sha in LA

think blue

So yesterday I was driving around doing some errands and listening to the Dodgers game on the radio like the good fan that I am. It was the 4th inning and Jeff Weaver was not having the best outing of his career, getting pulled from the game after giving up a 3 run homer. Disgustingly I turned off the radio and mumbled something under my breath that sounded similar to "fudge." Great beginning of the season huh?

Later in the day I was responding to an e-mail from a friend who has about 10 tickets to various Dodgers games this season. The e-mail he sent was riddled with typos so I assumed he had been to the debacle earlier in the day and quelled his disgust with some fine watered down tap beer, or a stiff martini at the Stadium Club. Wanting to know the final outcome of the game I logged onto to the Dodgers website and low and behold what do I see? We won?!?!!!? Well hot damn. Way to go boys, thanks for makin' momma proud.

I'll be at Dodger Stadium in person this coming Saturday night for their game against the Padres. Now if we can just get Gagne off the injured list....

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post exchange blues

Wow. I'm beat. Why haven't I learned to take Monday off after an exchange? And to top it off I'm sick. All of my homeopathic drugs couldn't stop this. Damn.

Things started off smashingly. On the redeye flight to DC someone near me was gastrologically challenged and the girl sitting next to me had a horrific cold but was really good at disguising the fact by silent sneezing the entire time. All the while I'm attempting to sleep and popping herbs like wildfire.

Thursday was the longest day ever. It started out with me landing in DC at 7am Thursday morning. I went to the rental car place and got handed keys to my "economy" car, a Jeep Laredo. It's the mega-daddy to the Jeep Grand Cherokee. They had no other car for me so I got it at the economy price of $14 dollars a day thereby becoming a "soccer-mom" for the weekend. Jeez, I don't even drive a SUV in Los Angeles.

Around noon I was finally able to meet up with the hostess with the mostest Carrie, she has a killer pad in Bethesda and graciously let me crash at her place. YAY for Carrie! She showed me the area and I got some groceries and was finally able to nap around 3:30 for a few hours. That evening was the un-official start to the weekend festivities.

Friday morning, up bright and early at 10am. Met with a relative and then took the Metro into DC to The National Gallery of Art and the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibit. Every time I go to DC and walk around I get a little nostalgic. I spent the first 18 years of my life in that area and believe that it's the best place in the world to grow up. How many times have I walked on the grass/gravel pathways of the National Mall? To the East the Capitol, to the West the Washington Monument, to the North and South...museums. To top it off the weather was sunny and 75. Later that afternoon another nap was needed. That evening was a dance at the Bumper Car Pavilion at Glen Echo and late night at CCB's in D.C. In between the events I met AsianAlan, he's my new D.C. drinkin' buddy. Gotta love a boy who brings a flask to events. Go ALAN! Stayed out until 3:00am.

Saturday morning got up way too early because I went on a walking tour of Capitol Hill. If I were ever to go back and live in the area this would definitely be tops on the list. I'd have to have lots of $$ to do it but a girl can dream can't she? Later on that day we had an awesome dinner at Thaiphoon. Then I took a nap. Anyone seeing a trend here? The evening dance was back at Glen Echo but this time we were in the magnificent Spanish Ballroom. Afterwards, throngs of swing dancers descended upon the Silver Diner to re-fuel for late night which was at the Hollywood Ballroom. I closed the place down staying until 5:30am. Finally got to bed at 6:30 am Sunday morning. The fun part was waking up at noon to pack and go to Dupont Circle for a last goodbye.

I think the kicker of the weekend was waiting for nearly 40 minutes to get out of the parking lot at LAX because the credit card machines were down and they had to process all CC transactions by hand. Now that's fun.

All the while this weekend I was fighting an illness that has now consumed my body. I wasn't gonna let a cold ruin my fun but I just can't put up a fight anymore so I succumb. Can you tell? I'm not as peppy on the keyboard today.

A big THANK YOU to all the fabulous leads from the past weekend...in no particular order: Kevin, Paul, Raj, James, Issac, Hyong, Kirk, Travis, Byron, Jason, Jason, Bob, Chris, Ryan, Phil, Dorry, Andy, Mickey, Becker, Alan and anyone else I happened to miss.

Carrie also deserves a special nod for putting up with me dragging her to Saturday night and late night even though she wasn't feeling well.

Photos are up!

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leaving on a jet plane

Tonight I leave for a fun filled weekend in our nations capital...Washington, D.C.

I'll be dancing my little patooty off for the next few days. There will be a small amount of time dedicated to a walking tour of Capitol Hill seeing as how I'd like to see another tour guide in action. But for the most part my weekend will look like this: eat, sleep, dance, sleep, eat, dance, sleep, eat, drink, dance, dance, eat, sleep, drink, dance. Or something to that effect.

This will probably interest no one but if you're curious check out this link.

I shall return to my blogging duties on Monday!

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exploring Spring Street

Yesterday The Los Angeles Conservancy hosted a special walking tour of Spring Street. Once the Financial Center of Los Angeles, Spring Street is undergoing a huge growth in today's changing face of Downtown. Adaptive Reuse is the catch-phrase of the moment, to people not familiar with that terminology it means converting a building that was once used as a commercial property (ie. office) into mixed use residential/commercial (ie. lofts).

My partner in crime (literally) for the day was Eric. Eric and I are known for finding open doors in buildings that lead to places not normally open for public access. We've found ourselves in the middle of a construction zone inside of a building being converted, a stairwell that led to no open doors except for the one leading to the street...thank god....and a Mexican restaurant behind a treasured Art Deco building.

Yesterday was no departure from the norm. We started the tour at the old Van Nuys Building on 7th and Spring. Not much to see there except for some sweet elevator cabs and carved marble banister. NEXT.

The tour de force in as far as our inquisitiveness came at out second stop, the Pacific Stock Exchange. There is now a nightclub located on the old trading floor of this interesting Art Deco building. We were herded up to the trading floor in groups of about 15-20 while a docent gave details about it's history. Eric marveled at the vintage signage and bad neon as I wondered what kind of clientele the place catered to and if I would seem devastatingly out of place if I had the urge to shake my groove thing here some Friday night. When the docent was wrapping things up I spotted a restroom and, having the tiniest bladder known to man, needed to pee. When I was done Eric came up to me and whispered, "doors in the back are open." Needless to say we meandered to them and slipped away into the building undetected. Upstairs we found a room that was most likely a private dining club. It was entirely in disrepair with paint peeling from the walls and dead bird skeletons. Yum. Eric took massive amounts of photos of the interior. I took pictures of buildings across the street, The Hayward Hotel, and Eric roaming a room filled with old doors. We went up another few flights of stairs and found abandoned offices and such but nothing as interesting as the original room.

Our next stop was the Security Bank Building. The highlight of this building was the old bank vaults that are being converted into a hipster bar by Marc Smith. He and his former partner Cedd Moses opened the Golden Gopher recently on 8th Street (near Hill). This place is gonna be nice. The main thing you notice when you walk around this space is the interesting rock walls. Well, it's not really walls that you're looking at, it's the foundation of Spring Street. Yes kids, the FOUNDATION for the street above. Look at the pictures I have posted from this event, you can see what I'm talking about in more detail. There will be a bar along one side and at least one of the main vaults will hold a lounge area. The vault doors are stunning in and of themselves. I couldn't get a good pic of the main vault but was able to get a of one further away and cordoned off.

Next up was the most disappointing stop of the day. The Mercantile Arcade Building. This is a loft conversion and the worst one I've seen to date. I do believe I overheard someone refer to it as a "Home Depot special." Odd choice of kitchen cabinetry. And although I am a big proponent of actually having the ability to close off the bedroom from the main portion of the living area - their choice of oversize sliding glass shower doors just didn't do it for me. Plus the $2 per SF price tag for something not well done at all sealed the non-deal. On a side note, this building is one of the ones that Eric and I were able to explore about a year ago when they had just started to undergo conversions. It seemed promising at the time.

Next 2 stops...the insanely beautiful and haunted 1913 Stowell Hotel, later know as the El Dorado Hotel and the Douglas Building Lofts. The El Dorado is next up for conversion by Goodwin Gaw and Tom Gilmore. They also teamed up on the stunning Douglas Building Lofts just down the street. The El Dorado has a massive two story lobby area that encompasses the entire ground floor footprint of the building. Rumor has it that a restaurant similar to Cicada will utilize the space once renovation has been completed. These lofts will be for sale with the smallest units at 800+ SF and starting around $350K....that's an estimate. As I stated earlier the developers are the same as the Douglas Building Lofts and those sold out prior to the building being completed. 34 units were leased on the first day of availability alone! If you're interested in buying downtown I'd say keep you're eye on this property. Definitely.

Douglas Building Lofts note, GAS STOVES! Yay! As we walked into the viewing unit, mind you everything in this building has been sold so this is just for reference to see what the developers will most likely do with the El Dorado, the first thing I notice is it has a gas stove. I'm thrilled when I see gas stoves as I cannot stand electric stoves and would never consider buying a loft with one. Needless to say the designer who just happened to be in the unit at the time heard my exclamation and smiled. I asked him if the El Dorado would be gas as well and he said "yes." To the powers that be, a resounding Thank You!

Final stop on the tour was the Los Angeles Times building, most specifically the lobby that contains 4 murals done by the famous Art Deco muralist Hugo Ballin. Other places around the city you can see his works are Griffith Observatory, One Bunker Hill, Title Guarantee and Trust and...I forget. Oops. Also on display is a huge bronze (?) eagle that once stood at the top of the old Los Angeles Times building. Back in 1910, there was strife between the unions and the owners of the newspaper. The building was bombed and about 20 people lost their life, the building sustained extensive damage but this eagle statue survived and is displayed prominently in the lobby. Yeah, that was an uninteresting story on my part, it's much better when told by others...read and look at this for a much more interesting account. Note the eagle at the top of the building.

After our exhausting walk we fueled up in Little Tokyo at Frying Fish. A sushi joint that serves the food via a conveyor belt, a must for any visitor to the area. Afterwards, ice cream! Because you can't have sushi without ending it on a sweet note.

Make sure to enjoy the pictures from the adventure!

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