what's up?

transitory

i never seem to stay put in one house more than a couple of days anymore. i rotate between whittier, my parents' house in oc, and my own place, where i'm dealing with a mold issue from the leaky pipe in the wall in may and the kid moving in before she really should have.

i feel unsettled and tired. in whittier for the weekend, i also feel overheated. the back bedroom, with it's little window air conditioning unit, is a little sanctuary when i need it, but my computer is up in the front room, where i am sandwiched between two fans.

i do little bursts of energy, washing dishes, running laundry, helped my better half make guacamole; made enchiladas the other day, and my mother-in-law wants me to make more...so i guess they were ok. she wants hotter sauce this time.

on another subject, i got another honorable mention ribbon for my collection, at the orange county fair for this one. the other two pictures i entered are nearby it on the wall.

old dodge from the bomb club show at santa anita. i've seen this car many times before. probably have it posted up here somewhere at least one other time that i can think of off the top of my head..

missing the overcast; love clouds and how they keep it cool. i really hate summer heat.

out there

quick post. stayed out all evening trying to find new outfits. i hate shopping, and clothes are cheap and poor quality. i'm such a failure at girling, i guess. whatever.

mostly was trying to avoid having to walk/watch my kid's dog until she got home from work. got to my mom's only to find she/it wasn't there--staying with a friend for a few days. oh well.

----

saw this forty-one at santa anita the other day. for some reason it was sitting off to the side all by it's lonesome, instead of in line with all the other cars waiting to go into the tunnel.

didn't really like the color version, so tweaked it to black and white. sort of looks better this way, somehow more dramatic. like, "here i am."

i'll bet

great show yesterday at santa anita. bomb club has a lot of friends, i guess.

second time there for me, but i could only stay a few hours, as i had to be elsewhere, and my better half had things he needed to get out and do.

yet, i almost hit the snooze button, which would have led to me blowing off yet another show. so, tiredly, i talked myself into getting out of bed ten minutes later, still before five a.m. i'd spent the week trying to figure out how i could do this show, and get from there to the other places i needed to be, and then back in time at home for wherever it was my better half had to go, which was, initially, to his office.

weather had shown it was going to be in the nineties this weekend, and i really dreaded being out in it. instead, it was overcast and cool. the bomb club was just being allowed into the tunnel to the infield when i got there. couple of the other photographers were already busy shooting the lineup, well before i arrived.

i chose to follow the cars inside, rather than be kept out like last year. the security guard chose to tell me the tripod was ok on the infield, but i couldn't take it up into the stands on the other side. told him not to worry on that, as i wasn't going up there.

spent my time staying out of the way, shooting cars already parked, before people and cars got in the way, or the owners moved them or started polishing them. shot them again, when i found them in another location, sometimes minutes later.

liked this chevy parked here, near the track and the pop-up betting info tent. i like the curves of the back end [that's what she said].

took my time walking around the bomb club's cars. then headed over to the other areas, as they started letting in groups of cars to stake out their clubs' spots on the grass.

even stopped to play with the big lens i borrowed from my better half. i used to use it when my kid played college baseball. it'd been a while. thought i'd try it on the horses. i'd asked what settings to use on it before i headed out, as i'd forgotten what i had done years ago. wasn't that impressed, and obviously i'd set something wrong...more noise on the shots than i like, and too dark. switched it from the full-frame camera to my crop sensor, and still didn't like it. maybe next year, if i am not in a rush, i'd fiddle with it more.

upon deciding to leave the infield, and passing through the tunnel back to the parking lot, i found an equal number of cars still waiting to get inside. someone said they were being held up by the movement of the horses. i didn't understand why, since the ponies had been on the track warming up and exercising all morning.

it seemed, as soon as i stepped out of the tunnel, the sun also decided it was a good time to come out from behind the clouds. the medicine the doctor has me taking, makes me sensitive to sunlight, so that was going to end my fun soon anyway—could already feel my skin tingling.

still, i picked out a few cars to shoot, stopped to chat with a few people i hadn't seen in a while, such that, one of them had a baby that was already a year and a half old...last i saw him, it had just been born. time flies.

was nine-thirty when i finally left...an hour and a half later than i had scheduled myself. had called my better half at eight, and he said all was good, take my time, he wasn't in a hurry. so i had.

i like the venue; hope they have it there again next year. will cross my fingers for another gloomy morning, and get there before sunrise next time.

shaking my head

i remember this day. last summer's bomb club car show at santa anita. middle of the racetrack, on the grass. hot, sunny day. still looking forward to the next one on june twenty-third.

all the lovely cars, in a new location, at least for me...i'd never been to a show there. actually, hadn't been to santa anita in years, so that was fun.

maybe i'll take pictures of the horse races this time too.

recent events have just got me feeling down. if i was a psych major, there'd be a thesis in it. people are just so horrible sometimes, and selfish and stubborn. there are some that will politely engage in a discussion, agree to disagree, but the rest think if they just yell louder, insult you, belittle you, threaten you, they win. water off a duck's back. let's remember richard for a moment. ok, he's not worth the time; see how it works?

and i'm kind of enjoying that it is raining just a little bit, so i can sleep in and not have to find a reason to not get out of the house. i'm sure there was something grammatically wrong with that sentence, and i don't care...double negatives or something.

been busy, and i'll be travelling soon. i'm getting really good at driving big ass moving vans. hoping i don't get a diesel one again...don't like the steering wheel being so horizontal. hoping the weather is good, and the roads aren't icy.

had to do a bunch of headshots at work yesterday. they scheduled seven people; one showed up, forgetting that she was supposed to wear a suit, and was dressed for st. patty's day. one less person, great. then someone else heard there was a shoot, and wanted one, but she couldn't do it until the afternoon. so i still ended up with seven people.

interesting how insecure people are in front of a camera. i am just as uncomfortable behind one, when they are in front of me. i babble, and try to lighten their mood, to get a decent smile from them, get them to relax. i'm trying, and i hate it every time, but the pictures aren't bad. now if i'd just relax enough to be able to tell them how i want them to pose, to get rid of that double-chin, or thin them out a bit, like i've learned in classes, i wouldn't have to do so much in post-processing, maybe.

i did do a little bit of stand like this, smile like that...sort of a mirror. i don't smile much, so my smile just has to be ever more stiff than theirs. at least they laugh, and i get the shot.

after shooting someone six+ foot tall, followed by a person about five foot in heels, when i went to adjust the height on the tripod, a leg twisted off. not good. couldn't get back together and stay. the person is just waiting. i tried some hand-held shots, but i shake too much. probably should have dialed up the shutter speed or something.

i wasn't liking the quality, so i tried the leg one more time, and propped it up against a chair. that held together long enough, and got something usable finally.

i had a twenty-minute break before the next person, so up to my office, asked a co-worker if they could fix it, while i ran out to my car to get my personal tripod from the trunk. knowing that i didn't have the plate to attach the camera to it with me, i was going to have to pull the ball head off and just mount the camera directly.

fortunately, my co-worker figured it out, at least for the time being, and i got through the rest of the day with it. pretty sure, though, i didn't adjust the leg height for the duration.

need to reschedule the one person sometime in the future, so i better be sure to check it on monday, and carry my own as a backup on those days.

deadly

so, school shooting yesterday in florida. my niece and nephew were there...that's their school. they are ok, spent time hiding in the dark, under desks. saw stuff, heard stuff.

nephew has been doing interviews on tv; niece spoke to abc london. four of her friends died.

other nephew on swat team, clearing classrooms.

scary stuff.

quiet, early morning, waiting to head in at the bomb club show at santa anita last summer.

maybe i'll go

i haven't been out and about much when i'm not at work. just have other things i've been dealing with, and just haven't.

there's a cruise tonight, and a show tomorrow that i'm thinking about going to, for a change.

i was out at pomona last weekend, and i noticed my tripod is a bit wonky, and one of my cameras definitely is out of commission. camera i think is still under warranty, so i need to look into sending that in. the other camera needs the sensor cleaned, which i can do at home.

when i find myself looking back at years' old pictures for something to work on, i know i need to go out and find something new, or a fresh look at an old car.

so maybe i'll go, out to covina before it gets dark, and shoot some cars until sunset. better half isn't going, so i won't be out late. EDIT: didn't make it. :(

now to motivate myself to get my shit together and go.

pic above from the bomb club show at santa anita. that was a fun show. i overheated before i could get to all the cars. really need to head out early to summer shows, so they don't kill me.

still here

not feeling well enough to go out to car shows right now, but good enough to walk uptown. so, cruise on by, so i can take a picture. it's my own little car show driving past our window, most every day.

heard some news from an old co-worker today. bad times. that sucks. happened to check facebook messenger, which i hardly ever do, and there was a month old message there. they happened to be online when i replied.

then another former co-worker's dog passed away a few weeks before xmas. that had to be ruff. see what i did there. been there, done that. losing a pet always sucks.

hoping for a better new year for everyone.

here's an old shot from the bomb club show last summer at santa anita racetrack. an old truck with 'character.'

those spindly palm trees kind of bother me, but not enough to erase them.

random thoughts

last full day here in the cold north. maybe another time, i will go even farther, up into canada.

i've spent the day wandering around art museums, taking all the time i wanted to read about the artwork, or sit on my ass and watch the videos in the little display areas that loop about various pieces or art. was a decent mix of classic, native and local art. not anything too modern, which i find terrifyingly stupid, or maybe it's me, and i don't have my head far enough up my ass to appreciate or pretend to understand. maybe i just missed that class in college. i do enjoy the artist statements to try and explain why that crap is of importance, or justify it's existence, or price.

still trying to finish off this cold, especially before i get on an airplane tomorrow.

during my tedious hours on the road, i had plenty of time to ponder:

captain crunch is like broken glass when you have a sore throat
not one fast food place between home and here had fountain drinks that weren't flat, even those that used to be reliable. at least most had clean 'facilities'
while most of said dining establishments couldn't serve up meals that were quite right or edible, at least the employees were polite and friendly. just couldn't cook or do a sandwich for crap
i satisfied my daily wish to just keep driving, instead of going to work. maybe i should be a trucker, but then i'd grow to hate that
i do miss big trees and forests, rain and snow of my childhood, and glad i got to see it all again this trip
some people really shouldn't be given driver licenses and/or should study physics when deciding to swerve in front of eighteen wheelers.
oregon has xmas radio commercials selling guns. thirty bucks off on glocks for him or cute conceal carry purses for her. not to mention the adult edibles and smokables commercials. plenty for those last minute stocking stuffers.

i suppose there were other things, but i was driving and couldn't jot them down. mind like sieve sometimes.

countdown

world series, game seven, playing in the background. my sister-in-law is a serious fan of the dodgers, and she's been terribly silent and avoiding the tv a lot this game. previous games have been a roller coaster, with her screaming and moaning, depending on which way the scoring was going.

fifth inning now. was uptown a little bit ago, and all the bars with any sense and tvs are packed—one bbq place uptown is absolutely empty...don't know if it's the food, the booze, the mangagement, or lack of a tv being the reason...i've never actually set foot in there. and they really are never busy...how do they stay open?

also now the countdown has begun for dad's date with destiny and a surgeon. got his first set of tests done yesterday, and a date for the first procedure coming up in a couple of weeks. after that, heart surgery of one sort or another.

my younger brother has been in town for almost a month, as he was here for his anniversary, then stayed on, expecting things to have gotten rolling much sooner. he's anxious to get home and see his kids, but now his wife is coming back to town next week, and is talking him into staying for at least another couple of weeks. basically, he's bored, and would rather be bored in his own house, with his kids and his dog.

told him i'm rearranging my schedule, so i can get dad where he needs to go for the next part.

i may need to get my gall bladder out, but that can wait...that doc wasn't seriously concerned about it. i'll see about that when i can't just ignore that ache any longer. more important stuff going on, and ain't nobody got time for dat.

it's the medicine

i've decided that i feel like shit because of the meds i've been taking for the past week. three more days to go. because if it's not that, then there's something else, that i will not want to deal with, things being so beyond my control just now.

my dad says his one doctor is recommending that he opt for open heart surgery vs the up the leg bit that he'd settled on. i know he has more appointments scheduled to discuss it with several docs this week, so we shall see what happens.

we had been talking our tenth anniversary/vacation just a couple of weeks ago, but that is totally on the shelf now. life happens. as my better half says, it's the tenth year all year, so we can go some other time.

still hoping to squeeze in some car shows when i can, when i feel better, when it's not so hot out. i still have time to get over to legg lake, if i just feel a bit more myself. i'll think about it. batteries charging, just in case.

saw this car out at the bomb club show at santa anita. here it is, sitting out in the parking lot, waiting for them to open the tunnel to the infield. interesting paint job. color coordinated hood ornament. nice car, overall.