I think I am experiencing a reversion. I have a strong desire to get my youth back. Not necessarily in the same exact way, but can I rewind and do it all over again? Correcting the parts that I didn’t particularly like, reliving the parts I thoroughly enjoyed, and creating new memories from experiences I wish I had?

My writing has apparently also reverted, seeing as the above contains incomplete sentences and fragments galore.

How did I succumb to such corporate media, branding, and labels? I don’t understand myself.

1. Liberal Arts
2. Ruby Sparks
3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower

So I finally sucked up my fears of damaging the bag and made the switch to my Givenchy Nightingale. Took it out on its first play day! I absolutely love it and its large size. I love it so much, I think I want to invest in one of the smaller sizes, maybe in another color other than black… but not now. That can wait until I deem myself worthy of another overly expensive self-gifting splurge.

Per usual, traffic on the 405 S was stop and go after work, so I decided to stop by the Nordstrom Rack at the Howard Hughes Center. I wasn’t really expecting to find anything good, and I wasn’t on the prowl to spend more money. This stop was more of an impulsive I’m-right-by-the-freeway-exit-and-traffic-sucks-so-I-might-as-well-take-a-gander-and-hope-traffic-has-died-down-by-the-time-I’m-done type of stop. I wasn’t even planning on sifting through any of the clothing, really. I had planned to browse quickly through the jewelry, purses, and shoes. On the way from the purses to the shoes, however, are the clothes. I couldn’t help but look, just a little bit. To my delight, my little bit of looking resulted in spotting a pair of leather-looking shorts. Leather shorts have been on my shopping list for quite some time. I had been tempted to cave and buy a faux leather pair from Forever 21, but the feel of the faux leather just couldn’t cut it, even if the price was quite easy on the wallet. This random spotting of the leather shorts turned out to be even better. They’re rag & bone and real leather. Unfortunately, the tag read, “Size 29″; I’m typically a 25. It was a good idea that I decided to cross my fingers and try them on anyway because they ended up fitting marvelously! I’d personally like to thank my unproportionally large rear for that. I walked out of the store happy as a clam — the proud owner of a pair of rag & bone leather shorts! To top things off, I found that traffic had dissipated by the time I hit the road again!

The above photos are from my Instagram. Follow me: @thisgunforhire

Perseids Meteor Shower along Templin Hwy, California

Last evening, I was lucky to witness the Perseids meteor shower in the company of Allan, Andy, Carol, Chelsea, Joe, Jennifer, Freya, and Chelsea’s and Jennifer’s awesome friends.

Pinned location provided by Chelsea Cullen of the Templin Highway astronomical vista point

It’s a known fact that attempting to indulge in a desire to astronomically nerd-out in Los Angeles is a difficult feat due to all the light pollution. And this is why, my friends, we decided to hit the road and stake out the Perseids in a popular astronomical vista point along Templin Highway. We found ourselves in the company of other meteor-shower hunters who were camping out in and around their vehicles. Armed with blankets, mats, snacks, and drinks, we all lied down and stared at the open sky. It didn’t take long until we caught a glimpse of a shooting star! During the entire period of time that we were there, we saw many a showering meteor, including some rather impressive large ones with long, lingering trailing tails! Our spot had a pretty good view of the sky and its blanket of stars; the photo at the beginning of the post simply does not do it any justice.

I had never witnessed a meteor shower nor seen “shooting stars” as impressive as the night before, and I definitely look forward to feeding my inner astronomical nerd with future meteor showers. I’d personally like to try out different vista points to see if we could manage to find one with even less light pollution. The point on Templin Highway wasn’t bad, but you could definitely still see some light from the city area.

(1) Tiffiny and I (2) Joe, Jennifer, Chelsea (3) Allan (4) Jennifer, Chelsea, Joe, Jeff at the screen printing station (5) Joe and Jeff

On Sunday, August 5, I attended the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach with some friends, namely Allan, Tiffiny, Chelsea, Jennifer, Jeff, and Joe. It was a good day filled with looking at art, making art, and enjoying the beautiful Southern California beachside weather with good people! Some day soon, I’d like to see the Pageant of the Masters show, held at the same venue. The Pageant of the Masters seems like it would be an inspirational and relaxing activity where we could bring picnic supplies, sit on the grass, watch the show, eat, and be merry!

If only Laguna Beach wasn’t nearly an hour away, I would love to find myself hanging out in this area once again. It’s difficult to do so on the weekdays seeing as I work all the way in West LA (Santa Monica) now. Granted, the drive to Laguna Beach via 405 S is definitely a lot better than the drive to the west side (Santa Monica) via the 405 N – mostly due to the fact that the 405 S drive to Orange County is relatively sans traffic.

Forgive my random ramblings in the previous paragraph; I guess I’m just missing the Orange County area quite a bit.

Hello there, new neighborhood.

Today, Allan and I decided to make use of this. We got our bikes ready and decided to bike over to Shoreline Village, located in Downtown Long Beach.

View Larger Map

The route is roughly five miles one way, so we did about ten miles of biking today, altogether.

As usual, please ignore my tired panda eyes. The ride was relatively easy, but tiring nonetheless. It was great to be rewarded (thanks, Allan!) in the form of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream upon arrival at Shoreline Village!

The return commute felt a lot faster and shorter, although it was a bit tougher on the legs since it was slightly uphill. I’m expecting to be a bit sore tomorrow, but hopefully my wushu training will help ease the effects of the cycling.

I definitely preferred our Sunset Beach to Huntington Beach bike route better (I mean, seriously, biking by the beach/ocean is absolutely unbeatable), but I wouldn’t mind doing this route again.

We fell in love at the seaside.