what's up?

easy rider

been busy with work all week, and exhausted by evening. but it’s friday, and my better half is out doing some work. home to myself, so not bothering him with my movies playing in the background, while i sit in the dark in front of a very bright monitor, playing with a picture.

we’re thinking about going out to a show or two tomorrow. maybe flip a coin, as i can’t stay out in the heat too late in the day. or i could just keep fiddling with last week’s pictures. there’s never enough time.

here’s one of the few bikes that showed up last week. at least the only one i bothered to take a picture of.

my favorite point of view is down low, for bikes like this. they just seem more grand. just a typical motorcycle, but lots of chrome to catch the light.

layover

1948 chevy fleetline

i liked this car. i think i entered this picture in the fair last year, but they didn’t select it for judging. maybe they’ve had enough of my pics, and let someone else use the wall space.

it rained off and on that day, only it was chilly. had to cover the cameras once in a while.

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i find myself sitting here in chicago, at o’hare airport. weather outside is sunny and about eighty. in here, it’s very cold, and i like it.

i have three hours to kill, until i board to my next destination. the city is so close, yet just far enough there is no point in leaving the airport.

would love to get a pizza at lou manalti’s or any number of smaller, out of the way pizza slinger shops.

wouldn’t mind visiting a certain piece of sidewalk on dearborn street, and spitting on it. didn’t bring my camera, so i wouldn’t be able to take the sunset picture by the river better half had been looking for.

didn’t have a chance when we were here in may. i think my better half would rather not revisit it anyway.

now i’m here on my own, which isn’t as much fun as when he’s with me. better half doesn’t fit in airplane seats; the rows are too tight for his long legs, and he refuses to fold into a birthing position.

watched a quiet place 2 on the plane. interesting. room to continue in another movie, if they choose to do it. at least the little kid nearby was busy watching cartoons, and laughing as only kids can. the monsters would have scared him.

better half would have watched a pixar movie.

i guess i’ll take a walk for a bit, before i sit some more, and sit some more.

where i’m headed will be a hot, humid place, and the rain that is expected will make it even more yuck. is that better than a hot and dry yuck at home?

i like air conditioning. it’s my favorite.

shoes

here’s a bright light on a cloudy day. it’s really, really orange. like fire. like fluorescent. it cuts through the gloom. it’s a fuckin’ beacon in the dark. everything is more drab because of it. i loved it.

and then it drizzled on it, and it kept on burning bright.

shoes on the wire above it, though you don’t really notice the dirty, dull white things so small in this shot, the car keeps your eyes’ attention.

out of touch

hello. just to be dull and repetitive, super busy at work, so nothing too much interesting to write about just now. back behind the orange curtain, leaves nothing but either souped-up hot rods or packards fixed up to showroom perfection. basically, i’m jonesing for the classics.

lots of changes at work, with people leaving, fewer joining. big workload. probably most people dos-si-do-ing to better employment options for a while. working half at the office and half at home sort of does suck, but better than all at the office.

yet, i still see no time to get to any shows for a few weeks. i’ve yet to set up my computer at home still, so there’s that problem. i think i’m just burned out from work, and just can’t.

flipping through some oldies, and found this shot from a show three years ago in montebello, which i missed today. mmm. master deluxes.

benefit show for the christian school, it usually fills the front and back parking lots.

i’d have gotten there when they are still setting up, and the sun barely rising. shoot the cars in the street, then inside the fence as it filled up. outta there by ten, when it would get too hot.

oh, and the pancakes…let’s just say, not my favorite, the one year i ate them.

i also popped or strained my leg at this show once too, so it kinda gives me the heebeejeebees if i think about it. made it hard to walk for a while. probably just pulling the camera bag into or out of my trunk did it. i dunno. the thing is kinda heavy when it’s loaded up.

hoping to get to a ruby’s show, or even the wednesday show in norwalk in the next couple of weeks. promised someone i’d shoot their car, but they didn’t show up last time i was there back in may.

i might have to do jury duty in santa ana, so i’d be halfway there already. i do not miss that afternoon drive…

party on

it’s after one a.m. and the neighbors are still having a very loud party. or maybe it’s just several very loud drunk people. yelling about the dumbest things, while a couple of drunk women cackle like hyenas, and hip hop plays in the background.

their parties usually wind down about three in the morning with loud goodbyes in the street.

really just big a$$holes.

——

oh dear, the cops just showed up and they all ran inside and turned the lights off.

——-

here’s the tail end of an impala from a show last year at the roadhouse in whittier.

——-

party over theoretically, but they are now cackling and howling in the house. i guess i’m tired enough to sleep now.

anticipation

made it out to the roadhouse show last weekend. brief stop, only two or three hours.

for one thing, it got too warm, and i was just over a cold or whatever, so i was starting to feel dizzy and just sweating profusely. i felt like pedro, wanting to shave my head because it was too hot with all my hair. need to carry a towel to soak in cold water and hang on my neck.

i also had somewhere else i had to be an hour and change away, and needed to eat and shower before skeedaddling on down.

there was just about the right number of cars to shoot in my limited amount of time, but the heat did slow me down. you see, i should have headed out when the alarm went off, instead of having breakfast first, before the sun got too high in the sky. eh, i would have felt worse without it, so here is the trade-off—sun up, lens flares, god beams—whatever term you want to use for fuck the rules and shoot into the sun…i wanted that angle.

i have a few other shots i liked, but this was the only one i had time to post. i’m away from whittier and my computer so much, i should either stop shooting or see it as saving for a rainy winter; so far, i’m going with the latter.

oh, and that other thing i had to get to—found out i’ll be having a granddaughter in a few months—first grandkid. oh i’m getting older, but that’s the trade-off, right? it’s a good thing.

failed

not quite the last shot from this particular camera, but close, shot into the sun. sun fucks with the colors, makes flares, screws the sensor; break that rule often, and shoot right into it.

not that it had any part of the failure, but now i’m calling this second camera out of service. the motor inside makes noise, and if i shoot enough, i’m sure i’d get the dreaded “camera error” again.

these last two cameras i only got a couple of years ago, so they shouldn’t have failed. better half points out that i do take an excessive number of shutter activations, and use the hell out of them, so he’s not so surprised.

so, now i really will need to either junk them or pay to have them shipped to a repair shop and fixed. bad timing though, with big shows coming up. should i only get those two fixed, or also my original two a700s?

better half is taking the opportunity to push me toward full-frame cameras, but offering to let me use a couple of his, as he isn’t going anywhere shooting anymore. i think he may regret letting me use them long-term. i’ll kill them too. he’s not worried.

he is also pushing me toward a sony 7rii. ugh, i hate the small body style, but he says it’s a way better camera than what i currently use.

earlier, i’d been working on tudy’s fifty-six bel air. was about three-quarters done. hadn’t saved the file. better half uses the microwave, while forgetting he was also heating up his mother’s dinner in the toaster oven. old house. fuse blown. apparently i haven’t got my computer plugged into the proper sockets on my backup battery, and the computer goes down, the file with it.

the backup file that opens is fried, so i’ll have to start over some other day.

strange that i didn’t break out with a flood of expletives that sailors would be proud of. just rebooted, and picked another picture to work on. so here it is.

on my way home...

i left my mom’s late on saturday. had a few errands to run and a dog to walk.

i happened to have my camera bag with me, as i’d been asked to retake a group photo at work, and i like my lens better than the one for the company camera. one person was late, so they will reschedule some other time next week.

well there were several later-in-the-day car shows running on saturday, so i figured i’d just make a quick stop at one of them. this one on front street at the nights of columbus was a fundraiser for someone i’d never met, but i always donate anyway. may not be much, but hope it helps in some way.

just a street of about twenty or thirty cars, was just about the right number of cars for the limited time i had to shoot.

this car pulled up while i was shooting another car a few spots down.

when i was done at that end of the road, i walked back, and set up my shot. popped off a few frames, and then my camera decided to be a dick…camera error message. did as it said to do, and shut it off, and when it continued to show the message in spite of being turned off, popped the battery out to kill it.

after a few resets and continuing error messages, i resorted to another camera that i usually don’t use, except as a backup camera. the lens is an 18-105, and the zoominess on the thing forced me to stand further out in the street to get the shot.

did i mention the road was not shut down to traffic? nice of people to just drive around me, though i did get a few glares as they did so.

anyway, this is the same error that started on my other camera, that eventually rendered it useless and/or untrustworthy. it could also be that it doesn’t like the brand of memory card i was using. all i know is i can’t trust it as the main camera for a bigger show. will have to figure it out before i head to chicano park next month for sure.

so this shot is with the back up camera. did not like the color it captured, but the black and white version has an interesting moodiness that didn’t bother me so much.

a bit late

workman high school fundraiser from last year. such a pretty green on that chevy. must have been a windy day, since the clouds seem to have moved during my shot.

so, it’s been a week since i’ve written. just one thing after another. time gets away from me lately, even on a weekend away, on my own.

this is becoming a once-a-week blather while i am home in whittier, and the better half has gone to market. unfortunate, since i have over sixty other cars sitting in draft mode, waiting to be posted. i guess i could just post them and not write anything, but then what’s the point of a blog? might as well just keep it on instagram or flickr.

i don’t have stories from car shows to write about anymore, since i haven’t been out much lately. my boring problems are stuff no one wants to read about. so here i am, yet again pondering shutting this puppy down. i’ll keep thinking.

meanwhile, a synopisis of my boring last week:

the day after my meeting, i took a ferry to sausalito. i was looking to replace something i’d lost or misplaced. i’d bought it there in a small store, with a most unfriendly bitch of a lady at the register, more than a dozen years ago. surprise surprise, out of business.

briefly thought about lunch, but really wanted to eat some crab back on the other side. also thought about taking the ferry back over, but i hadn’t bought a round trip ticket. so i did the thing i’d thought about the night before: i walked back to san francisco.

always used to ride the rental bike to sausalito. i figured i’d take that route back, and maybe get some photos i otherwise would not have gotten.

over twelve miles later…i got back to the hotel. even made a stop at fort point, where dweebs were doing civil war reenactment…dressed in uniforms and ladies in petticoats. took not quite five-hundred pictures along the way.

was ravenous, and treated myself to crab at aliottos in fisherman’s wharf. crab and bread and dessert. they didn’t have coke—just some frilly local made drink, but it was similar. i highly recommend the place, but going into the restaurant vs just the crab bar outside, is greatly overpriced. reconciled it in my head calling it both lunch and dinner.

about half way through the journey, my hip had started hurting. decided i’d pulled a muscle trying to climb up to some stairs from a rocky piece of beach back in sausalito. by the time i’d headed up for dinner, i was gimping. got hardly any sleep because of the hip, and getting ready to go to the airport was really dicey.

i got up early, hoping to get another crab from one of the crab bars. i gimped slowly over to fisherman’s wharf. they had crabs. but they weren’t open, and wouldn’t sell me one. not any of the crab carts. shit. damn off-season hours.

ended up with a subway sandwich as i was running out of time. ended up calling an uber this time. standing at the door of the hotel, wondering where the hell the guy was. several minutes later, noticed he had been sitting right there the whole time, just blocked from view by a couple of taxis. so had to pay the wait charge. oh well.

flight was uneventful. my daughter picked me up instead of my mom. older brother and his wife had arrived unannounced about the time she was getting ready to head to the airport. daughter happened to call to see what she was doing later, so she was sent to pick me up on her way home from work.

bro came to help sift through dad’s things, to tear down garden netting in the backyard. whole other story about trying to help clear dad’s stuff that is of no use to mom, but she ends up picking half the stuff back out of the trash bags when you turn your back.

other brother should be here on monday. in town for a friend’s funeral, but staying a while to help around the house. meaning also, i can go home to better half for a few days, without feeling guilty leaving mom alone.

work-wise, so so busy. been staying an extra hour or two, to meet deadlines. they won’t hire anyone, and no business group wants to pay the fee for the outside contractor, so the in-house designers are overloaded. i’m getting to that point of burn-out. been there before, and i feel it coming. new boss just doesn’t recognize it yet.

so tired. just not as tired as my better half.

raining today. sadly hoping it will be raining tomorrow, so i don’t have a reason to get out of bed and go to pomona to take pictures. i want to, really, but i really rather sleep.

oh baby

been sick, been overworked, been away. back in whittier for the weekend, and managed to get out for about an hour and a half to this fundraiser for a little baby who died last month. don’t know the parents, but they are good people, or they wouldn’t have so many friends come out to support them.

haven’t been out shooting lately, so a bit rusty. used the tripod that i have issues with, and i had issues with it while i used it. wanted to shoot down low, and the damn thing didn’t want to tighten up on the swivel. there’s like three or four knobs to turn and tighten. if i let this one particular piece go, the camera would hit the ground. more steps than my old tripods required. half wanted to throw it out into the field, but didn’t have my old tripod with me. just kidding, d, i’m trying to like it.

owner of this car did come over and chat for a few minutes, followed by his wife. taken is what it felt she was conveying…not a problem…so am i. he was just talking cars. nice to meet you both.

pretty sure if i look through my files, i probably have better shots of it. shooting towards the sun, the lens flare is discoloring half of the back end and darkening the front end. well, he was interested in seeing it, so here it is.

still getting over a cold, so i kept mostly to myself.

cracked, then broke a crown in my mouth last weekend. had to wait until thursday to get it fixed; dentist was booked up all week. so i had to eat carefully until he had the time. my tongue kept rubbing the rough edges of the tooth, until it bled.

finally got to the appointment. involved a big needle and a couple of shots in the mouth. face numbed out from my jaw to my ear.

pretty cool how he scanned the broken tooth, used a cad program, then printed it out with a three-d printer. i know how long the whole appointment took too…they had netflix on a tv mounted on the ceiling…two and a half episodes of breaking bad later and it was done.

my gums are still sore, but i can eat now. which is good, since i have to take another business trip to san fran this week, and there’s crab and chinese food and italian food that i want to eat while i’m there.

tried to talk my mom into going, but she won’t. she won’t fly, and i was willing to drive up after a full day at work. no go. no one else is able to join me, but i booked a hotel this time, and will stay for the weekend. going to miss a few car shows here, but better half says i should go. wish he could join me. some other year maybe.