what's up?

pissed

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picked up my car. drove about ten minutes, halfway to the freeway, when my check engine light came on. pulled over, called the shop and ask if that’s to be expected. they said bring it on back.

note it was just about four when i called, which was their closing time.

by the time i get back there, the service office is closed, though there is a woman inside fiddling with paperwork. i stare at her for a bit, and stare at some guys still wandering around the work bays. lady comes out a side door asking if i needed something.

told her i literally picked my car up after they had it all effing day, etcetera…and she says they all left and all i can do is come back monday. fucksticks. back in the car and pull over just a block away, the car sounds wrong and the body shimmies. turned it off to tell better half i was heading back home, but now didn’t think the car would make it, and was returning to the shop.

then it didn’t want to stay on when i turned the key. started the next try, but sounded like it would die if i eased off the gas, so quickly did a u-turn and back to car drop off. found an open door, same lady. said to fill out the night drop envelope and leave the car and key for first thing monday. can’t even get a loaner car for my troubles, cuz no one there to help with that.

called my mom to cancel on the game, so now no one is using the tickets at all, it’s too late, even if i ubered direct to the stadium. and monday i was meant to drive up to vegas, but now i have to deal with my car.

misunderstanding with text messages to my better half resulted in me getting an uber back to the house instead of him coming back for me.

so circle jerk of a day, and i’ll be lucky if i get as far as montebello park in the morning…def can’t get to san fernando. 😞

monday should be interesting anyway. i feel sorry for the manager i’ll be yelling at in an ever so polite way. better half expects i’ll be calling a fatwa on the place if they don’t make it right asap. it’s what i get for taking it to this place for convenience of the location instead of better shops closer to my office. better half would have just taken it to pep boys.

anyway, i’m in a better mood now and my better half can’t understand what i am saying, since his head is under the air conditioner in the window and has a fan pointed at him, both blowing at top speed. he repeats back what he thought i said, which is most definitely incorrect, but thoroughly entertaining.

———

heres an old chopped huddie from last year for your troubles. let’s put them behind us as well.

put me in coach

hudson

went home from work yesterday, after four and a half hours. caught me a cold the day before, but had a job to finish, and my better half didn't want me working at home and getting his mama sick. this he says after he'd already been home the week before, sick himself, or at least talking himself into being sick.

so i'm at my mom's again. and now i hear that his mama be illin' now anyway, so what's the diff? just chill, y'all.

had tickets to a concert tonight, but he already called to say he can't go. i expected that would happen. now do i eat these tickets, and just stay here and play sick myself? i've already been sleeping with prince nyquil for a couple of days, and i feel fine. just have that vocal veneer of barry white going on, and an occasional coughing fit, but never got a fever for the flavor of a pringles.

so i asked my mom if she wanted to go see an xmas concert. she said sure, she had no other plans. the thing is, i think she thinks it's some kind of choral or lovely musical thing. actually, it's gary hoey doing a ho ho hoey show, so should just be him jamming on a guitar, with a drummer. probably not what she is expecting, but who knows?

been a while since i've been to the coach house. i wanna say they serve up some crap dinner before the show. proximity to the stage is directly proportional to how much cash you slip the doorman, so i'm guessing we'll be first out of the parking lot after the show. i'd like to listen to a few songs before she decides it isn't her cup of tea.


saw this huddie drive in at huffarama. only one there, and pretty sure i've not seen another chopped and dropped like this anywhere else. pretty cool. i like it. a lot.

this particular morning

hudson

at my kid's house tonight. made a batch of cookies...i wanted the dough.


the chicano park show this year, made up for the low turn out last year. last year, it threatened to rain, and many cars stayed away.

this day was almost as perfect as you could wish. not too cold, and overcast and/or cloudy most of the morning. then blue skies cutting through here and there, until it dominated, and the sun burned through, and the wind blew the clouds away.

and the cars. so many cars. every type i could wish for in one place.

we got there, as usual, after five, still dark out. shot cars that were lined up, until roll in. then headed across the park, to the street, to the patch of grass next to the freeway on-ramp. that's klique territory. they park over there every year.

first car that caught my eye, was this hudson. the owner--a woman, btw--was busy polishing it, so i went on to shoot another car.

came back around ten minutes later, only to find her still busy rubbing that paint to a crystal finish. i decided to shoot it anyway, as the sun was rising behind me and hitting the car with a warm glow. had to snap my shots as the woman was around on the opposite side of the car. tried to take it everytime she leaned down, out of view.

what was bugging me, and ruining that shot, was that there was a big box of a transformer or other equipment on the lawn behind me a bit, to my left, so, with the sun rising behind that, there's an odd boxy shadow across part of the car.

following the advice of some famous photographer, whose classes i've sat through, i decided to look the other way, and take the shot from the side you see here. the thing of it was, the car is parked next to the beginning of the uphill ramp to the walkway over the freeway. so i'm bent over in that small angle space underneath the ramp, with my tripod, to get this shot, while the owner has now moved to the other side of the car again, still polishing and shining.

i have another picture i like a little better than this shot, from the other morning at chicano park. almost the same shot, but just a few minutes earlier. in that one, there's the sun, blazing sun rays, framed in that little gap on the right. the sky is more colorful, the car gorgeous still, even with one sun flare blemish on the car.

the one little thing that ruins it, or makes it, depending on your point of view, is my better half and his tripod, as graceful as a giraffe at a watering hole, fiddling with his camera on the other side of the car, stage left. he's trying to get his shot too; i wonder if he got my sorry ass in his picture.

i passed it later in the day, after the sun was full up and the light hitting the car had changed, but the hood and trunk were up, and that was that.

better half says he read an article about the owner, who said she had wanted to join the klique club, but they said no, it's for men only. the dukes accepted her and that car...good on them. win-win for both. i hope she won-won.