what's up?

post thanksgiving

here’s a majestics’ car from this past summer. a latin gents show out in cypress. don’t see too many yellow impalas. maybe i just don’t notice them.

thinking about this latin gents show, makes me wonder how ernie is doing…he had some news that day. been too busy to get out to any of their shows since then, so haven’t heard from him since.

i did not go into a turkey coma yesterday. my sister bought a full dinner from gelson’s or some such whoop-di-doo market. mom has had enough to deal with lately, so giving her a break from cooking the traditional dinner. pretty sure her time for cooking the big family meal is done, and future holidays will either be bought or i will have to volunteer to do it.

i sort of half assed said i’d do it, but was happy my sister just picked one up.

i’ve cooked a turkey before, but i’m not all about the bird, so i guess it turned out ok. i want to say that was decades ago, for my ex and his parents. gosh, my daughter was probably only a year old…time flies. i get no joy from cooking, and avoid it when i can. anyway, they always dumped hot sauce on anything i cooked, so, i just didn’t bother the next holiday. they are happier with tamales anyway.

this year, as usual, better half stayed home with his mom; he sent me to my parents house…”never know how many more holidays you’ll have with them.” my bro showed up; wife and daughter stayed up in los angeles with their friends. dad initially wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t going to join us, but he did come down the stairs just as we were sitting down to eat.

the company was good, but the food was unremarkable. only a few bites of turkey, and the pathetic mashed potatoes. i’d brought a cherry pie, but it sort of tasted like they’d given me a sugar free version, so disappointed.

bro is in town without a return ticket home. they’re looking for a house, and he is spending time with mom and dad. wife and kid going home sunday. they wanted to go to disneyland today, but pretty sure they bailed on that black friday hell.

i drove home this morning, expecting to see store parking lots full, but noticed them to be only part full. did people go shopping at midnight? was happy to find no one at in-n-out, and no one in the drive thru, so went there and grabbed some burgers for my better half and myself.

have otherwise, not done anything or left the house today. hoping to sift through the nine-thousand plus photos from my trip this weekend.

i’m blathering, so i’ll just stop.

few hours at the park

better half got up around six. wanted to hit the market before his mom woke up again. i'd wanted to go to legg lake early, but that could wait...they'd be there all day. he wanted to get stuff done before it got too hot.

he got back around eight-thirty. he was going to go to costco, but they didn't open until ten. i mentioned a couple of car shows today. he told me to just go, he'd send me a list and i'd pick up whatever he needed.

chose to go to legg lake, as it was closer than the other show. expected the usual one or two lots of cars.

happily, i was wrong. there were so many cars showing up for the barbeque/picnic, they had them in the two park areas on the other side of the freeway from the usual spot. i had to drive almost the whole way around the park to just find a spot to park my stupid car.

the sun was already up, light i hate, but i went out and about anyway. exercise.

this is one of the cars that was parked near me. posting it, since they sent over a little girl to inquire if i had an instagram or whatever. she was polite, gave her a card, thanks for your interest.

i lasted about three hours in the heat. nice in the shade, glad there were lots of trees, but not every car was parked under them.

bought a t-shirt from some vendor up at the front, who, didn't have any water, but threw in a kool-aid, so that gave me enough energy to drag my stuff all the way back to my car on the other side of the park.

saw there were so many more cars in the park on the other side of the street, but i had places to go, and things to do, so, next time...

make a choice

asked my boss about going to a conference, if there was any budget for training. yes, he said to pick one and get him an estimate for travel, etc.

so, i need to decide on new orleans, orlando, boston or los angeles. here's the thing: the useful one is in new orleans, and i really have no interest in going there, so i'll wait until next year and hope they move it somewhere else. the other one i want to go to ends on the same day as the uptown whittier car show. sort of rather go to that.

i could skip the last day, and fly home the night before. i'll have to think about it.

this car was the last one i shot at the chino show. owner said i'd need to see it in the sun to really appreciate the paint job. the roof has some faint airbrushing going on.

i can see it. true, it would be more vibrant in the sun, but it may also be more glare-filled, because of the glitterizing in the paint.

still, pretty cool car. lots of engraved chrome.

club guys were friendly too.

a surprise

so got my better half away for a night. didn't go very far away, but he got the rest he so much needed.

we were out in fullerton, picking up some breakfast/lunch at a northgate market before heading home. this particular location doesn't really have a dining area, and it was way too hot to sit in the car under a blazing sun.

so i suggested we stop over at the sonic around the corner, order drinks and just eat under the overhang. that, or go to a local park, or we wait to eat until we get home. we pull into the first spot, roll down the windows, and just order drinks.

roller girl waitress brings the drinks and goes away. we start eating our carnitas, listening to the music in the background. then better half notes that they don't seem to be able to select a song to play.

i'm looking in the rearview mirror, and note that there are two lowriders back there. figure that the sonic employees are playing more appropriate music for their customers, or are taking requests.

then i note that there are pop up tents, and i see a guy in a club shirt seeming to be setting up traffic cones in the lot, and carrying caution tape. i joke with the better half that i believe a car show has found us, and i don't have my cameras with me.

from my window, i ask the club guy if there is a car show today, and he explains, yes, he's the club president, he actually works at the establishment (he didn't use that word), and they're just setting up. hoping to get it to be a more regular show. maybe start with a flyer?

then a couple of viejitos cars pulls up. my better half is finding this all very humorous, as he starts thinking i'd planned it this way. come on, if i had, i would have brought the cameras! lol.

anyway, we get out and walk around. say hey to the viejito that i have met before. he said other guys were going to show up. the club president hosting the show said they expected up to seventy cars. i think that should always be taken with a grain of salt...it's more of a hope.

anyway, we tell them we are going home to fetch our gear, and we will be back.

i don't think they believed us, and better half said they seemed surprised to see us again when we showed up a couple hours later.

hmm. not so many cars as mentioned. no additional viejitos, or either of the other two clubs that had been mentioned.

oh well. we're there. we take some pictures.

found this one on the other side of the building. told the owner i'd post it. i want to say we've shot other cars from this club elsewhere. i think i may have even shot this one before...go look on my search page, type in 'one family'...i think it's the first one that pops up.

sitting on my ass

early light. it's soft. it's warm. shadows drop gently off into a blur. it passes so quickly, and i move as quickly as possible to the cars catching it to have any chance of seeing the picture my eyes see.

at this show in san fernando, i get there early. so far i've managed to get inside pretty early, though they always run it down the line questioning who/what i am doing there, and should they let me in. promise not to get in the way, pay the entry fee.

this past year, not so many cars were there early. i ended up criss-crossing the football field, to the select cars i wanted to shoot.

this cadillac vaguely reminded me of another cadillac i used to shoot (now he drives a buick), mostly because of the color, not the year.

i liked the reflection of the sky and palm trees across the trunk.

i've spent my day alternating between sitting on my ass doing nothing, sitting on my ass futzing with a revamped website, and sitting on my ass driving out for lunch.

woke up with rain falling loudly outside the windows. rain that they had predicted earlier in the week, then moved to monday. stupid weather people. good thing i had no plans.

better half wanted to walk uptown for breakfast, but it was still lightly raining, and i didn't feel like it. maybe tomorrow.

i wondered if the latin gents still did car shows on the first saturday of the month, but didn't find any hint of it online, so with no other reason to drive to westminster, decided to stay put. still another week till the swap meet in pomona. now i'm wondering about the swap meet in long beach tomorrow. are there cars there, for show, or just parts?

spent the majority of the day figuring out how to make the updated website do things i wanted it to do, stuff that didn't transfer over from my original site. it's aggravating not knowing, or realizing limitations or stuff they don't support anymore. it's also satisfying when i do figure it out. better half wonders why i don't just call the twenty-four seven customer service.

no, nothings changed; right now you're still looking at the old version. i haven't hit the switch yet. maybe tomorrow, if i can figure out/remember how to transfer my domain.

even then, i will have to spend weeks tweaking it. aggravating.