shootdowntown1 photo meetup

Well Saturday we met up with some of the photo blogging community as BlogDowntown's Eric hosted the first bloggers photo meet up.. Several folks SeanYoda & I had met previously or recognized without having met (smile), and many new faces! Most of the folks had some serious equipment, and some were definitely professionals, and some like myself. However, I'm still learning to use my point & shoot.. but I took about 200 pix and not being very good at narrowing things down ended up editing & uploading some 100 of them. SeanYoda has over 300 he shot with his video camera, however it will be a few more days before he gets around to looking at the ones he has to edit and upload.

Life keeps you busy. Then you forget things. I still have all those Food & Wine photos at WDW (October) and last night's Christmas dinner party to take a look at and upload to my personal journal.

Anyway, above linked is the photo set I've been uploading off & on the last day. I'm done. ;P I think there are so many talented folks out there and while I *think* I know what I want when looking at stuff it doesn't come out anywhere near as keen as what I've seen so far of other folks efforts.

One last note.. it seems like I tend to take pix of angles and surfaces. I also LOVE old faded adverts but it seems others found some more amazing ones than could catch my eye.. Just fantastic really all the stuff everyone did.

Still it was a good time. Hopefully this *will* become a regular thing quarterly or something.. and perhaps I'll get to attend another event. =)

i5nomads yelping at Clifton's

Yesterday for lunch SeanYoda & Meeko headed over to Clifton's for lunch with a handful of virtual, but very nice strangers from downtown area including one not so stranger, Ms Shauna from LJ land and the GourmetLa community. We'd gone to her Kings Hawaiian meetup a couple years back, and now that she's on Yelp has been doing some really great reviews there. It seems like there is a really great community of reviewers and they do a lot of fun activities in some cases as well.

I don't post reviews there often myself, as it seems we only go to a handful of places and are pretty loyal once we find a place we like. It's just a matter of going out. Which we haven't tended to do very often. Anyway, this post wasn't' meant to be a review, as I already posted that on Yelp! and on my personal journal. I did post many of the photos on flikr though. The place is indeed full of whimsy and kitsch. =) The food isn't anything to write home about but it was worthwhile & fun.

Happy Thanksgiving

Made it almost all the way for the Pico walk.. 13.3 of the 15.6miles. Photos up on Flikr now.. and since the walk, I've been recovering. Took a couple days to recover with the legs and my knees, then I must have caught a bug somewhere as I've been sick in bed the last couple days.

Made for a quiet but good Thanksgiving. If I'm up for it tomorrow, we might brave IKEA. Cause you know IKEA has something for everyone. =) (even if it's temporarily oversold).

GREAT LA WALK (pico style!)

SeanYoda and I will be joining other LA bloggers and folks to walk most of the 15miles (if not all of it) tomorrow morning!! =) 15miles of Pico from Los Angeles to Santa Moniica.. and taking public transit home again. =)

See you folks from the "blogLAsphere" there!!!

yes it's been a while

but who reads this anyway? I just didn't want anyone think I was languishing away from being a klutz. I've gotten out and about.. Sure I have my scars from my little accident, but I've moved on. =)

Since last I posted the i5Nomads have been to Michigan to celebrate with family. We've been to Florida and back for Food & Wine fest, and I'm still working on those photos. They might be done by next year (joking, I hope!) We've been sick, we've been well, we've been busy with work or not work, or not sleeping. We've been starting to get into the holiday spirit. We've enjoyed coffee at Starbucks around the corner from us. We've had not so good chai from the local coffee bean & tea, we've wondered about Pastagina the new location that they're busy working on at Market Lofts.

We've renewed our lease for another few months. We've pondered looking into moving. We attended a couple shindigs (ok SeanYoda has attended a couple shindigs) and we've had several nights in. We enjoyed the cooler weather after all that heat and dry air with fires raging in the Valley. We've been ok. We are ok. The world is a busy place and just trying to find a stop to get off and take a look around.

Time for another 15 mile walk, methinks. =)

stumbling from ralphs

So yeah coming back from the library, stopping off at the neighborhood Ralphs with some soy milk and a baquette, feeling good about my neighborhood and the fact that I was able to walk both ways without killing myself.. I guess I was congratulating myself too soon.. I tripped over an imaginary sidewalk crack and stumbled without catching myself, landing on my knees and palms so yeah.. if you saw some fat ass raccoon tripping over her own momentum, that was me.

I guess I'd rather rip my flesh up more than drop my library tote and groceries. As it was I dropped the groceries anyway. Not a biggie except the baguette kind of slipped partially out of the bag.

I went on the Ralphs side of Hope so I wouldn't have to deal with low hanging branches and spiders and pigeon pooh. Instead I got bloody kneecaps and detrious to clean out of my palms. nice.

WATCH THOSE CRACKS folks!!


I'm really annoyed but now I'm just really embarrassed. Luckily I saved the ol' lady crying with humiliation til I got back to the apartment and started pouring the hydragen peroxide on my bloody parts.

ralphs watch is over

The new downtown Ralphs in South Park is finally open as of the 20th of July. We like it very much so far. We've given them a lot of business despite not usually shopping anywhere other than the Trader Joe's & Costco. Seriously. We still shop at the Trader Joe's but since the new Ralphs Fresh Fare opened, we've been there a few times and SeanYoda even won one of the "KNOW LA?" trivia contests over the opening weekend. Can't sneeze at free food.

So happy I have a place to go that might be slightly cheaper than the local Rite Aid up the street, and hopefully the Dash will continue its re-routing on Hope Street. Happiness is being a slacker & taking the bus (instead of walking) when one wants to.

The only thing I'm wondering now is what is to become of the retail space on our first floor. There was a rumour we'd be getting a drycleaner pickup/ drop off but it seems the Ralphs already has that covered, and we still don't seem to have anyone moving into the retail. "SOUTH" otoh, seems to be picking up pretty well. We're all looking forward to new ESPN hq and the theatre that will be going in hopefully within the next year.. It sure looks halfway done. South Park is going to be a fun place for someone, if not the pedestrians who have to deal with the cranes and construction.

It's all good.. Christmas comes in July if you will.

LA TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

just a reminder this weekend is the LA Times Festival of Books.. more later as we're off! (Kat Kora is at 2pm but we have other stuff we're doing first). =)

Settling in on Hope

Happy New Year from Downtown! i5Nomads have taken the plunge as far as moving to downtown LA and so far it seems alright. We're still not unpacked or organized but we do have the general layout of the place complete (and realized early on that our place is MUCH smaller than we were led to believe or comprehend).

Our cats are having a good time as long as they stay away from each other when they are cranky and they get their catnip. =)

I actually sleep less than I did when we lived in Anaheim, but honestly I do feel safer. Since we've left Orange Co. we haven't had near as many helicopters and domestic disturbances waking us up in the middle of the night from the intoxicated neighbor, or the cats getting upset over the stray neighbor cat that comes around to hang out on our old balcony. No more big wheels and street racing and donuts in the middle of the night.

Shortly after we moved, Buena Park (the city) got put on 'lock down' at least once. Gang activity or something.. I can't recall now.

I do know that when hubby commutes he has been taking the bus or driving and when he drives, he gets home a LOT quicker. Backwards commute!

We're still waiting on Ralph's but the key to the store ceremony took place last week, so the June opening looks like it could be happening. We usually shop at Trader Joe's anyway, so when it opens we'll be glad but that doesn't keep us from trips to TJ's. =)

We've gone to a couple local places (local in that we could walk there if we like) as well checked out the Pershing Square ice rink with friends and I don't skate but it was fun, and other than be a real danger to kids and people who know what they are doing, it seemed really festive (maybe they can put a fresh layer of ice on the rink next year?) It was pretty goug-y from what our friend (who skates) mentioned, and when they 'resurface' the rink they only scrape the loose ice off and leave it pock marked and uneven. bleh!

We like our ability to just walk up the street for garlic mashed potatoes, we like the central library being so close and despite it NOT being Berkeley, it is a walkable city, a bus-able city, and yeah.. a city one can live in, not just visit. =)

CITY LIGHTS:
My insomnia is worse here though because the neighbors heels wake me up, and hubby's snoring hasn't improved and since we don't have walls to shut a door from the snoring I usually sleep on the couch. The lights are on ALL night in the halls, the neighbors are awake and while IN their loft we don't hear much,we do notice sound travels A LOT in the halls, the atrium, and oh, yeah.. upstairs if you don't have carpet on the concrete. This is mainly worse on weekends but you have to wonder with an energy crisis and all looming ahead, why do we need ALL the lights on at night?? (I'm talking the common areas of our building, not the city streets.. we need MORE of those at walkers level so the dog folks & the puppy-less walkers don't get taken advantage of).

We like our loft a lot though honestly, and it's a a great lesson in simplifying. It's probably a bigger lesson than we really wanted though. ;P We had a TON of storage in the old place (more than we needed and honestly, not very practical storage) Here we have our big walk in closet and that's it. A couple trips to IKEA have helped but despite that, we really need a second closet for the other stuff.. so we'll be visiting IKEA at least one more time to replace the dressers & cabinets hubby donated because of space issues here.. A nice PAX wardrobe for the hubby's work clothes (and some of my stuff too I hope!) and then we can put the Christmas decorations in the closet. =) Then we'll be done.

Lesson in loft living #1: learn to live with less.
Lesson in Loft living #2: (or anywhere really) it's freaking EXPENSIVE to live in California and depending on what you want & what you are willing to give up, rent is relative. Live near work and save some time or live where you want & have it be a little cheaper but spend twice as much time in traffic & congestion & away from your family. Either way you pay. I think in the long run the time well spent with family is worth the extra in rent... that and the peace of mind that your neighbors aren't going to hurt someone. I'm not saying downtown LA is safe, but so far so good.. and if it wasn't for the concrete and my insomnia, I'd be in bed already. =)
Lesson in Loft living #3:Solar Shades are NOT curtains.. if you want folks to not see YOU at night, get some real curtains and leave the solar shades for the day time! ;)

I'm just glad that we have more time together. Now I need to get my library card & a job. It's January everyone! New Year New me! =)

ps: congrats to Celia & Jim on the wedding and hope the honeymoon is going wonderful & fantastic!