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change of plan

1954 chevy

1954 chevy

saw this chevy at the latin gents toy drive the other day. I think it belongs to the vintage ladies car club, if i remember correctly. the lady’s husband caught me on the way back to my car, to ask if i’d shot it, so yes, i guess i did.


better half has been doing so many extra hours lately. he’d expected to work all weekend, and had gone out and done his shopping super early in the morning on saturday. found himself five cans of lysol or some type of cleaning thing, which somehow makes him feel like the king of the world. he got his car washed. he called about cars without permits on our block and watched the tickets get put on the windshields.

when he logged on to start work and checked his mail about six a.m., he saw that the sob had been cancelled; stop all work. almost immediately, his body was telling him to sleep. he called me first, at my mother’s, where i’d spent the night.

he was telling me the thing had been cancelled, he was getting paid for half a day anyway, his weekend was free, he planned to relax. i half jokingly asked where should we go? then he was all about it. he started looking for hotel deals while i wrapped up whatever it was i was doing at my mom’s.

he calls back and says there are great deals in san diego, but covid is rampant there. same goes for san fran, and really he only has one night to get out of town. we finally settled on solvang, since i’d gone there the weekend his mother passed, looking for a getaway that wouldn’t be crowded with people like a big city. he hadn’t been there in years.

our favorite hotel was sold out. other hotels were too run down or had bad ratings. he finally found one that was recently renovated.

i got home an hour later, threw a change of clothes in a bag, and we were on our way. for the two and a half hour drive from whittier, we never turned the radio on. we talked the whole way there. anything and everything. we haven’t had a lot of time just us, no work, no distractions. it was nice.

solvang was busier than i’d expected, but you can still avoid the people if you want to. after checking into our hotel, the sun starting to go down, we headed over to tower pizza. we hadn’t had it since the last time we’d been there together, as it was already closed when i passed through town months ago.

we took it back to the room, as we didn’t want to sit outside. i was wearing a long sleeve jacket, but also the shorts i’d been wearing that morning, and the temp was dropping quickly down to the lower forties pretty quickly. the pizza was so good. better than i remembered it.

we thought about going out for a walk around town, but decided it would be too cold.

he fell asleep, i sat in the big bath tub of hot water for an hour and watched tv until i got tired.

in the morning, we took that walk around the town. he wanted to shop for xmas gifts for the little kids in our life. my sister wanted some handmade chocolate stuff, and after waiting for the store to open, to be told it was already sold out, was kind of a bummer. guess i need to go back. that and he has a cuckoo clock that needs repairing from the store where he bought it. if you have to, you have to… ; )


we stopped at in-n-out on whittier boulevard before we got home. spied a group of classic cars at a rite aid parking lot. better half wanted to turn around. no cameras, what’s the point. looked like a meeting anyway.

sitting in my car in the ino parking lot twenty minutes later, enjoying our food and watching the traffic on the boulevard, we see lots of classic cars driving by. those same group of cars too. at least one was from the bomb club. i guess that there is something going on at montebello park, which is not far away. better half says we might as well go look, but i say no, i don’t have my cameras.

i joked about going back after we got home, but as it was almost four in the afternoon, and i was tired from driving, i didn’t. but i saw you guys, so i was happy.

failed

vintage ladies 1-331And9morehdr.jpg

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.

on my way home...

1939 chevy master deluxe

1939 chevy master deluxe

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.