what's up?

come on and rain already

they promised it was going to rain all week, last week. then it didn’t. just a day or so.

they said it was going to rain sunday/monday, then monday/tuesday this week, and now it’s not at all or maybe ten percent chance. what are they paying these weather people for? “it’s beyond my control…”

well it looks cloudy, with no chance of meatballs from my window here. and i’ve seen and/or heard several classic cars drive on by down greenleaf, which seems to me a better predictor of whether it is going to rain or not.

better half woke up early today, and snuck on out to the sante fe swap meet to buy some shirts. said there was a vendor selling knock off pendletons. he jokingly asked if he was a greenspans outlet, and the guy said, “no, but a hell of a lot cheaper.”

he’s out again now, driving around in a car that was originally mine, then my ex’s, then my dad’s, now my mom’s. if he decides not to buy it, i suppose i’ll take it out to pomona next month. or my sister can craig’s list it. he want’s a spare car in case he needs to get his mom to an appointment, and i’m not in town.

i have new year’s eve and new year’s day off from work. there are several new year’s day picnics happening. seriously considering going somewhere instead of hiding away in the house. or maybe at least to the veterano’s cruise night on the weekend, since one of my favs dm’d me a flyer to tempt me.

truck from a not hugely attended fundraiser show at workman high school. i think it was supposed to rain that day (it didn’t), which kept more cars away that otherwise would have been there.

it’s the color of a ring i used to wear in elementary school, turquoise stone and silver, that probably wouldn’t even fit on my pinky anymore. maybe i’ll give it to the new grandkid (not here yet) when she’s old enough.

a bit late

workman high school fundraiser from last year. such a pretty green on that chevy. must have been a windy day, since the clouds seem to have moved during my shot.

so, it’s been a week since i’ve written. just one thing after another. time gets away from me lately, even on a weekend away, on my own.

this is becoming a once-a-week blather while i am home in whittier, and the better half has gone to market. unfortunate, since i have over sixty other cars sitting in draft mode, waiting to be posted. i guess i could just post them and not write anything, but then what’s the point of a blog? might as well just keep it on instagram or flickr.

i don’t have stories from car shows to write about anymore, since i haven’t been out much lately. my boring problems are stuff no one wants to read about. so here i am, yet again pondering shutting this puppy down. i’ll keep thinking.

meanwhile, a synopisis of my boring last week:

the day after my meeting, i took a ferry to sausalito. i was looking to replace something i’d lost or misplaced. i’d bought it there in a small store, with a most unfriendly bitch of a lady at the register, more than a dozen years ago. surprise surprise, out of business.

briefly thought about lunch, but really wanted to eat some crab back on the other side. also thought about taking the ferry back over, but i hadn’t bought a round trip ticket. so i did the thing i’d thought about the night before: i walked back to san francisco.

always used to ride the rental bike to sausalito. i figured i’d take that route back, and maybe get some photos i otherwise would not have gotten.

over twelve miles later…i got back to the hotel. even made a stop at fort point, where dweebs were doing civil war reenactment…dressed in uniforms and ladies in petticoats. took not quite five-hundred pictures along the way.

was ravenous, and treated myself to crab at aliottos in fisherman’s wharf. crab and bread and dessert. they didn’t have coke—just some frilly local made drink, but it was similar. i highly recommend the place, but going into the restaurant vs just the crab bar outside, is greatly overpriced. reconciled it in my head calling it both lunch and dinner.

about half way through the journey, my hip had started hurting. decided i’d pulled a muscle trying to climb up to some stairs from a rocky piece of beach back in sausalito. by the time i’d headed up for dinner, i was gimping. got hardly any sleep because of the hip, and getting ready to go to the airport was really dicey.

i got up early, hoping to get another crab from one of the crab bars. i gimped slowly over to fisherman’s wharf. they had crabs. but they weren’t open, and wouldn’t sell me one. not any of the crab carts. shit. damn off-season hours.

ended up with a subway sandwich as i was running out of time. ended up calling an uber this time. standing at the door of the hotel, wondering where the hell the guy was. several minutes later, noticed he had been sitting right there the whole time, just blocked from view by a couple of taxis. so had to pay the wait charge. oh well.

flight was uneventful. my daughter picked me up instead of my mom. older brother and his wife had arrived unannounced about the time she was getting ready to head to the airport. daughter happened to call to see what she was doing later, so she was sent to pick me up on her way home from work.

bro came to help sift through dad’s things, to tear down garden netting in the backyard. whole other story about trying to help clear dad’s stuff that is of no use to mom, but she ends up picking half the stuff back out of the trash bags when you turn your back.

other brother should be here on monday. in town for a friend’s funeral, but staying a while to help around the house. meaning also, i can go home to better half for a few days, without feeling guilty leaving mom alone.

work-wise, so so busy. been staying an extra hour or two, to meet deadlines. they won’t hire anyone, and no business group wants to pay the fee for the outside contractor, so the in-house designers are overloaded. i’m getting to that point of burn-out. been there before, and i feel it coming. new boss just doesn’t recognize it yet.

so tired. just not as tired as my better half.

raining today. sadly hoping it will be raining tomorrow, so i don’t have a reason to get out of bed and go to pomona to take pictures. i want to, really, but i really rather sleep.

stylish

sitting in my car here, way too early, but i did beat the rain getting to work this morning. it’s just now started falling on the roof, at a pretty steady pace. i still need to get gas over at costco soon—no lines at five-thirty in the morning.

relatives coming this weekend; i’ll probably avoid them...don’t want to trade cooties with the little kid.

but the best news is two days to go, until a two-week vacay for me. nothing fun, but it does involve a flight, a rental truck, and lots of scenic driving. and not working. so yay. wish my better half could go, but he’s busy taking care of his mom. someday his sister will come back to help, but for the near future, it’s just him/us. wonder if medicare would provide someone to help? dunno.

——-

second time, at least this car is up here. this time at workman high show. one of the few older chevys there. first car i shot that day, being the first one there in the corner. one of the veteranos club members, they reminded me about their car show coming up this weekend, in covina. hopefully, the rain stops by then.

missed you

got up late, but mostly because the time changed. stupid daylight savings time. well, it didn't matter. the weather forecast said no rain, just cloudy all day. oh hell yaaas. love that. giant softbox.

took a bit to get moving, but out i went. drove past where a cruise was supposed to be, on the way to the workman high school show, but i guess they had already left. no big. arrived at the high school just after ten, when it was supposed to officially start.

the cars are hidden down on the basketball court, which you can't see from the parking lot. but in the parking lot, there some semi-trucks parked, followed by some muddy dirt buggies in the next lot.

sort of disappointed [not] that i came to find not so many cars on the court. last year had been jammed, and hot. here, there were maybe about thirty cars, half the kind i don't like, and the other half my favs, just parked around the perimeter.

fewer cars, more focus, more pics, less people in the way. look at the glass half full. make the most of it. any time i walk away with at least one car and one picture that makes me happy, it's cool.

this guy parked over in the corner. was hoping some of his friends from his club would show up, but didn't. that was ok too. i think this was one of my favorite pictures i shot today. and the clouds are ok too. owner even pulled the show tag out of the window too. thanks for that.

waited a bit for a jump-off between two cars, but it kept not happening, and i had to get back home. wished more cars had been there, it never did rain, still isn't, missed you all, but was still good with it. one guy theorized everyone was at the dub show. whatever.

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.

splintered

anytime i haven't been out shooting regularly, it takes a few shots to get into the swing or rhythm of setting up, framing up and firing off shots. i don't expect the first few to be good.

this was the first car i shot the other day at workman high school' fundraiser. was already overheating.

it's a little distorted, but i like it anyway. it pops a little. and i love the hood ornaments on these cars. wishing the little palm tree head wasn't behind the yellow reflector thing on the hood, but oh well.

reaching for a cooking pan in the lower cupboard, trying to not force my better half to move away from the sink, i tried to reach through a slightly open cabinet door. it's an older house. the cabinets have layers of paint and wobbly pull handles. and rough edges on the bottoms of shelves.

so yup, my knuckles slide up along the bottom of the upper shelf and i got the pan and several long splinters in my finger. one i pulled out with my fingernails, just because it was sticking out of the skin. the longer one seems to be just under the skin, with either a smaller third beyond that, or just a cut.

i don't like digging for splinters. probably had one as a kid that my mom went after rather unpleasantly. so i'll just put a band-aid on it and let it work itself out.

didn't hurt at first, but within about five minutes, it started hurting like a mofo. oh well. hope it isn't lead paint.

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.

nice to see you again

so, in spite of not feeling too great (again), i went out for a short while, to the fundraiser at workman high school.

for fuck's sakes, man, it's winter. why the hell is it in the eighties in march? and the cars are on blacktop. it was in the forties and raining a week or so ago. i really hate california sometimes.

photo courtesy of jim diaz—thanks jimbo!

glad i brought my hat. sometimes i worry it may be too offensive with it's pinstriped message on the brim, but then i hear the lyrics of the music being played, and it seems rather tame in comparison.

took a quick round of the show, then went back for a few more particular cars.

i think this was the second or third car i shot. the owner is actually just peeking into view behind it. he came over and re-introduced himself, saying we'd met at a previous show. guessing that would be one in covina, back around halloween.

told him i'd post his car; i try to keep my promises, if i can keep my memories straight. so hope he likes it.

my head got swimmy soon enough, so i packed it up and left to find lunch. pretty sure i'll faint at a show one of these hot days. i do hope someone friendly will watch over me and my gear until i wake up.