i'd trade my honda

busy day, busy week. another quick post. still running low on computer space.

this is more like it. nice oldie. i'd totally trade him for my stupid honda.

racy lacy

got things to do this evening, so quick post.

saw this tangiers club car "moded" at the showlows show at st hilary's last month. one of the few cars i shot that day. as always, couldn't get all the detail of the paint job, particularly on the roof. maybe i'll get a ladder for xmas, if i'm a good girl. what fun is that? and then i'd have to get a little red wagon to pull the thing along, or persuade a big guy to carry it for me... >:)

sun kissed

i am still wrestling with space issues on my hard drive. thinking i'll burn off  stuff back to earlier than 2009, stuff i hardly ever look at. just makes sense.

meanwhile, i was bad and attempted to hit up three car shows today. apparently a mistake, as it being veteran's day, they were mostly canceled. drove out to torrance. cadillac show at the dealership there. they had them parked in the service tunnel, and didn't seem to be much parking nearby, so i didn't stop. i know, i know. probably were more hiding on the inside, but if i don't go looking for other pics online, i won't miss them.

then tried another show that should have also been out there, but nothin was there at all. i did pass a park that seemed to have an informal muscle car show going on, but you know those don't really get me going much, so i drove on by it. fortunately, my backup planned worked out...my little bro lives nearby, so i hung out over there for a few hours.

on the way home, i took a quick swoop by the fuddrucker's in lakewood. must have been cancelled for the day, but there were still a couple of diehards sitting there polishing their cars. didn't stop there either.

so nothing for today, but long overdue family time. so win anyway.

i've been pondering which version of a temptations truck i should post. still haven't decided, so i'll put up this lovely viejitos chevy. probably should have waited until the sun had gone down a bit more, but still nice.

was that your club i saw cruising down whittier blvd today?

gently into that good day

saturday was my better half's birthday. plan was to go to disneyland and ride stuff, and hang out until the evening to watch one of the bands that rarely plays there anymore.

all week, i'd been telling him about this car show someone told me about, hosted by the latin gents, before i realized it was happening the same day. so i had started tossing out other options for his birthday. mentioned that this show was not too far from dland, if he could spare about an hour.

so i kinda hijacked his birthday, at least for a couple of hours. he said he mostly just wanted to hang out with me, and if i was going to be hanging out at a car show, then that's where he was going to be. especially since i was driving. sweet thing. he was bringing his camera to dland anyway, so he made the best of it, and took some shots too.

i had been told that there had been over a hundred cars there the previous month, and that they thought i'd really have fun there. all they had to mention was that it was associated with the latin gents, and i already knew that was exactly the type of cars that i would be looking for. i wasn't disappointed. though we did arrive at about the slated start time of two in the afternoon, there were already quite a number of cars there, with more arriving all the time.

i saw many guys i've met previously, and they came over to say hello, glad i could make it. quite nice of them, actually. especially some that i hadn't seen in a long time.

yes, to the dude with the civic, i did shoot a couple of your car. haven't decided if i'll post the better one here or not. to the guy with the yellow truck, the shot i took last year is here; i haven't decided if i like the shots from this show or the viejitos show last week better...keep checking...its a bitchin' truck, and i'll definitely post something soon.

yadda yadda. getting late, and there are plenty of other cars i can continue to blather on about. good show. hope to get there again in coming months.

liked this particular shot for a couple of reasons: first, i liked the car, of course. second, you need to know that the other two cars in this shot originally had their hoods up. that third one back has the two-sided type hood that opens.

well, i was setting up to shoot the green car in the front, and a guy casually walks over and closes the hood on the one next to it. i figure, well, he's going to leave before i can get to it, and mentally write that one off, and wait to take the picture until he's out of the frame.

but then he also goes to the split-hooded car, and carefully closes the hood on both sides, and walks away. that just makes me start to laugh on the inside. either he knows, or someone told him about my likelihood of shooting their cars when the hood is up is about zero. either that, or he was just being very considerate of me getting a better shot. makes me giggle to think its the former, so i'll just stick with that.

i'll throw in this shot, just because. its their show. they were representing. here was a whole row of them on the outside of the lot, though there were plenty more member's cars elsewhere. thought i'd give it a try to see what my camera could do with it. had to do three shot panorama to get this. kinda funky with a wide-angle lens, but it gives you the idea of what i saw.

why hide it?

when i go to that rare, larger show, i try to remember to investigate the side streets. if there's time. if it's not too hot.

sure a lot of the best cars, and those who think they have the best cars, are out on the main drag [hey gary from riverside], but its more crowded there as well. people wanting to stand thisclose to your car for a picture of themselves and their fantasy cars, or just because they need something to post on whatever social media site. or little kids, that are barely restrained from putting their sticky fingers on the paint, or trying to sit in the seat.

and there's the pissing contest of whose hood and/or engine is bigger/louder/shinier/more original than the next guy's, and oh, how many can get'em up. a lot of the old guys need a little help. i mean they use a bar or stick to hold the hood open.

so i'll wander over to where there are not so many people, or where there seems to be some shade. i am usually amazed at the jewels people hide off in the corners, and off the center of attention of the main street.

for all i know, they've been out all day, and they, too are trying to just take a break and cool off. otherwise, i just don't understand the why of being a wallflower? or maybe i do understand, only way too well...

sick of being sick

so right on queue, following a week long road trip vacation, comes the annual week long cold/flu thing. usually follows being stuck in the confines of an airplane next to patient zero, but this year my better half blames it on me out on the ferry in san francisco bay without a coat and wearing flip flops too late in the evening. pfft.

i blame it on the coworker calmly telling others about the cold that's run through her family, and she was still fighting it off, but was valiently slugging through a day at the office a few days before our trip. her, or any one of the thousands of people in the city that happen to sneeze or cough or hoick in your vicinity. but no, i don't think getting chilled for a couple of hours will do it to you alone.

whatever. thusly, with said illness, i am banished from the house, in the effort to prevent the mother-in-law from catching any respiratory bug, which at her age, may not be in her best interest, which also separates me from my computer and my blog. my kid is in my house, and i'm not going to get mr. law student sick. just spent my vacation fund, so not going to a hotel. end up at my parents house for almost a week. i think i heard my dad sneezing a couple of days ago, but mostly he's just a couch potato, asleep in front of the tv.

decided i was well enough to go to the office on friday. was about forty minutes from shutting down and heading over to ruby's last show of the season, when the boss asked if i could tweak a file and get it uploaded to a vendor before i left. spent over two hours trying to ftp the fricking thing, and it was the ftp at the other side that kept crashing. file too big to use dropbox.

ended up simplifying the file and sending it in parts, only to have the last piece get stuck. sent an email to the boss, who later responded that i hadn't been expected to stay, and the guy at the other end had left the office for the day. pissed that the traffic was too effed up to tackle and get to the show in time, headed back over to my mom's for another night. glad i'd kept a couple of extra sets of things to wear over there just in case. at least when the company moved their headquarters, it's only a five minute drive on the freeway to my mom's house.

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enough blathering. sick of it now. here's a car from the show in san diego i mentioned before. they block off about five blocks right near horton plaza in downtown sd. my better half didn't really see anything he wanted to shoot, and ended up being my bag boy the whole time, pulling my gear around, but i suspect mostly just checked out my ass when he thought i wasn't looking. he also made sure i was properly slathered in suntan lotion and that i didn't forget to drink water.

really expected a lot more there than there was. i mean, i've been to shows in rialto, riverside, whittier,... with blocks closed off and they get cars out the ying yang. this one mostly had blocks segregated, by decade or type. most crowded block was full of ferraris and lamborghinis...freakin teenie peenie club members. maybe i'll post a shot of those. nah. seen one, you seen them all. just imagine the show room in all reds and yellows and whites, and that was what was on the street.

then there were muscle cars <yawn>, too many with their hoods up, so buh bye. too few chevys and low riders. really didn't take so many pictures as i'd have hoped to. guess we'll have to make a point to go the show in chicano park next spring, to find the kind of cars we like.

i was only going to shoot the hood ornament on this one, when the owner walked over and asked if i'd vote for his car. they had awards for the different categories, but also a people's choice, so he was being proactive. i shot the car while he convinced my better half to also sign for it. it was a nice car, and i liked shooting a car in a different setting, so there you go.

there is never enough time

i'm kinda bummed about this show in pico rivera. sponsored by the showlows car club, i had several people tell me about it. i was going to be out of town with my better half and miss it.

turns out, our plans weren't cast in cement, and we were heading out the day of the show. had a little time to spare and it was not that far out of the way to the freeway, so we swung by the show. my better half stayed out with the car and cleaned the windows, while i did a too quick run through.

so bummed i didn't have more time. there was a smorgasbord of exactly the type of cars that i love. had to just quickly pick and choose. it was around noon, also a hot day, which slows me down. and then in the midst of it all, one of my kids calls and wants to chat. so even less time available to shoot. ah well.

found this one in a line of pharaoh's cars. very nice line up. hope to see them again.

this show was a first. hopefully it will become an annual, and that i can drag my better half in there with me.

everything old is new again

i'd never seen one of these before, at least that i can remember. dropped to the ground, it was hard to decide which point of view would be best. i have a front view, that i like, but it doesn't give you a sense of how low it was, so i'll show you this one instead.

wish the three dudes had moved out of my shot, but they persisted in just standing there for more than five minutes, so i just said screw it, and shot away. maybe that was the whole point of staying there anyway. at least they aren't being dorks and making faces.

de la chica

sorry i can't chat tonight. gotta get to bed, but wanted to at least post a purty picture. this one belongs to one of the ladies at the viejitos show. she came over and chatted for a minute. beautiful car...so jealous.

ttfn.

stumbled upon

after melting over at the shakedown show, we were hungry. i suggested pizza, and remembered that there was a round table a couple of freeway exits up. coincidently, in the same plaza as the fuddrucker's show in lakewood. and hey, the show there was just getting started.

just kidding. i knew it was there. just dragged my better half over there to have a peek. still wasn't that busy yet, but this one did catch our eye as we drove by. originally sitting there with nothing next to it, but by the time we parked and set up, a clown car drove up and parked next to it...not the mg, that one was sweet...on the other side. a whole parking lot, and he has to park there. so i squeezed in and took this shot.

don't think i've got one of these before, and the blue and white paint job made it more striking. happy accident.