Rest In Peace 2013

As yet another year passes, we age, and become closer to becoming skulls.

R.I.P. 2013

The following post is a selection of black & white photos taken last month at an old sleeping garden we found while traveling through central California. These were shot with my Nikon FE2 on 3200 speed black & white film. Cemeteries and film means getting back to your roots.

It was late in the day and shadows grew long...

Hitting the road instead of the turkey...

This year, we just needed to get outta dodge for a few days.  We loaded up the new Trooper, and drove in a south-westerly direction to get outta the cold.

This would be highway 50 south of Lake Tahoe somewhere...

Negative Scans from 2013

Hopefully I will post some more before the year is over, but here is many months of black & white photos I took on various trips this year, in no particular order.

Mendocino.

Happy Halloween!

Catching up with some photos...

Before Halloween, we had to make a flyer for our friends at For Pet's Sake, a local rescue group where Luigi came from.  These are some of the shots from the shoot.

Luigi is not terribly fond of being dressed up, but what can I say, this is is what married folks without children do.

Long Beach & The Queen Mary

Last weekend we took a trip through the barren wasteland also known as I5 between Sacramento and Los Angeles to enter the Impulse into the 9th Annual Japanese Classic Car Show.  The event is heald in Long Beach, and the official hotel (if you can call it that) for the show is the Queen Mary.

The single port hole window in our room, that was more like the servants quarters than a $169/night hotel room. :/

A few random pics from the weekend...

Fishing the carp hole with Moms

DiJ again...

On our way...

I like this...

Labor Day Weekend in Idaho

Despite our ridiculously busy and stressful schedule this summer, we decided to get outta Dodge for the three day weekend and check out the Sawtooth area of Idaho.  I was sorta on the fence about going, only because of the excessive amount of driving involved, but in the end I am glad we did it.  It was nice to get away and attempt to destress for a bit.

CeCe and Luigi enjoying a nature adventure.

Photos For Pet's Sake

Yesterday after work, Linda and I met up with Sara from For Pet's Sake to take some photos for an upcoming fundraiser which will be held at Bronx Pizzeria.  There will be a classic car "Show-n-Shine", raffles, a silent auction and free pasta, all to raise money for the doggies!  We will be using one of the photos to make a flyer to promote the event.  Here are a few shots.

Luigi came along to represent. There he is on the left looking foppish with necktie next to Ginger and Chrissy.

SLC hike with Justin & Menace

So, I was in SLC for the weekend for work. I had Sunday free, so I met up with my broski, Justin and his dinosaur dog, Menace.  We took off to a local canyon to hike and wheel Justin's sick R/C rock crawler. I totally need one!!

Menace watching his daddy crawl his rig up the rocks.

Camping Lye Creek

Lye Creek.

A couple weeks ago I got word from a fellow PlanetIsuzoo member that he had an '89 RS for sale, just like mine. So we got to talking, and we struck a deal.  So why would I need a second Trooper RS?

Humanity...

...does nothing for me.  I haven't a humanitarian bone in my body. Human babies are not cute to me and children are just annoying seeds that only grow into adult humans that do bad human things.  I do not feel sorry for the homeless and I do not care about starving people in Africa.

But this....this melts my heart.

So I often wonder, is there something wrong with me?

I like deep sea anglers...

An awesome monkfish waiting to be consumed at Whole Foods.

Carps on Corn

Mine's bigger. :)

LACARCULTURE

I've always wanted to check out Cars & Coffee in Irvine. What I didn't realize is that it starts at the asscrack of dawn and is pretty much over with by 9:30am. We still forced ourselves up (after Das Bunker the night before) and got there by 7:30...and even then some of the cars were already cleared out.  Nonetheless, a very cool thing they do down there every single Saturday. Its stuff like this that would make me enjoy living in a city like L.A.  But would I get jaded after a while?  I dunno.

JDM nostalgia at its finest.  I'm not crazy about some of the silly trends like oversided intercoolers on the
outside of the engine bay, but I love seeing cars like this nonetheless.

LA4THOFJULYWEEKEND

For the long 4th of July weekend...we hauled down to L.A. in the heat.

NV Camping 2013: Day 3

On day 3, we started heading out to explore for another campsite.  This is what we found.

NV Camping 2013: Day 2

The next day we decided to head out and explore and find a new spot to camp. Just when we were about to give up hope, we came over a little hill to discover this abandoned homestead.

NV Camping 2013: Day 1 (Bonus - Skull Jackpot aka Ranchers need to find a better way to deal with wildlife aka people who shoot dogs are douchebags aka I will take the skulls nonetheless)

NV Camping 2013: Day 1

Met up with Tom for 3 days of fun in the wide open expanses of the Nevada desert.  There is nothing like camping in the middle of nowhere.  It is simply put, the way it should be. Campgrounds are nothing more than a bunch of unrelated people sleeping outside together. To me, camping means getting away from all of that and then going a little further away just to make sure.

Tom drove up from Vegas, and I drove down and met him off of hwy 361 at a predetermined location, which turned out to yield one of the largest skull hauls ever (more on that in the bonus post next). Here I am with my 90 Trooper and the skull pile.

A day trip to Genoa/Minden/Gardnerville...

So last Sunday we took a day and drove down to Genoa to check it out.  Here are a few photos.

Eating lunch...

Memorial Day Weekend in Mendocino/Fort Bragg

For the three day weekend we took the pups and headed northwest to one of our favorite spots in California: The Mendocino Coast.

Car Spotting in Costa Rica

One of my favorite things about Costa Rica, is there seemed to be an extreme abundance of "expedition ready" 4x4s.  Never in my life have I seen more Land Rovers, Land Cruisers, and Isuzu Troopers assembled in one place, not to mention a whole boat load of other misc 4x4s that all appeared to be on an expedition of their own.  And Jeeps seemed to be the extreme minority.  In short, if you want to see some cool SUVs and 4x4s of all makes and vintages, visit Costa Rica.

This little go-cart is a 2013 Suzuki Jimny, and it was what I rented for the week.  Basically, a modern Samurai, this little lawn mower is great on gas and will get you just about anywhere. I wish they sold them in the USA. I would buy one without question as a daily driver.

Costa Rica Wildlife

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Costa Rica, is the incredible amount of wildlife one can see, with very little effort. If I ever go back, I would go back and focus on seeing as much as I could, despite the horrendous discomfort of the climate.  We visited two parks while we were there, and did some hikes along the beach.  Here are some of the highlights.

The icon of Costa Rica, the red-eyed tree frog.  Some of the photos here were taken at a small "zoo" if you will, for native herps of Costa Rica. According to our guide at the little "Neofauna" park, these frogs are fairly elusive and not easy to find in the wild without considerable time and effort.

Costa Rica - One week in a sweltering hot sweat box

So we spent last week, both Linda's and Tom's birthdays, in Costa Rica. It was a much needed vacation from the norm, that ultimately makes you appreciate your version of normal a little bit more. It's all too easy to get sick, tired and bored of your normal day-to-day routine, until you break out from it and spend some time in another country where the norm is much, much different than you are used to.  In my case, I speak mainly of weather, and more acutely of stinking hot, humid, thick, cut-the-air-with-a-knife, jungle weather.

Marriot Los Suenos, our nice, clean, uber-expensive resort

Photos for pets sake...

We were asked to take photos of a bunch of dogs up for adoption for "For Pets Sake", which we gladly agreed to do.  Plus, CeCe and Luigi were getting watched for the night so we could have an evening to ourselves. First, I did some test photos at home.

Adorbs.

Some B&W scans...

Cute.

The world did not end...

...which I guess is cool. I wonder what the next Doomsday date will be. :/

So, we made Japanese style "Hamburgs".