what's up?

anticipation

made it out to the roadhouse show last weekend. brief stop, only two or three hours.

for one thing, it got too warm, and i was just over a cold or whatever, so i was starting to feel dizzy and just sweating profusely. i felt like pedro, wanting to shave my head because it was too hot with all my hair. need to carry a towel to soak in cold water and hang on my neck.

i also had somewhere else i had to be an hour and change away, and needed to eat and shower before skeedaddling on down.

there was just about the right number of cars to shoot in my limited amount of time, but the heat did slow me down. you see, i should have headed out when the alarm went off, instead of having breakfast first, before the sun got too high in the sky. eh, i would have felt worse without it, so here is the trade-off—sun up, lens flares, god beams—whatever term you want to use for fuck the rules and shoot into the sun…i wanted that angle.

i have a few other shots i liked, but this was the only one i had time to post. i’m away from whittier and my computer so much, i should either stop shooting or see it as saving for a rainy winter; so far, i’m going with the latter.

oh, and that other thing i had to get to—found out i’ll be having a granddaughter in a few months—first grandkid. oh i’m getting older, but that’s the trade-off, right? it’s a good thing.

low battery

here’s a fleetline from the azalea festival in south gate. so sparsely attended this past year, was relatively easy to set up a good shot from any angle.

———-

sitting in an eatery uptown. apparently they had a pride parade or something earlier here in whittier. or it could just be halloween is coming, but i did see a guy dressed as a nun wearing a fully oversized headdress, a la sally field’s flying nun, only like albatross size.

a group of large local college gurls are in here dressed half assed pridey, with rainbow hair and a ribbon, but otherwise, just jeans and tshirts. they’re using valley girlesque speech to talk about some guy they all seem to know in common, and how if they ask if he wants to “smash” and he says no, he’ll still be their friend. i’m thinking, they’re here for the pride thing not because they are gay, but more just so they can dress up and say they were there. sounded like shallow dipshits anyway, the type that can get a guy to “smash” them after a few too many drinks and last call. stupid bitches.

i’m in a mood. alarm went off at five-fifteen, as directed. every intention of going to a nearby car show pancake breakfast fundraiser. then went back to bed instead. maybe i’ll try an evening show later.

stayed up too late chatting with my better half, who i haven’t seen for most of a week because i’ve been sick. unless you count the five minutes i came back to whittier to get clothes. he met me at the back door wearing black rubber gloves and a face mask—no, he wasn’t suggesting what could be a good time for some people—he handed me the same, then ran off to the front room.

his mother’s door was closed and i was allowed to go back to our room to pack some clothes. he could have packed a bag and left it outside but was afraid he’d pick the wrong things, so ok. he called me patient zero. surprised he didn’t ask me to say, “i am oz. the great and powerful..” or some heavy metal songs…”bow to me splendidly…” i think he expected me to float off the ground and my head to do a three-sixty, nashing my teeth.

threw some stuff together and left quickly. no doubt he lysol-bombed the room, hallway and laundry room after i left. the usual steps to keep his mother from catching a cold which would put her in the hospital. whatever.

i’m also an idiot for trying to wean off of some medicine i’d been taking for over a year, only to realize i’d been taking the incorrect dosages about the time i’m down to what should have been the last days of the stuff. no wonder i was sooooo tired, and apparently, probably caught the cold as an added bonus because of it.

so, i’m put back on about half of what i was originally taking, and slowly going to taper off all over again. nasty shit, supposedly really bad to take for long periods of time, and i was feeling a lot of the negative side effects. hoping what i was originally taking the stuff for has gone away, because i don’t have a lot of options otherwise. alternative med made me swell up and just want to die, which is generally not a desired result.

hmmm, what else is going on since i last shared? lots of things, many i shouldn’t mention, cuz it’s not about me. i’m an observer—could i just share my observations? maybe some other time.

as usual, too much work, looming deadlines, not enough hired help. out of the office for two days didn’t help either.

daughter and her dog beast living at my mom’s now. another broken boyfriend, who was “the one” out the door. she has no where else to go with that big dog. i was in the process of kicking her out of my condo, when the hoa changed the rules so her beast isn’t allowed anyway. come to think of it, they probably changed them because of that dog.

sister should be coming back from a vacation in russia this weekend. always to strange, far off places. i always wonder if she’ll make it back alive, if not in some foreign prison, accused of being a spy or transporting exotic monkeys in unmentionable places. interesting stories galore, but, i’d have no interest in going so far for a good time.

i suppose i should head back to the house. probably have to go to the office tomorrow, so need to spend “quality” time with my guy. the way i’m feeling, it will probably be more like a long nap instead.

topsy turvy

this past week or so has just been a roller coaster, and all i can do is just hold on. i know you will either be relieved or terribly disappointed that i won’t spill details here—it’s still a pretty sensitive situation, and i suppose i overshare enough when it has to do with me.

apart from that time bomb, my better half has loaded windows ten on my computer, but i lost all my favorite settings in my programs, so maybe my pictures will all be shit for a while. last few i fiddled with today just seem really dark, though my better half disagrees. he says he can hook up my old drive and for settings i saved, there should be files i can just copy over; just haven’t been here enough to get it done. so excuse my pics while i just wing it for a while.

i did get out to the black widows car club barbecue or picnic or whatever last week. waited long enough other cars did eventually show up. stayed longer than expected, only because there was a breeze and shade under trees. otherwise, just the ugly light of midday, and the sun relentlessly shining on my roasting arms. forgot the sunblock again. hate that greasy stuff.

owner of this lovely said there was still another layer of paint and/or a good buff to do on this new paint job. really nice, and different, no? little bit of pinstripes, little airbrush, some flames, and a lot of glitter—stood out anyways.

labor day weekend

computer still down, but just as well—hanging out at the hospital anyway. mother-in-law took a ride in an ambulance last night.

relatives in town with a little kid, so i guess we will be taking turns watching the kid vs grannie. kid not coming to hospital. fun times.

needless to say, no car shows, no new pics this weekend.

at least my car seems to be working. if the light comes on again, they say the part is four hundred bucks to replace.

——

saw this car at my one visit at ruby’s friday night last month. wasn’t really much there, and was able to get around the cars easily for the most part.

fucksticks

the moon in retrograde or mercury doing a thing to the tea leaves? these past couple of weeks have just been so stupid. best i didn’t place any bets in vegas…

first my car, in for a simple maintenance, now just a continuing issue to be solved. was again put on eternal hold twice before i was connected to the service manager this afternoon.

check engine light was still on when i took it back this afternoon, so at least they can’t say i’m making it up. left work an hour early, hoping to not get in stop and go traffic, and possibly stalling out on the freeway. finally lost my nerve about beach boulevard, and took surface streets the rest of the way to avoid all the freeway construction slowing things down toward the 605. red light intersections are only slightly less nerve wracking. didn’t use the air conditioner either, since it seemed to make the stalling sensation worse.

at least they saved me a loaner car.

next, work waited for me to get back, so it’s piled up, and more added. i especially like the rush jobs needed by thursday, mostly i suspect because of the holiday weekend.

so i’m pushing back what i can, finding out who is crying wolf on deadlines. otherwise, i’ll either work late if possible with the car sitch, or work the weekend.

now, figuring i’m in whittier, i might as well play with my pictures. no can do. my computer has decided to fuck up, and wants a boot disk we cannot find to make it happy. better half says he’s going to order me an upgrade of the software and a new ssd drive. basically, i’m down until they arrive in the mail, then for the period getting reloaded with all my software and tweaking the preferences for how i like to work. at least a week, if not more, given our schedules.

maybe i can get to a car show this weekend, but unable to download and process anything. frustrating it will be. humpf.

well, i can get back to posting a few of my old pictures on my ipad anyway.

back end of a riviera from mooneyes open house several years ago. amazing paint job; another that needs a ladder or scaffolding to get up above it to capture it better, but this is the best i can do with my tripod.

when i put it out on instagram, someone got sad because one of the people in the shot had passed away since then.

good to be home

got back from vegas yesterday morning. nice drive, though i hate waking up that early, but had a rental car to return by one o’clock.

briefly thought, i could briefly stop at one of a few shows on the way, in cucamonga, fontana, and places i would normally not get out to, but then thought better of it. the image of my better half on my shoulder saying, “no, kathy. you’ll never get back on time…” vs the devil on the other shoulder saying, “fuck it. work will pay for the additional hours overdue.” i didn’t, but wished i had anyway.

as it was, i stopped by the house and dropped off my bags, then had to go out and get some lunch for my mother-in-law. better half would have done it, but since his car doesn’t have a functioning air conditioner, except the roll-down kind, i thought i’d do him a favor. sort of felt like a hi and bye though.

brought the food back, and headed to drop off the car. got it back with about an hour to spare, so that part worked out fine. the guy there apologized again about calling me earlier in the week to search the car for the previous renter’s passport. turns out the guy had cleaned out a bag of trash when he dropped the car off. the other employee remembered seeing a bag in the trash can, which they checked, and found the passport after all that trouble. the guy was fortunate the trash hadn’t been picked up yet, and they overnighted to him, and they assume he was able to fly out, as he hadn’t called back.

then i called an uber to get a ride to the shop for my car. better half would have driven me, but i thought it was such a short distance from the rental place, it made no sense. took the drive about eight minutes to get there. watching the app, i knew he was hitting every red light on the way. he confirmed that was the case, and that his day was filled with red lights and closed freeway on-ramps that weren’t showing up on his phone. so my trip was a relatively easy one.

dropped me at the curb, and the guy i was supposed to deal with had the day off. they’d had my car all week, so the other guy basically said no charge, and had the car brought out. they even washed it, and had time to get the brake dust off the wheels. great. long overdue.

decided to drive to la habra to pick up some honeybaked ham for my mother-in-law. about ten minutes that direction, the check engine light came on again. fuck. called the shop back and was placed on eternal hold. got to the ham place, and finally hung up and got my order. figured i’d call again, and just start heading back to the shop while on hold.

finally got through to the same dipshit that gave me the car earlier and told him the light was back on. if they could just reaffirm that it was perfectly normal for it to come on for a period of time after a valve job, i’d be ok with that, but they don’t seem confident or competent enough to say that. i ask if i can again drop it off, and get a loaner car, as the other guy had offered, but this one said they didn’t have any. asked if the car was running ok, which it seemed to be. he asked if i could bring it in on monday or tuesday. i can’t, i have to have a car, i have to get to work and a doctor’s appointment, and at that point i gave up on being polite, and might have let some profanity hit his delicate ears.

so, monday, i’m going to drive it down to work, and if i get stuck on the freeway, will either have it towed all the way back or just take it to the closest shop AAA recommends and have them pay for the repair. fuckers. maybe i’ll head to my mom’s later, and take the surface streets. longer drive, but if i break down, less stressful for me.

an unreliable car, also means, i’m not going to a show today, though i saw only two days ago, a flyer for the legends car show by the sea, which i would have been interested in going to…you guys need to work on your advertising…i hope you got some cars to show up.

now my better half is making fun of me writing up my story for the day…”and there i was in vegas…”

fetch

long day of meetings. five and a half miles of walking. nbd. see if i can keep that going when i get home.

back from the mile to the ice machine in the other “wing” of the building. me and my little metal pail…la la. la la la. call me jill.

real creepy long halls, waiting for the kid on his pedal bike.

didn’t sleep well last night, only to wake up to no hot water. could be worse—another lady in the elevator had to switch rooms, as there was water leaking from the light fixtures in her bathroom ceiling.

keep running into people i see every couple of years for these meetings. kind of think we need a secret handshake or to yell nanu nanu.

——-

here’s a sideview of an increasingly well-known chevy, distinguished by it’s wood paneling. it was on a very busy whittier boulevard, so sort of difficult to shoot it from the other side. that, and i was pretty tired by the time i got to it.

fish out of water

third day here in sin city. so out of my comfort zone. the filtration system in the hotel seems non-existent compared to other hotels here. my lungs are burning and seem to take an hour in my room before i feel they’ve de-smoked.

otherwise, it’s been an uneventful day for a change.

briefly thought about seeing one of the cirque de soliel shows, but decided to keep my money and sleep instead. two more days of meetings. only car shows i’ve seen listed are the pns cars like lambos and mazzeratis, and i don’t want to lose my parking space for them. might as well go to a showroom. not even going to the cars and coffee i usually catch on the way out of here. just want to go home.

went to another hotel for dinner. after eight p.m., and it’s still one-hundred and two degrees, cooling down to eighty in the middle of the night.

there’s a sad looking guy dressed in a tattered mickey mouse costumes on the sidewalk, i can’t imagine how he can stand it or what it must smell like in there.

there seems to also be several clusters of wanna be showgirls, half naked and befeathered out there too. some too fat, some too skinny to heve the requisite jugs; all look too harsh and tatted up to be real. just posers for pictures for cash. drunk guys will go for anything it seems.

haven’t been up and out late enough (or early enough) to see the drunk girls being led astray —

“…these pigs are ready”
- the sweetest thing

————

here’s an old buick i saw the one time i made it out to lincoln park for the blessing of the cars, several years ago. don’t see many like that out there.

11,579

so much walking around here, i’ve done just under five miles, or 11,579 steps.

was just stepping into my meeting, when my phone rings. had to step out to take the call. it was the guy from the rental car agency asking a favor. he was wondering if i might go to the car and check to see if there happened to be a passport in the glovebox, left by the previous renter of the car. the renter was in tears, going crazy since he needed it for his travels. told him i’d look later. he asked how far away i was, in case i did find it, and coincidently, the weepy guy is also here in vegas, in case it was in the car.

so about halfway through my meeting, during a break, i had to go back to my room, get the keys from the safe, and hike out to the car. hot furnace blast of hot air heading outside to the parking garage. hundred and six this afternoon, so quite a shock, coming out of this air-conditioned haven. up the elevator, too early for parking sharks, past some dude sitting in his car smoking some devil’s weed.

i get the rental guy on the phone and check the glovebox, center console, under the seats, and in the trunk. no luck. feel sorry for the guy.

late, i rushed back to my meeting, now overheating, to find they have continued without me. no big, they didn’t notice.

anyway, back in my room, watching the weather channel, thinking about sleep.

———

here’s a hot rod from mooneyes, for something different.

locked out

i think i’ve already walked a mile and a half this morning, these hotels are so huge.

had a non-working toilet when i checked-in, so i’m glad i make a habit of flushing it before i use it when i first arrive. it will soon be an issue, so i call the front desk and wait almost an hour for the engineer.

it’s one of these eco tanks, and taking a peek inside, is a big black plastic receptical and lots of hoses; just no water. was hoping for a room upgrade, as i hadn’t unpacked yet, but he got it “working” in about five minutes. when i say “working,” it’s because it takes at least three flushes to get the paper to go down. going to be asking the owl on how many flushes on the tootsie rolls.

was going to put my own water in the fridge, but it seems to have a combo lock on it…must be an honor bar thing…i see snacks through the little bit it will open.

woke up at seven, couldn’t sleep, so went down to breakfast. got served someone else’s plate, but knew it, and didn’t touch it. belonged to the guy at the next table.

was charging it to my room, but there seemed to be some issue, so i just said i’d use my own card. after that they finally brought my food.

afterwards, i hike back up to my room, which feels like a mile from the elevator, but probably only about a football field, to make a call in privacy to the credit card company to see what’s up. only to find none of the cards to my door will work. means a hike back to the front desk, which already had a line of people to check out that early. concierge was able to help me, without any explanation of the issue.

spent ten minutes on hold before chatting with someone in the credit card’s fraud department. then another five confirming my identity and that i was the one making the charges. this is going to be a pita expense report when i get back. they better accept my justification for a charge at in-n-out for lunch on the way. 😄

meeting at one, housekeeper wanted to come in, but says she will come back later. my stomach is upset. probably the pizza i ate last night from an overly expensive place. wants to claim the food is exactly like the food in italy. well, yes and no on the pizza. it did taste very similar, but was waaaaayyy to salty for no reason. over priced, with fake-friendly service. i give it a six out of ten.

i want to lay down, but i may not want to get up, so i best not try it.

——-

another shot from front street. i usually don’t fiddle with effects like this, but for this car, this shot, it was all about that front grille. ran into the owner this past sunday, who had seen it up on instagram. she liked it, which is always nice to hear.