what's up?

pizza

uptown whittier, just ordered pizza. so i have a few minutes to spare.

went out to the fundraiser for brother richard this past weekend. i’m sure i’d seen him around, but probably never spoke to him. he had a lot of friends, judging by the number of cars and groups of people attending.

weather was perfect for mid-morning. should have gone earlier, but things had need of doing first. still wrestling with the new camera and lens settings.

shot this car as i was heading back around to my car. better half was waiting at home—had to make a storage unit run—did i mention we are moving? his mother is gone and i get my condo back soon, so nothing holding us here. going to be closer to my mom now, where i am living ninety-nine percent of the time now anyway.

on-screen, full-size, this car glows. seems pretty sharp where i wanted it focused, but the lens does start fuzzing out towards the edges. need to find it’s sweet spot.

pizza ready. walking back.

party on

it’s after one a.m. and the neighbors are still having a very loud party. or maybe it’s just several very loud drunk people. yelling about the dumbest things, while a couple of drunk women cackle like hyenas, and hip hop plays in the background.

their parties usually wind down about three in the morning with loud goodbyes in the street.

really just big a$$holes.

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oh dear, the cops just showed up and they all ran inside and turned the lights off.

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here’s the tail end of an impala from a show last year at the roadhouse in whittier.

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party over theoretically, but they are now cackling and howling in the house. i guess i’m tired enough to sleep now.

lil josh fundraiser

got my taxes done saturday morning. always gets my stomach up in knots prepping for the yearly appointment. no reason. always have everything ready sorted, the important papers in a large envelope, relatively painless. write the check, carry on.

i haven’t been out to a show since early january, and even then, not that often recently. mostly have sat in the house on weekends, bingeing the sopranos, and wondering when the xmas tree would be coming down. sort of don’t care, since i’m hardly ever at home. just a lot of stuff going on on the homefront and at work, i’m just kind of numb by the time i get to a weekend.

got a granddaughter coming this week for sure, so there’s a bright light for this week. a happier reason for a hospital visit than the last couple of months.

timing of this year’s tax appointment coincided with the start time for a fundraiser for a kid i’d never met. originally planned months ago as a fundraiser to help the boy in his fight against cancer, it became a memorial fundraiser instead.

roll-in wasn’t until well after sunrise, so i didn’t bother to get up early, only to have to leave when cars would show up. so, got up, ate breakfast and headed off to my thing. was not feeling well on the way there, and made a pit stop on the way back.

thought i’d drive by the show, see how i felt, and decide then whether to stay or go. it was pretty busy, and i lucked out and got a parking spot quickly. so i went through the motions, and got my bag out of the trunk, and headed over. paid my donation at the front table.

figured i’d stay until my stomach started to bother me, since it was close enough to home.

the show had a good turn-out, even though it was already several hours into it.

owner of this car said i’d shot his car previously, and was hoping i’d shoot this one that he’d bought for his wife. said he’d found it online, from the state of rhode island, i think it was. most everything was still original to the car, and in excellent condition. someone must have hidden it away in a garage. lucky find.

had several people come over and say hi, whom i hadn’t seen for a while. it is nice that people still remember conversations they’d had with my better half years before, come up and send him greetings. that is why he is my better half, he is memorable and diplomatic and a social butterfly. it comes easy to him, and people like him.

i do miss him going to shows with me, but he has other responsibilities right now. he gets to see all the pictures you never see, so he gets a virtual car show when i do go out.

nice to know there are those of you who keep an eye out for me when i’m out there by myself. thank you. you know who you are.

the air was cool, though i felt warm, and i managed to shoot most of the cars i wanted before i really started to feel faint. there were a few i missed, but i was there long enough to hear most of speech the boy’s parents gave, thanking everyone and recalling stories of their son.

i seem to do some calculated gambling on how far my car is from where i am and how long i can keep shooting and still get back to the car. somehow, if i can make it to the car, i can get myself home and be ok. probably the main reason i don’t go out much. also, what fun is it to have all these pictures and not have them with me to fiddle with at my mom’s house. wouldn’t be able to do much anyway with the big dog there wanting attention all evening.

i’m just feeling in a morbid mood this evening. i think i’ll stop here for now.

monday blues

is it friday yet?

not too busy at work, so that’s good. just enough to fill eight hours, without an imminent deadline. nice for a change.

it’s late, so quick post. just got to my home, and wondering why it reeks of spaghetti. i mean it’s making me hungry, but there isn’t any here. unless my kid dumped some in the trash, but i took that out and saw no evidence. blaming the neighbors.

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shot this back in march, at manny’s el loco, with my macro lens. depth of field focused where i wanted it, and very shallow (the lens, not me), but looking at it again, kinda want that headlight sharp too. some other time, maybe.

on my way home...

i left my mom’s late on saturday. had a few errands to run and a dog to walk.

i happened to have my camera bag with me, as i’d been asked to retake a group photo at work, and i like my lens better than the one for the company camera. one person was late, so they will reschedule some other time next week.

well there were several later-in-the-day car shows running on saturday, so i figured i’d just make a quick stop at one of them. this one on front street at the nights of columbus was a fundraiser for someone i’d never met, but i always donate anyway. may not be much, but hope it helps in some way.

just a street of about twenty or thirty cars, was just about the right number of cars for the limited time i had to shoot.

this car pulled up while i was shooting another car a few spots down.

when i was done at that end of the road, i walked back, and set up my shot. popped off a few frames, and then my camera decided to be a dick…camera error message. did as it said to do, and shut it off, and when it continued to show the message in spite of being turned off, popped the battery out to kill it.

after a few resets and continuing error messages, i resorted to another camera that i usually don’t use, except as a backup camera. the lens is an 18-105, and the zoominess on the thing forced me to stand further out in the street to get the shot.

did i mention the road was not shut down to traffic? nice of people to just drive around me, though i did get a few glares as they did so.

anyway, this is the same error that started on my other camera, that eventually rendered it useless and/or untrustworthy. it could also be that it doesn’t like the brand of memory card i was using. all i know is i can’t trust it as the main camera for a bigger show. will have to figure it out before i head to chicano park next month for sure.

so this shot is with the back up camera. did not like the color it captured, but the black and white version has an interesting moodiness that didn’t bother me so much.

oh baby

been sick, been overworked, been away. back in whittier for the weekend, and managed to get out for about an hour and a half to this fundraiser for a little baby who died last month. don’t know the parents, but they are good people, or they wouldn’t have so many friends come out to support them.

haven’t been out shooting lately, so a bit rusty. used the tripod that i have issues with, and i had issues with it while i used it. wanted to shoot down low, and the damn thing didn’t want to tighten up on the swivel. there’s like three or four knobs to turn and tighten. if i let this one particular piece go, the camera would hit the ground. more steps than my old tripods required. half wanted to throw it out into the field, but didn’t have my old tripod with me. just kidding, d, i’m trying to like it.

owner of this car did come over and chat for a few minutes, followed by his wife. taken is what it felt she was conveying…not a problem…so am i. he was just talking cars. nice to meet you both.

pretty sure if i look through my files, i probably have better shots of it. shooting towards the sun, the lens flare is discoloring half of the back end and darkening the front end. well, he was interested in seeing it, so here it is.

still getting over a cold, so i kept mostly to myself.

cracked, then broke a crown in my mouth last weekend. had to wait until thursday to get it fixed; dentist was booked up all week. so i had to eat carefully until he had the time. my tongue kept rubbing the rough edges of the tooth, until it bled.

finally got to the appointment. involved a big needle and a couple of shots in the mouth. face numbed out from my jaw to my ear.

pretty cool how he scanned the broken tooth, used a cad program, then printed it out with a three-d printer. i know how long the whole appointment took too…they had netflix on a tv mounted on the ceiling…two and a half episodes of breaking bad later and it was done.

my gums are still sore, but i can eat now. which is good, since i have to take another business trip to san fran this week, and there’s crab and chinese food and italian food that i want to eat while i’m there.

tried to talk my mom into going, but she won’t. she won’t fly, and i was willing to drive up after a full day at work. no go. no one else is able to join me, but i booked a hotel this time, and will stay for the weekend. going to miss a few car shows here, but better half says i should go. wish he could join me. some other year maybe.

one more week

is it a good vacation when you can’t remember what day it is? good thing cell phones keep track of the day and time shift or we’d be screwed.

it’s saturday here in positano, italy, and i’m taking a day off to do laundry and rest. sooooo tired, and i have an earache. everyone else went back down the hill, which is really all this place is, to the beach to rent a boat for a couple of hours. kid never drove a boat before, but doesn’t plan on going out very far, just far enough to jump in the ocean, and knowing him, he’ll probably pee in it.

if you’ve seen my pics on instagram, we’re in an airbnb halfway up this mountain. great view. hell of a walk and too many stairs. couple of days ago, we climbed both the duomo and the bell tower of an old church. four-hundred plus stairs in each, i really was only psyched up for the dome, and just couldn’t quite make the top level in the bell tower. better view in the duomo anyway. tight stairs to climb in both, as they were never meant to be open to the public.

so, my legs are not really wanting to climb up or down this hill very far today. fortunately, there is a breakfast place just down around a bend, and pizza not far up for later. a few shops if i want to venture out, but i’ll probably just take a nap.

not posting a lot from here, since we are limited to one gig of wifi data a day between the four of us. not sure what we are doing tomorrow. i think the kid mentioned capri and a grotto. hopefully i’m up for that...we’ll see.

another pontiac ornament. i don’t post enough hoodies, and pontiacs are a fav.

next best thing

there were so many good shows to choose from this weekend. but i really couldn’t get out for long, so i went to the closest one—so close, i could walk there. and knowing that the majority of cars and people would be elsewhere.

this one was a fundraiser for the whittier football team. don’t worry if you missed it; they will have another in july. small show, home team, someone should document it.

i got there later than the ass crack of dawn, knowing the overcast was going to be around all day. the last couple of weekends have been so wonderfully cool and overcast, and i have been unable to partake much in car shows, so kinda bummed about that.

reflections were the host club, better half had mentioned he’d seen a couple of their guys hanging up a sign very early, on his way back from the market.

during the time i was there, maybe about thirty cars had shown up. a few had driven by and kept going. there seemed to be one or two from other clubs, there to show support: viejitos, old memories, kustom, dukes, groupe, and several others i can’t recall without being at my computer.

this one was one of the first i shot. had his blue lights on, which glowed a bit in the gloom. owner asked if i had an instagram, so i suppose he already saw this shot there. told him and his friend i’d post pics of their cars. still need to get around to the other car.

don't hold back

beauty of a truck here in whittier, from a few weeks ago. had to do the waiting game for several shots; for another photographer, for a videographer, for the background traffic, for other random people. it's a car show, so it comes with the territory. i'm not in a hurry, so i wait. or come back later.

trolls. i have trolls. not for me, specifically, more as a conduit. they're frustrated, and rattling cages, and can't get through to the person they want, so hello me.

don't want to shut down commenting, but thinking about it, at least for a little while, until they forget about me. i don't got time for dat, and it's not about me anyway. sounds like i need some sort of salve.

tired

missing a couple of good shows this morning. just too tired to move. my arm still hurts. maybe this afternoon, i’ll check out a couple of evening shows. better half has been out at the markets, and i’ve been watching his mom while he’s out anyway.

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nice car from a few weeks back at salinas tires. limited space, but nice selection to shoot.