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lil josh fundraiser

got my taxes done saturday morning. always gets my stomach up in knots prepping for the yearly appointment. no reason. always have everything ready sorted, the important papers in a large envelope, relatively painless. write the check, carry on.

i haven’t been out to a show since early january, and even then, not that often recently. mostly have sat in the house on weekends, bingeing the sopranos, and wondering when the xmas tree would be coming down. sort of don’t care, since i’m hardly ever at home. just a lot of stuff going on on the homefront and at work, i’m just kind of numb by the time i get to a weekend.

got a granddaughter coming this week for sure, so there’s a bright light for this week. a happier reason for a hospital visit than the last couple of months.

timing of this year’s tax appointment coincided with the start time for a fundraiser for a kid i’d never met. originally planned months ago as a fundraiser to help the boy in his fight against cancer, it became a memorial fundraiser instead.

roll-in wasn’t until well after sunrise, so i didn’t bother to get up early, only to have to leave when cars would show up. so, got up, ate breakfast and headed off to my thing. was not feeling well on the way there, and made a pit stop on the way back.

thought i’d drive by the show, see how i felt, and decide then whether to stay or go. it was pretty busy, and i lucked out and got a parking spot quickly. so i went through the motions, and got my bag out of the trunk, and headed over. paid my donation at the front table.

figured i’d stay until my stomach started to bother me, since it was close enough to home.

the show had a good turn-out, even though it was already several hours into it.

owner of this car said i’d shot his car previously, and was hoping i’d shoot this one that he’d bought for his wife. said he’d found it online, from the state of rhode island, i think it was. most everything was still original to the car, and in excellent condition. someone must have hidden it away in a garage. lucky find.

had several people come over and say hi, whom i hadn’t seen for a while. it is nice that people still remember conversations they’d had with my better half years before, come up and send him greetings. that is why he is my better half, he is memorable and diplomatic and a social butterfly. it comes easy to him, and people like him.

i do miss him going to shows with me, but he has other responsibilities right now. he gets to see all the pictures you never see, so he gets a virtual car show when i do go out.

nice to know there are those of you who keep an eye out for me when i’m out there by myself. thank you. you know who you are.

the air was cool, though i felt warm, and i managed to shoot most of the cars i wanted before i really started to feel faint. there were a few i missed, but i was there long enough to hear most of speech the boy’s parents gave, thanking everyone and recalling stories of their son.

i seem to do some calculated gambling on how far my car is from where i am and how long i can keep shooting and still get back to the car. somehow, if i can make it to the car, i can get myself home and be ok. probably the main reason i don’t go out much. also, what fun is it to have all these pictures and not have them with me to fiddle with at my mom’s house. wouldn’t be able to do much anyway with the big dog there wanting attention all evening.

i’m just feeling in a morbid mood this evening. i think i’ll stop here for now.

groundhogs day

another holiday weekend. another daily visit to the hospital—not me—so much for relaxing.

did start with a baby shower, which was a happy time. grandkid any day now.

missed pomona, but that wasn’t going to happen anyway—better half told me early saturday that he wanted to get out to santa fe springs swap meet and to the market on sunday. maybe in march, if it’s not raining.

only other notable accomplishment was bingeing two seasons of the sopranos.

needless to say, my pictures and blog are being neglected. just not much i can share, nor energy to spend. would like to take apart my dad’s computer and reload it, so maybe i can take a portable hard drive with me to my mom’s and play with them when i’m there.

overheating in this hospital room, so i need to step outside to hallway now.

meanwhile, enjoy this shot from a couple weeks ago. messing with long exposures again. lost the race with the sun.

dog days / dog nights

spent several days watching my daughter’s dobie, and another several hours with my son’s golden. they are opposites personality-wise, but both very needy for attention. can’t do anything without a cold snout nudging your arm.

can’t eat anything without the dobie drooling a lake on the table, on the floor, or on your clothes. it’s instantaneous if he even thinks there’s food near your mouth or in your hands. and if you don’t notice it on the floor, you’re likely to step in a cold thick ooze, almost guaranteed to slip.

daughter was away for a couple of nights. i managed to keep her bubba out of my room the first night, but had to listen to an occasional whine in the night from outside the door. her dog is used to sleeping in bed with her.

the next night i woke up a couple hours before the alarm, and i felt sorry for him, so i let him up on the bed. needed to wash the bedding anyway.

he’s big and all gangly legs, so even though he starts off as a curled up dog, by morning he has taken over the bed, and you are stuck in one position or knocked off, if you let him. really wants his head on the pillow too. missing two hours of sleep screws up your day.

so. i’ve been busy and mostly down at my mom’s house. and it’s late again. craving sleep, need a shower, but i wanted to post something. i’ve seen this car rarely, and haven’t gotten a decent picture of it until the other day. it just seems quiet, end of the day; in reality music was blaring, thanks to dj chente.

first of the new year

i really hadn’t gone to too many shows the last few months. which was a good thing in a way, because i think i had a pulled muscle or sprain, so it apparently had time to heal.

started off this year at the veteranos’ cruise night in west covina. didn’t officially start until three-thirty, so i figured i’d get there an hour early, and shoot whatever was there while they were setting up. knew i’d be racing the sun for light later anyway.

well, no show cars were there. momentarily thought i had the wrong date or location, but when i decided i’d at least go inside and get some pizza, there were four of the veteranos at a table having a meal. apparently neither of the couples had brought their own cars to the show.

by the time i was done and went to get my gear from my car, vendors and cars had begun settling in. i had a couple of hours with varied degrees of light, and increasing numbers of people, before it got hard to get clean shots. i ended up staying about four hours, since my better half said he was not going to be able to get out to the market anyway. i think it was more about encouraging me to get back to taking pics, especially since i was actually having a lot of fun.

saw several people i hadn’t chatted with in a while, so happy new year to them, was nice see them.

had an asian man wander through the show ask me how they were monetizing it, if it’s just in a parking lot. wtf. not everything is about money, and he was free to participate in the raffle.

i’ve seen this car before. interesting color combo. makes me want some sherbet. parked against a curb, but pretty close to the dj booth area, it had a lot of people and car traffic in the way. i took the chance that a car wouldn’t need to get by for a few minutes during my exposure. still had to take several, so i could blend out the people. still have a blur, and a random shadow on the car. it was late, and maybe i’ll clean it up later, but i thought it already looked presentable enough to share.

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went to a memorial service for a former boss the other day. he’d had a heart attack xmas day, and never regained consciousness; he died on the second day of the new year.

he’d only retired a year or two before, so didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy it. hearing the memories shared, he had a good life, was a good man. enjoyed rock and roll, guitars, and mott the hoople. his eldest son looked like a carbon copy of how i remembered him, except with dark hair. he was a good boss. worked his way up at the same company for forty years.

saw several former coworkers, and many other faces i recognized, but couldn’t place the name. everyone has gotten so old, but then, so have i. told my other former boss, i guess i’ll see you again at the next funeral.

come on and rain already

they promised it was going to rain all week, last week. then it didn’t. just a day or so.

they said it was going to rain sunday/monday, then monday/tuesday this week, and now it’s not at all or maybe ten percent chance. what are they paying these weather people for? “it’s beyond my control…”

well it looks cloudy, with no chance of meatballs from my window here. and i’ve seen and/or heard several classic cars drive on by down greenleaf, which seems to me a better predictor of whether it is going to rain or not.

better half woke up early today, and snuck on out to the sante fe swap meet to buy some shirts. said there was a vendor selling knock off pendletons. he jokingly asked if he was a greenspans outlet, and the guy said, “no, but a hell of a lot cheaper.”

he’s out again now, driving around in a car that was originally mine, then my ex’s, then my dad’s, now my mom’s. if he decides not to buy it, i suppose i’ll take it out to pomona next month. or my sister can craig’s list it. he want’s a spare car in case he needs to get his mom to an appointment, and i’m not in town.

i have new year’s eve and new year’s day off from work. there are several new year’s day picnics happening. seriously considering going somewhere instead of hiding away in the house. or maybe at least to the veterano’s cruise night on the weekend, since one of my favs dm’d me a flyer to tempt me.

truck from a not hugely attended fundraiser show at workman high school. i think it was supposed to rain that day (it didn’t), which kept more cars away that otherwise would have been there.

it’s the color of a ring i used to wear in elementary school, turquoise stone and silver, that probably wouldn’t even fit on my pinky anymore. maybe i’ll give it to the new grandkid (not here yet) when she’s old enough.

tippy toes

quick post, since i’m up late, and only in town for the night.

made it out to pico park last weekend, for the together car club’s toy drive. met their president, who greeted me warmly.

i had only a couple of hours to get out, or i would have headed to another show, but there were enough cars there to fill the time.

i really haven’t been out to a show in a few months, so this was good enough, and not too far from the house.

i’ve seen this bike before, i think over at frisco’s a couple of years ago. it’s posted here somewhere. that was a night shot. here in the bright mid-day sun, you can really appreciate the paint and the airbrushing all over it.

i am sort of wondering what the thing above the headlights is; at this point, i’m calling it the sorting hat from harry potter. is this bike for slytherin?

who knows when i’ll ever have enough time to work on a lot of pictures again, so i’ll just go ahead and put up some preliminary thumbnails of some of the shots i took below.

parading?

the uptown parade was this morning. don’t really care about it, but it is right outside the door, so i take the opportunity to shoot the cars that show up. i mean, they are at my doorstep, so how can i not?

this year, they staged it farther down the street and around the block. it also lightly rained early in the morning. the club that drove the pretty pretty princesses down the street last year didn’t participate this year. cars weren’t really parked right at our curb, and didn’t see many that i was interested in.

there were no horses either, which are kind of fun to take pics of too.

i was about ready to forget about it, then spied an old ford across the way. i’d just gotten out of the shower, got dressed quickly, and i went out thinking i’ll just quickly shoot that one car, and didn’t even brush my hair.

after a bunch of shots of that one, i noticed a car at the far end of the block, but by the time i got there, the parade had moved on some more, so i figured i’d catch it when it came around to the main street.

walked back toward the house, and saw that there were some cars down the street by the mortuary. so that’s where they were hiding a few that i’d seen earlier.

that’s where i found this convertible. it seemed to have been meant to be in the parade, but as i walked up to it, they were peeling the parade poster off the side of the door. maybe they had to leave, maybe it broke down, i don’t know. this end of the street is still part of the staging area, and they weren’t going anywhere, so i took a few pictures. pretty sure i’ve shot it before, if i really looked through the archives, but i don’t think i’ve ever posted it.

better half had asked if i’d seen a black one with pinstripes after i’d gotten home—he’d seen it drive past the window. i totally blanked that it was this one and said nope, being all disappointed that i’d missed it. then he walked behind me while i was working on the picture and said that’s the one i was talking about. so duh.

sonata time

apparently, the xmas sonata is going on uptown. no idea what they’ve scheduled this year. usually at least a horse-drawn carriage and carolers. the carriage i could get into, but never have; the carolers, i could do without.

better half has hauled a buttload of xmas decorations into the house, and they are deciding what colors to use on the fruity tree. already know it’s toy story again for the theme, but now it’s what color balls to use <she said balls>. at least it gets his mom out of her bed and into her wheelchair.

i haven’t been home since last weekend, for random reasons, including rain and my mom’s garage door not wanting to open. this is the picture i was working on last week, when the fuse blew. yay the new photoshop actually does a decent job at recovering a picture after a crash vs frying the file.

knocked the color out, because the light flares were just oddly bugging me, but i still liked the car.

i probably mentioned it before, but it was odd the lot was so empty as compared to previous years at this time of morning. makes me want to sleep in too, but i like the early morning light too much.

i should talk. i haven’t been getting out to any shows at all for the last month. and the past weekend and this morning have been perfectly gray and cold. just not feeling up to it. i have all sorts of excuses, but i’ll just leave it at i haven’t had the energy to get out. miss you guys tho.

shipped her pants

i hadn’t any intention of staying at my place again tonight, yet here i am.

daughter-in-law contacted me earlier today, asking if i was going to be picking up my mail after work. she had mistakenly shipped something to my address instead of her current one. she used to live here, and hadn’t noticed the account was still connected here for deliveries.

told her i would stop after an appointment, so no porch pirates would get the package.

arrived about five pm, nothing here. had her check tracking number. it is not coming from one of the big name carriers, and shows it at a facility in reno. due by end of day today — with a caveat about possible weather delays.

i don’t know what this company considers end of day. the big a company says up until eight pm, and this isn’t them. so technically, it’s still the third until midnight.

waited until eight, then had to go get dinner. there’s not really any food here, since there is still no kitchen put in. soon though. just need a decent contractor that will follow up on their estimates. that’s another story for another time.

rain has started lightly falling and i’m going to bed. i suppose their little trucks couldn’t get over the grapevine.

so i’ll swing by again tomorrow, but will not wait for it. my mom misses me. awwww.

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pomona swap meet this sunday. wonder if it will be raining. that would be a wash for toy drives too. really thinking about getting out and shooting some pics and picking up some t-shirts for my better half.

nice pontiac from earlier this year at pomona. at least it won’t be too hot there this weekend.

running late

so tired, but can’t sleep. got two hours of sleep last night, and took a four hour nap when i dragged myself home to my mom’s this afternoon. maybe i’m coming down with something.

didn’t turn my computer on all weekend until sunday afternoon—attempt to, that is.

after a couple of days at my mom’s, i spent the next couple in whittier. mother-in-law wants the tree up this year. last year we only got the lights on the bottom fourth, not even visible from the street, before everything went to hell and my dad died.

so i helped my better half string the zillion fruity pebbles colored lights on the thing until i couldn’t reach the branches. i have the scratches from the artificial needles and wires to prove it.

he says he’ll have the top done by the next time i get there. hopefully his mom will get in her wheelchair and supervise decorating with whatever this year’s theme is. better half would leave the tree up year round, as he used to, but his mom doesn’t do that. i think this year she said fuck it, leave it up until february to piss off the landlord.

anyway, the computer came up with some message and not wanting to load. better half finally got it going, but told me to back stuff up, as he might have to reload windows. ugh.

i was almost done working on a picture to post, when, for the first time this year, better half forgot to turn off his mom’s space heater, and started the microwave. boom. blows a fuse. down goes my computer, as i haven’t bothered replacing the battery backup that went bad.

instead of me also blowing a fuse, i just thought, “fuck,” and went and packed my bag for the days i’ll be at my mom’s, and tried to go to bed. it was close to eleven pm. didn’t even turn the computer back on…figured my file is toast anyway.

so no new pic tonight. here’s one from a show at dolphin park earlier in the year. liked the dappled light and fallen leaves around the car.

hoping i can sleep now. so exhausted.