bodes ill

1956 chevy bel air

thanks panera for that flavorless egg sandwich with the eggshell spice. and the salt shaker that drops a teaspoon of salt with just a light tap. and the orange juice that tastes a bit off, with a lid that popped right off without breaking the safety ring. my lip is tingling now...probably all in my head, right?

if my day is starting off this well, i wonder how work will go? xmas came early there; my week started with a brand new kick-ass computer, with a couple of big curved monitors.

at least most people have already left for their holidays or are working from home, so it should be pretty quiet. me, i'm in the office. new computer to play with, and a new employee to keep an eye on, getting acclimated to windows vs mac. not a new revelation that i'm a terrible supervisor/teacher...ask my better half about how i met him.

here's my chance to fill this blank canvas, to train him on procedures the way i want them done. i've done things for so long, i do them without thinking about it, and have already forgotten to tell him a bunch of stuff. but then, if i think back to times when i started a new job, or observations of others starting, you see eyes glazing over from the sheer amount of info hitting them the first few days. so i'll just mention stuff as days pass or the questions come up.

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here's another of the tj friends cars i woke up to see for the xmas parade. it should have been at the end of the line, to carry the fat guy in the red suit, instead of whichever political hack or parade host got to sit in it.

bummed

harley davidson softail

not really in a mood to do anything today. heard some stupid crap news yesterday about my younger brother. and it's fucked, and not fair. and i want to smash things. he was already dealing with a health issue, and now it's double fucked and i want to scream, and cry.

i sat for a long time this morning. doing nothing. finally decided i'd go uptown to find a couple of xmas gifts for people i know will get me something, no matter how much i tell them not to get me anything. found one item, that will undoubtedly be tossed aside the next day. looked around. thought about lunch, but nothing around was tempting me.

so i stomped home. sat a bit longer. then decided i would drive out to the con stilo toy drive in montebello, to see what might be there. then would think about lunch after.

i went through the motions, but wasn't really feeling it, but did shoot most of the cars there.

this bike was sitting behind the mayor's car. couldn't get a decent angle on the car, so shot the bike instead. pretty sure it was the owner who watched what i was doing, then asked about it. introduced himself, shook my hand. gave him the cliff notes explanation and a card.

sorry it's a bit funky colored, but i was shooting into the sun, and the sensor misbehaved a little. i banged on the pixels a little, which are a little better, but i'm just gonna let them slide this time.

in your face

cadillac

not many showed up at dia de los puercos toy drive. i think i had seen a flyer online for another toy drive there not too many days before, so maybe people had already given at the office.

i mostly think it was due to mooneyes the day before, and nursing hangovers.

don't usually shoot newer cadillacs, but this one remotely reminded me of one my mom used to drive, though without all the pinstripes and airbrushing on the trunk. kinda think she should have kept that one, but i'm sure it's bouncing it's way down whittier blvd or elsewhere now.

put me in coach

hudson

went home from work yesterday, after four and a half hours. caught me a cold the day before, but had a job to finish, and my better half didn't want me working at home and getting his mama sick. this he says after he'd already been home the week before, sick himself, or at least talking himself into being sick.

so i'm at my mom's again. and now i hear that his mama be illin' now anyway, so what's the diff? just chill, y'all.

had tickets to a concert tonight, but he already called to say he can't go. i expected that would happen. now do i eat these tickets, and just stay here and play sick myself? i've already been sleeping with prince nyquil for a couple of days, and i feel fine. just have that vocal veneer of barry white going on, and an occasional coughing fit, but never got a fever for the flavor of a pringles.

so i asked my mom if she wanted to go see an xmas concert. she said sure, she had no other plans. the thing is, i think she thinks it's some kind of choral or lovely musical thing. actually, it's gary hoey doing a ho ho hoey show, so should just be him jamming on a guitar, with a drummer. probably not what she is expecting, but who knows?

been a while since i've been to the coach house. i wanna say they serve up some crap dinner before the show. proximity to the stage is directly proportional to how much cash you slip the doorman, so i'm guessing we'll be first out of the parking lot after the show. i'd like to listen to a few songs before she decides it isn't her cup of tea.

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saw this huddie drive in at huffarama. only one there, and pretty sure i've not seen another chopped and dropped like this anywhere else. pretty cool. i like it. a lot.

transom of my mind

1953 chevy bel air

better half was just reminding me about how he woke me up to let me know about all the cars lined up just outside the door. says he knew i didn't hear more than cars and front window. not the words "to the left."

i peeked through the curtains to the right. i was sleepy, ok?

he says i do that a lot. lots of random thoughts that tangent and richochet off whatever he is talking about, and i ask five completely different questions back to him in rapid succession for no reason whatsoever. i gotta be losing my mind.

he specifically mentioned this car when he woke me up, as one i needed to see.

dia de los puercos

1953 chevy bel air

wanted to get out today. there were a couple of shows to consider. chose to go over to covina, to the dia de los puercos restaurant. was supposed to be a toy drive.

got there after start time. there were only about seven cars and a cycle there, mostly from timeless classics club. ok, figured i'd just start shooting, and more would show up.

thought people were still recovering from yesterday's mooneyes and/or hangovers.

spent over an hour just shooting those cars. a couple more showed up. a guy on a basic black motorcycle showed up. he asked me what's going on. he was on his way to a motorcycle toy ride. he sat and watched and talked on his cell phone for a while before leaving.

i went inside, to have some lunch. food was ok. first time there, so i've only tried one plate of tacos, er, taquitos. sort of tasted like hot dogs in a crunchy shell. not really what i expected. guess i was hoping for something else, but i tried.

after, took pictures of a couple more cars that showed up, and then left. stuff to do at home, fun was over.

park it there

1967 chevy impala

better half got me out of bed yesterday by saying there was a car show outside the window. i'd decided not to go to moon eyes the night before—long week, stressed and tired—probably would have cleared my head to have gone, but too late now.

saturday was the whittier uptown christmas parade. was hoping to be able to sleep in, and not be woken up by the gathering high school bands and cars and city trucks with their barricades disturbing me. they've moved the parade start time to ten the last few years, so it really hasn't been so bad.

better half seems to wake up at usual work hours weekend or no, so he was up when everything started showing up. i guess he heard, then saw a bunch of convertibles show up, and park right outside the house. he giggled, and came and woke me up a little before eight.

i was going to skip the festivities, and go see a movie. i've got no spirit left for this stuff, but i do for old cars and photography.

i peeked out the front curtain, but didn't see anything, and figured they must have moved further down the street. apparently, i looked the wrong way, and when he opened the curtain, and asked if i was sure there weren't any cars parked outside, i looked again.

my bad. there were like fifteen old chevies parked in a couple of rows down the street. there for the pretty pretty princesses and parade dignitaries, i suppose.

my car was parked up around the block, with my tripod in the trunk, so i had dust off the old one i used to use, or appropriated from my better half, once upon a time.

so we both got our shit together and out the front door in no time.

some cars are better than no cars, right? especially when they bring them to you.

shot up and down the two rows of cars. a few more showed up. mostly members of tjfriends club.

better half talked to a group of the guys, who said half their cars were convertibles, so here they were, working the parade. i thanked a few of the guys for bringing the carshow here.

there's my better half telling these guys the funny story of the morning. i've shot these cars at other shows, but he's never met them.

pretty sure the kid they had working hard polishing the car was the same kid that approached me at the veteranos show, to remind me that he'd seen me shooting their cars at a previous show. probably should have had him pose in front of the car, in his shades.

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oh, btw, the creepy elf tree won the best tree in a window competition. mother-in-law wasn't even trying, since they'd told her she couldn't win yet another year. three in a row, then skipped one. i guess it was ok to win again. congrats, mom!

i had to shoot a few pictures of it to show my own mother, so here's a peek.

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we ended up shooting all the cars, dropping the cameras in the house, and walking back up the street with our other cameras, to get some breakfast. parade got started while we were inside—i saw it through the window.

after, we walked to the theatre. i managed to run across during a break between a band, a float, and a group of karate kids, performing for judges. better half took my camera back home with him.

went to see fantastic beasts... got there early for the second showing. walked in with my bucket of popcorn and drink, and basically cock blocked a young couple making out in the top corner of the dark theatre. i guess i could have left and let them get it on, or alerted an usher, but then i thought, no, ewww, i sometimes sit up in the top row, in the corners. didn't want to think about what might have been left behind on the seat. and it's more of a kid movie, so what if one walked in?

instead of the top row, which i prefer, i went to the middle center of the theatre, and just didn't turn around, in case they decided to just keep on keeping on. never have felt more my age and like i'd just mommed them.

fortunately, other people started walking in, so i didn't feel so awkward and alone.

movie was not that great. i liked the creatures. the story was kind of lame. i suppose the next few movies will continue the story, and make it more interesting. otherwise, its just a call for more money from studios that can't come up with anything new.

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when i got home, my better half giggledly told me that after the parade, his mother looked out the side window, and there were all the same club cars parked again, right outside the window where i work on my computer. better half took some pictures, but i haven't seen them yet. he just thought it was funny that they were back, and i was gone. as if i'd have gone back out and shoot them some more...of course i would have...

cabal

1939 chevy master deluxes

this is a not so perfect shot of previously mentioned photoshoot at last week's old memories toy drive.

the other photographers who had asked the owners to pull their cars out into a loose semi-circle, seemed to have either been done, or were taking a break to regroup, so i quickly shot a few frames. it might have been during the time they were getting a certain little red truck to shoot from a higher elevation, up in the truckbed.

i think i would have shot this differently, had i had more time to do it. i mean, i shoot a wide angle lens, but i am not liking that i had to stand so far back to get them all in, and even so, i managed to clip either side, in my haste to get a shot.

the formation makes some sense, in that they fanned out, and allowed space so each owner could later be posed with their car in a group shot that i've seen by the other photographers. to me, it seemed to be missing something visually. can't quite pinpoint whether it's the one car not in the perfect formation, or that the others needed to be a little more haphazard. i dunno. i guess i'd have to mock something up with toy cars to solve the puzzle.

on top of that, this little cabal of thirty-nines seem to be up to no good, but that's just my weird imagination running away with me. and the bike in the background is the sacrificial beast.

watchin’

1941 chevy special deluxe

i do like cars when they are parked near overhanging trees. easy to frame up something nice.

others were shooting a group of cars farther down the parking lot, just out of the frame. i took the opportunity to shoot other cars, while everyone was over there watching the commotion.

almost everyone. at least two were left, watching me, shooting this car. caught them in the reflection.

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we live in an older house. no air conditioning in the summer, and an ancient heating system for the winter. i get hot flashes more often than not, so i suffer through the heat of summer, and the old wall heater in the back room is basically dead in the winter. i put off using a space heater in our room as long as possible. the thing makes me paranoid that it will tip over and start a fire, and it also heats the room up a fair amount.

my better half used to love it cold; i called him a polar bear. now he is less enthusiastic about it, especially when he wants to sleep. so we are at odds, now that winter is coming. it has been in the low forties at night, and our room has a lot of windows.

some nights we run the heater, and i alternate being under the blanket and throwing it off. sometimes it wakes him up, most times not. he has slept up on the couch a few nights, so i could see how it was without the thing on. it was great, and i slept fine.

i think he didn't mind the couch either; house heating system works well up there, and i secretly thinks he likes being up there, sleeping with the xmas tree lights on...a big night light. but those elf on a shelf elves, that it is covered with would freak me the fuck out.

heard my better half had joked to his mother that an exorcism was going to be needed in the back bedroom. he could almost see his breath when he walked in the other morning.