what's up?

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.

back to real time

vacation days are officially over. back to a normal weekend, back to work on monday. wonder if i'll remember my password.

i used to check work emails while on vacation. they blocked that ability, unless you have official work-supplied phones or computers, so, now i can actually forget about work. kinda nice, i suppose, not knowing what minefield i'll return to. whatever. just another day in the life.

back end of a cadillac from the hillco fasteners show. i liked the color of the car, the fins of the car, and the shadow play back there.

early bird gets...

...the shot.

one more for today. for the one guy that came over to talk to me briefly, and pointed out his car and one next to it...his brother's or cousin's, i can't remember. i suppose i should put that one up too.

it was a spectacular sunrise, so this shot was more interesting than the other direction. didn't quite catch the slightly earlier, more reddish and colorful sky, as i couldn't find and decide on a single car in a good position to catch it in time.

back in black

made it out to pomona this morning. after the hike in from the parking lot, i probably only shot for a couple of hours. first time out in a few months, and i was getting exasperated by the people walking through my shots, and just the fact of the pomona swap meet—so many cars, on the move and parked together, ebb and flow of people. it gets overwhelming and boring at some point.

it was a good two hours to bang out some crap pictures, and remember what i used to do. kick start how to 'see' again, mostly anonymously. no one really bothered me.

better half had gone with me, to make sure i was ok, i think. he brought his camera bag with him, but mostly just shot the sunrise, before calling it a day. it was a really nice sunrise, i'll give him that.

got somewhat frustrated after the sun came up, when i wanted to shoot some details, but my second camera is having issues and giving me card errors. finally brought out the a6000, but the lens isn't what i wanted to use, so promptly sacked that one. guess i'll have to send it in for repair, since it's relatively new, and it doesn't seem to be a card issue.

this was the last car i shot, before calling my better half to see where he had wandered off to. he had been hungry earlier, so i assumed he'd gone to eat, and wander the aisles of parts. turns out, he hadn't eaten, and decided the pavement on the aisles was too rough for one of his cameras bouncing around in the bag, with it's delicate sensor.

so i said, i'd had enough, and we left to find breakfast/lunch on the way home.

my favorite end of this cadillac, with the great fins, and dual bullet lights. there was a woman sitting just off to the right end of the car, and her legs kept getting in the shot. so screw her, cropped it to the essential bit of the car. more interesting this way, anyhow.

looking back

my thoughts have bounced around in my head a lot lately, to the point i don't know any one thing i would write about, that might be of any interest to any lurker who may be reading this on a somewhat irregular basis lately.

if you've never met him, my better half might be considered imposing, especially when he has a 'stache and goatee, and his long hair. when he's clean shaven, he just seems more friendly and younger, rather than tuff. he's a big guy, six-five, hovering around three-hundred pounds most of the time.

big enough to stare down the little shits that block sidewalks when his mom used to roll her wheelchair uptown. he would politely 'suggest' that they make way, and when they'd turn their back and stay put, he'd 'make way' for his mom. fucking little posers.

there's a new generation that hang out uptown now, only i think they are wannabe drug lords, making their little drug sales out in the open. i have my own little bitch face that moves them out of my way when i go uptown by myself.

he's mostly a big, friendly bear of a guy. i really don't know why he picked me, but i'm happy he did, and that's all i'll say about that. no need to get mushy here, and i really am not that gushy kind of girl.

there is one car club guy, i'd like to sic him on, but i'd prefer to keep my better half with me, than to visit him behind bars, so there's that.

better half has tossed a more than a dozen memories at me, to write about. we laugh about each recollection, giggle at the details of what people said or did, and how we ended up where we are today. then i say i've already referenced most of these stories at some point, and how a lot of stuff is inside jokes, or too gross.

i haven't been anywhere lately, except work, my parents' house, and picking up mail at my house. boring, but i gots things on my mind.

i could bitch about stuff i see on the freeway every day, but there hasn't been too much going on with the holidays, and i assume people home with the flu. traffic has been really light in the evening, so the few drives to whittier i've done the past couple of weeks have only been about an hour.

i'm hoping to get up in the morning and head to pomona for the swap meet. was thinking, it's january, it will be cool outside, everything will be great. summer is hell out there, and i usually can't / don't stay that long in the sun there.

it was fuckin' eight-five degrees outside this afternoon. it's going to still be in the eighties tomorrow. so it will be a short day as usual, in spite of being the middle of winter. really is no winter in cali, so what am i thinking?

one of these times, i'll have to actually walk the aisles of parts and stuff for sale, but i never seem to be able to tear myself away from the cars themselves. maybe next month it will be cold again. next week it will be sixty again.

so, long-windedly, i have no stories to blather on about, or that anyone might care to hear anyway. not feeling very enchanting at the moment, though my better half seems to still be stuck under my spell. who knows why?

here's a lovely back-end of a fifty-seven bel aire. it's all about the fins on these cars. the fronts are pretty generic and boring.

poindexter

feeling a little misty, sentimental, a little cadillac kinda mood. maybe it's just me being tired. was looking for something in my archives, while waiting for my hair to dry, and this car from two-thousand and thirteen caught my eye.

out in rialto, at the annual run whatcha brung show, shooting down low. my better half's old wide-angle lens, that i basically took over until i bought the one i used now. i almost think it's better than the new one...the fade off into blurred detail is a bit farther.

love the pointy back end and the bullet lights. looks so yum

i was nominated for some new award at work. they announced the winners today...i wasn't one of them. and you know what, i'm ok with it. really didn't think what i was nominated for compared to those who did win, and i was actually really mostly relieved that i didn't have to stand up in front of the crowd, and/or have to pose for pictures. hate that part.

they didn't get big hardware or a chunk of crystal, that i would have added to my collection of other glass sitting on an led base, all blinged out, but hey, i still got some brownie points just for the nomination. i'm saving up to get enough for another camera body someday.

sort of like getting the honorable mention on my picture at the fair.

tail end

1960 cadillac coupe deville

i'm at my mom's, locked in my old bedroom, enjoying the snot-filled end of a bad cold. the possessed lucifer voice is losing it's grip blow by snotty blow. note to my better half: "bow to me faithfully, bow to me splendidly," morbid angel, god of emptiness. go listen to that song--that's what he thinks i sound like. watch the official video, the quality is so much better than others. i'll add the link when i get home to my computer.

doctor says its just a cold, and i just have to suffer through it.

work is piling up at the office, and i will be slammed from whenever i get back, through my road trip time in a couple of weeks. joy.

was going through old pics last week, and had this one waiting to post. shot at the pomona swapmeet a couple of years ago. just love the pointy fins and the twins.

didn't make it

1957 cadillac

thought about going to a show today. really i did. went so far as to get my cameras out, format cards, and clean the sensors.

was literally ready to walk out the back door, when the front doorbell rang. better half's nephew, wife, and year old kid had arrived from northern california. so, nixed that plan. it was already after one anyway, and hot.

i think they plan on going to disneyland tomorrow, so maybe i can get out to the show at legg lake for a while in the morning.

better half took himself to the doctor this morning. they gave him some kind of antibiotic, so he sick for reals. he still managed to walk uptown for breakfast when he got back. ran into a couple of people asking if i was going to the show today, but he had to tell them he had no idea, since i hadn't mentioned anything to him.

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saw this beauty at the sultans' show earlier this month. love those bullet tail lights, though from what i've read, didn't show up until nineteen fifty-nine models.

to the point

it's valentine's y'all. go spend it with someone you love. my lil blog will be here for you tomorrow.