elite green

chevy impala

this is a nice green car. couldn't get a good angle on it, since the front end was hopped up, and i'm not that tall, but this will do. lots of pinstriping and airbrush work. wondering if these are the type of wheels that they have to pull each spoke out and polish them individually. pain in the ass, i would think.

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almost xmas. almost forgot that we had today off at work. all right, i really did not realize until last monday, when someone said something about the day off. which really screwed up my project deadlines, since i had factored in working today. oh well.

i guess tomorrow i'm getting baked, err, getting my bake on...a variety of edible xmas gifts. certain family members don't want things, but they do expect to receive their preferred baked treats. vinegar taffy for my dad...i'll do that last, as i'll burn my hands pulling that shit as it cools. but he likes it, so i'll make it for him. he says he doesn't inhale it all in one day like he used to, and his crowns on his teeth don't come out anymore, since he super glued them in.

my younger brother just decided he'd fly his family in on xmas day, so i'll have to make him a danish pastry. have made it for him every year since high school, except for last year, since he moved to the east coast right before xmas. i'm saying he's coming back just for that, but he won't admit it.

gave my kid the choice between some sticky, sweet, brandy-covered mexican bread or a loaf of carrot bread; he went with carrot. went to the market earlier, with a list, and yep, forgot to get the carrots. i'll go tomorrow.

and i think i'll make my mom some zuchinni bread, with cinnamon and nutmeg flavor.

apart from all that, i gotta make a batch of cinnamon rolls too. that takes all day, so i'll start those first. will be a busy day, and i'm going to make a big mess in the kitchen.

the trunk

go dodgers

was asked to shoot this trunk. owner had been chatting with my better half, and called me over.

i like baseball, grew up watching the dodgers and listening to vin scully, so ok, i'll shoot it.

haven't really paid much attention to the games this year, or baseball at all. one thing after another, ya know.

posting it in honor of his retirement, on this, the last day calling a game. we'll miss you, vin!

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missing san pedro today; celebrating our ninth anniversary this week out of town. happy my better half has put up with me this long; he deserves a cuddle or something.

bloody mary

see this car often, and it's owner, howard gribble, too. he's locally famous in southern california and the lowrider community. i follow him on flickr. and though all this is true, i've never been officially introduced. i have often walked past him, and never say a thing. perhaps we're both just shy, at least i am. only on rare occasions do i break out of that shell and go over and say hello.

jae bueno was one i said a tentative hello to, and he was the nicest guy in the world. apparently, he spoke to my better half, frequently, usually while they watched me fiddling around with my camera. he was delightful and gracious, and i was socially akward, as usual.

on this morning, in san pedro, in the dim morning light, before many people had come into the park, i saw howard coming around the bend in back of the lighthouse. he never looks happy, looks sort of pissed. i'm guessing that must be what i look like, at least according to my better half.

anyway, i did not divert my path, and walked toward him, as i was going round to the front of the lighthouse, and quietly said hello. and unless i imagined it, i heard a gruff "hi" from him. and that was it.

celebrate those little personal triumphs. sure it wasn't much, but it's hard for me to get out of my shell, or my head. it does get easier each time, whether you can hear me or not.

btw, the rearview of the car was from the sultan's signal hill show. just saying, i see it a lot, different places. nuff said.

smelled like pussy

as we were walking home from the art show uptown, we found this ford was parked a half block down. i had already taken a few shots of it, when the owner walked up and wanted to grab a jacket out of the car.

better half, who had assigned himself as my bag boy/assistant by this point in the evening, asked him what the story on this car was. 

if i remember right, he's had it for about seven years. said it was a complete mess when he got it. said it smelled like cat, or cat piss, fairly unbearable. took four months to air that out somehow.

he cut out that oversize sunroof and smoothed the edges. i think he said when needed, he can pop in the old piece to cover it up, and i suppose keep the rain out. but maybe he doesn't take this out in the rain.

anyway, cool car now. check out that paint job.

and i apologize for the title...better half dared me.

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.

racy lacy

got things to do this evening, so quick post.

saw this tangiers club car "moded" at the showlows show at st hilary's last month. one of the few cars i shot that day. as always, couldn't get all the detail of the paint job, particularly on the roof. maybe i'll get a ladder for xmas, if i'm a good girl. what fun is that? and then i'd have to get a little red wagon to pull the thing along, or persuade a big guy to carry it for me... >:)

kismet

so, my betatted friend, you found me at bob's today. and there you were with your car. the stars must be aligned.

i recognized that pin up girl on your arm right away, when you caught up to me to point your baby out. i liked this shot best. maybe should have waited for the sun to go down a bit more, but didn't want to take the chance of people and cars getting in the way.

maybe when it starts getting dark early, i'll shoot it again, and see how it looks under the overhead lights.

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so this weekend, what would you recommend: the pharaohs show in norwalk or the cruzn for roses in pasadena??? gonna be in hollywood anyway, could easily do pasadena, though i did that one last year. i've seen pharaohs cars before, and they're cool too...oh too many choices living here in socal.

beater

my hand hurts. i think because this chair is all wrong for this desk. threw out my old chair, and switched it out for this one instead of throwing it in storage with all the rest of my stuff. and this desk gives me splinters in the thigh when i wear shorts sitting here. well, it's not my desk anyway, but i definitely need a different chair.

i digress. don't know why i liked this car. wouldn't typically shoot one of these, but maybe it was the beat uppedness of it.  or the faded color. whatever.

it's my mother-in-law's birthday, so i gotta go. looking forward to the whittier uptown show in another week. anyone going?

recovered yet?

  

originally took this picture a couple of years ago. hell of a hot day. somewhere in lakewood. says on the window real small that it belongs to the sultans of long beach club, and also that it's "in recovery." not sure if that's referring to the car or the owner.

been to a couple of shows, briefly, this week. another weekend balancing family time and baseball games. hoping to squeeze in a car show or two, on the way to the field. hoping to see some different stuff. hoping to get some good, fresh pictures to play with.

saw several really nice chevy bel airs driving the opposite direction today. seeing old cars always turns my head, and makes me want to make a quick u-turn or shout "where are you going?" followed by a quick thought of whether my camera is in the car...

sleepy

i gotta get some sleep. my eyes feel like these tail lights...kinda scrunched closed, half awake.

found this one from a while back. sometimes i just wonder why it takes so long for me to get around to putting some of these images up.

i just like the lines going on in this shot.