Our friend, Greg Simkins, recently held his first solo art show at Gallery 1988. You can see photos of his art on the Gallery 1988 website. There is a nice series of photos from the preparation for the show up through the show itself on this blog.

UPCOMING SHOWS

Sunday, Nov. 19th: 7-10pm
"DIAMONDS SPADES HEARTS CLUBS"
The art of Linkin Park / Fort Minor's Mike Shinoda and collaborative works with Greg Simkins, Gary Baseman, Dalek, Seen, and Mr. Hahn
Gallery 1988, 7020 Melrose Ave., (at La Brea), Los Angeles, CA 90038

Thursday, Dec. 7th: 7-10pm
"THE VIVISECT PLAYSET (ROUND 3)"
Group art exhibition curated by Luke Chueh
Gallery 1988, 7020 Melrose Ave., (at La Brea), Los Angeles, CA 90038, www.gallery1988.com

Saturday, Dec. 9th: 8-11:30pm
"15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY"
Group art exhibition - Premeire Book Release
Copro/Nason Gallery, 2525 Michigan Avenue T5, Santa Monica, CA 90404, www.copronason.com

Saturday, Dec. 9th: 7pm-12am
"WINTER WONDERLAND"
Group art exhibition
Project, 8545 Washington Blvd. (near Helms Bakery), Culver City, CA 90232, www.project.bz

Greg will have his next SOLO SHOW at FIFTY24SF Gallery in San Francisco on Feb. 1st!

Labels: Art, Events, Friends, Local Outings

Well, birthdays are supposed to be fun, right? I mean, I realize many people get to a certain age and simply just dread turning another year. But birthdays should be a celebration! Well, this year, mine was.

First of all, my wonderful husband was home. For the first time in five years, my birthday managed to fall on a day when he wasn't traveling or otherwise unescapably commited. Last year, he flew to Australia. The two years before were the men's retreat. The first year we were married, he was a groomsman in our best man's wedding and the bachelor party was that night. This year? This year, he was scheduled to fly to Maui the day before my birthday. When told of the impending schedule, he told them that if he wasn't home on my birthday this year, he'd have no home to return to. (He was, of course, kidding; however, the gesture and his determination to be here was greatly appreciated!)

I received a couple of birthday greetings a day or two early. On the night before my birthday, I was playing bzflag with some friends of mine. One is in Germany (Bernie) and one in Utah (Sol). Well, it was certainly my birthdate in Germany - and Bernie was sure to let me know! He not only wished me happy birthday repeatedly, he wouldn't let me sign off until it was my birthday HERE so he could "officially" wish me a happy birthday! Finally, a while after midnight, I said goodnight to Sol & Bernie and got some sleep.

In the morning, Kirk surprised me by setting up a special playlist on iTunes - all containing songs with "birthday", "happy" and "I love you" themes, like "Birthday" (The Beatles), "A Happy Ending" (The Princess Bride Soundtrack), "Donna" (Los Lobos), "The Girl I Love" (Tony Bennett) and "So Happy Together" (The Turtles). It was incredibly sweet and fun! We chatted for a while and finally he had to head off to work. I listened to that playlist all day.

On irc, we have our own channel - it's a small little place (##essy) that a number of bzflaggers and a few other friends visit. Well, Kirk had changed the topic on the channel to let everyone know it was my birthday. Consequently, people were cheerful and fun and we had a sort of virtual party there during the day. One of my GU teammates, romfis, had spammed most of the irc channels along with each team I'm on with a link to the GU Forums, where NTH had posted a birthday topic for me. Kierra did the same on the ducati forums. I was surprised to see a greeting from one of my teammates who, just a few months ago, complained about the posting of "birthday topics". So many people went out of their way to wish me a good day - it was almost a bit overwhelming (but completely and totally appreciated)! I even discovered a voicemail (gah, I picked the wrong day to forget to turn on the ringer for my phone!) from the "Baron clan", in which they, along with my friend Val, sang me a rather muddled, off-key and completely wonderful rendition of "Happy Birthday".

In late morning, Kirk pinged me to say that my birthday present had been delivered. It was shipped to my work address, so he suggested I go pick it up. I was pretty sure I knew what it was. Last week, when we were in Berkeley, tokimi had pinged me to say that Apple had just announced an 80 gb ipod. Now, I've been complaining for months that 40 gb simply isn't big enough. I was hoping for a 150 gb the size of a nano. Yes, yes, I know - it's a bit of a pipe dream, but 80 gb is almost enough to fit about 70% of our current music library (yes, I've been collecting CDs since I was in college - Kirk was happy to marry into so much music). So, when I heard an 80 gb was available, I immediately sent the link to Kirk and said "wow! check this out!" He said "cool! I guess it's a good thing I hadn't bought your birthday present yet, huhn?" So...I was pretty sure I knew what I'd be getting. And I did!

Of course, I immediately took it home, opened it up and started loading music on it. It takes a while to load 80 gb! With the OS and software loaded on the ipod, I had 74.37 gb of usable space. I'm using every little bit and byte. Funnily, it's actually slightly smaller in size than my 40 gb, and the screen is bigger. AND in colour! Now I need a new case, as my old one doesn't fit it properly. Since my old ipod is going to Kirk (his old one died), he will inherit my case too, once I get a new case.

While waiting for my 74.37 gb to transfer over, I played some bzflag. Pimpinella had put up a banner on the dub servers wishing me a happy birthday. (It's interesting how I was turning everything from 16 to 90-something, depending upon who was wishing me a good day! In fact, the answer to my age IS the answer.)

In the early afternoon, my doorbell rang. Now, for the last two and a half weeks (it seems longer!), we have had our lives and apartments turned upside down while they repipe the whole building. They are replacing all of our copper piping. There isn't a single room in our small apartment this isn't affected. We've been waiting for several days for them to finish our apartment (they're done with the repipe, but havne't closed up all the walls), so I presumed that the door was just one of the wallboarding guys coming back to finish up. I was shocked to see a man standing at my door with a huge bouquet of beautiful red roses! I happily accepted the delivery and discovered my wonderful husband had sent them to me!

I knew that Kirk was planning something for that evening - presumably including dinner, so I didn't have to cook. He actually arrived home a full hour earlier than I expected, but then said he had to go run an errand and left. He was home about 40 minutes later. He had a cake and a beautiful card for me! But of course, we were going to have dinner first.

Just as I was almost ready to walk out the door, the doorbell rang (again). What now? It was a delivery for me. I opened the huge box to find ANOTHER flower arrangement...I looked at Kirk quizzically and he shook his head. There was a note - my friends Dianne & Jeff had send the flowers! Cool! Kirk put the flowers in water and we headed out.

I love surprises. It's really hard for Kirk to surprise me - I'm very curious and he's a horrible liar (which is a very good thing, but not conducive to being surprised often). But in this case, I had studiously attempted not to ask him anything about what we were doing, and he had done his part by not bringing it up. I knew it couldn't be too far - we could get there within 15 minutes according to him. We drove down to Hermosa Beach, toward my old house. In fact, a block and a half from my old house! There's a beautiful, well-known little Italian restaurant (called The Bottle Inn) down there that, despite having lived right by it for 18 months and still very close for another another 4 years, I had never been. The menu was divine! It was extremely hard to make a decision, but I finally selected the Risotto Al Filetto and Kirk selected the Conchilioni. We had an appetizer of Calamari - possibly the best I've ever had. It was served in a giant martini glass. The atmosphere was both romantic and conducive to good conversation. We were at a table that was suitably secluded and in a quiet enough location to have conversation without straining our voices or our ears.

I thought we would manage to sneak out the door without any "birthday" hoopla, but (when asked if we wanted to order dessert) Kirk mentioned we were heading home to get some birthday cake and of course, they were back moments later with a small dish of chocolate mousse and loud voices.

After dinner, we took a nice walk along the strand in Hermosa Beach. It has been so long since we've done that, and despite my completely unsuitable (and clacky) shoes, we had a very nice time! All-in-all, it was a fantastic day - certainly the best birthday I can remember ever having! Thanks to everyone who made it so special!

Labels: Acquisitions, Bzflag, Events, Family, Food, IRC, Local Outings, Music, Technology

Yesterday was Christmas - it was both busy and surprising. We had a great time in the morning with Kirk's family. Kirk's mom got a kitten for Christmas! It is soooo cute, I played with it a good bit of time. Kirk's mom, however, wasn't feeling very well - she had trouble breathing and had sharp pains whenever she tried to move.

Kirk and I drove her back to Seal Beach - he in her car and I followed in the Jeep. After we got there, we made her call a doctor. He told her to go to the emergency room. Off we went. While we waited for hours for them to see her and then figure out what was wrong, I sat in the waiting room (they wouldn't let us both back to her room) and played with my new game, Bop It Extreme 2, trying not to annoy everyone in the waiting room.

Eventually, Kirk came out and said we should go grab some dinner while they waited for some test results to come back. He started out looking for a fast food place that was open. It was Christmas night. Kelley had cooked lamb for dinner, but there was no way we had time to go all the way up there for dinner and come back. Nothing was open! Eventually, we found a Dave & Buster's that was open and we sat down and had dinner there. The food was not bad - certainly it was better than fast food!

When we returned to the hospital, Kirk's mom had been discharged a few minutes before, and instead of waiting for us, she drove home! Eeek! We went to the house and beat her there. We waited and eventually she showed up.

The doctors had told her she had bronchitis and pluracy. Ick! We put her to bed and went home (we found out a couple of days later that she also had a broken rib - from coughing too much - that they missed the first time around).

Today, we played with Kirk's ipod and started ripping our CDs. It's going to take a while and I suspect we'll be well over the estimated 10,000 songs it holds.

Labels: Family, Games, Health, Holidays, Local Outings, Music

Hooray! It's December! One of my favorite times of year! A month or so ago, I asked Kirk to hold Sunday (December 5th) open for a "date". We haven't been doing much in the way of dating lately, so it seemed like a good idea.

Unbeknownst to him, a group of girls (we are married and all our husbands hang out together too) had decided to take our husbands to the Mission Inn to see their Festival of Lights. The Inn is pretty cool - it was initially built in 1876 (and no, it was NEVER a mission - only a boarding house). I'd never been there, so I was excited.

The day we picked turned out to be quite rainy! I was hoping the rain would quit by the time we went out there. It's about an hour drive from here. I herded Kirk out to the car, dressed in warm clothing. Then we drove across the street and picked up some friends (they were hiding in the Von's parking lot). Neither of our husbands knew where we were going. The other two couples drove out in a separate car. James & Gia (who rode with us) are hilarious! And it was really fun listening to James & Kirk spout off a steady stream of guesses as to where we were going!

When we arrived, it wasn't quite dark yet. When I said surprise, Kirk said "This is IT?!" Ha! we walked around the entire place and decided to stop into a coffee shop and have something to warm up (and wait for the other 2 couples to show). Kirk was definitely happier when the lights went on and Mike & Anita and Garret & Ambre showed up. The Inn was beautiful! There were lights everywhere on the city-block sized inn - even on the palm trees surrounding the it! Kirk loves photography and took pictures practically every where we went (if you're surprised, don't be - check out our RTW page and you'll see!) We could hear carollers, but they seemed to be somewhere else at the time. We stopped in a little gift shop that led through to the inner courtyard. Once in the courtyard, we actually got to see a boy propose to his girlfriend while we were in there! It was soooo sweet!

Eventually, we headed inside the hotel. Much of it was not open to the general public (apparently, it's quite a tourist attraction during the holidays. While inside, we finally caught up with the carollers. They sounded fabulous! It made me miss the days when such thing was rather common in neighborhoods.

Finally, we headed back outside. We had all decided to grab dinner together somewhere. We had not made reservations at the inn and it looked to be rather pricey anyway. We decided to head over to the Old Spaghetti Factory, which was just down the street. After a quick photo op at the Inn entrance, we headed over for dinner!

Dinner was wonderful and we even closed the place down! All in all, it was a great date (can I say that even though I got to plan it?).

Labels: Food, Friends, Holidays, Local Outings

Kirk and I had a great date last night! First, someone had given us free tickets to go see the Ten Commandments musical at the Kodak Theatre (the same theatre where the Academy Awards Ceremony is held). So, after arranging for some friends to come with, Kirk suggested we go out to dinner in Hollywood (near the theatre) before the show.

So, James & Gia and Kirk & I headed up to a little restaurant that our friend Steve had suggested (thanks, Steve! It was great), "Off Vine". The food was amazing! Kirk got the grilled pork chops (yummy!!) and Gia got the smoked mozarella & chicken ravioli. Both dishes were amazing! James and I each ordered linguine - I got chicken and he got seafood. They were good, too, but the flavors on the other dishes were really wonderful! The restaurant was in an old house, built in 1908. It was a wonderful setting for a date!

After dinner, we headed over to the Hollywood & Highland complex, which houses the Kodak Theatre. After parking in the handicapped section (there are definitely advantages to having a broken ankle), we wandered around for a few minutes before heading in and find our seats. It turned out that we were about 8 rows back from the stage in the orchestra level! The seats were great! As we got settled, one of the ushers came by and told us that after the show, the cast and crew were going to do a meet & greet, Q&A session if we wanted to stay! Cool!

The big draw for this show, of course, is Val Kilmer. It was a little hard to think of the guy made famous by "Real Genius" as Moses (even though he was the voice of Moses in Prince of Egypt). However, all the promotions for the show assure you that he CAN, indeed, sing.

When the show started, we discovered that he can sing, however, he had obviously strained his voice - he was quite raspy. There was another guy in the play - Adam Lambert, playing the part of the Joshua - who had a simply AMAZING voice! It was unreal, really! However, I found myself throughout the rest of the production watching and listening, hoping he'd have another solo. He didn't, but the one he HAD performed made the whole show worth watching (if it weren't already). On the whole, the performance was quite enjoyable. There was one scene in the second act (the Golden Calf) that was not appropriate for children (and possibly not for adults - it was quite lewd). Otherwise, despite the fact that Val Kilmer was the weakest vocal link, we had a great time.

After the show, we moved to seats even closer to the stage and get settled in, awaiting the cast. The theatre cleared out quite quickly. There were about 30 or 40 folks who stayed behind for the meet & greet. Val Kilmer and several other cast members (including the four young boys who were in the cast) came out to meet us and answer questions. Val was quite funny, really! He had a quip for practically every question that came up - and they were witty, seemingly spontaneous answers. One person in the audience asked what they did to keep their voices in condition. Val answered, "Not enough, apparently."

Labels: Food, Friends, Local Outings, Theatre

Well, I am now exhausted! Yesterday, Kirk took Patrick to Go Kart World in the morning. Our church was sponsoring a Father/Son outing in honor of Father's Day. They had a great time. Meanwhile, I stayed home and made a picnic lunch. We then headed up to the La Brea Tar Pits and the Page Museum to have a picnic lunch and explore a bit.

It was a typical "June Gloom" day - rather chilly, in fact. We hung around outside for a bit, and then went in to wander around the museum.

Afterwards, we went down to Laguna Hills to see Kirk's parents. We took Kirk's dad out to a Father's Day Dinner (a day early).

Today, Kirk and I went to church and then to a play put on by the Southern California Youth Theatre, "Peter Pan". Several of the kids from our church were performing. It was really fun - they had even rented about $10,000 worth of high flying gear for the play. You can read more about it on Kirk's blog.

Labels: Family, Local Outings, Theatre

Today, we took Patrick to Universal Studios. I hadn't ever been to the Universal in California (that I remember, anyway). And it's been at least 12 years since I went to Universal in Florida. Things have changed!

We arrived about 10 minutes after the park opened, and we started out with a nice little tour around the Universal Studios lot. It was interesting, and Patrick really seemed to enjoy it. Then we proceeded to visit every single ride and show on the lot (well, we DID skip one of the kiddie areas where you get drenched to the bone, and we missed a haunted house, because Patrick didn't wanna go, but we saw EVERYTHING else).

By the time, we were finished, it was about 4:30 - just in time to hit the Friday afternoon traffic heading out of downtown LA (yuck!). We went back down to Seal Beach and met Kelley and her family, and Kirk's mom for dinner at a little seafood restaurant. The food was pretty good.

Patrick came home with us again tonight. He and Kirk are going Go-Karting tomorrow morning.

Labels: Family, Local Outings