What Happened in April?
30 Apr 2018 | LifeI really dropped the ball on writing this month! This will be only the 4th post… and plenty has happened. I think I’m feeling the fatigue of feeling like I need to constantly be productive. Stopping to reflect feels like falling behind. Nevermind that I still waste way too many hours every day refreshing Facebook, Instagram, and my RSS feeds.
April 12th was the second Grand Park happy hour meeting of “WomenLeadLAC”. It’s hosted by Sachi Hamai and a lot of the top brass attend. This time, they included a scarf exchange, where you pick someone else’s scarf and contact them to build a connection.
I met several knew people, including Rachel who works in the CEO and is interested in GIS and open data. I even went with her to attend the female government employee Toastmasters group that meets in City Hall. I met a woman named Julie who works for the State, and who’s an active runner and organizer for the Firecracker Run. I attended Jose Soto’s group, the Data Science Forum. He seemed to be having a bit of trouble justifying the continuation of the group. I’d love to help, but I already have a lot on my plate.
On April 19th, Lawrence, Amy, and I went on an impromptu overnight camping trip in Anza Borrego! We took the truck, tossed our bikes and camping gear in the back, and booked it to the desert. After setting up our tent, we rode our bikes through Borrego Springs to check out the giant metal sculptures. It was late afternoon by the time we were done and the winds had picked up. We now know what it feels like to ride in 25-50mph winds on dirt roads. Back at camp, we managed to get a fire going to cook dinner. Unfortunately the rising winds began to blow the embers all over the camp site and were threatening to lift our tent into the air. We put out the fire and huddled in the tent, but then we decided that staying in the tent couldn’t be any worse than being outside so we threw our sleeping mats and sleeping bags into the truck bed and slept there. The sky was clear and the stars shown bright. We had a great time stargazing and the walls of the truck bed were good at blocking the wind. The next morning we drove the truck offroading into the Borrego Badlands for some stunning views.
I’ve been doing a good job with weekend bike rides. First it was the Emerald Necklace ride with Dan on April 15th. We rode from Memorial Park station in Pasadena all the way to the Rio Hondo River path, followed that south to Whittier Narrows then came back up along the San Gabriel River. We ate lunch at Burrito La Palma and then met up with the BikeSGV ride in Temple City. Funnily enough, several people that I knew were there - Machiko and her partner Max, and then Johnny of Milestone Rides. Hunter and I rode back to DTLA from there with a woman from the BikeSGV group named Blair, who happened to be a City employee that works a floor away from Hunter at City Hall! Small world.
Next weekend (April 22) was the CicLAvia ride with Hunter and Aaron from KPCC. We took the Gold Line to Azusa, then took Foothill to the San Dimas end of CicLAvia and biked the route to Claremont. Along the way we encountered Dan and Johnny! Small world again. We continued east through Upland to eat at a cute little family-run Indian restauranted named Ashirwad the Blessings. The dosa was so good! From there, it was a quick and easy ride to the Upland Metrolink station, which we took all the way back to downtown.
This past weekend (April 29) I rode to Culver City in the morning for Murriel’s LATechLadies brunch. Then in the late afternoon, Lawrence, Amy, and I met up with Lauren, Alex, Hunter, Dalton, Kevin, and Dylan at Highland Park Brewery for a sunset ride up to Griffith Park via the LA River bike path. We rode up Commonwealth Ave., then Vista del Valle Drive to an area known as the Helipad, or the blacktop. From there we watched the sunset and the moonrise. The uphill was brutal, but I think I’ve gotten a slightly better handle on it after doing Elysian Park a few times.
Saturday the 21st, Leonard was in town and I hung out at his birthday pool party! It was also the 1-yr anniversary of his first date with Jason! I saw Grace last Thursday at the DIY Cocktail Funderaiser. Last week I also went to the new Monday night Westside Hack Night at Carbon Five. Friday was the Arts Datathon, where I hung out all day with Emily. It was interesting learning about so much military and veteran history at the Patriotic Hall, as part of the track I participated in. We looked up the origins of a Purple Heart medal in the County DMVA’s collection and pieced together a bit of a WWII soldier’s past.
Reading this month has been a little slow. I might be overwhelmed by the sudden stack of books I accumulated. NAC activites have been a little slow as well. It’s easy for it to be out of sight and out of mind since communication is only through Slack and group calls are only once a month. I’ve spent more time doing cross stitch. The project for Sonny’s baby is on hold because I need more gold metallic thread. I’ve made a lot of progress on my Field of Fucks. No new work done on the Great Wave. I periodically get the urge to start on additional new crafting projects. Tapestry weaving. Modern macrame tapestries hanging off of a branch. Leatherworking. Bulky crocheted bins. Quilting. Sewing clothes.
DAMN, I still haven’t re-assessed my goals for the year. I’ll try to tackle that later today.
Edit: Add onto the list of things to make: zines about things (crafty things? programming things? civic tech things?), and cool programming or civic tech merch.