hot and palmy

so i had this pic ready last night, ready to upload, and then the internet wasn't working in the house. it was late, i was tired, the usual b.s. saved it to my phone and went to bed.

not staying at my house today, and away from my puter, this is the best i can manage. the app can't quite post it the way i usually do, and flickr isn't playing nice either. hate the new flickr app. hate it everytime they feel the need to revamp it. anyway, i' m blathering and i'll fix this when i get back.
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quick stop at the von fink show in foothill ranch the other day. pleased to find more cars there than last time i was there, last summer. some cars i like, but many with the hood up. one woman excitedly pointed to a very nice chevy nomad, saying it had just been finished [painted?]. hood was up, a crowd stood rigidly in the way, so i admired, but didn't shoot. sorry.

good turnout of muscle cars, if you're into that, but i'm not, so meh. hoods up anyway.

saw several familiar faces, even if they didn't see me.

this was actually the last shot i took before leaving. shot the front and side when i got there, but there were cars parked behind it at the time. happened to take one more look before heading to the car and saw this. empty space behind the cars. gotta love that big behind, right?
and the every detail of urban development and planning, which includes this "natural" row of palm trees, so cliche, which just so embody the facade that is so cal - hip and happening. right.

magic carpet ride

glad the week is over, but the work isn't done. will probably end up working in between bouts of relaxing, which should cancel each other out. that's the theory anyway. 

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computer is misbehaving too. hoping you can see the pictures and not just boxes with red "X"s.

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wondering the why of the carpet, except that it matches the color palette of the car, and defines the space and environment boundaries. no other purpose really. i see mirrors on the ground often, but there's a reason for them, usually involving a lot of chrome and hydraulics under the car.

i like the simple pinstriping on most of the car, but the big shape on the back wheel probably would look better on the trunk, not necessarily so big, and leave this part clean...if it were my car, as a matter of speaking. but it ain't, so don't listen to me.

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brain is mush. what else can i say about chicano park? let's play bitch and moan / sunshine up your...

• not as many cars as last year / loved the cars that were there
• whose *brilliant* idea was it to move the show to easter weekend? / everyone will be in town to enjoy a day of festivity on a holiday weekend
• "we have a permit for an event" / it's great they want to maintain the integrity of the show rules 
• some people are rude / people were enjoying themselves
• lemme just sneak in front of you to get the same shot you're taking / photography is a great hobby
• it was overcast :(  /  it was overcast! :)
• being facetious / being facetious

happy easta

quick post then to bed. 

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saw this delivery truck at the majestics easter show too. owners seemed very pleasant, but didn't move out of the way fast enough, though they offered to move later. nope, sit there if you want; i'll shoot around you. actually, if you really want to be in a picture with your car, you can just ask. throw down your signs, look tuff, show off your tats. could be fun once in a while.

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happy easter, if i don't see you in chicano park. off to sleep...my eyes feel like they're gonna fall out. what a week it has been. what a month. more to come. so dang busy at work, this weekend couldn't get here soon enough. san diego, here i come!

pendleton

ah, yes. the pendleton shirt. why the shirt? gotta be a status symbol. or stopping at the dry cleaners on the way home.

pretty car. still not sold on this lens i've been using.

thinking of two shows tomorrow: pomona and the majestics show in lakewood. feeling tired already. hope to get out to pomona early, before it gets too hot and sunny.

horse of a different color

another strange monday. why did i get out of bed? responsibility is a heavy thing. sister-in-law is having some health issue at the hospital right now, so the taking care of the mother-in-law situation is getting a bit more exciting here. wait and see, wait and see.

ok, this isn't my favorite, best picture, but i did like the neon green of the the car with the pop of red from the tree behind it. don't remember any other red leafed trees except that one...weird.

otherwise, there's the sign up against the car, the bunch of dudes i've never seen before just sittin' there shootin' the shit on the other side of the car, and the car has blems and scratches. normally i wouldn't bother to show it,  but i like it just the same. maybe it's the pinstripes. and it's just a weird day.

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thinking about shutting down the print ordering website. up for renewal on the fifteenth. only a few have used it to order prints for themselves; most people just email me directly. paid for itself last year, but no one really uses it. oh well. i cut the prices...if yours is there, now's the time...

blue skies

told you the weather guys can't predict nuthin. no rain last night, no rain today. 

i got up late, or i would have gone to three or four shows. so starts baseball, so starts the car show season. pretty much it never really stops in so cal, just not so many in the winter, if you can call it that.

when i went to the unidos show here at walnut high school last year, there wasn't much there, due to the coinciding swap meet at pomona. tends to suck the local shows dry. this one was busy, the lot was full, and i was happy. probably a fifty-fifty mix of 60s low riders and the bombs that i like.

right at the front were the host members' cars. i saw this one before, but i didn't like the shots i got of it. i like impalas, with their wings on the back. my preference is the fifty-nine, but this is ok too. i like the airbrush work on the wheel cover.

funny thing happening the last couple of shows i've been to. usually, its my better half telling me guys are asking where i am, if i am there; these shows, they've been asking where he is. someone even gave me a flyer to give to him for a change. he's finding that a funny twist.

voodoo child

so i drove my tired butt over to legg lake today. i had been searching online for something else last month when the flyer for the los boulevardos show popped up. i went there for one before, so expected the same variety of cars to show up.

i bought a new wide angle lens, that my better half had recommended. supposed to be better, sharper than the one i've used for the last four or five years. i've taken it out for a couple of days now. still testing it out, so not loving it yet. gotta find the setting that looks best for what i do.

so, in homage to the hosts of the show, here's one of their cars. clean and low, i liked the small details, the light use of decorative pinstripes, and even the dingle balls. i guess the white furry dashboard is interesting enough, but i can only imagine how dusty it must get and the difficulty keeping it show-worthy clean.

thinking about a couple of shows tomorrow, assuming the weathermen are incorrect as always, and the predicted rain will either not happen, or will wait for monday drive time. oh joy.

zlaket’s

stopped by the show in garden grove yesterday, on the way home from work. was better than sitting in friday traffic. haven't been there in many months, so it was nice to see that the street was pretty busy. i don't think there were too many empty spaces available when i left.

sadly, there weren't enough of the cars that i like or that used to show up there. i consoled myself with the few bel airs that were there. this was the first one i came across.

i set up and took a couple of angles of it, before the owner moseyed over. he asked if he could get a copy. told him i'd post it and handed him my card. want a print? go buy one here.

noticed the latin gents had shown up while heading out, but didn't take any pictures of their cars...to many people around them.

i intended to also stop at the show at the buena park elks' club before sunset, but was thwarted by construction lane closures before i could turn around and go a different way, so skipped it and went home.

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my older bro is in town from the east coast, and today's his birthday <happy bday rob!>, and all of us sibs are actually going to be at my parents' all together. that's rare.

too bad my better half can't go...he's sure to miss some of the best stories my brothers tell from their daily life at work. interesting jobs, they come in contact with some unique samples of humankind—and it's not even walmart.

then to see my younger bro mimic people...he transforms into that person, so you can almost see them. it's just priceless. bubbles, the ginormous stripper from west virginia, is a fav. with her country twang demanding "i thank you need to buy me a drank," to the gyrations of gravity on her heavyset frame coming to a stop, he burns the image of her perfectly into your mind, though you've never even seen her.

anyway, got things to do this weekend. looks like i'm hitting up a couple of shows next weekend, so gotta take care of stuff now. and probably do a job for work on top of that. don't think i'll drive all the way down to the office, unless i really need to, though that's fun too...no one there except the cleaning crew, and i always suprise the shit out of one of the women, when she comes around the corner of my cubicle.

junk in the trunk

i do notice these cars; i just don't always bother to shoot them. only the exceptional ones catch my eyes, be it the art, the chrome, the details.

saw this majestics car out at the oldies san fernando show last year. i really liked the glittery airbrushing on the roof, but i'm not tall enough to get a good shot usually. 

i also like the engraving details on the metal of the plaque.

there was a woman sitting behind the car, holding a sleeping baby. i thought the child was so beautiful, but i dare not take a picture, that would be too up close and personal, at least without permission.

look at all the chrome fun in the back end. what is that? stereo equipment or just the hydraulics? pretty sure they don't drive this to the supermarket.

blurtard

since my better half hasn't bothered to post this one yet, i'll go ahead and put it up.

owners were nice enough to me, offered to let me get in and shoot some pictures of it. there was a really old guy, who told the other guy "there's a photographer." and the other guy was a really large guy.

better half had a different experience. paraphrasing what he told me, and you really need to hear him tell the story, with all the affectation and vocal interpretation:

he'd just set up his tripod and mounted the camera. the big guy that owns the car comes up behind him and informs my better half, "that he has long hair, and that his long hair is long, like a woman's hair, and that, people may think he is a woman. a big woman. with long hair. and that he doesn't mean to offend, but in case you didn't notice, your hair is really long."

and my better half stared at him.

and the guy went on to tell him some other stuff, mostly repeating the previous information, and even tried to touch my better half's hair in order to show him that it was long. like a woman's.

at some point, my better half had enough, and offered to let the guy go and not offend some other people, as there were plenty of other people waiting to not be offended.

it distracted him from what he was doing, and he says his pictures of it are crap, because he'd forgotten to set it to the proper f-stop. blurry, with the big blurry guy in the frame.

so ya, i kinda ignored the big guy, said uh-huh a lot, and got the shots. not really a great fan of the car, just the story that went with it. too over the top, too much glitter, just too much too much, it distracts from the car, and renders it fugly. my opinion, but i don't mean to offend...