount.

my better half used to love it cold; i called him a polar bear. now he is less enthusiastic about it, especially when he wants to sleep. so we are at odds, now that winter is coming. it has been in the low forties at night, and our room has a lot of windows.

some nights we run the heater, and i alternate being under the blanket and throwing it off. sometimes it wakes him up, most times not. he has slept up on the couch a few nights, so i could see how it was without the thing on. it was great, and i slept fine.

i think he didn't mind the couch either; house heating system works well up there, and i secretly thinks he likes being up there, sleeping with the xmas tree lights on...a big night light. but those elf on a shelf elves, that it is covered with would freak me the fuck out.

heard my better half had joked to his mother that an exorcism was going to be needed in the back bedroom. he could almost see his breath when he walked in the other morning.

outside looking in

1939 chevy master deluxe

slept in, skipped pomona this morning, but did manage to roll outta bed and get to the old memories toy drive at the speedzone. thought i'd go there, then maybe head over to pomona after.

wasn't really a whole lot there when i arrived after start time, which was ten. several other photographers were there or showed up soon after—@zurdo_la, @reyfierro, @aragonphotography39. i know a couple of them well enough to say hey, how's it going, where you been, where you going next...starting to sound like forrest gump. they said it was too late to head to pomona, that cars would be heading back this way. toss up between this show and the together toy drive out in covina.

i just stayed at this one, for a couple of hours. there was enough to keep me busy and fiddle with my cameras. zurdo, one of the photographers, asked what lens i was shooting today — same one i usually do, wide angle. used to carry around another wide angle, but more glass just makes my bag heavier. at this point, i'm just getting the hang of this lens...shoot the hell out of what you have, until you know it, really know it, right? or wear it out.

anyway, with all the extra space available at the show, one of the other photographers took the opportunity to have some of the owners to pull their cars out, so they could shoot them better. i tried to stay out of the way of their shots.

once they walk away, the cars are up for grabs, until the owners move'em back.

one owner of a very nice chevy, asked me if i'd like him to pull it out; it took a bit of biting my tongue, to not start laughing and say, "that's what he said." i did manage to thank him for the offer, but it was fine where it was.

really liked this one. managed to get a shot that didn't have other people in it, and at an angle that hid the cars parked behind it, more toward the checkered building.

took a couple of shots of the interior—why not, the window was open. didn't quite frame it up right, but like it just the same.

---

didn't go to another show after this one. on the way home, i did stop by the cemetery, to say hey to my better half's uncle. he didn't have much to say, but he does have a lovely tree to give him shade, and it was hot in the sun.

i don't think i'd want to be stuck in a box in the ground, with just a no-profile grave marker. tombstones, big ass tombstones are the way to go, if you're going to bother with a hole in the ground. they make a statement, that they were here, kind of like kilroy.

i drove over to the other field that has those, and they aren't very impressive or numerous, but they make me think cemetery. maybe i should go back to photographing old cemeteries, like i did in college, and shoot very old tombstones and graveyards. i like the old ones in boston, or even santa ana.

for a wallflower like me, i just want to be cremated and tossed to the wind. i prefer this meadow on a mountain in canada, overlooking lake louise, or maybe mt. rainier or muir woods--whichever i could get someone to dump me. at least i'd be more useful that way, and no one would stomp over me to visit someone else. and it would be as if i never were...

cemeteries with the no-profile markers just look like pock-marked faces. old school is the way to go, but more inconvenient for the field owners...

miss it

1948 chevy fleetline

from the broiler a few weeks ago. i just love me a fleetline. alone in a corner, everyone in a prayer circle out of the frame farther away, i took advantage of getting a shot without people cruising through.

ok, there was a woman sitting behind me, keeping an eye, but without any more convo than a "hello," i might as well have been alone.

i don't make it out to the weekly shows at bob's anymore; rush hour traffic just keeps me away. that and the last few times i made a point of going anyway, there was hardly anything there. i did see for a while that some clubs had adopted it, and were making it a thing again, but i haven't seen any pics lately. so maybe they've given up?

maybe i should go the last wednesday night before xmas, when they've got colored lights up on the building. it used to be busy then, and reflections on cars are just lovely. should i, shouldn't i? i'll flip a coin that week. high tech decision making is best sometimes.

belated happy birthday shout out to angel—who i used to see there once in a while.

so chill

1950 chevy deluxe

arrived later than i'd wanted to, but better half needed to take a shower to wake up, and dry his long locks first. i, on the other hand, rolled out of bed, dressed and was basically good to go. glad i've let my hair grow out, and don't really have to waste time doing any fancy styling like when it is shorter; never holds a curl anyway. just brush it and it is what it is, but at least i can tie back when it blows in my face.

within minutes of walking up to the corner where the line of cars were parked waiting for the gates to open, he was freezing his nalgas off, and he left, headed home, to a warm house, and xmas stuff to do.

i, on the other hand, distracted myself from the weather, deciding which way to go--left or right down the street--and got to shooting. i went left, heading to the seemingly neverending line of cars...more were arriving every few minutes.

shot as far as this chevy before turning around. the reflection was right, the sky was cloudy, the sun was up a decent amount, palm trees and the arena building. busy enough picture without the next couple of cars...vw bugs...not what i was looking for. nice, but nah.

morning light is pretty, and if i can catch it hitting the shine of the paint just so, it makes me happy. i do need to remember to slow down, and really get the camera focused, not race the sun so much. there's always another show, another morning to try again.