what's up?

walking backwards

i took a long walk today. gonna rain tomorrow, so figured i'd stretch my legs.

ended up taking an old familiar route, that ended with me passing my old high school. my kids graduated from there too.

the main buildings haven't changed much, but you could also say everything has changed. new additions, portable crap classrooms--class in a box--they change the landscape in my memory.

the youthful faces of the latest crop of students pass by me. listening to the bird-like chatter of their hormone-crackling voices, and the little conversations about the "big" events in their universe, make me so glad i am not that age again.

i have changed, but i have not. never did fit in, and still do not, not really. and i'm fine with that. didn't have many friends, and have not kept in touch with any of them directly. once in a while, i'll look people up online, to see where they ended up, but they really are strangers now, so i leave no messages.

i used to be so freakishly skinny, and now i'm so, so average. really hating growing old and soft. the number of years doesn't bother me as much as the ball of fat on my belly, and the general pudge all over...it just gets in the way.

youth really is wasted on the young, as they say.

looked toward the baseball field, where i could see the team practicing, running the same bases my kid ran not so long ago.

i decided enough of this depressing trip down memory lane, and turned around to head back to where i belong, or at least where i exist now. the wind shifted, and the sticky, fetid scent drifted up from the school farm, of the beasts being raised by the "future farmers," bound for the summer fair, blazed more memories in my head, of people i haven't thought of in years, as well as my daughter's stupid sheep that she raised there too. they work hard for those 'easy' credits. pretty sure not too many of these kids end up on a farm, but my daughter does work in veterinary offices, so there's that.

but mostly, the thought that shit still smells like shit, was what blew through my mind.

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found this old cadillac between the buildings at the super cruise, kinda parked next to some newer cars. it was in the path less traveled, so i don't know that many people noticed it.

don't remember seeing around, and not quite sure of the year.

how'd that happen?

crown imperial

if you think i'm gonna talk politics here, that'd be a yah, nah.

i was just thinking of one of my better half's tales from car shows. my better half usually will tell a story reinacting the situation or imitating people if they're memorable. this was several years ago, when people did not know us from any other person visiting a show.

one of his favorites involves him chatting with a car owner about random things, photography, the weather, whatever, and me, once the guy realizes he's my better half. as my better half tells it, in his best reinactment of a homie...he has it down pretty good, as his cousin used to try and act like a gang banger...he assumes the posture, uses the hand gestures, and says in a grizzly, hoarse voice, "oh, really? how'd that happen?" he swears he's not making it up, or any of the other stories he tells me.

i can look at the guy's comment in many different ways, each one funnier than the other.

anyway, it somehow relates to how the celebrities are reacting today. so stupid, as if i care. they wouldn't care what i think, why should i give a rat's ass about their opinion?

life gives you lemons...make lemonade. it's short, get on with it.

random hood ornament, from a random show we found on our travels...

ready to go

hot rod

saw this car at moon eyes. it was a bit different, a piece of art in progress. i just liked the headlights for some reason, so old timey.

happy birthday to my sister. really should see her more than just at thanksgiving and xmas, when she just lives out by the beach.

san diego has been nice for a week, but i think we're ready to go home. back to the grind, gotta pay for this trip and save up for another in six months.

spent the day in balboa park. tried to visit museums that we'd never been in, so bought a one day pass to up to five. i think we made it to about four, with a cannibal exhibit as an add-on charge at the museum of man. they also offered a climb to the viewing deck of the bell tower, which had been closed to the public for about eighty years, and recently opened to visitors in small groups. they said it will close again soon for additional "renovations."

in the tower, you climb about four flights of stairs, about one-hundred twenty-five steps. each landing, they give you a break and talk about some historical facts, and the carillion. there are open windows that allow fresh air to blow through.

the final level to the viewing level is an old spiral staircase, one person at a time. we were with a dad with three kids and another group, with a couple of women and a guy.

one of the women happened to be wearing a short, floral dress, so she was not only having to deal with climbing steep stairs, but having to hold the dress firmly around her thighs to keep the wind from blowing it up.

on the viewing level, there are four open windows, to four different views of balboa park. out one, if you squint very hard, you can spot a mexican flag in the distance, which is the border crossing. another looks over the old globe theatre and toward the zoo. each of the other two looked either way up and down the street of museums, and out to the city and waterfront.

we were all taking pictures, or using a pair of binoculars they had up there to see what you could see out the windows.

better half said at one point, he turned around, holding up his camera, ready to take a shot, when one of our escorts started shouting and waving her hands to stop him. apparently, short dress woman's dress had at that same moment, caught more than a breeze, and he got quite a show. but no picture.

needless to say, they let her climb down the spiral staircase first, when our time was up.

hot rod

hood ornament

full moon fever

1941 pontiac hood ornament

well, we're on our way back from washington, my mom and i. driving down the 101 along the coast. somewhere in oregon tonight. giant full moon in the sky. i've got my tripod with me, but haven't really used it. busy driving on winding forest roads.

one of my new cameras is refusing to read any memory card, so will have to ship it in for service. realizing that i do ok shooting cars sitting still, and sometimes portraits. but landscapes without a tripod, pfft. i shake too much. that and i'm really trying to like the sony a6000, but i only brought one lens for it, and not the adapter to use the others on it. less pictures, more memories, being in the moment. at least that's what i'm going with.

lots of tweakers in seattle and tacoma, so didn't get all my gear out. but i have it, just in case i cross a car show, or random car in the wild.

one observation on the limited number of classic cars i've noticed driving the last week, is that ninety percent are fords, mostly hot rodded white boy style, and one hundred percent of the cars still on the road are painted with flames. the last big show of their season was last week before we arrived. owners start garaging them after that, before the rains really start. i did see a red flamed studebaker for sale.

the other observation, is that they love big trucks and muscle cars. bigger and louder the better.

so i'm going through fleetline withdrawals, and on my way to fix that, but that's still a week away. hoping to drive through giant redwoods, and stop in san fran for crab dinner, then san jose, to say hello to my future niece. after that, maybe salinas to visit deadend magazine for a tshirt.

yadda yadda yadda.

i'm sure my better half is keeping himself so busy he hardly notices that i'm gone. the house is probably cleaner than it has been in a long time.

love pontiac hood ornaments. even if it doesn't seem to be original.

big one

rooster hood ornament

i love hood ornaments, you probably should have figured that out, if you've browsed through this bloggy thing for any amount of time. regular, standard hoodies are fine to shoot, in case i want to show details of a particular car.

but the unique, custom, or hard to find hoodies are a fav. like little bespoke sculptures, with lots of little detail to mesmerize daft little photographers.

so how dirty double entendre should i go with this one? maybe i'll forego those jokes this time, but i am thinking them. i do love a nice cock though...oops, see what i mean?

saw this rooster on some type of small car named after a kid or the kid was named after the car--i don't remember what the owner or the sign said now. i didn't shoot the car, i know that much. whittier uptown show, and i was in a hurry to catch a train that day.

going to take my madre to the fair this evening. probably won't stay long, since her legs get tired. better half has to work, but he may take his own mom there next week.

i think the hell week at work is just about over, so time to relax.

horny

chevy hood ornament

sometimes i have nothing to say; other times i have a running dialogue of random thoughts in my head all day long. today was the latter, but unfortunately, the mental blog post in my head didn't get jotted down, so i've got nothing.

i know i was going to mention the pasty white guy that was out for a jog early this morning, while i was out for a walk, who tripped and fell on his ass right after he passed me. i was going to humorously relate it to that scene in memoirs of a geisha, where the girl had to distract a man with just a look, and one just happened by on a bicycle and crashed it right after looking at her.

ya that's not my story; she was a geisha, and i'm just a middle-aged potato.

or i could have also been thinking about this weekend, and having to wake up early both days, to get to some awesome car shows before the sun. supposed to only be in the eighties, so crossing my fingers...

i know there were several other items that floated in and out of consciousness in my murky pea brain, but they're gone.

i just wasted over half an hour, trying to set up a banking app, only to realize i was blocking their cookies on my ipad. would have been easier to just accept cash. and now i've run out of time to really work on a car picture vs just using one of my macro shots.

i haven't posted a hood ornament in a while. how about this chevy hoodie? apparently this is one from a car with the hood up, because i didn't also shoot the car. the angle is also a hint, since i'm kinda angled up to shoot it. love these ornaments, the graceful curve of the horns on the stylized body of the animal.

i have one of the same type that's going to be hanging in the fair...seven days until that starts. wonder if i'll get another bridesmaid, i mean honorable mention ribbon to add to my collection this year. got one three years in a row, then nothing last year. its more fun just to see my stuff hanging on the wall.

my boy

happy birthday vince!

hood ornament

from a pontiac at the chicano park show. not sure that i got a good shot of the car itself, but i do like it's chief.

we will be on our way back in the morning. hopefully an easier trip than the adventure getting here.

today was an early morning march past the iwo jima memorial, through the back gate of arlington cemetery, and up to the tomb of the unknown soldiers. it was seventy degrees out when we got to iwo jima at seven fifteen in the morning; by the time we climbed the hill past arlington house, it was close to ninety, and we felt it, in shirts wet with sweat.

after the changing of the guard ceremony, there was a wreath-laying ceremony, but we were already heading down the hill toward the visitor center, and the metro station. took the train out to the end of the line, then tired of waiting for the bus, caught a taxi to the air and space museum's udvar-hazy building, to see the discovery space shuttle, airplanes, and 3d movies. and to enjoy the air conditioning.

about three-twenty, we caught a bus back to the metro station, and were back at the hotel in about an hour. after all that, we decided we were too tired to do another baseball game. oh well.

so, to the airport tomorrow, laundry on sunday, kicking back on monday. short week at work, then i'm off on a train to san diego for a week.

next time we should take a two week vacation, just not all in one place. i like to travel, it's just a bit expensive, so short weekend roadtrips will do in between.

for life

1937 dodge1937 dodge1937 dodge hood ornamentgot my better half up and out of bed by six yesteday. he really had wanted to go to ruby's on friday night, but after a second evening with a two and a half hour drive home from work, i was just not in the mood for it anymore. traffic sucks, and surface streets didn't help much either gotta make a deal with the boss, so i can just work from home on friday afternoons, at least.

my point being, he had gotten his shit together, and rigged up his little screen and rollie rig, and had been ready to go the night before, so it wasn't too difficult to get packed up early on saturday to go to the show over at la mirada rec center, by city hall. he had been hoping to shoot some video at rubys, and was going to give it a try at this duke's show, since i told him it was on pavement.

it's fairly nearby, so we were there about six-thirty. i'd gone the year before, so already knew where i wanted to park. couldn't see anything going on, so we left our stuff in the car and walked over to see if anyone was there. it was a relay for life event, so i expected to see more people, but i guess all of those volunteers were inside, near the pool.

we did see a line of dukes cars sitting there, so went back and got our gear.

last year, it rained off and on, and was in the other parking lot. this year was overcast, cool, and in the bigger lot. they roped off an area that i heard held about two-hundred and ninety spaces. i think by the time we left for lunch, there was maybe half that of the show cars, but the majority were the kind we like.

i haven't been out shooting much, so it was nice to have a perfect day for shooting, without the sun and heat. i always remark how tired i am all week, sitting on my ass at a computer, but give me a car show, and i can spend a good six hours walking around, crouching up and down, and be happy as can be. don't even feel too sore after, though my ankles to get a bit stiff if i sit too long, but that probably has more to do with my shoes than anything else. and it really tells me i need to get off my ass and move more often, and burn off some of this gut that seems to be sticking to me, the older i get.

anyway, it was a well organized show, and quite a few guys came over to chat with me. all very nice people. it was really good to see lots of clubs interacting, though there were a one or two, whose members just sat in a huddle watching, and frowning, and i guess, hanging tough. i'm sure i gave back my best resting bitch face, which is apparently my default look anyway. i think i didn't bother with their cars, hood was up and the other, nah, i just didn't need their pop up in the shot.

talked to a guy who told me a long story about how this dodge used to be his car, but events in his life forced him to sell it. at least he sold it to someone he knew very well, a guy he helped to raise, i think he said, so he knew it was in good hands. still, it must hurt a little to be so near, yet so far from something you loved.

it's a nice car. seen it before, and it's probably up here somewhere else, if i bother to look.

wasn't a whole lot available food wise this year, so since we hadn't eaten breakfast, called it a day around twelve-thirty, before our headaches got too unbearable...

flat top, four door

i was told that this is a rare impala; that it was engineered to be a convertible, by just removing the roof; that somehow this one was ordered, and then no one picked it up, so the roof was never removed. and rarer still, that it has four doors.

i like the back window that curves around to be the side windows. and the fins. always the fins.

tweakedpixels