what's up?

alex

out to st hilary's very early this morning, before the sun came up. watched a few cars head in before i got outta the car. so by the time i was shooting my first car, the sun was peaking out already.

got through two batteries before i got to this car. either they're going bad or i haven't been using them enough. more like the latter.

told him i'd post a picture of his car. he said he'd painted it himself, and knew it wasn't quite perfect. so it is good enough, your car doesn't have to be pristine to get a picture.

i used to help my dad sand his car every year when i was a kid. he always painted it some sort of steel blue, using some giant compressor he got from the navy scrapyard or something. not shiny, but did the trick.

owner of this car apparently has seen my pictures before, and probably reads this here blog, as he offered me a water pretty quickly. it was a hot day, and i was about ready to go find one and/or head out to eat. that helped a lot, i was getting pretty shaky about then.

so thanks for the water, alex. nice to meet you.

it's a harley, dahlink

harley davidson

away from home tonight, so i'll just put this one up.

took several angles of this bike, which are all just fine, but i thought this angle was just more interesting. not an extraordinary bike, but it was clean, and sitting off mostly by itself momentarily. not long after, the owner moved it in with the crowd of cars, where i never would have bothered shooting it then.

been busy as usual at work. i've been trying to squeeze in a walk before work, or climbing nine flights of stairs if i can. my legs hurt from sitting all day; i should get out for an afternoon walk like i used to, just block out some time on the work calendar and go.

really need to try an experiment and go cold turkey on the coke and/or pepsi. i like my caffiene bubbly and on ice, but it comes with a lot of sugar, which my body is apparently just converting into ass, boobs and belly. i could say i let myself go, out of some bizarre curiosity to see what i'd look like "with a little meat on my bones," same way i'd just see how long my hair would grow, but that would just be an excuse.

better half isn't complaining, but i'd like to be able to bust a lot of my old clothes out of storage, if i lost a few inches.

i spent a good part of a year working in what we called the dungeon, at a previous employer. was a huge project, with multiple companies working together, day and night. they kept a steady supply of snacks and soda, to keep the captives, er, employees, happy and working.

i used to joke, that i could just sit and mainline/iv drip the coke twenty-four/seven. was easier then; i was only a hundred pounds and burned those junk food calories without even trying.

i will miss it. i will be tempted every day, and it's just so easy to get my hands on the stuff.

gonna change to water. but it has to be ice water, to top off the ice water in my veins.

says the girl who chugged a coke whilest typing this missive...

good fella

1939 chevy master deluxe

was thinking about going to friscos, then it started to rain. rain or shine is great for cars, but not for camera lenses. the bodies are supposedly water resistant, but not the lenses. i can't afford new lenses, so probably will skip it. my loss.

saw this in the corner at showlow's st hilary show. if not a fleetline, master deluxes are my next favorite.half in, half out of the shade is sort of challenging.

wishing that other car wasn't behind it. took a picture of that one too. that owner was a dodgers fan, and took time to put a sunshade emblazoned with the logo across it in the front window, so that i'd take a picture of it. i did, but i don't think i'll post it. not the best shot, and i wasn't that impressed by the sunshade.

took my kid's dog for a walk on friday after work. hadn't stopped in to visit for a while, and the kid wouldn't be home from work for another hour or two. i took him to a nearby park and let him off his leash at some point, so he could run around a bit. he ran in circles for a few minutes, then must have found something, because i saw him eating it before i could catch up and stop him.

it looked like what was left was evidence of a picnic in the grass, with a baby's animal crackers and chicken bones strewn about the area. had to pull him away, as he was trying to snarf another bone.

saturday morning, about five a.m., i get a nasty "what did you feed the dog?" text from my kid. i guess the dog had not been feeling well the night before, had been locked in the kitchen just in case, and had woke up barfing and crapping everywhere. pictures were included. thanks for that visual.

he says the dog always drops a bigger load after i've stopped by, i usually feed him extra biscuits, or share my dinner with him. i'm a bad gramma in his eyes.

i had to apologize and tell him i hadn't fed him anything extra, and could only think whatever he managed to eat had already gone bad, and he had food poisoning.

i guess he continues to be sick, but supposedly slowing down. i've offered to take him to the vet and/or pay for it. he says he'd given the dog some pepto-bismol.

hoping to hear they've taken him in and given him an iv or something.

the trunk

go dodgers

was asked to shoot this trunk. owner had been chatting with my better half, and called me over.

i like baseball, grew up watching the dodgers and listening to vin scully, so ok, i'll shoot it.

haven't really paid much attention to the games this year, or baseball at all. one thing after another, ya know.

posting it in honor of his retirement, on this, the last day calling a game. we'll miss you, vin!

missing san pedro today; celebrating our ninth anniversary this week out of town. happy my better half has put up with me this long; he deserves a cuddle or something.

burnt

waiting at sea-tac, watching planes take off. has been mostly perfect weather until today. light rain and about fifty-four degrees out. heading home, where it's about eighty-eight. better half would say it's about one-hundred, since his air conditioning in his car isn't working. so not missing the heat.

been a good trip. daughter's birthday was just us two, since her boy toy had to work. she had a larger karaoke party the next night with her friends to make up for it.

took her car in for maintenance as a gift, since all she ever does is change the oil. ended up being more than expected, of course. worth it for piece of mind, and not imagining her stuck on a highway in the snow this winter.

anyway, got to the airport too early, and not much to choose from to eat or to look at in this terminal.

one more show on my show calendar this year. guess i'll look back at what i've been to that was any good and start building a tentative schedule for next year.

already see that work is busy and plenty waiting for me at the office tomorrow. yay.

----

interesting car color here. at least i was able to shoot it without too much of the pop-up in the shot. no way to avoid the port-a-potty, though.

showlows

wishing i'd pulled out a different camera/different lens right about now. wide-angle distortion is interesting and aggravating at the same time.

early on, just club guys and vendors there. their show, their line up, my shot. thanks, guys!

heart and soul

pearlescent. adj. having an iridescent luster resembling that of pearl or mother-of-pearl.

it does have a pearly white color. it's a bit more refined than glitter-filled metal flake.

either paint is hard to shoot, especially in the sunlight. gave it a shot anyway.

owner was very nice. said this paint was only a few months old, so it would explain why i didn't recognize the car. words pinstriped on the window say "heart and soul." i've seen that on other cars, but don't remember it on one of these.

anyway, he said was going to have the roof done in some other irridescent opal color as soon as he saves up the money to get it done. that will even more of a challenge to photograph. i'm looking forward to it.

wake up

we got up early and got to st hilary's today before six, and the sun. sure, roll-in wasn't until six-thirty, but i get my choice of parking, and the host club's cars are there setting up, so we just start with them.

then the sun did it's usual thing, and a few more cars showed up.

i was suprised that these spaces in front of the statue didn't fill up first, as is usual. this guy sat all by it's lonesome for a long time. i would have preferred shooting from the other side, because there's a big old tree i really like to have as a background, but, unfortunately, there were a couple of port-a-potties under that tree, so settled for this angle instead.

building lights were still on. timers or sensors? not sure, but they are mildly irritating, adding extra, unwanted lights and reflections.

curly

had a busy day. could have gone to three or four, even five car shows today. instead, went to one show twice, and another show in between. confusing, i know. first show, i guess the drive-in time is 9am; i got there about 10:30ish. three, maybe four cars there. then one of the guys comes over and says the show doesn't really start until one. that explains it. but why post a move-in so early on a sunday morning? everyone's at church, right?

anyway, drove down to another show, which had the usual bunch of cars. took a few shots, and left to find some lunch. then back to the other show. more cars, so i was happy.

then, i think i'd had enough sun, and skipped any other shows i was thinking about.

------

this car isn't from either one. busy downloading those pics now.

showlows car from last weekend. i like pinstripes. these aren't perfect and symetrical. a little off, but i still like it.

has bean

can't pass by a pontiac without shooting the indian.

i've got a few shots of the car, but i'm not so impressed with them. not liking the other cars and pop up tents in the background. don't know why, since that's how i find them most of the time. maybe if i look at it again another day, i'll like it better and post it.

-----

spent the morning doing a lot of driving. drove my better half down to the optometrist, where he got in trouble for not going in for a couple of years. he'll have new glasses soon enough.

then drove back, avoiding the eff-up on the freeway at valley view, where they are doing construction or something all weekend.

stopped at the market. cooking up pots, or more seemingly, vats of beans today. never made them before, and my better half was whining the other day that his mom hadn't made any for a while. i finally asked her to show me how to make them for him, so we had to pick up ingredients.

first market didn't have everything we needed. second market didn't have the pig cankles, so i had to go to a third market for those.

anyway, spent the afternoon doing that. the house smells like onions and jalepeños. better half chopped/obliterated onions in some sort of device he'd bought at the swap meet. his mom sifted through the uncooked beans for the defects and dirt, and told stories of when she was a girl doing the same for her mother.

so it kinda seems like they did most of the work and i just wrote down and followed her directions and stirred the pots. fine by me, i'm not going to eat them.

results are mixed, probably because of the different sizes of the pots used. better half just dumped one pot as being way too salty. says one pot is probably perfect, the other two probably could have cooked a bit longer...not my fault...his mom said they were done time-wise. i didn't think they looked the same as the first batch. whatever. they'll eat them anyway. i'll try again some other time. maybe buy more big pots to cook with, so they all cook at the same rate.

ya, i hate cooking. i'd rather bake cookies and bread. way better than beans.