I woke up at 9:00am feeling only a little groggy. I looked at the clock. The sleep deprivation was starting to get consistent..almost pleasant.

But there was a damn good reason for waking up at 9:00. Scott had walked into the computer room two days earlier, indicating that I should take off my headphones. He'd asked me�in the only way Scott can ask someone a question�if I wanted to go with him early Sunday to a car auction in San Clemente (I think it was San Clemente). I was disturbed but really intrigued by the idea, like a regurgitative 'baton-passing' pie eating contest that showcased behemoth-sized humans that could vomit on command. I was surprised Scott and mom wanted to pay to get me a new car, but I figured Sunday was as good a day and time as any.

Being at a car auction for the first time was kindof like riding on John's bike at first: I was fiendishly disoriented. Every time a bidder raised their card, a seriously pissed looking set of bald dudes would run over to them and blow a whistle, point and them and make weird hand gestures to the auctioneer who was not currently presenting; the non-presenter would scream "What, wo!", "Yuppita ip," or something more unintelligible. The capper was the announcing auctioner. See, both guys switched back and forth. Being jet-set mid-twenty bad-ass white dudes, they blended words and gestures like Porky Pig on half a kilo of crank�

"And up next number C049, '92 Chrysler LeSaber�Automatic! Automatic! Automatic!�108,000 miles, would retail for 26,000 dollars at the time it was brand new. What's it worth now?! Anddoihear500,500gimmebaba750gimmebarando1000shorpedebaba1250now1500willyagiveme1600?1600igotithowabout1750?50?50?50?gotitandigot2000babagimme2500?2500?goingoncegoingtwice�SOLD C049 for 2500 to Bidder NUMBER!�what's the bidder number?biddernumberba ba ba? Got it!"

It was fucking nuts, absolute mayhem everywhere. The sun was beat down like an irate father. Scott kept dodging back into the shadows while I hurriedly tried figuring out which lot numbers corresponded to the cars we'd checked out. I'd actually sat in one. It seemed very nice at the time: grey interior, nice cloth seats, good feel to it. At that time, though, I was set on getting one of the Saturns I saw.

Eventually, a car rolled up that Scott and I had on our list. He started putting in his bid. I looked at the car. I was worried that with the way he was bidding that we might actually get it. At 2,450 USD I tapped him, shaking my hand from side to side. I looked up at the annoucement tower. The auctioneer repeated '50' for more times than I liked. Then it was a done deal:

I was the proud new owner of a '95 Buick Skylark; still sounded like a weird name for a car model. How's that for life imitating art?

At first I was extremely disappointed, since I couldn't remember the Skylark from the other cars we'd looked at during inspection. Gradually I got used to the idea. We basically waited for 5 hours inbetween the auction and actually getting the car. Scott occasionally mentioned certain aspects of the Buick and it dawned on me: it was the same car with the gray interior, fairly clean cloth seats and the calm, nice feeling to it. When I went to get a better look at it and drive off, I thought we'd actually made the best choice we could. I could plow through hordes of zombie ilk with a front hood like that. The exterior was a pleasant gray color without too many chips or scratches. The rear left window didn't work, but the car had AC, no noticeable tears, handled great and was about 2k below the blue book price. Somewhere over the freeway, accidentally travelling upwards of 80 miles an hour, I started to genuinely love my car. And it is my car in full.

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(almost over, no worries)

Liz had suggested I take all of August off for vacation, but I've never been the type to ever take time off for the sake of taking time off. It is simply not cricket.

I had some rat injections scheduled that day for around 11:30am. One stalled car and some heavy traffic later there I was, food-deprived and really spacy. The curious thing is that I never know if I'm getting all the little details out of order because I haven't eaten anything or if I need to up my concentration medication (or if I'm utterly incompetent, which I'd think Dr. Zivago would have been more than happy to point out by now if that was the case).

Everything was bloody off today in the lab: noone from the Jor'nuke'nuke lab was around to open up their super-sensitive scale room. No super-sensitive scale room meant that I couldn't make the injection drug. This made me feel pissy. Luckily, though, I'd just made nearly enough the last time so that I could go with my original plan of starting the last group of female rats. The injections themselves were extremely frustrating: either my handwork was off or the rats were feeling particularly saucy. Finally, one of the Anti-Research Consortium's acolytes had called and left an email. Apparently they'd added new sections to the experiment proposal forms. I tried calling back. Got a voice mail. I decided to put it off 'til Wednesday.

So, all in all, I'm one car richer and five bucks poorer from this weekend. I think John wants to drive up to Oakland (near San Francisco, approx. 6-7 hour drive) this coming weekend..either that or do RHPS at The Nuart again. Either way, photoshoot opportunities.

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Photography:

Sieve

Comment: This is a side-long view of "Battle" (from last time's batch). I really like this one and the moody contrast of it. It hasn't been well-received so far, so if there's something about it that seems off, please do leave me a note with a suggestion.

144,000

Comment: Remember last weekend how I went on a 4 hour excursion up and around all the canyons near the beach? Well, toward the tail end of all that, I went by Pepperdine University and their vast�but very shallowly graded�hilly campus. I was going through my shots and found this one. Originally I'd give the picture a purple cast to it, but the leaves didn't like that. Finally I thought to try it in B&W to bring out the "holy glow" effect coming from the figure (which in reality is caused by the setting sun). This picture is especially amazing because this is the first of mine to have an actual human in it!

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