sha in LA

sicky poo

Well, I'm back from my trip and I brought home a wonderful souvenir of my travels...a head cold! Not sure if it was the sitting outside drinking for 2 hours between 3-5am or all the germies passed between sweaty swing dancers that did me in, but whatever it was it won. At least I'm on antibiotics so hopefully it won't turn into anything worse.

So last night as I'm about to go to sleep - at 9:45 - I turned on the radio to get a quick update on the Dodgers. They were losing 4-0 in the 8th inning. Dejected, I turned off the radio and went to bed. Imagine my surprise when I find out this morning that the Dodgers WON! Somehow they pulled off 5 runs in the 9th inning. Damn.

Must go pass out now.

dancing QUEEN

Editor's Note: I just switched over to typepad from another blog provider...hence the multiple sudden posts. I'll make this space prettier next week but for now....see below.

I'm off to Minneapolis this weekend for a big dance event. YAY! It's the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown. Lot's of insane dance kids in a hotel. Oh no. Let's hope I can survive the madness. More to come about it next week.

slip slidin' away

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

We all knew it was too good to be true. C'mon, you all know what I'm talking about. The Dodgers. Yes, it looks as if they will have to put up a good fight to stay in first place in the NL West. San Francisco is keeping pace with them so every loss, like the one last night, is detrimental to their psyche. Go Dodger Blue!

it's all one big fantasy

Now that the NFL is upon us Shannon is one happy girl. Although I must say, it's always odd walking to the bar at 10 in the morning with the temperature 90+ degrees on the first Sunday of the season. Thankfully this weekend it was a bit cooler and breezier so that it actually sort of felt like Fall.
Being the control freak that I am, I decided to organize my family into having a Fantasy Football League of our very own; with moi acting as The Commissioner. Well kids, The Commish is in first place...at least temporarily.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me hearing my mom talk about football, almost brings a tear to my eye. Granted, she's bottom feeding in our league, but she's learning.

Grandpa is also in the league, with a little help from the cousins. Being 80+ and not near a computer his request was to have a team full of Ravens players. I guess he's not too up-to-date on the whole strategy of Fantasy Football. Thankfully the cousins decided to give him a decent Quarterback and he's currently in the middle of the pack...not bad for a novice.

Los Angeles Conservancy Tours

Monday September 13, 2004

One of my fun extra-curricular volunteer activities is leading Walking Tours of Downtown Los Angeles with The Los Angeles Conservancy. I lead 4 tours on a semi-regular basis (usually one tour a month) and just received my assignment for the next 3 months. Anyone wanting to know more about this fabulous city and the architectural treasures that abound in Downtown should take my Historic Core tour. It lasts about 2 hours and 20 minutes and we get to see buildings dating from 1893-1931. Historic Core is the best tour to start out with if you're new to this sort of thing. I also give specialized tours of City Hall and Union Station. If you're interested in Art Deco building then i do that one too! Does it ever stop??!!?? NOPE. Starting this fall The Conservancy will be giving a Quarterly tour of the USC campus which, yes you guessed it, I will be leading!

The dates I am signed up for as of now are:

Ocotber 23 - Historic Core

November 6 - USC

December 18 - Art Deco

If you're interested in taking one of the above mentioned tours then check out the website and navigate to the Walking Tours section. From there you can sign-up. Also, be sure to let me know you're coming!

See you on the streets!

lofty ambitions

Monday, September 13, 2004

Interested in loft living in Downtown Los Angeles? Just curious about the buildings and spaces that are available? If the answer is YES then this is perfect for you! A FREE tour of loft spaces. I went on the Downtown Center Business Improvement Districts Downtown Housing Bus Tour a few weeks ago and loved it. We visited about 5 different lofts in various parts of Downtown Los Angeles: South Park, Historic Core, Fashion District & the Artist District. There are so many loft conversions happening downtown it's difficult even for me to keep track of them all. This is a great resource and it's FREE, definitely worth checking out.

it's all GREEK to me

Thursday, September 09, 2004

Yes kids, it's that time of year for St. Sophia's annual Greek Festival. Woo Woo! Can you feel it?? I hold a dear place in my heart for all things and people of Greek origin. The food is yummy, the music is inspiring and the people are FUN!

GO!

i left my heart in san francisco

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

I had the pleasure of spending this past Labor Day weekend in lovely San Francisco. It was a fantastic little jaunt away from LA LA land although I was expecting your typical San Francisco clean, crisp air and was greeted with a horrific heat wave. Oh well, what are you gonna do? Sweat, and lots of it that's for damn sure! Here is a brief run down of events from the jam packed, fun-filled weekend.

Friday
I arrived in the city around 7pm, ready for a night of who knows what....Hareesh picked me up on the moto-cycle and we went to eat at this hole-in-the-wall vietnamese place (Cordon Bleu) that had the best marinated chicken outside of vietnam, we proceeded back to his place where I kicked some major butt in a video game called Soul Catcher...or something to that effect...BTW, it helps a lot if you have more life than your opponent. :) Afterwards we headed over to Justin's Penthouse Suite at the Hotel Capri, quenched our thirst with some cranberry juice and vodka and then about 10 of us headed over to a karaoke bar for some good times. Now you see, what we had here was about 10 swing dancers out looking for a good time...and maybe a little lindy bombing along the way. Yes, we lindy bombed the karaoke joint but everyone else in the place was so bombed in another fashion that we essentially just gave the drunk bastards a reason to step up to the plate and dance right along with us. We closed down the joint with a group rendition of "Hooked On A Feeling."

Saturday
I dragged Lisa and her sister Suzanne to the Haight with me for some good old fashioned thrift shopping and lunch at Balazo's. If you're ever in the Haight...go to Balazo's...damn fine Mexican food. We all found treasures to treasure forever. That night was dancing at The Doghouse and the typical post-dancing nosh at Denny's. Why do all dancers go to Denny's? is it in the secret Lindy Hoppers Handbook? I think I skipped that chapter.

Sunday
Lisa and I went to Golden Gate Park for Lindy in the Park's 8th Anniversary and BBQ. Seeing as how dancing on concrete is not my favorite, we ended up socializing instead. That night we all went to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner because it was Lisa's request for a nice restaurant by the water with a view. Did I mention that this weekend was an early birthday celebration for Lisa's 30th birthday? That's why she got to pick where she wanted to eat. We, being the friendly group that we were, ended up be-friending the waiter, Keith, who came over to our hotel after work and picked us up and took us to Specs in North Beach where we had a pint or two of ale. Just what I wanted all weekend long, a comfortable bar with old and new friends alike and good conversation. Too bad it couldn't have lasted longer. Say this in your best Irish accent "Shannon!"

Monday
Flew back to LA. So sad. Bye-bye San Fran.

back to school

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Yes, it's that time of year again when Shannon returns to the higher learning institution otherwise known as PCC...that's Pasadena Community College for you folks West of La Brea. Last spring I started taking night classes with the intention of learning more about the Studio Production environment. I took 2 classes last year; Audio for Media & Video Controls Lab. I aced both classes and had a lot of fun in the process. This semester the only class that fits into my schedule is an AVID Editing Systems class. Our first class meeting was last night, it's a one night a week class from 5pm - 10:30pm...damn! That's a long time. It'll go quickly once we start working on projects but last night we were forced to listen to a brand-new-to-teaching teacher, but not new to editing (thank god), ramble on and on and on about how fabulous AVID is. We all were like "great, now let us outta here" by about an hour into class. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

This leads me to a realization that I had recently that I REALLY like going to night school. I already have a degree so all of this learning is an enhancement to job skills that I may need down the road. I encourage anyone who has a free night or two to look into classes at a local community college. I know I'm addicted...I was looking through the course catalogue and wanting to take all sorts of odd classes...accounting, business management, legal assisting, spanish and oh so much more.
Recently I had a chance to look back at my transcripts from CSULB, I think my motto at the time was "C's get Degrees" because iI graduated with a nice C- average. Thankfully I'm doing better the second time around...it's the maturity thing I'm sure.

Off to San Francisco tomorrow for the holiday weekend. Have fun everyone!

Culture Clash

Monday, August 30, 2004

Greetings. I hope everyone had a brilliant weekend. I know I did.

Instead of boring you with a synopsis of the alcoholic beverages I drank this weekend (mostly cosmos) and with whom they were drunk...drank....drinked...you get the picture, I have decided to ed-u-ma-cate my fellow Angelenos about a local Latino/Chicano theatre comedy group called Culture Clash. The group now consists of 3 supremely talented individuals; Richard Montoya, Herbert Siguenza and Ric Salinas. I was introduced to Culture Clash last year when I went to see their show Chavez Ravine at the Mark Taper Forum. Cross your fingers that this piece will return in the near future as I will definitely be a one-woman-mad-marketing-campaign for it. Chavez Ravine taught me, a mini-historian of all things Los Angeles, all about the messy politics and corruption involved in erecting Dodger Stadium. Their current show, in AmeriCCa, which just completed a limited engagement run in Hollywood is a collection of stories and sketches culled from interviews with people all over the U.S. Any explanation by me would seriously do them an injustice but let me say that if you ever get a chance to see them, GO!!! You will laugh your ass off and possibly come away from the theatre with a lesson or two learned...like how to tell the difference between a Cubano, Puerto Rican & Mexican by how they dance the Salsa. Good times were had by all.