feeling old

i think i can almost see my mom in the mirror. eh, probably just the invite for another high school reunion i got the other day. thinking about skipping it. no one will miss me anyway. i can spend that money on a date out with my better half instead and have more fun.

i'm tired. wasn't as busily stressed at work today. short reprieve before another storm there. they're rethinking one of my projects and will combine it with another, so it's just a bit delayed is all. no worries, there's another rush job coming in tomorrow.

thinking about going to the broiler on wednesday. wonder if it will be worth the drive? i know i'm getting burnt out at work, when all i can do is count down the days until the next weekend before the weekend is over.

i suppose we're late deciding on doing a vacation this year, so i don't have that to look forward to yet. i do get to go to vegas in september, but by myself, and i don't gamble, drink or smoke, so what do i do? same as last time i went...look up some car shows, though i probably will only stop at the one on the way home. hate to lose my parking place once i'm in the garage.

i get to take care of my son's dog while he goes off to england to study law for a month. i guess i can pretend that's a vacation, though it will force me to cut back on going to most car shows until he gets home.

i will definitely make an exception and go to the san fernando high school show at the end of july though. didn't even get through half the cars there before we had to leave last year. too hot for my better half's nephew.

all right. i'm just rambling now, so i guess i'll call it a night. what a geez.

low-n-kool

what a day i had. and can only expect the same tomorrow. and traffic. just loving the evening drive. not. 

and now its 10:30 at night...why the h am i still awake??? oh ya, cuz my better half is doing work for work in the other room. i suppose i'm tired enough i won't hear the fans running on the puter.

anyway, here's a nice pontiac from chicano park. never seen one like it, and it was just hard not to notice it.

flamed and a little grumpy

the lovely couple that own this hot rod have been waiting a month to see a new picture of their baby. they thought they'd been going crazy and missed it, but no. i just don't post everything, especially if i'm not satisfied with it. i suppose i have an old email from them somewhere, so i could have let them know. or i guess i could have written something here. but then i wonder if they're just looking for the picture and not reading it, they wouldn't know then either.

i had been having an internal arguement over a couple of shots of it from a show out in riverside, but there was something in each that was just not doing it for me.

then this weekend, a couple of local shows i'd heard about and planned to attend, just simply didn't happen. so having awakened at an ungodly hour for a saturday, took my better half along for the ride out to rialto, promising him that i don't drive out there anymore if it isn't worth it. i'd scoped out a few while my son went to ucr, so i knew this would be ok.

and i kinda guessed they'd be there too. i saw them drive in as we walked over the train tracks to the main strip. we didn't actually get there until after 8am, so the sun was already past the sunrise we were looking for, but not so high as to be irritating.

i took a few shots early, then wound back around and took these two before i left. i think either one looks better than the shot with gary's favorite outhouses.

my better half went to the car show with me, so afterwards, we went out to chino planes of fame for him. he had fun...hardly anyone there, and a nice breeze for a change.

thanks for telling about another show the next day, but i just couldn't do another whole day in riverside.

oh ya, and there's the little grumpy on the back of the other car. didn't notice him last year, when i was just all about the skulls.

oh, and buy a print here

leadrag

i've seen this one many times. i thought i'd posted it at some point, but i'm not finding it right now. well, i know i have other shots, but not very satisfying ones.

this is the first time i've seen it with the top up. i suppose because it's next to those trees, those lovely, drippy, sappy trees. and the birds.

i'm not saying it's my favorite car, but i do just like the challenge of trying to get a good shot of cars i see far too often. usually solved by a change in location. like this one; they killed off the fuddrucker's show in el toro...all that construction had pushed it too far from the main drag, and no one knew it was there. here it is at chik-fil-a, where you are separated from the main street by a few feet of concrete, dirt, trees and flowers.

more candy

a lifestyle car is most always a delight to the eyes. pinstripes, airbrush, candy colors seem to be their modus operandi. i walked past this one earlier. thought i'd seen it before and/or the light just wasn't hitting it right and/or it was surrounded by people.

on the last walk around this field, walking past from this direction, i had a change of heart and took this shot. i can appreciate a good paint job. and hey, look, no one paying it any attention. perfecto.

just realizing that it was the same car i saw last summer at the san fernando show. but not that surprising. nice to see it out in the open, and not crammed in with a bunch of other cars.

is that a rocket in your...

ooooowwwwww, isn't pretty? i can almost fall into that paint job on the hood. yummy. hope it won something. it's like candy, i can almost taste it.

wind in my hair, sun on my face...

i'm a bit behind on posting. several shows behind in sharing. plenty of cars for rainy days waiting in the wings.

funeral is over, family leaving town, so back to business as usual. and i have been so busy at work. so i'll post some cars from the last few shows i've been to belonging to people who talked to me, and even a few who'd admitted to knowing that i like the hood down, and could prove they'd been reading this drivel, by quoting some of my blather back to me.

here's the first from last week, when i hit three shows in one day. only took a couple of pictures at the show at original mikes in santa ana. it was so windy there, and palm fronds were falling arbitrarily. only a few cars i was interested in shooting there, but i do try to take at least one shot, when i take the time to drive out.

i've seen the owner of this chevy around fairly often, but this was the first time he'd stopped to ask about what i was doing. i liked the shadows playing over the shiny surface.

indecisive

i've gone to a few shows this past week. just about done doing the backup on my computer and have made some room, so i figured i'll start shooting again.

made it out to the broiler last wednesday. was relatively warm out, so hoped more cars would show up. actually, there were a lot of regular cars taking up space. good for business, bad for car shows. 

anyway, this car i'm pretty sure belongs to one of the guys that works in the broiler. i see it a lot, but usually parked over on the other side. i saw him back this puppy into one of my favorite spots to shoot, and the space next to it stayed empty for quite a while. figured i'd take a couple before someone would want to park and move me out of the way.

i walked up to it and saw this first picture, and knew i had to get that reflection in the window. the pictures are a little rough, and there's a bit of lens flarey stuff, but i still think they're interesting.

trouble was, i couldn't get the rest of the neon in the picture. so i couldn't decide which picture to post. so, i'm posting the other view, because i like it just as much. and why not, the owner is a nice guy.

buckets o’ fun

i was looking for a picture to play with last night. found this older one. started tweaking the pixels. was about half an hour from posting, when one of our visiting college kids decided to warm up something in the microwave, which is pretty standard for a college kid, right?

well, i am currently living in an older place. not a nice victorian. not even a craftsman. just some old thing from the thirties, that happens to not have enough juice running through it to power all of this century's technology. at least not all at once.

so, when my mother-in-law has got her space heater on, and i'm running my computer, and there's a tv or two on, as well as my better half running his puter back in the back room, well, the house kind of squeaks by. but the key seems to be, add the microwave or the little toaster oven, and the place throws it's hands up and blows a fuse. which just does wonders for my attitude.

my computer is on the same circuit as the kitchen and the front room. so it all goes dark up front, and my computer and whatever i'm working on, just goes poof. and my vocabulary gets very loud and colorful. really makes me a joy to be around.

oh, and it has no effect on my better half's room. but when he hears me dropping loud f-bombs, he knows what happened. doesn't save my file, but does get the place lit up, and i'm welcome to start all over again.

so, as i was saying, while i had saved my file not long before the fuse blew, it was late, and i dreaded seeing if my file was ruined, so i didn't even start my computer back up last night. and don't step on all the f-bombs i dropped all the way down the hall to the back room, and back. took a hot shower instead, and went to bed.

took two tries to get my computer back up and running this evening. my file was ok this time, but other times they've corrupted. had to rework some stuff, but here it is. i've got things to do, so i'll just post it before someone gets hungry again...

fast food

this was a pretty nice convertible, again at the latin gents show. it looks black, but if you looked close in the right light, it's a deep, dark, blue. and so shiny, it really soaked up the refections.

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fast food implies crap food. well they try their best, at least you hope. you hope the food is real and not biomechanical by-products. would rather eat play-doh sometimes. i was given a handful of gift cards to crap food places i frequent on my weird work hours.

the habit has recently been popping up all over. first time i had it was at their original establishment in santa barbara last year. wow, it was good; ate there twice in one weekend. then had it somewhere else, still good. then a few months ago, stopped by one in san luis obispo. uh. college town, college students...i gave them a little slack on the quality.

a new one opened up in whittier not too long ago. first burger there was pretty good, but its been spotty since. tonight, i had a salad. it was awesome in santa barbara. it was average in san luis obispo. this one was soggy. instead of slices of avocados, a scoop of "fresh" guac. i had thousand island dressing, which definitely wasn't a name brand, if not just ketchup mixed with stuff already in the store. i ate the chicken and the bacon bits, and an occaisonal bite of wet lettuce and blue cheese bits. am i just catching a bad batch? or have the bean counters caught up with the success, and started cutting back on quality?

will they go the route of other food chains, eventually adding the brass bell to ring for (dis)satisfaction, with the employees like trained pavlovian seals to respond "thank you!" i always substitute "eff you!"

fortunately, i still have a full card for in-n-out, and they mostly are pretty good, about 95% of the time.