Work Field Trip #2

I am so impressed by the "electronic age". I can't believe how many places have wireless internet. Such a great resource for a remote worker like myself. Where is Shannon today?

Last night Brigitte was experiencing some back pain so we brought her to Little Company of Mary hospital where they admitted her to do some tests. Apparently because lobotomists need wireless to use their tools, they made the whole hospital wireless. So I've been blessed again to be able to work from here while Brigitte is sleeping.

A big thank you to everyone who has been praying for Brigitte since last night. God has truly blessed me with a circle of Christian friends that are a text message away and a job that has enabled me to care for Brigitte and the kids and still work.

Work Field Trip

My teacher friends have summer teacher field trips so thought I'd blog about my work field trip (basically change in work environment while Brigitte is giving French lessons) to the Palm/Overland Los Angeles Public Library and some of the things I've learned during the time spent there.

Before I go into that though, when I was little my mom used to take me weekly to our Stockton library and Bookmobile (library on wheels essentially - it was like a bread truck - you know those white ones that deliver bread to the grocery store and it would park on random streets on certain days and we would go to the specified location and check out books). When I was little, my favorite book was the Teeny Tiny Woman. I would check it out over and over again.

During the summer, I was always in the summer reading challenge where you had your name on an index card size paper and every book I read, I got one of those gold foiled stars.

Needless to say, I have continued to be an avid reader but probably stopped going to the public library around 14 when hanging with friends pulled me away and Waldenbooks, B.Dalton and Crown Books got big (remember those bookstores before Barnes and Noble and Borders and Amazon.com took over the book world). Anyways Brigitte does her french tutoring at the library so its my second time back since I was 14 (first was last Friday). I know kind of strange that I haven't been to the Gundo library.

So my thoughts.
The library is loud. I remember when I was little I had to be very, very quiet and not talk. Now there are people talking at tables, cell phones going off and conversations ensuing.

There are a few odd characters that hang out at the library (random guy that was here last week and this week talking to himself wearing the same clothes he was wearing last week). I remember that my mom used to let me peruse the children and young adult books by myself while she went and looked for books for her. I don't think I would let my kids do that now.

There are VHS tapes, DVDs and CDs that can be checked out.

I'm getting old - I lived in a day of card catalogs and microfiche and the librarian stamping the card in the pocket in the front cover with the date that the book was due. Now I hand the librarian (seems strange to call a 30 year old guy that I would expect to work at Foot Locker a librarian) my keys because I have a scanner thing like my Ralph's Club that allows me to check out books and I get a computerize receipt with a list of the books and the date they are due.

Free wireless internet - I can work here.

Found two new books on my "to read" list - The Appeal by John Grisham and Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult - that I checked out. Saved $30 by getting them there.

That's all for now. I've got to get reading - The Appeal is due in 7 days...

Come Hang Out With Us

As the weather is getting warmer and the sun is out all the time, I decided that I wanted to get a bistro type table and chairs to be able to sit outside and enjoy a cool beverage and some food, read a book, hang out with friends. So i started scouring the internet and stores for a cute table and chairs. I ended up finding this cute one at IKEA.

As God has blessed me with a job that enables me to work from home (or at the time of this post - the Palm - Overland Public Library while Brigitte is doing her french tutoring), you may find me working at the table during the day.

So Yogi and I invite you to come hang out.

I'm back

Sorry its been so long since I posted. Not much going on after St. Patty's day and then this last week has been pretty crazy with taking Brigitte to the ER last Friday. We thought it was related to the tumor in her lung but it ended up being excruciating pain from two little bike falls a few weeks ago and a massage she had on Thursday which resulted in a pinched nerve and possible hairline fracture of her rib. Anyways she's okay now although still really groggy every day from all the pain meds, as you can see she decided that we needed to clean my kitchen window. This was just the start - it also involved taking the screen and window off and q-tips in the crevices.

Nope the apartment is still under construction...

There's a new Peruvian restaurant in the Gundo on Main Street (next to Chef Hannes) that opened a few weeks ago that I decided to check out on Saturday. John Mo's mom's friend owns it. Food was really good - definitely recommend stopping by.

Happy St. Patty's Day

Did you wear green on Monday?

I was pretty surprised at how many people really celebrate St. Patrick's Day and conscientiously wear green. There were alot of guys at the gym wearing green shorts and some interesting hats worn by the Ralph's employees. Also saw some guy wearing a bright green soccer shirt tucked into his khakis. I'm sure there were more "green" sightings but those were the only places I went today and when you work from home there aren't any co-workers to comment on.

Anyways my mom raised me to be big on traditions. One of those was eating corned beef and cabbage for dinner every St. Patrick's Day. So I got out my crock pot this morning and started slow cooking the corned beef. Pretty cool that its called Shannon corned beef, huh?


8 hours later I had tender corned beef with a bit of cabbage and of course my asian staple, rice. I know its a bit odd (others in the past who have shared corned beef with me have asked where are the potatoes) but my mom always served it with rice. Looking forward to some corned beef sandwiches this week.

Around The World in Seven Courses

This past weekend the Swensons hosted one of the Outlet's Dinner By Designs. We got to travel "around the world" in the comfort of their home as they had prepared seven courses from different parts of the world.

Dana made this super cute menu itinerary to prepare us for our travels.

Sorry not alot of pics. Camera is having issues and there are all these blue lines running through my screen that seem to be coming through on the pictures. It might be time for a new camera or I might really need to come up with quality thoughts to blog about.

You've Gotta Know When To Hold 'Em, Know When To Fold 'Em

Allison and Nickki kicked off our Ladies Poker Nights by hosting our first poker night this past Friday at their place.

Being ladies, of course, it's all about the outfit so we headed to Walgreens to grab our $4.99 Texas Hold 'Em Poker t-shirts.

Brandon was gracious enough or perhaps because as he said, "I've got a Fat Tire in the frig" (not sure my female readers are going to get that) to explain (and re-explain) the rules and strategy of the game to us for several hours.

I'm definitely going to have to improve my poker face, apparently I'm a bit too expressive. I was the first one out. I had a few hands that I folded after the "flop" that would have turned out to be winning hands if I had waited for the "river". Finally I got a straight and went all in only to have Angela beat me with a stronger straight. So this really isn't my poker face, I was just entertaining Allison when she came out after me.

Open The Bottle Night

Open The Bottle Night was created in the late 1990s by John Brecher and Dorothy Gaiter, who wrote a wine column for the Wall Street Journal. They had noted that many people would buy special bottles of wine, store them in their homes or wine cellars and never opened them because they were deemed "too special" for almost any occasion. Dottie and John thought that once a year people should get together with their friends and "open that bottle".

Matt & Becky opened up their home for their 3rd Annual Open The Bottle Night. I've been out of town for the past 2 so I was pretty excited to go this year.

Three years ago, I think I actually had a great story to go with my bottle of wine, but I'm sure I drank it between then and now so I brought a Rosenblum 2006 Petite Sirah that my Auntie Jann introduced me to this past Thanksgiving and a Sunstone Syrah dessert wine. There were wines that traveled from as far as Italy to as close as local establishments in the Gundo. Each had their own story, some with a few embellishments.

A Bit Disappointed...

I don't know about you, but it kind of bugs me when I have my mind set on something food related and then its not available. So here are my issues over the past month.

1. I think I sort of noticed about 2 months ago that I wasn't seeing Wonder white bread on the shelves of several grocery stores in the South Bay (namely Ralph's, Vons, Cooke's and the Air Force Commissary). Wonder is a staple so I just figured they were out of it. About a month ago, I was craving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which is best on soft white Wonder bread (yeah I know wheat is healthier now but I still love super soft white bread for PB&J) so I headed to Ralph's to purchase said Wonder. Apparently they weren't out of stock. I can't find it anywhere.

2. My friend, Jen Carpenter, always orders the Blue Cheese Tri Tip sandwich whenever we go to Sharkeez (mostly during football season). I was never inclined to order it although she raved about it because I've always had dry steak sandwiches. Finally this past November, I decided to order it. It was AMAZING!!! French roll toasted with butter and garlic, topped with thinly sliced onion rings, tender tri tip, blue cheese crumbles. Am I making your mouth water? Had another one in January. Well...I went to Sharkeez this weekend all set to order this sandwich. When it comes out, it looks so different that I immediately tell the waiter that he brought me the wrong sandwich because there is a fat roll without any butter or garlic and some creamy mayonnaise looking sauce on the roll. The onions and the tri tip are still there. The manager comes out and explains that management has decided to take blue cheese crumbles off their list of items but assures me that low end blue cheese dressing will taste better and this sandwich is better than before, just different. Yeah it wasn't.

3. Decided to make chicken quesadillas for dinner tonight with Sam and Sarah since Brigitte was going out to dinner. I like to put my quesadillas with corn and mexican rice. Not just any mexican rice though, its a Lawry's mexican rice spice mix that you put with your own rice (I use Calrose rice so its kind of a mexican/japanese cross culture thing but it makes for super good mexican rice). I forgot to get it when I was at Ralph's earlier (yes I'm still shopping there even though they've discontinued carrying Wonder bread), but I recalled seeing it at Cooke's so I headed over there. Nope didn't have it so I headed back to Ralph's. They didn't have it either. So I ended up with Knorr Mexican Rice mix which wasn't so good and none of us ate. I'm sure I can find it somewhere else but at 530p I wasn't about to traverse the South Bay. The rest of the meal was super good though.

So that's my 3 food disappointments. I realize it's pretty petty in the big scheme of things, but sometimes I just have to find something to blog about...

SHANNONCUTS

So I've never been to Cosmetology school, but the first month of college late one night this guy Mike let Natalie and I cut his mullet (no I'm not that old but for some reason he had a mullet in 1996). Unfortunately I can't find any pics of my first try at giving a haircut, but I did go on for the rest of my freshman and sophomore college years to cut all of my guy friends' hair. I learned how to cut hair with scissors and clippers, fades, and use thinning shears. It was pretty lucrative business at $5 a haircut, and they had to clean up. I probably did about 15-20 haircuts a month.

It's been about 10 years since I had done any haircuts (other than one haircut for Dave a few years back when he couldn't get into his hair stylist), but I excitedly busted out my clippers when Sam decided he wanted to shave off his hair.

Here's a shot of some of the hair gone, and it looking like he was a member of the Flock of Seagulls. I told him all the high school girls would love his hair like that.

Here's the finished cut. Pretty simple. I know I look like I'm midget in this pic but seriously I'm standing up and over 5 feet tall.