candylicious

we used to frequent the other candy store uptown. they had a thing where everytime you bought candy, they'd add credit or punch a card, and once you'd collected X number of credits, you'd get some free stuff. so when my better half's niece and nephews came to visit, off we'd go to the candy store.

well, when we had saved enough credits and went to claim our free stuff, the owner said something to the effect of, "oh, we decided to end that program." like last week. no warning. no consolation prize.

so effectively, they lost a good customer, and we haven't been in there since. we've been to this one once in a while, since we've cut back a bit on the candy intake, and those kids have grown up a bit and don't visit as often. little farther to walk down the street, but they're more friendly here, and convenient to the movie theatre, if you like to BYOC.

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i took a long walk today. not feeling too good now. i spent the evening trying to decide what to post. running out of room on the computer, so started by looking at 2011 pics. i had a couple of hundred images i'd marked as favs to work on then. but there just wasn't one screaming to be seen today. same for 2012.

thinking i'll be pulling the 2011s off to backup drives pretty quick to free up 450GB of space for that year alone. it was a good year, is all i can say.

so back to 2013. i've already tagged over 400 images for consideration. then i whittled that down to 21 for today. then i had to ask my better half to help me decide from six that were standing out the most.

he liked this one best. probably because the colors popped. and they match the candy store...they might have parked there on purpose.

i've seen it a few times recently, at other shows. i considered another picture of it, but i'll save it for another time.

i like the minimal pinstriping on the front by the headlights, and on that air cooler thing.

and standing behind it was this guy, who must be friends with the owner. he remembered who i was, and said he'd seen me at one of the shows where this one was at a couple of weeks earlier. last time i saw him, he was at ruby's and said he was still working on his car. all it takes is money and time. and i'll be waiting to take another picture of it when it's done.

who's afraid of the dark?

tired. friday. done. another busy week.

quick post. i don't do many motorcycles. they just don't get me going. but the occasional one does stop me momentarily.

this one was it's own flashlight. paint job was nothing special, with ubiquitous raider nation stuff emblazoned here and there.

what i did like was the engraving on the chrome parts and the ostrich leather custom seats. i liked the details better than the overall bike, and that can't be good.

but i just thought i'd share. another night time experiment with the newer camera. still not lovin' it like my a700s.

olive drab

i have spent too much time sitting in traffic lately. plenty enough to contemplate inane thoughts.

take this for instance: if they manage to clone a person, whose birthday should the clone celebrate?

thinking about changing my hours at work, since i get there so early to beat the morning rush anyway. i sort of think leaving an hour or even a half hour earlier than i do now won't make a damn difference anyway, but my better half thinks it will, but then he doesn't have to get past the 55 freeway in the afternoon, or that caltrans work up past buena park. pfft. it all sucks.

anyway, he is likely to get called in and go back to work tonight, so i should get going and spend some time with him.

here's one of the tribe's cars. haven't really had a good opportunity to get a shot i like of it. the owner was still polishing it when i was first there.

circled back and caught this shot before the other guys got closer. there's still a group there, but far enough away to not ruin the shot.

and i do like racoon tails.

scratcher

i missed a chevy show in tustin for the dia de los muertos show down the street from the house here in whittier. sure i probably could have had a lot more cars to choose from, but probably not many as interesting as the dozen or so that turned up here.

i'd been to the show a couple of years ago, and only the showlows and some arbitrary cars had shown up, and maybe a couple of blocks of vendors. 

this time, several blocks of vendors and food peddlers shutdown the main street and a couple of side streets. we found some cars as we entered the closed off main street and shot those. then i noticed further down, what appeared to be a few more. seems that a new store on the corner, which will be selling t-shirts and other low rider themed accessories, is associated with a car club and some of their cars showed up, as well a few of their friends. 

they had about five cars parked on the street by the store, so we busily got to shooting them. then this puppy, which we'd seen a few nights previously, drove up and dropped down on the corner here. i mean down, scrape the bumper on the street low. heard it loud and clear.

flipping through my collection, i found i've seen it a few times in various places, but only really shot it from the front. wasn't until we passed it uptown that we noticed this funky pinstripe job on the back. who knew you could make praying hands with rosary beads kinda cool. so lemme hear a hallelujah.

found more cars at the other end of the street by the movie theatre and cigar bar, including the usual suspect, whom i am not stalking. at least he'd put a cover back on the spare wheel thing on the back of his chevy, just not the fancy pinstriped one.

emerald city

way back in april, found this at chicano park. what a great show that was. looking forward to the next one. and i love love love the back end of these impalas.

while i didn't find jesus or ol' blue eyes, i really liked the pinstriping back here.

yay! it's friday. time to look up some car shows. busy week ahead. sorry, latin gents, already know i'm gonna miss your show...

only sometimes

i started out a small show in montebello, with the intention of going to work for a few hours to try and wrangle my deadlines to something slightly more bearable on monday. but no, someone at the show mentioned to me about a show over at legg lake going at that moment.

i dragged my feet. hung out at this show for the raffle [didn't win anything], stayed for the trophies, then left for lunch, still intending to go to work. making it more difficult, was the fact that i was literally eight minutes away from the lake. the lake was next to a freeway onramp, so if it sucked or if i really intended to go to work i could.

well, it was an ok show. loosely coordinated, more of a picnic with a bunch of car clubs. many cars i've seen before, but still took shots of. sort of an assortment of classics and low riders. i shot a few of the low riders, if i liked their paint jobs. i'll show you this one, because one of the guys from the club came over and talked to me and asked for a card.

oh, and after two shows under the hot sun, and it being almost four when i left, i didn't make it to work after all. the freeway also went too close to home, and thought i'd just download my pictures instead. maybe tomorrow.

hooch

i've shown this one before, but it really is a nice car, and i found it at the viejitos marketplace show in july, mostly off by itself, so why not show it again?

really spectacular paint and pinstriping. can't really say anything bad about it, except for that the glitter paint is so reflective, it blew out detail in spots because of the hot afternoon sun. that's mostly my fault, for not carrying a filter around or something.

it was a good show. i really need to go back through the pictures from that day. it was during the month i was watching the dog, so i really haven't posted much from there. and there have been so many other shows i've been to since then, perfectly good pictures get lost in the shuffle.

so many cars, so little time.

behind the curtain

i had stopped by the impressions show at bruce's prime rib, after driving five hours back from vegas, and before i even stopped at home. ya, i could if i want. someone had given me a flyer a week or two prior.

better half was working anyway, so he wasn't just sitting and waiting for my arrival. it was way hot outside. there were far fewer cars there than i had expected, and while it was hosted by the impressions, i don't think i really saw a car with their plaque in the window. doesn't mean there wasn't one, i just didn't see one. which is odd, as usually the host club is there in force, representing. there was a tent with their banner, so ok.

i took some shots of the few cars that were there. mostly old chevys, but there was a small cluster of low rider, monte carlo-type bouncers there. none of them were too remarkable paint- or unique-wise, so i didn't bother with any of them.

and then there was this guy. the guy that i am not stalking, from the cigar bar, from the tribe club. lol. i've been going to random shows lately, and he just always seems to be there. none of the other tribe guys, just this one by itself.

so we move in the same circles, but i had never really talked to the owner, more than maybe a hello. he was getting ready to leave, and came over and explained the what in the what the hell with the back wheel cover. the car is usually so immaculate, especially with the new paint job on the roof and random pinstriping, to see it in such a state of disarray, was just too much to pass by.

his story was that he'd driven home from the ventura nationals, and the next day was going to another show, when a block from home, he got a flat tire. and then he didn't have another whitewall tire; but he just couldn't help himself, and came to this show anyway. almost as bad as me, at a show not having been home yet after a week away.

so here it is, with the spare, and the bare nasty parts you usually don't get to see.

naughty and nice

it was mainly the pinstripe work on this chopped chevy that got my attention. the owner told me he'd asked for something naughty, but nice from the artist. i guess he got that.

these girls were on the hood, the trunk and the roof. when he opened the back door, there was a girl there too, but more of an airbrushing instead of pinstriping, but i didn't have my camera ready for a shot of her.

it was parked near the road sinners club, but i'm not sure it was actually with them, so i apologize for not taking notes. 

here are a couple of closeups of the front and the back art.

aztechie

still a chevy, but one i don't normally post. i'll do something else next time. sheesh.

a ladder would have been good about now. your basic aztec and nekked girls scene.