CB1100 Monthly Photo Challenge

[Gone in 60]

Had my chores done early this morning, and it's my last free day before I start my new gig on Monday. The air was calm, so I set out to get some pictures for this month's challenge.

Up until I handed over my key nine days ago, this was my office and shop. Nothing's changed so far, but there was a contractor wandering into the building, and I know they plan to gut the interior of the place.


Not too far away is this building. I got head-hunted to work here in 2000 and had the top corner office. The company was RaceSearch, a dot-com-bubble startup and was supposed to be the first to offer race car parts for sale online, with direct shipment to home customers. It was also supposed to go IPO in a few months and make us all rich. But, the technology to make it work hadn't really gelled back then, and it crashed and burned within a year. The next day, I started at the company I just shut down.


Back in 1984, this Smart & Final store in Buena Park was a Thrifty Drug store, and was the first place I ever officially drew a paycheck from at 16 (not counting mowing lawns in the neighborhood since I was 12). I scooped ice cream, and Thrifty ice cream is now considered quite hip. A single scoop costs more than 35 cents these days, however.


You can't really just drive up to the entrance to Disneyland, get out and take a picture. But, here's the entrance to the main parking lot as shot from a bus stop across Harbor Blvd. Once I got booted from Thrifty (my high school work permit didn't allow me to work past 9:00pm, and the boss didn't like that I couldn't close the store at 10:00pm) I started at Disneyland and stayed through college. I was a cook, then the kitchen manager at the Blue Bayou restaurant. High school girls liked the guys who could get them into Disneyland for free, so it was a natural choice.


I also spent some time in college working as a mechanic at this Pep Boys store near home. It was neat to work on cars, but they had an incredibly unscrupulous practice of ripping off customers and I didn't stay long. As an example, the boss would squirt oil on certain things and convince the customers their cars were leaking and needed major repairs. The place got raided by the Consumer Affairs Department shortly after I left.

I was hoping to make it out to my childhood apartment building in Torrance, but the closer I got, the thicker the smoke from the L.A. fires got, and I turned around when my eyes started burning. Mom and I moved to Torrance when I was tiny. I still love the neighborhood and wouldn't mind living there.

In 1980, Mom, Step-Dad and I moved into this house in Buena Park. I remember the purchase price of this three bedroom, two bath with a large living room addition was $98,000, and was quite a stretch for the family. Originally, there was quite a bit of gingerbread trim on the eves and around the windows. In fact, the roof over the garage originally sloped downward to the lawn a lot more. So much more, in fact, that when I knew I was going to stay out past curfew, and that the folks would be easily awakened by my old Dodge rumbling up the driveway and me opening the front door, I had a trick. I'd keep my bedroom window, which faced the backyard open. I'd park a few houses away, and could actually hoist myself onto the low roof, sneak over to the back yard, and enter my bedroom window. Worked like a charm. Looks like the place got a new, more modern roof since then.

The brick and concrete driveway that my Step-Dad and I built is still there. We laid the bricks in rows as formers, and as time allowed and we were able to borrow a truck from a neighbor, we'd go get a trailer load of wet concrete and fill in one of the rows. Took about a month to finish.


This rather shabby Anaheim apartment complex was brand new when my best friend and I moved into it out of college - our first home away from the parents.. how proud we were! The Jack-in-the-Box is still on the corner, and I imagine the drive-thru loud speaker still keeps the apartment residents awake at night to this day.