what's up?

end of days?

1947 chevrolet stylemaster

to listen to celebrities, you would think the world ends today--inauguration day. it's just another day. overpaid self-important idiots. just shut up already. drown your sorrows, go buy another ferrarri or something.

rainy friday. haven't been home since tuesday. maybe later, after traffic dies down.

meanwhile, here's a chevy that's been waiting in the wings a few weeks. an interesting color combo. don't recall the owner being around, so no story or drama to share. just a pretty picture.

broken

nice cadillac from last sunday. actually saw several, but only one in a deep, dark color.

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awakened at two a.m. by a rhythmic creaking of floorboards in the apartment upstairs. thinking there might be a ghost, judging by the dramatic moaning, hoped the guy up there wasn't scared. after some giggling like twelve year olds, wondering what might be going on, better half went back to sleep.

i have a hard time going back to sleep once i'm awake. must go back to when i had little kids and a husband that worked the night shift.

of course, the alarm went off at four-twenty, just as i was getting sleepy again.

started the day with a walk before work. mostly dark, just a hint of distant color. it's mostly near apartments, so not too worried. lots of dog walkers out at that time too.

coming back to the building, as i climbed the front steps, with the sun just coming up, a car pulls up to the curb. i felt like don barzini on the stairs of the courthouse, but it was just the guy dropping off the morning newspapers.

later, i was going to be good and drink a glass of water. i like it on ice in a wine glass. i washed the glass, then as i fill it with ice from the thing in the refrigerator door, the 'ding ding ding' of falling ice is interrupted by a 'tink.' yup, a nice pointy shard of glass is on the floor, and my drink is forgotten. i briefly thought about just drinking from the other side of the glass, but then the other half of my brain yelled "that would be stupid."

so i was drinkless until lunch. whereupon, i attempted to get a coke. one dispenser had no syrup, the other was flat. fek it. lunch sucked after that, i mean really. the food sucked.

missed the shuttle back to the office, but another walk on a nice day wasn't bad.

should have stayed in bed. just one of those days when you feel like you're busy but getting nothing done, nothing worth my time. thinking maybe i need a change.

top it off with a two and a half hour drive home and better half working late.

so i'm uptown, in the window of a restaurant, typing this and listening for an old car or harley or something interesting to drive by. nothing this evening; i guess i'll head home.

works for me

better half was with me yesterday morning at pomona. i asked him what settings he was using before the sun came up. been a while since i've shot in the dark, so i forget what i've done before.

he said change the aperture, watch the histogram, adjust the exposure so it's less than thirty seconds. do fewer shots. i listened. then did my own thing anyway. it aggravates him to no end sometimes, but i do ok anyway.

black car under a dark sky. this one was off on it's own, and the owners were already off shopping in the swapmeet area, i'm guessing. it was cold. not so many cars were driving into the show area this early, so i could stay with my longer exposures. i took my chances with whatever or whoever might walk through the shots, but they would just be blurs.

i did tweak my settings a little bit, but not as much as i could have. i still got something usable out of it, i think.

wishin’ i had enough cash

got up early for a sunday, and drove out to pomona. happily, i have tomorrow off for the mlk holiday. i haven't yet taken a nap, and my head is starting to reel.

we arrived just around five a.m., and got a fairly close parking spot. was about forty degrees this morning, but we had a couple of layers of jackets and coats, that we would later take back to the car, when the temps hit the sixties.

the sun was still down, and the cars were few when we got over to the show area. bridgetown oldies showed up right on time, and got their usual spots by the bleachers. i went from here to there, in no particular order, depending on the lighting, angle, people and traffic behind the cars.

saw this lovely over by the fencing, when i went to the other side of the fence to shoot that car in the background. came back around after, when the light was hitting it nicely, to take a few shots. i liked this one best.

the car is for sale, btw. if only i had the money...

better half had things to do, so we had to head out by eleven. weather was perfect, or i would have stayed longer. maybe next month.

fire water

saw this back at dino's bomb squad's blessings of the bombs at lincoln park. was the first time i made it out there, and wasn't disappointed. someone said they usually had way more cars, but there were enough for me that day.

the cars parked in the grass here kept moving around, for better positions or for shade, i'm not sure why. maybe just to park with their clubs or friends—basically the same, right?

so, this is it. i just killed off my old website for good, and am now firmly committed to this version. i'm hoping you like how it functions. i still want to kick a few things at it, to make it do stuff it doesn't want to do. it probably won't. i'm not a coder or a tech head.

at least most of what i wanted moved over here without a problem. just need to touch up some of the older posts.

congrats to my nephew and his wife—first kid born last night—welcome annabelle elizabeth, yet another friday the thirteenth baby in the family.

anyone else use listerine? i prefer scope, but had bought some listerine to have at my mom's house. remembered my dad always had a bottle of the original piss yellow stuff in the bathroom when i was a kid.

i got a bottle of the minty green stuff, hoping it would taste better than the original.

the first two seconds of swishing got me that mint i was looking for, but then the original bottled fire flavor i remembered came up behind the mint and had to spit it out quicker than quick. and follow that up with mouthfuls of water.

i am happy to imagine the microscopic germs getting hit with that liquid napalm and the tiny communal screams of a billion microbes being snuffed out in that first two seconds.

rain delay

raining most of this week, so i've been staying at my parents' house, since it's closer to work. the drive is infinitely easier than the drive down the five from whittier any day.

hence, far from my computer, i can't work on new pictures, and must choose from a couple of slightly stale pictures squirreled away just for a rainy day.

this back end will do. fin-like bits and lots of chrome all up in your face. ya, that's the ticket.

hoping the rain really does stay away for the weekend; thinking i'll go shoot some cars at pomona.

updated

welcome to my slightly revamped website. i understand it still needs work, but it seems to be working well enough.

maybe i'll just reformat it into pictures up front. i doubt most people want to read my pointless drivel anyway. except you, jimbo, that i know.

supposedly i can mess with the layout and not lose the text if i change my mind later. we'll see.

this shot is from almost a year ago. creeping around before sunrise can get some interesting pictures.

i like old chevrolets, in case you hadn't noticed.

sitting on my ass

early light. it's soft. it's warm. shadows drop gently off into a blur. it passes so quickly, and i move as quickly as possible to the cars catching it to have any chance of seeing the picture my eyes see.

at this show in san fernando, i get there early. so far i've managed to get inside pretty early, though they always run it down the line questioning who/what i am doing there, and should they let me in. promise not to get in the way, pay the entry fee.

this past year, not so many cars were there early. i ended up criss-crossing the football field, to the select cars i wanted to shoot.

this cadillac vaguely reminded me of another cadillac i used to shoot (now he drives a buick), mostly because of the color, not the year.

i liked the reflection of the sky and palm trees across the trunk.

i've spent my day alternating between sitting on my ass doing nothing, sitting on my ass futzing with a revamped website, and sitting on my ass driving out for lunch.

woke up with rain falling loudly outside the windows. rain that they had predicted earlier in the week, then moved to monday. stupid weather people. good thing i had no plans.

better half wanted to walk uptown for breakfast, but it was still lightly raining, and i didn't feel like it. maybe tomorrow.

i wondered if the latin gents still did car shows on the first saturday of the month, but didn't find any hint of it online, so with no other reason to drive to westminster, decided to stay put. still another week till the swap meet in pomona. now i'm wondering about the swap meet in long beach tomorrow. are there cars there, for show, or just parts?

spent the majority of the day figuring out how to make the updated website do things i wanted it to do, stuff that didn't transfer over from my original site. it's aggravating not knowing, or realizing limitations or stuff they don't support anymore. it's also satisfying when i do figure it out. better half wonders why i don't just call the twenty-four seven customer service.

no, nothings changed; right now you're still looking at the old version. i haven't hit the switch yet. maybe tomorrow, if i can figure out/remember how to transfer my domain.

even then, i will have to spend weeks tweaking it. aggravating.

spring cleaning

1946 chevy fleetline

i've found, the best part about the end of the football season, is the super cruise at hillco fasteners in garden grove, on super bowl sunday. basically a car show in an industrial park, and cars cruise by up and down the street, in the early hours before game time. we get there early, so avoid so many people moving through shots, or cars crowded together.

found this chevy next to this building with some interesting cinder blocks, that catch the morning light with the embossed patterns. can't quite tell if it belongs to a club, since i don't see any plaque. it's close to where the dukes usually park, but i don't think it's one of theirs.

spent a good portion of my day off bagging up clothes i don't wear anymore, tossing stuff in the closet. better half has been complaining that he doesn't have enough drawer space, so now he has three more back. now if i could only figure a way to give him half the closet back for his giant tshirts or pants, he'd be a happier camper.

looks like the transfer of my website stuff to a trial design completed after only three days. i still have some time to fart around with layouts to decide if i want to bother changing it up now. i suppose i will end up doing it anyway, to stay current with my web provider. just another system to figure out how to make it do what i want. they think it's simpler to work with, but i don't, and i can't figure out some things yet.

not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. i think they should just make all holidays require four day weekends, not just because the specific holiday happens to be on a sunday.

better half's mother is already asking about taking down the tree. he'll leave it up as long as he can possibly delay it. i think he told her by valentine's day. that will also piss off the landlord, cuz he can't make him take it down.

2017

1953 chevy bel air

hey, guess what? i didn't go anywhere this morning. too many shows to choose from, no recommendations, and just didn't feel like it.

so i'm starting this year off in a mood. and i'm trying real hard to bite my tongue and keep the peace. feeling a little back slide into by shell. i blame that on that ahole at the dukes show. still pretty pissed about that.

meanwhile, i've been filling my calendar with dates for upcoming car shows that i've enjoyed in the past. already know i'm going to miss chicano park day this year, as i have a business trip planned for that week/weekend. oh well.

relatives are in town, here in whittier, and at my mom's house.

holy hell, a plane just flew really low and made a tight u-turn, heading in for the landing at lax. yep, we are in the landing pattern here. just don't usually see them so low except when it's windy or rainy, which doesn't seem to be the case, as far as i can tell from this window seat.

sorry, got distracted by the big, shiny object.

anyway, hoping to see some old cars cruise by after the shows, heading through uptown. maybe i'll chase them with my iphone, but i don't feel like hauling my gear out. better half just pointed out a black and red sixty-one impala driving by...and so it begins.