what's up?

make a choice

asked my boss about going to a conference, if there was any budget for training. yes, he said to pick one and get him an estimate for travel, etc.

so, i need to decide on new orleans, orlando, boston or los angeles. here's the thing: the useful one is in new orleans, and i really have no interest in going there, so i'll wait until next year and hope they move it somewhere else. the other one i want to go to ends on the same day as the uptown whittier car show. sort of rather go to that.

i could skip the last day, and fly home the night before. i'll have to think about it.

this car was the last one i shot at the chino show. owner said i'd need to see it in the sun to really appreciate the paint job. the roof has some faint airbrushing going on.

i can see it. true, it would be more vibrant in the sun, but it may also be more glare-filled, because of the glitterizing in the paint.

still, pretty cool car. lots of engraved chrome.

club guys were friendly too.

attest

having recently had the experience of repeatedly having to drive back and forth to the hollywood area over the last several days for a family medical issue, i can hereby attest to the sheer hell of driving in los angeles. fuckity fuckity fucksticks. and i may/will probably have to drive back over there at least once or twice more today and/or tomorrow. much more of that, i'll find myself in a hospital, if not from an accident, from having my own heart attack from the stress.

it's not like i'm driving like a little old lady, but if you're not going at least eighty on the freeway, you're in the way. and the glorious stretch of the ten, where several freeways split off is just a hell of a good time if you're in the wrong lane. and if the mapping program sends me off to another freeway for no good reason, say the one-o-one, that is just as delicious.

surface streets are just as fun, like running a gauntlet. stay out of the right lane until the last minute before your turn, or you get stuck behind cars parked at the curb. even better are running up to double-parked, i'll just be a minute cars.

do see some interesting people in the outer limits away from the hospital, though, and neighborhoods, that may have possibly been quite nice at one time.

anyway, airing out and cleaning the house, in case said patient gets to sent home today. too soon, and we're really pushing back to have that not happen. otherwise, all's good. things are hectic, but roll with the punches, eh?

here's a beautifully polished fifty-eight impala. yummy color, just want to eat it...but i already had a chocolate bar today...better half keeping fat. thanks d.

possibility of some rain this weekend, to mix things up. really wanted to get out to a show, so maybe it will happen later in the afternoon.

feliz cinco de mayo a todos.

meet the palms

honestly, this was an accident, but it does make me laugh. beautiful cadillac convertible, trying to find any angles to shoot cars and not have a basketball hoop or pop-up tent in it.

to do so, many times, i have to get the tripod down lower. the first twenty minutes i was there, i could not loosen the screw on the center post, couldn't get a good grip on the twister. almost felt like when my better half tightens up all the bolts on the thing, and i can hardly move the legs. he is the brute squad, and doesn't know his own strength sometimes.

at some point, i finally was able to loosen the damn thing and to get it down fairly low, but not as much as i would like. palm trees and cars were preferable to the hoops.

did not purposely, nor did i realize i'd lined this one up so mr and mrs palm are in the front seat, and the twins are in the back (or is it triplets?). lol.

having a hell of a time deciding what to do on my vacation week. everywhere i'm thinking would be interesting is about to be snowed in, or it's raining. was considering a road trip back east, but i don't want to drive in that by myself.

i will either end up in san diego, san fran, monterrey, or just sitting at home. anywhere is fine, as long as it's away from work. need to clear my head.

carnitas craving

1958 chevy impala

took me two and a half hours to get to whittier today. yay friday. at least it was payday. missing q-vo trunk n treat tonight...just done driving for the day.

better half worked a few hours overtime, and apparently just got home. i just walked uptown to the mexican cafe, which is suprisinly busy just now. so i've just ordered a couple of carnitas plates and drinks--i do hope he shows up. he just sent a text that he's on his way, and he walks fast, maybe he's timed it just right and food will be served when he arrives.

several car shows tomorrow. hoping to get to at least two, and that depends on whether the first one is worth staying for, after the sun comes up. thinking old memories pancake bfast to start. i think i went to this show a couple of years ago. was pretty good then, but hot--and its all asphalt parking lot. i do expect some exceptional cars to show, at least according to the instagram chatter.

the other would be the veteranos, over at the elks club. not far between the two, so that helps. too bad there is only one sunrise a day. i suspect after those, i'll have no energy for trunk n treat shows. i should take my car in for repair estimates too...already got a few tips on places to go.

beautiful impala. deep chocolate paint job. this model year is good from the back end, but this little detail also makes it easy to identify, even for me.

better half just got here, so i'll stop.

spur of the moment

1958 chevy impala

it was going to rain today, so slept in. thought i'd just be sitting around the house today.

when it still wasn't raining at eight-thirty, asked my better half if he wanted to just drive over to legg lake, to see if any cars were there for the boulevardos show. thought it was close enough to home, if there was nothing or if it started raining, we could just go to the mall, or turn around.

better half said they wouldn't be there, since they were going to cruise in from los angeles. he kinda wanted to drive out there and watch, but mostly he just wanted to hang out with me, and i wanted to take pictures.

drove past the lake, and saw no show cars there. got on the freeway, and i said, what the hell, let's just drive out to chino and see if anyone showed up for that show. flyers said rain or shine. we were already half way there anyway.

racing the clouds, and it was slightly sprinkling, we went anyway. even thought about just driving out to cucamonga, checking into a hotel, buying a change of clothes, and kicking back in a jacuzzi. well, they didn't have any of those rooms available, so we skipped that idea. better half was on call for work anyway.

took a different route to the chino show than i usually take, and ended up at the end of the town, near the railroad tracks.

figured, we could just make a quick walk through, if the rain started, we could dash under a roof, or cover the camera with a plastic bag until we could find somewhere to pack everything back in the camera bag.

i'd been before, and it's usually very hot, and very busy and crowded. lots of cars, up and down the streets, on the lawn in front of city hall, and through side lots. cars can cruise along the street route.

well, the rain did scare a lot of cars away. but there were still a lot of cars i like to shoot anyway. better half didn't seem to see anything he wanted to shoot, until we came to a mostly empty lot, with some of the veteranos cars in it. he took some pictures, and set up a time lapse, to catch the movement of the clouds. actually, turned out really interesting, and he's having fun editing it. maybe he'll post it for a change.

while he shot that video, i quickly went and walked the rest of the show.

found this impala near the city hall. thought it looked pretty awesome with the clouds overhead. turned around pretty quickly, to head back to fetch my better half. the rain was coming. this car and the one on far side of it drove away soon after.

made it back to my car, just as sprinkles started to fall...

oh, that shine

1959 chevrolet impala

always see people obsessively polishing their cars at shows. almost as soon as they park, they have a towel and bottle of liquid wax in hand. get the dust from the drive there off, i guess.

rub it and rub it, ahhhhwwww...

this car was already parked when i found it. middle of an aisle, gave up waiting for a space. didn't see the polishing. you'd think at a nighttime car show, there would be no reason, right? honestly, he probably didn't, and it is just several layers of clear coat, but damn, could almost imagine seeing other worlds in that paint.

i love these impalas, with their curves, and i was hopeful that the camera would be able to capture what i saw. i think this is pretty close. and i'm completely suprised that there weren't more cars and/or people moving as blurs through the exposure.

flight line

one more for the day.

i did get out to pomona yesterday, albeit, way later than planned. late enough that my better half couldn't go; had to stay home and work. yay overtime, but seriously, no weekend sucks.

got away from the show cars and wandered through the sale area. i don't think these two were for sale. caught them as the owners were dusting them off, preparing to leave. actually the only shot i have that the owner with the duster wasn't in there dusting the green car. just something you deal with shooting this stuff. not going to ask him to get out of the way, when he seemed determined to keep at it, when i was obviously taking pictures of his car. thought about posting one of those, but i like the fins on impalas, and this was the best shot anyway.

not sure why he wasn't in this shot. seems to me there was another photographer shooting from the other side. maybe he moved for that guy. whatever. i got the shot with the airplane heading to the landing field on the other side of the fence. part of the fun of being in the flight path for the airport.

imps

haven't posted a nice impala for a while. this one is pretty tasty. even got my better half doing his thang with the car next to it.

i have several shots of it, but for whatever reason, i like this one best, show a sense of the length of the car. another shot is pushed in closer, and makes the car look stubby, like a carnival mirror, and that can't be good.

enlightening

i spent a lot of time in the car today. drove out to ontario airport to pick up my daughter...yay no more feeding her tarantulas, etc...drove her home to oc. then out to south coast plaza to exchange the last camera i bought because it had a minor defect. then drove back to whittier.

happened to decide to slap a battery into the new camera to change it to my preferred settings, only to find the "new" camera was more effed up than the one i had taken back. so drove all the way back to get another. took my camera bag with me and tried the next one out in the store with one of my lenses and my battery, to be sure it at least worked correctly.

seems to, but i won't know until i get out to a show.

then my computer was being quirky, and finally shot me a blue screen of death. seems to have booted back up ok, so i don't know what that was about.

i suppose i'll go to sleep now. why push my luck?

this was a beautiful impala from the other day. it happened to have been the first car i shot when we arrived, and i spent quite a bit of time shooting it from the front and back. the back has a big airbrush image of three mostly nekked chicks with bandeleros, and the detail and pinstriping is exquisite all over. but i liked this one, from just before we left, that i liked the most.

had looped back around to where we started, and retook some of the cars from the morning. the light changes, the cars change moods, a different personality comes out. maybe i have just spent to much time staring at cars in the hot sun.