snow patrol

last night i attended the snow patrol concert at the greek theatre, possibly the coolest venue i've ever been to. it's an outdoor arena in the hollywood hills (by a lot of lovely homes i would be happy to inhabit).

kelly woodbury aida, my BFF since like 1998, is living in CA for the summer to finish her BA and invited me to join her. we had sweet seats in the very front row and had a lot of fun!

:) note the lead singer above our heads:

Our first shooting!

So I (Brandon) was taking the garbage out after a Sunday dinner, when I saw our cat-lady-without-a-cat neighbor came running into the complex (it was more of a quick waddle), completely out of breath. I asked her if everything was OK, and I faintly understood the words, "Shooting." So I went outside where I found another neighbor looking on, who confirmed that she heard 4 gun shots and that it never happens on this street -- usually on the one just a block over or down from ours, which didn't comfort me much, but in LA I guess one street over means a lot (the photo is about 6 houses down from ours -- by this time, crowds of people were gathering outside and walking to the scene).

I ran inside to tell Lyndsey, but she was in the b-room. So I thought, how often do you get to see this kind of stuff? So I casually walked down to the crime scene just when cops arrived.

The scene looked like an SUV had crashed into the back of a parked car and the unloaded some heat on the green Toyota truck in the photo (middle of the road). No one was hurt -- oddly enough, no one was even there. The only owner of the 3 vehicles was the poor guy whose parked car got completely smashed. I walked back home and Lyndsey was outside chatting it up with our neighbors -- one of whom is a bald, Emo-Neo-Nazi type guy that could have roid-rage at any moment.

So we're guessing the owners of the truck and SUV were gang bangers and had it out in the middle of the street. One girl looking on said to me, "I heard a few shots and told everyone 'HIT THE DECK!" Her friend, who I guess just moved here kept saying, "You don't see this back home! Time for me to move back." I replied, "Welcome to LA," and she said, "Yeah....this is a goodbye welcome," in a distinctly urban-slang voice. She was a little too dramatic for me. Oh, by the way, an LAPD helicopter was circling the perimeter this whole time, searching for any suspects on foot.

So the po-po shut down our street. We decided to escape for a few hours and take a walk in Beverly Hills -- as a sidenote, we are looking to move before September and today's event has only confirmed our decision.

birthday!

i am now 23.

to celebrate, i took a four day weekend.

july 12 (THE BIG DAY)

my mom & my sister came out. we went to brunch at a great cafe in downtown culver city, and to the getty center.

it was a beautiful day. the architecture, the views of the ocean and the city, the cool art...i highly recommend a trip if you'v never been. we even took a guided tour to learn more about romantic and realist art.

we finished up the big birthday with dinner at tito's, another trip to the kwik e mart, a visit from my cousins and treats from the homemade magnolia bakery.

JULY 13

brandon and i saw transformers, ran errands and i learned how to cook onion chips, an authentic ghanian recipe, from my african friend. sure beat being at work.

JULY 14 - 15

we drove down to "the o.c." for the weekend. not only did we find many homes and neighborhoods we would like to inhabit, we also squeezed in a trip to the newport beach temple...

...before proceeding south to our hotel. we stayed at the very lovely laguna cliffs marriott in dana point. one of my friends from rancho is a manager there and got us a sweet birthday rate...we had a great time!

our view of the harbor:

we had time to hang out by the pool, walk out by the ocean, relax, etc. we even used one of my birthday presents (gift card) to have a lovely dinner at cheesecake factory. even though we were only one hour away from home and only gone for two days, it was a perfect getaway.

KWIK E MART

yesterday we were happily driving home from a costco/in-n-out run (what better way could you spend a saturday?) and saw THIS:

as you may or may not have heard, only eleven 7-11s in the united states have been turned into kwik-e-marts in honor of the simpsons movie. and WE found one!!

and let me just say that those hot pink donuts were perhaps the finest donuts i've ever tasted in my LIFE. and i've had a lot of donuts, people.

for any local blog readers, it was the 7-11 in santa monica, around sepulveda & venice. you should totally go! for those of you that live a little further away, read this article (http://www.abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=3337228) to find other locations.

new hair

before.



























apparently it's rule of nature for girls to chop their hair in the first year of marriage. so says my boss. who am i to go against the norm?

after.