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.

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

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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

nice pipes

1935 ford pickup

this is a random post. at my mom's and this is the only picture i have lurking on here for a rainy day--i've been that busy.

you know a few posts ago, when i said the big project was done and things should slow down a bit? well, what kind of idiot goes to a weekly status meeting and says ya, it seems quieter? that's just a cry to the great beyond to slap down your ass with a shit-ton more work. so yes, i jinxed myself, and the great beyond shat upon my desk.

i mean i have a steady stream of work every day. every day. every day. but then you become suddenly inundated with overlapping deadlines, and juggling priorities, and no desire to put in extra hours cuz you're still trying to recover from the big project. the hamster wheel speeds up.

and then, the drive home, and that cursed (say it curse-sed) five freeway, that road to hell and back. fuck that drive.

so i've been a bit too tired to post fresh tasty pics this week. sorry. responsibility is a heavy responsibility, as my better half says.

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i first saw this hot rod, about a year ago, parked by its lonesome, at a here unnamed center of commerce and debauchery. i was walking to lunch, and i've got a pretty good eye for spotting uncommon cars. i saw it from two blocks away, and wondered if it would still be sitting there, and alone, by the time i reached it. remarkably, it was. i only had my cell phone on me at the time, so use what you have.

have since seen it a few times on the streets behind the orange curtain. i've seen pics of it frequently hanging at a certain cars and coffee show. i went to that show once, near an apartment i used to live in, when i used to hit up a car show every day in the summer, two or three on weekends. ya, ninety-nine percent muscle cars, pns cars, and old white guy hot rods. so not what i like. and i certainly didn't remember seeing this one at the time, so maybe it hadn't been built yet.

blah blah. getting sleepy now; i think i only had four hours last night...its so hot...

anyway, getting to the point: this guy was a long way from home, when i saw him zoom by at mooneyes' open house. actually, it makes a lot of sense, since hot rods are what they're about, right?

so i finally got a few shots of the thing with my big kid camera. i actually like the other shot of it better, but this one shows that it actually has four chrome chimneys to play beer pong with, vs two, which is how it seems in the other shots.

nuff said. back to the regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. g'night.

countdown

ford hot rod

saw a couple of these hot rods down the street earlier. the lady directing staging made them move before i could set up a shot, then they moved again.

found them here on my way back up the street. not my typical car to shoot, but sometimes, i just do. maybe it was just the light.

do you think this looks ok? i think the last few pictures might need to be reworked. i've been experimenting with my process, and they've been a little too dark for my taste. pushed this one more toward what i used to do, and i like it a bit better.

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less than an hour until game of thrones...eeeeee!

i wandered uptown to get lunch. figured if i got too out of it, i could just uber back the few blocks to the house. i was ok. hardly coughed at all. sun came out on the way back, so had to take off my jacket.

figured i'd get the work out before i play. got something ready for work, washed some laundry. watched some videos...educational, and youtube...wasting time. better half and his mom got home.

better half treating me like i'm deathly ill, but i feel fine, just sound like i'm possessed just a tad. now i'm slathered with icky sticky vicks goo. smells great, but it makes you chilly, like a cool breeze blowing across my chest, and my shirt is stuck to me. so gross.

junk

i sometimes take pics of these rat rods. canabalized old cars frankensteined into something more interesting, usually feature fun, unfinished textures.

there weren't too many at the super cruise, at least during the few hours i was there. this one happened to park across from the dukes' cars i was shooting, so when people stepped away from it, i took a quick detour to it. only took a couple of shots. liked this one best.

some thing

found this thing parked between two semi-trucks. just random. so i randomly shot a picture of it. no hood ornament, so otherwise, i don't know why i did.

i do like the sunrise light.

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just back from a weekend in san diego. probably will be down there a few more times this year.

sunday morning, we hopped the little red train down to barrio logan to get some breakfast at the market. was fun watching my better half ordering from the lady at the register, who didn't seem to speak english.

his mom was born in and grew up in new mexico, of mexican parents, but refused to teach his sister and him to speak spanish—figured they were in america, they should speak english. still, he knew enough words to get the order right. i took years of spanish in school, was married to a mexican, and still can't speak it at all, so good for him.

after we ate, we walked around chicano park a bit. never went there when it hasn't been full of cars. mostly empty, with some sketchy people hanging around the edges and under the overpass. they must move them out of there at car show time.

rat

found this rat rod around back of the industrial park at the super cruise. its pretty beat to shit, and seemingly haphazardly put together. but if you look closer, the small details are really fun to discover. seems to have a thing for skulls too. wonder what freud would say to that?

the mottled paint is the color of rust, but it really isn't rusted at all, and it adds a wonderful layer of texture to the thing. and hells yes, real bullet holes instead of the stupid stickers!

work in progress, or will they stop here? 

  

  

up and coming

not much to say today, and it's late.

one from dia de los muertos show here in whittier. usually pass these kind of cars by, but the little blue bottle caught my eye. gives it that extra "get up" and go i guess.

spudnut racing

quick pic. already running late on somewhere i'm supposed to be. 

found this rat rod way out at the end of the street, on the other side of the railroad tracks, at the rialto run whatcha brung show. i think the owner next to him said they'd arrived late, so parked out there in the shade. they did also get out and drive the circuit once in a while. the other owner also said i'd made this guy's day because i bothered to take a picture of it. such small things can make people happy. don't think i gave him a card, so i suppose he'll never see it, but its here, hiding on the internet in plain sight. you never know.

ttfn

flamed and a little grumpy

the lovely couple that own this hot rod have been waiting a month to see a new picture of their baby. they thought they'd been going crazy and missed it, but no. i just don't post everything, especially if i'm not satisfied with it. i suppose i have an old email from them somewhere, so i could have let them know. or i guess i could have written something here. but then i wonder if they're just looking for the picture and not reading it, they wouldn't know then either.

i had been having an internal arguement over a couple of shots of it from a show out in riverside, but there was something in each that was just not doing it for me.

then this weekend, a couple of local shows i'd heard about and planned to attend, just simply didn't happen. so having awakened at an ungodly hour for a saturday, took my better half along for the ride out to rialto, promising him that i don't drive out there anymore if it isn't worth it. i'd scoped out a few while my son went to ucr, so i knew this would be ok.

and i kinda guessed they'd be there too. i saw them drive in as we walked over the train tracks to the main strip. we didn't actually get there until after 8am, so the sun was already past the sunrise we were looking for, but not so high as to be irritating.

i took a few shots early, then wound back around and took these two before i left. i think either one looks better than the shot with gary's favorite outhouses.

my better half went to the car show with me, so afterwards, we went out to chino planes of fame for him. he had fun...hardly anyone there, and a nice breeze for a change.

thanks for telling about another show the next day, but i just couldn't do another whole day in riverside.

oh ya, and there's the little grumpy on the back of the other car. didn't notice him last year, when i was just all about the skulls.

oh, and buy a print here

checkered past

i still have a couple more cars i promised before i get back to my favs. 

this one was just different than the typical hot rod. mainly the checkered paint job on the radiator and inside the engine compartment. otherwise, pretty standard hep cat.

wonder what that guy in the doorway is thinking...or the zombie to his right. neither is looking at me, nor the car. must be something driving by out of the shot.