what's up?

short and sweet

SONY DSC

late. gotta get to bed but wanted to get something posted from the azalea festival car show.

used to be packed at this show, with cars parked in the lot in the dark waiting for the gates to open.

this year and last year, not so much. just me, a cop car and the groundsmen sitting out there before sunrise. then some little kid baseball/softball people started arriving. briefly thought about taking pictures of them practicing, for old times sake, but my kid is all grown up and i didn’t want to be the creepy stranger with a camera.

at least i got my car parked in the lot and not down the street.

a few show cars arrived a little after seven. a few impalas and some year suburban.

then this veteranos’ car shows up and alls well. getting to know the owners more, since i’ve chatted with them at several shows now. not the first time i’ve posted the car here, and not the last.

since it was a bit away from the other cars, i had a little room to play. they just recently had some pinstriping added too.

had to use my better half’s cameras. he loaned me three different wide-angle lenses to use, since mine wasn’t meant for a full frame camera.

his were all prime lenses, so i needed room to move, since there was no zoom at all with them. i took a few shots with the one he said was best, then tried the one he said was similar to mine. never did try the third lens. didn’t want to get dust on the sensor anyway.

whole point of getting there early is to catch that low light, but since it was already over an hour into sunrise, best i could do was work with where the sun was at the time. got a lot of pictures with sun flares testing these lenses. sharp, but flares are octogons instead of circles.

this one came out ok. i have others from when it was parked on the grass later, but this was pretty satisfying.

failed

not quite the last shot from this particular camera, but close, shot into the sun. sun fucks with the colors, makes flares, screws the sensor; break that rule often, and shoot right into it.

not that it had any part of the failure, but now i’m calling this second camera out of service. the motor inside makes noise, and if i shoot enough, i’m sure i’d get the dreaded “camera error” again.

these last two cameras i only got a couple of years ago, so they shouldn’t have failed. better half points out that i do take an excessive number of shutter activations, and use the hell out of them, so he’s not so surprised.

so, now i really will need to either junk them or pay to have them shipped to a repair shop and fixed. bad timing though, with big shows coming up. should i only get those two fixed, or also my original two a700s?

better half is taking the opportunity to push me toward full-frame cameras, but offering to let me use a couple of his, as he isn’t going anywhere shooting anymore. i think he may regret letting me use them long-term. i’ll kill them too. he’s not worried.

he is also pushing me toward a sony 7rii. ugh, i hate the small body style, but he says it’s a way better camera than what i currently use.

earlier, i’d been working on tudy’s fifty-six bel air. was about three-quarters done. hadn’t saved the file. better half uses the microwave, while forgetting he was also heating up his mother’s dinner in the toaster oven. old house. fuse blown. apparently i haven’t got my computer plugged into the proper sockets on my backup battery, and the computer goes down, the file with it.

the backup file that opens is fried, so i’ll have to start over some other day.

strange that i didn’t break out with a flood of expletives that sailors would be proud of. just rebooted, and picked another picture to work on. so here it is.

tut tut

looks like rain.

two hour drive home and out for a quick dinner so my better half can go shopping.

bro flew home today. hope he made his connection. hope he can figure out uber since no one in his fam wants to drive to the airport at midnight. if i could, i would have gone with, just to be sure he’s ok.

kid called wanting to do dinner , i.e., have me buy, but not down there tonight, so she’ll hit up gramma.

snagged a bottle of vino someone brought back to work from a meeting. i don’t drink, but my daughter-in-law does. she said she’ll take it.

pretty paint combo on this thirty-nine out at pomona a couple of months ago. so late in the morning, and a relatively empty parking lot, still surprises me.

on my way home...

i left my mom’s late on saturday. had a few errands to run and a dog to walk.

i happened to have my camera bag with me, as i’d been asked to retake a group photo at work, and i like my lens better than the one for the company camera. one person was late, so they will reschedule some other time next week.

well there were several later-in-the-day car shows running on saturday, so i figured i’d just make a quick stop at one of them. this one on front street at the nights of columbus was a fundraiser for someone i’d never met, but i always donate anyway. may not be much, but hope it helps in some way.

just a street of about twenty or thirty cars, was just about the right number of cars for the limited time i had to shoot.

this car pulled up while i was shooting another car a few spots down.

when i was done at that end of the road, i walked back, and set up my shot. popped off a few frames, and then my camera decided to be a dick…camera error message. did as it said to do, and shut it off, and when it continued to show the message in spite of being turned off, popped the battery out to kill it.

after a few resets and continuing error messages, i resorted to another camera that i usually don’t use, except as a backup camera. the lens is an 18-105, and the zoominess on the thing forced me to stand further out in the street to get the shot.

did i mention the road was not shut down to traffic? nice of people to just drive around me, though i did get a few glares as they did so.

anyway, this is the same error that started on my other camera, that eventually rendered it useless and/or untrustworthy. it could also be that it doesn’t like the brand of memory card i was using. all i know is i can’t trust it as the main camera for a bigger show. will have to figure it out before i head to chicano park next month for sure.

so this shot is with the back up camera. did not like the color it captured, but the black and white version has an interesting moodiness that didn’t bother me so much.

such a mess

1941 chevrolet special deluxe convertible

brother and his wife were in town this past week. each day, as soon as i walked in the door from work, the wife would put me to work clearing junk out of the garage and attic. she’s a teacher, and very used to bossing people around.

finally had to start telling her i needed a moment, i just got off work, lemme eat something. junk can wait.

she didn’t realize how traumatic it was going to be for my mom, clearing the clutter, and filling two big junk trucks and a dumpster with stuff, and it barely put a dent in the garage junk. there’s still another attic to do as well.

the stuff is useless, but mom still would pick through the trash bags and pull out arbitrary items. i doubt she needs video 8, beta or vhs tapes of the gulf war or some cartoon my kids used to watch, but they’re sitting upstairs in her bedroom now. maybe it’s that the sticker has my dad’s handwriting on them. i think the players for them already went into the trash, or otherwise didn’t work and went into the trash.

was a battle of wills clearing out the pantry of out of date food items dad had bought over the years, and promptly forgot about. he used to eat stuff no one else would touch—oysters, anchovies, sardines, pickled pig parts, etc.—and yet she wanted to keep stuff in case anyone ever asked for it. i had to ask her how often a guest would arrive and ask if she had any prince albert in a can? never, but she doesn’t want to waste anything. well finally said, stuff is way out of date, and you wouldn’t even be able to donate it to a food pantry, so it needed to go.

sure, we’re disturbing her comfort zone. all this could wait another decade until she’s gone, but we’re trying to make some room, make it safer, make it her own.

took a few days of her in tears, and cussing—which she doesn’t do—for her to mourn her lost stuff. sister-in-law has said she is done, and probably won’t be back. she’s on her plane home by now.

my brother stayed behind, so they are still emptying stuff from the garage attic. his find for the day so far was my dr suess lunchbox from first grade.

i’m in whittier, for what seems my weekly cry. somehow we end up talking memories of my dad, so then the tears come again. it’s ok.

better half got out in the morning and got half his shopping done. i should be able to be home a little more often while my bro is staying with my mom. she was telling me the other day that she is perfectly fine being left on her own, but, when i called her earlier, she asked if i was coming back tomorrow. and she isn’t on her own.

looks like it wants to rain, and usually looking out this window, i’ll see old cars driving by; not one has noisily rumbled by today. we’re also in the flight path for LAX, but the planes must be coming in from the other direction—not seeing those either—and they would typically be coming in low, under the clouds on a day like this.

good car shows coming up. already booked a hotel for chicano park show. wonder if my bro will still be around, so he could go with me; doubt my mom will. padres are in town that weekend too; hoping to hit up a ball game while i’m there.

looking at the calendar, and some days have several shows. flip a coin, throw a dart, pull a show from a hat…need to decide somehow and get out and shoot.

shot this car at last year’s whittier uptown show. early. best early. the light and no crowds yet. and no heat…some years get so dang hot, i can’t even get around to all the cars before i start to feel ill. not tolerating it well anymore.

almost like they purposely parked that red car under those red banners for a reason…so color coordinated.

skipped it

ya, ya, i was lazy this morning. didn’t rain as i had hoped, but was misty and sprinkly off and on today. still looks like more is coming tonight.

so i stayed huddled under the covers instead of cruising through the miles of cars at pomona.

here’s a shot from last month to compensate. penance. whatever.

i suspect there were just as few cars there this month as last, because of the cold and the possible rain. have only seen a couple of pics from other photographers so far today.

maybe next month…

a bit late

workman high school fundraiser from last year. such a pretty green on that chevy. must have been a windy day, since the clouds seem to have moved during my shot.

so, it’s been a week since i’ve written. just one thing after another. time gets away from me lately, even on a weekend away, on my own.

this is becoming a once-a-week blather while i am home in whittier, and the better half has gone to market. unfortunate, since i have over sixty other cars sitting in draft mode, waiting to be posted. i guess i could just post them and not write anything, but then what’s the point of a blog? might as well just keep it on instagram or flickr.

i don’t have stories from car shows to write about anymore, since i haven’t been out much lately. my boring problems are stuff no one wants to read about. so here i am, yet again pondering shutting this puppy down. i’ll keep thinking.

meanwhile, a synopisis of my boring last week:

the day after my meeting, i took a ferry to sausalito. i was looking to replace something i’d lost or misplaced. i’d bought it there in a small store, with a most unfriendly bitch of a lady at the register, more than a dozen years ago. surprise surprise, out of business.

briefly thought about lunch, but really wanted to eat some crab back on the other side. also thought about taking the ferry back over, but i hadn’t bought a round trip ticket. so i did the thing i’d thought about the night before: i walked back to san francisco.

always used to ride the rental bike to sausalito. i figured i’d take that route back, and maybe get some photos i otherwise would not have gotten.

over twelve miles later…i got back to the hotel. even made a stop at fort point, where dweebs were doing civil war reenactment…dressed in uniforms and ladies in petticoats. took not quite five-hundred pictures along the way.

was ravenous, and treated myself to crab at aliottos in fisherman’s wharf. crab and bread and dessert. they didn’t have coke—just some frilly local made drink, but it was similar. i highly recommend the place, but going into the restaurant vs just the crab bar outside, is greatly overpriced. reconciled it in my head calling it both lunch and dinner.

about half way through the journey, my hip had started hurting. decided i’d pulled a muscle trying to climb up to some stairs from a rocky piece of beach back in sausalito. by the time i’d headed up for dinner, i was gimping. got hardly any sleep because of the hip, and getting ready to go to the airport was really dicey.

i got up early, hoping to get another crab from one of the crab bars. i gimped slowly over to fisherman’s wharf. they had crabs. but they weren’t open, and wouldn’t sell me one. not any of the crab carts. shit. damn off-season hours.

ended up with a subway sandwich as i was running out of time. ended up calling an uber this time. standing at the door of the hotel, wondering where the hell the guy was. several minutes later, noticed he had been sitting right there the whole time, just blocked from view by a couple of taxis. so had to pay the wait charge. oh well.

flight was uneventful. my daughter picked me up instead of my mom. older brother and his wife had arrived unannounced about the time she was getting ready to head to the airport. daughter happened to call to see what she was doing later, so she was sent to pick me up on her way home from work.

bro came to help sift through dad’s things, to tear down garden netting in the backyard. whole other story about trying to help clear dad’s stuff that is of no use to mom, but she ends up picking half the stuff back out of the trash bags when you turn your back.

other brother should be here on monday. in town for a friend’s funeral, but staying a while to help around the house. meaning also, i can go home to better half for a few days, without feeling guilty leaving mom alone.

work-wise, so so busy. been staying an extra hour or two, to meet deadlines. they won’t hire anyone, and no business group wants to pay the fee for the outside contractor, so the in-house designers are overloaded. i’m getting to that point of burn-out. been there before, and i feel it coming. new boss just doesn’t recognize it yet.

so tired. just not as tired as my better half.

raining today. sadly hoping it will be raining tomorrow, so i don’t have a reason to get out of bed and go to pomona to take pictures. i want to, really, but i really rather sleep.

trippy

looking forward to pomona next month. wondering if it will rain. wondering if i’ll have time to go. my life is very much a day-to-day mystery of where i’ll be and what i’ll be doing anymore.

got this backend shot of a fifty-eight last month. nice car, but i just like this piece of it right now.

————

well, here i sit all down-hearted...in san francisco, but my heart isn’t here...he’s in whittier.

can’t say it’s all been downhill, but the trip sort of started that way. mom dropped me off at the airport after work yesterday. all good, short security line, plenty of time to sit on my ass and figure out what i was going to do in the evening. the one hour flight was supposed to take off at five, so i was going to hold off eating until i got to the city, and planned to go get a crab from the dudes with the big boilers outside at fisherman’s wharf.

plane boarded right on time. pushed back from the gate just a bit late, and started rolling toward the airfield. then the plane stopped. figured we were just in line for take off. nope. mechanical problems, heading back to a gate, but we had to wait to get an open gate now.

cap’n crunch in the cockpit says they hope it is just a matter of rebooting the computer, but has to wait for the mechanics to board and clear it. yup that’s what it was, but then we had to wait for offical paperwork and clearance before we could get going.

the guy sitting next to me was having coniption fits as he was going to miss his connection to sacramento. was up at the front door trying to change his flight plans for a good twenty minutes. he should have taken his crap with him and just left, but it was all the way at the back of the plane with me.

really hating the flights i’ve had to book through the travel agency at work. they are always double or triple the price of any flight you could book on your own, and pretty much every trip has had issues. bumpy rides aren’t their fault, but ya, there’s usually that too. we are required to use the agency, so whatever.

so, an hour and a half later, we were cleared for takeoff, and with sacramento man still onboard. he whined to the lady in the window seat, who had a connection to redding, but she thought she would still be able to make it. sacramento guy said the gate agent had booked him on a flight for seven am, but he was expecting them to put him up in a hotel. sure dude, maybe.

the flight was absolutely full, as were the overhead compartments, so i had been forced to check my bag at the door. at least they didn’t lose it. but i did have to go wait for it at baggage claim.

i’d intended to just ride the bart into the city, but now it was close to eight at night, and didn’t think it would be safe that late, especially when i’d get to my stop. never used uber at an airport and didn’t want to deal with that. work was paying for the ride, so i took a taxi.

named my hotel, and the friendly north african driver said of course he knew where it was, and started the fare and headed onto the freeway. he was listening to a podcast in his native language, which he’d occasionally translate the topic. sounded like one of those radio call-in for advice shows. women complaining about their men not helping more around the house, and the strict division of what was perceived as womens’ vs mens’ work. also learned a bit of his family history, with seemingly forced marriages and uncles offering up sibling’s daughters for marriage at age thirteen. wtf.

i’m looking out the window, and wondering about the route the guy is taking to the hotel. off the freeway, he’s taking us up the very steep hilly parts of san francisco; the hills where you are glad you are not driving a stick shift and get a red light. the hills almost as steep as a roller coaster at magic mountain.

passed grace catherdral, and as i’m wondering about that, he pulls up to a curb in front of the huntington hotel, and says here you are. i see the bell hop inside starting to open the door...i say this isn’t my hotel...i’m down by the water and the name, even in my mumble speech doesn’t sound anything like huntington. he just says oops, and makes a u-turn. of course the meter is still running. did he do it on purpose, or was he so distracted by his podcast? guess i’ll complain when i get home and argue the charge.

when i finally get to my actual hotel, he sits in the car a moment longer, so the meter clicks to the next amount before he stops it. bastardo. added an extra ten bucks.

no bell hops at the door for some reason, but i can handle one bag easily. it’s now about nine pm; i’d had my better half call ahead to let them know i’d been delayed. check-in was quick, and i got a room on the top floor as requested, just had to walk a hella long way around the hallways to got to the room at the opposite end from the elevator.

small room, but it was expected, since i was alone. through my stuff down, and headed back out. i was starving. didn’t think the crab guys would still be cooking this late on a thursday in the off-season. ended up at in-n-out, which had a line, but still had some seating available. burger was sort of not completely cooked, but i ate it anyway. fries were fine.

by the time i was back in my room, and ready to sleep, it was ten-thirty. meeting at nine-thirty in the morning, i’d planned to get up early for a shower and time to find breakfast on the way.

alarm goes off, reluctantly get ready. it’s cold, even with the heater on, it doesn’t really manage to cut the chill. probably didn’t set it high enough. thinking about where to eat while i dry my hair, i remembered i also needed to get on a teleconference at eight. no breakfast for me. well, i did grab a donut at krispy creme, but that doesn’t count.

————-

getting late now, and i’m super tired. will write more tomorrow.

packed

bag is packed for a weekend in sf. one three hour meeting and i’m on my own until sunday. not supposed to rain, unlike here, where it started a couple of hours ago and will continue until after i take off tomorrow.

better half should hire someone to watch his mom and come with, but he’s had no time to even research that, especially on short notice.

no idea what i’ll do. taking the a6000, which isn’t my favorite camera. but it’s lighter and travels easier. i’ll take pictures that will never see the light of day, unless i come across a car show. haven’t looked one up and haven’t seen mention of one, so probably won’t happen.

—————-

car from a lovely cloudy day last year that one time i made it out to a show at in-n-out in covina. don’t think they have it anymore…cops kept shutting it down i heard.

oh baby

been sick, been overworked, been away. back in whittier for the weekend, and managed to get out for about an hour and a half to this fundraiser for a little baby who died last month. don’t know the parents, but they are good people, or they wouldn’t have so many friends come out to support them.

haven’t been out shooting lately, so a bit rusty. used the tripod that i have issues with, and i had issues with it while i used it. wanted to shoot down low, and the damn thing didn’t want to tighten up on the swivel. there’s like three or four knobs to turn and tighten. if i let this one particular piece go, the camera would hit the ground. more steps than my old tripods required. half wanted to throw it out into the field, but didn’t have my old tripod with me. just kidding, d, i’m trying to like it.

owner of this car did come over and chat for a few minutes, followed by his wife. taken is what it felt she was conveying…not a problem…so am i. he was just talking cars. nice to meet you both.

pretty sure if i look through my files, i probably have better shots of it. shooting towards the sun, the lens flare is discoloring half of the back end and darkening the front end. well, he was interested in seeing it, so here it is.

still getting over a cold, so i kept mostly to myself.

cracked, then broke a crown in my mouth last weekend. had to wait until thursday to get it fixed; dentist was booked up all week. so i had to eat carefully until he had the time. my tongue kept rubbing the rough edges of the tooth, until it bled.

finally got to the appointment. involved a big needle and a couple of shots in the mouth. face numbed out from my jaw to my ear.

pretty cool how he scanned the broken tooth, used a cad program, then printed it out with a three-d printer. i know how long the whole appointment took too…they had netflix on a tv mounted on the ceiling…two and a half episodes of breaking bad later and it was done.

my gums are still sore, but i can eat now. which is good, since i have to take another business trip to san fran this week, and there’s crab and chinese food and italian food that i want to eat while i’m there.

tried to talk my mom into going, but she won’t. she won’t fly, and i was willing to drive up after a full day at work. no go. no one else is able to join me, but i booked a hotel this time, and will stay for the weekend. going to miss a few car shows here, but better half says i should go. wish he could join me. some other year maybe.