what's up?

smokey

woke up this morning around three am. windows are open, cool breeze, and an overwhelming smell of smoke. being near the hills of whittier, had to get up and see if the hills were glowing nearby.

nope, but worrisome enough, breathing that strong smoke, that i couldn't get back to sleep.

alarm went off at four. so about five hours of sleep. going to be a long day.

dressed quickly, hoping to get out of town, on my way to work and away from the smoke. hungry too.

fifty miles away, still smokey. turns out camp pendleton/san clemente had a fire going too.

anyway, two more days to a four-day weekend, and i have no plans. one or two car shows, and backing up files i guess. kid wants to go see that aliens covenant movie that all but disappeared quickly. did it suck?

hoping the smoke keeps the temps down, but doesn't force cancellation of the bomb club show at santa anita for a second time.

nice green pontiac found at slick's anti bomb show. i had the cars here all to myself for the couple of hours i was there--everyone else in long beach at the bombs magazine show.

got there at start time, after driving up from orange county. brief stop in tustin, to see if anything was at the biweekly show at enderle center. hadn't been there in a couple of years, being that it's more out of my way since spending more time in whittier.

was busy, but on a quick look around, only saw a couple i would really shoot, so didn't pull my camera bag out of the car, and left quickly, hoping for stuff i like out in montclair.

driving into the lot at slicks, almost thought it had been cancelled or i had the date wrong. there were just four or five old chevys parked, and a tent setup but not much, compared to the memo ortega show there earlier in the month.

parked in the shade, unloaded my bag and was about to go see what was going on or not, when one of the guys asked if i could move my car around the corner, as they were expecting more cars. bag back in the car, move to another shady spot under a tree. he starts taping off the show area.

about that time i hear a siren, as the veteranos club shows up, and some other cars. so, ya, i had enough to shoot and keep me happy, until i couldn't take the heat anymore.

packard

back in whittier for a few hours. don't think i'll stay the night. stopped to say hey to the better half, grab some clothes, write this post. too late to hit up a picnic show in montebello, or is it?

leaving also means i'll miss the show over in la puente tomorrow...decisions decisions. i have a headache...probably caffeine related.

couldn't post this set of images from the app, without losing the format, so i'll just do it now, while i'm at the computer.

don't know why i shot this car, since the hood was up, and no one asked me to. probably because i was running out of cars i wanted to shoot at this small show.

don't get me wrong, it's a lovely car, i just don't like hoods up. but the hood ornament...love those, whenever, wherever...

headed out again

back at lax, in an apparently newer terminal. work is paying for this trip, so i enjoyed breakfast from wolfgang puck, but there were also options from the habit or wahoos. interesting. lax has always been more of a run down dump before. maybe i've just never flown this carrier before. anyway, nice so far. acoustics suck for announcements and someone keeps opening a security door, setting off ear searing alarms.

i only worked three days this week, but i feel like i packed forty hours into them, staying late trying to get stuff done. zero time to play with my pictures, so i just snagged this one straight from the camera this morning, no editing...didn't even have time to slap my name on it. oh well.

going to miss chicano park day, and i'm really bummed. one of my favorite shows, and better half and i usually make a weekend in san diego out of it. responsibilities keeping him home, and here i am off on another trip without him.

off to florida, where both of my brothers are, so maybe i can catch them both somewhere in the middle of the state. my mom wants me to be sure and take pictures--she was peeved that i took exactly zero pictures of relatives last week. seriously.

has been a crazy month, but i guess i did it to myself. i needed to get away and do the stereotypical recharge. missing the cars tho...

i have a few other hood ornaments to get me through the week, if i feel the need to say anything. ttfn, my flight is boarding...

water dance

i arrived way early for the anniversary show at friscos, hoping to catch whichever club was there to set things up. sprinkled the whole way there from whittier.

got there about nine-forty-five. absolutely nothing and nobody. fine. killed almost an hour wandering around in home depot. looked at the crap flooring and carpeting options. looked at doors and locks. out to the garden area, to peek through the fence for any cars arriving. nope.

wandered the back wall, found an air filter that i needed for my house, and then had something to carry around, so as not to look so conspicuous. traveled to the other end, the wood pile. cut cedar wafted about, i thought of xmas trees.

finally paid for my little filter, and headed out to the car.

happily, people had arrived, and were setting up. my car had been made inside the bounds of the show tapes. chucked the filter in the trunk, and moved my car further down the parking lot.

first club there was the los angeles bombs. so i shot a bunch of pics of those cars. then it started to sprinkle. so i headed to the overhang by a closed store, and hung out with the guys. had a nice chat with a guy about his son and photography.

finally, more cars showed up, in spite of the light rain, which eventually let up.

repeated the taking of pictures and the retreat to the overhang quite a few times. camera body is water-resistant, but not my lens, and i can't afford to replace them, so priorities.

anyway, i did take many pictures that i really like. so closed my eyes, and threw a theoretical dart at the screen, and here is a pontiac. guessing it's a thirty-nine. i've seen one other, but not in green.

pretty, isn't it?

walking backwards

i took a long walk today. gonna rain tomorrow, so figured i'd stretch my legs.

ended up taking an old familiar route, that ended with me passing my old high school. my kids graduated from there too.

the main buildings haven't changed much, but you could also say everything has changed. new additions, portable crap classrooms--class in a box--they change the landscape in my memory.

the youthful faces of the latest crop of students pass by me. listening to the bird-like chatter of their hormone-crackling voices, and the little conversations about the "big" events in their universe, make me so glad i am not that age again.

i have changed, but i have not. never did fit in, and still do not, not really. and i'm fine with that. didn't have many friends, and have not kept in touch with any of them directly. once in a while, i'll look people up online, to see where they ended up, but they really are strangers now, so i leave no messages.

i used to be so freakishly skinny, and now i'm so, so average. really hating growing old and soft. the number of years doesn't bother me as much as the ball of fat on my belly, and the general pudge all over...it just gets in the way.

youth really is wasted on the young, as they say.

looked toward the baseball field, where i could see the team practicing, running the same bases my kid ran not so long ago.

i decided enough of this depressing trip down memory lane, and turned around to head back to where i belong, or at least where i exist now. the wind shifted, and the sticky, fetid scent drifted up from the school farm, of the beasts being raised by the "future farmers," bound for the summer fair, blazed more memories in my head, of people i haven't thought of in years, as well as my daughter's stupid sheep that she raised there too. they work hard for those 'easy' credits. pretty sure not too many of these kids end up on a farm, but my daughter does work in veterinary offices, so there's that.

but mostly, the thought that shit still smells like shit, was what blew through my mind.

--------

found this old cadillac between the buildings at the super cruise, kinda parked next to some newer cars. it was in the path less traveled, so i don't know that many people noticed it.

don't remember seeing around, and not quite sure of the year.

how'd that happen?

crown imperial

if you think i'm gonna talk politics here, that'd be a yah, nah.

i was just thinking of one of my better half's tales from car shows. my better half usually will tell a story reinacting the situation or imitating people if they're memorable. this was several years ago, when people did not know us from any other person visiting a show.

one of his favorites involves him chatting with a car owner about random things, photography, the weather, whatever, and me, once the guy realizes he's my better half. as my better half tells it, in his best reinactment of a homie...he has it down pretty good, as his cousin used to try and act like a gang banger...he assumes the posture, uses the hand gestures, and says in a grizzly, hoarse voice, "oh, really? how'd that happen?" he swears he's not making it up, or any of the other stories he tells me.

i can look at the guy's comment in many different ways, each one funnier than the other.

anyway, it somehow relates to how the celebrities are reacting today. so stupid, as if i care. they wouldn't care what i think, why should i give a rat's ass about their opinion?

life gives you lemons...make lemonade. it's short, get on with it.

random hood ornament, from a random show we found on our travels...

ready to go

hot rod

saw this car at moon eyes. it was a bit different, a piece of art in progress. i just liked the headlights for some reason, so old timey.

happy birthday to my sister. really should see her more than just at thanksgiving and xmas, when she just lives out by the beach.

san diego has been nice for a week, but i think we're ready to go home. back to the grind, gotta pay for this trip and save up for another in six months.

spent the day in balboa park. tried to visit museums that we'd never been in, so bought a one day pass to up to five. i think we made it to about four, with a cannibal exhibit as an add-on charge at the museum of man. they also offered a climb to the viewing deck of the bell tower, which had been closed to the public for about eighty years, and recently opened to visitors in small groups. they said it will close again soon for additional "renovations."

in the tower, you climb about four flights of stairs, about one-hundred twenty-five steps. each landing, they give you a break and talk about some historical facts, and the carillion. there are open windows that allow fresh air to blow through.

the final level to the viewing level is an old spiral staircase, one person at a time. we were with a dad with three kids and another group, with a couple of women and a guy.

one of the women happened to be wearing a short, floral dress, so she was not only having to deal with climbing steep stairs, but having to hold the dress firmly around her thighs to keep the wind from blowing it up.

on the viewing level, there are four open windows, to four different views of balboa park. out one, if you squint very hard, you can spot a mexican flag in the distance, which is the border crossing. another looks over the old globe theatre and toward the zoo. each of the other two looked either way up and down the street of museums, and out to the city and waterfront.

we were all taking pictures, or using a pair of binoculars they had up there to see what you could see out the windows.

better half said at one point, he turned around, holding up his camera, ready to take a shot, when one of our escorts started shouting and waving her hands to stop him. apparently, short dress woman's dress had at that same moment, caught more than a breeze, and he got quite a show. but no picture.

needless to say, they let her climb down the spiral staircase first, when our time was up.

hot rod

hood ornament

full moon fever

1941 pontiac hood ornament

well, we're on our way back from washington, my mom and i. driving down the 101 along the coast. somewhere in oregon tonight. giant full moon in the sky. i've got my tripod with me, but haven't really used it. busy driving on winding forest roads.

one of my new cameras is refusing to read any memory card, so will have to ship it in for service. realizing that i do ok shooting cars sitting still, and sometimes portraits. but landscapes without a tripod, pfft. i shake too much. that and i'm really trying to like the sony a6000, but i only brought one lens for it, and not the adapter to use the others on it. less pictures, more memories, being in the moment. at least that's what i'm going with.

lots of tweakers in seattle and tacoma, so didn't get all my gear out. but i have it, just in case i cross a car show, or random car in the wild.

one observation on the limited number of classic cars i've noticed driving the last week, is that ninety percent are fords, mostly hot rodded white boy style, and one hundred percent of the cars still on the road are painted with flames. the last big show of their season was last week before we arrived. owners start garaging them after that, before the rains really start. i did see a red flamed studebaker for sale.

the other observation, is that they love big trucks and muscle cars. bigger and louder the better.

so i'm going through fleetline withdrawals, and on my way to fix that, but that's still a week away. hoping to drive through giant redwoods, and stop in san fran for crab dinner, then san jose, to say hello to my future niece. after that, maybe salinas to visit deadend magazine for a tshirt.

yadda yadda yadda.

i'm sure my better half is keeping himself so busy he hardly notices that i'm gone. the house is probably cleaner than it has been in a long time.

love pontiac hood ornaments. even if it doesn't seem to be original.

big one

rooster hood ornament

i love hood ornaments, you probably should have figured that out, if you've browsed through this bloggy thing for any amount of time. regular, standard hoodies are fine to shoot, in case i want to show details of a particular car.

but the unique, custom, or hard to find hoodies are a fav. like little bespoke sculptures, with lots of little detail to mesmerize daft little photographers.

so how dirty double entendre should i go with this one? maybe i'll forego those jokes this time, but i am thinking them. i do love a nice cock though...oops, see what i mean?

saw this rooster on some type of small car named after a kid or the kid was named after the car--i don't remember what the owner or the sign said now. i didn't shoot the car, i know that much. whittier uptown show, and i was in a hurry to catch a train that day.

going to take my madre to the fair this evening. probably won't stay long, since her legs get tired. better half has to work, but he may take his own mom there next week.

i think the hell week at work is just about over, so time to relax.

horny

chevy hood ornament

sometimes i have nothing to say; other times i have a running dialogue of random thoughts in my head all day long. today was the latter, but unfortunately, the mental blog post in my head didn't get jotted down, so i've got nothing.

i know i was going to mention the pasty white guy that was out for a jog early this morning, while i was out for a walk, who tripped and fell on his ass right after he passed me. i was going to humorously relate it to that scene in memoirs of a geisha, where the girl had to distract a man with just a look, and one just happened by on a bicycle and crashed it right after looking at her.

ya that's not my story; she was a geisha, and i'm just a middle-aged potato.

or i could have also been thinking about this weekend, and having to wake up early both days, to get to some awesome car shows before the sun. supposed to only be in the eighties, so crossing my fingers...

i know there were several other items that floated in and out of consciousness in my murky pea brain, but they're gone.

i just wasted over half an hour, trying to set up a banking app, only to realize i was blocking their cookies on my ipad. would have been easier to just accept cash. and now i've run out of time to really work on a car picture vs just using one of my macro shots.

i haven't posted a hood ornament in a while. how about this chevy hoodie? apparently this is one from a car with the hood up, because i didn't also shoot the car. the angle is also a hint, since i'm kinda angled up to shoot it. love these ornaments, the graceful curve of the horns on the stylized body of the animal.

i have one of the same type that's going to be hanging in the fair...seven days until that starts. wonder if i'll get another bridesmaid, i mean honorable mention ribbon to add to my collection this year. got one three years in a row, then nothing last year. its more fun just to see my stuff hanging on the wall.