choppy waters

i've heard that to help keep your heart healthy, you should do ten thousand steps a day.

the internet says that adds up to about five miles. who the heck has time to walk or run five miles a day? says the girl chained to a computer ten plus hours a day...

i don't have a phone or an app to track steps, but i'm pretty sure i'd be lucky to do that many in a typical week. i think the only time i can is when i'm on vacation, when we have all day to casually walk as far as there are things to do and see. but alas, i'm not on vacation everyday.

today was sunday. i had some time. i walked about three miles. went the other way, from a where i'd take a typical walk, out and about in whittier.

sadly, i didn't see one old car. saw a guy on a harley, who waved to me. maybe i've seen his bike around, but he went by too fast to know for sure.

purposely headed back home down a particular street, hoping to see an old fleetline that used to sit in the same place, on the same road, all the time. i wanted to finally get a picture of it, since i was going to walk past it, but it was gone.

saw a porcelin throne, sitting randomly in the middle of an alley, and a sign in a window that said, "prepare to meet thy god." what the hell kind of message is that? would it be some kind of indiana jones dart blowing fun run, if i had chosen to take that alley path? freestyle target practice? strange way to express your religion, or maybe my mind just ran off on a tangent, and lost the message completely.

saw a few cars from crazy life car club, but didn't shoot them. maybe the one that was parked sitting there, on its highest hydraulics setting would have made a decent picture, but nah. didn't.

not sure when i'll take another long walk. still pretty warm out. i'll wait for the cold. or the rain. or even better, a big car show.

and cars like this one. all the way down at the end of uptown--that walk must have done my heart good, right?

not normal

if anyone is not normal, that'd be me, but in this case, i'm referring to this truck. not one i'd normally bother with, but the owner seemed really hopeful that i'd take a shot of his baby.

only one i took. kind of wishing for a slightly different and higher angle to show more of that engine.

la harley

rained this morning. for about five minutes. seriously thought about going all shawshank in the rain at three-thirty in the morning, but the bed was too warm, and bid me to stay put.

it sprinkled a bit while i was out for lunch. that big, dark cloud over the hill, promises more, but will probably just keep moving on. at least it's cooler today.

no real plans today. i should sift through vacation pics. my dad always wants to see them. he won't travel much anymore, so i guess it's the vicarious thrill. he saw the world while in the navy, so i suppose he just wants to see how much things have changed. or not.

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saw this harley on a hot day, at the imperials show in hawaiian gardens. one of the few bikes i noticed that day, in two huge fields of lowriders and old iron. end of the aisle, and no people in the shot, so had to take it.

hot chocolate

been a hell of a week at work. but now i have to go. a week away from computers, work, and worry. i am tired. and my side hurts off and on. still cannot contemplate how i cracked a rib. so bizarre.

i am sorry to have to miss a few car shows. i did want to go to the bomb club show, but i'll be on a plane while they roll in. maybe next year.

saw this brown car, on a particularly hot day at mooneyes open house. the warm, rich color just makes me think of chocolate. milk chocolate. not that bitter dark stuff. ick.

upside down

saw this cadillac out at the moon eyes open house. seems to be a work in progress, and i'm not quite sure where its going. bits and pieces sliced and spliced, and chopped.

someone said that back bumper is just a cadillac bumper flipped upside down and stuck on there. it is quite different, but can only hope they have some good air bags to keep them from dragging the ground going up a driveway.

bloody mary

see this car often, and it's owner, howard gribble, too. he's locally famous in southern california and the lowrider community. i follow him on flickr. and though all this is true, i've never been officially introduced. i have often walked past him, and never say a thing. perhaps we're both just shy, at least i am. only on rare occasions do i break out of that shell and go over and say hello.

jae bueno was one i said a tentative hello to, and he was the nicest guy in the world. apparently, he spoke to my better half, frequently, usually while they watched me fiddling around with my camera. he was delightful and gracious, and i was socially akward, as usual.

on this morning, in san pedro, in the dim morning light, before many people had come into the park, i saw howard coming around the bend in back of the lighthouse. he never looks happy, looks sort of pissed. i'm guessing that must be what i look like, at least according to my better half.

anyway, i did not divert my path, and walked toward him, as i was going round to the front of the lighthouse, and quietly said hello. and unless i imagined it, i heard a gruff "hi" from him. and that was it.

celebrate those little personal triumphs. sure it wasn't much, but it's hard for me to get out of my shell, or my head. it does get easier each time, whether you can hear me or not.

btw, the rearview of the car was from the sultan's signal hill show. just saying, i see it a lot, different places. nuff said.

baggage

i've been busy all day. walked uptown for an hour or so at lunch...shopping for a graduation gift. really difficult when you don't know what someone likes or needs, or what is appropriate for the occasion. me, i like toys—monsters, aliens, weird stuff. don't think that would work for this girl.

still need to pack my bag for the trip. haven't decided when to leave. so i've been sitting here playing with my pictures. was trying to find a specific car, a black bel air. looked through the last few years of pictures. i think i have it, but no doubt i've labeled it wrong. probably on a hard drive i don't have here, a backup drive at a different location. oh well. this merc will have to do.

chopped and differently stylized flames than i usually see on cars. it was sitting at the edge of the park, stopping traffic. even got a crazy guy from a passing bus to get out before his real stop, to come over and make loud exclamations. i think the general thinking was that he might have been on something, but maybe he's just overly enthusiastic.

kudos to the pinstriper/airbrusher. somebody named vandemon, at least that's how they signed the back end.

and check out al the louvres. that looks difficult to do, without effing it up. also had hubcaps with cadillac emblems on it, and a desoto grille. guy sitting next to it, who seemed to know the owner, said just because they were cool.

connect the dots

thinking of going to the imperials show at hawaiian gardens on sunday. high hopes for an eclectic selection of cars to shoot. charging my batteries, cleaning the sensors, polishing the lenses. trying to get into a better frame of mind, than i've been recently.

new locations have promise for seeing things a new way. shooting cars differently, even if the angles are the same. always looking for the shots that make me happy; the designer in me looks for a pleasing composition and balance, or purposeful imbalance. my hobby keeps me happy, and helps keep me agile in my day job.

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found this at the hillco show from last superbowl sunday; it's their annual thang before the game. i think this was the third year i've been, but got there earlier than the previous years. saw lots more cars, some park and stay, others, just doing a quick stop and continuing on to wherever they are going to see the game.

blah blah blah. i've seen this truck a few times before, this show and elsewhere. i like the pinstriping on this truck. the rest of it, not so much. i like the truck in this picture; i like the composition of it better, with the car behind it, in another. should have took a couple other angles of them until i got what i wanted in one shot.

there seems to be some faint, green on green bubbley airbrushing on the top of the cab. little glitter, subtle shadows.

smug

drove out to ruby's last week. only two and half rows of cars. big change from a few years ago, as is for all the weekly shows it seems.

wasn't completely in the mood to shoot, definitely not to chat. mostly went through the motions, shot a few here, shot a few there. nothing there was really rockin' my world. good practice though.

i see this one once in a while. still like to study the paint job, try to imagine how they create some of the effects in the paint.

focus

shot this bike, while ignoring the crowd. focus. if i thought about it too much, i would have missed too many pictures. not anti-social, just socially retarded in large groups. forget the "imagine everyone in their underwear" advice they give people doing public speaking. not speaking, but still surrounded.

that lady staring real hard, didn't bother me at all. probably didn't realize she was in the shot, and just makes me smile. don't like her pants much, but the shoes are ok.

and the other dudes, i have a whole story in my head making me laugh. especially the guy on the phone, and who he might be talking to; that's just me, my brain just goes there. ask my better half.

there were other bikes around the corner, but mostly in dark colors. this guy has the balls to park it front and center, just screaming for attention. well, it got mine. enough to ignore all the people.