Month: June 2010

Quite possibly one of the biggest downsides to living in Los Angeles, in my opinion, is the lack of good thunderstorms, like the one in the video below. Via the Chicagoist blog, (sister to our local LAist) I learned about a storm in which lightning struck three of the Windy City’s tallest skyscrapers at the same time. Check out the video:

Lightning strikes three of the tallest buildings in Chicago at the same time! from Craig Shimala on Vimeo.

Okay, okay… so it’s been a while since I’ve posted on the blog. But I’m a busy guy! Whew.

In recent weeks, I’ve done lots of fun stuff here in LA:

• The Donut Summit, where I met lots of cool new people, ate a bunch of fried sugar, and composed a haiku that made it into the LA Times;
• The Street Feast in Glendale, where I met more cool new people and ate some food from gourmet food trucks, including red velvet pancakes from the Buttermilk truck;
• I watched both “Winter’s Bone” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” and enjoyed them both immensely;
• I bought baked goods at the “Eat My Blog” bake sale in West Hollywood;
• I broke the top of an antique marble-top coffee table just purchased by one of my best friends;
• I went to the Long Beach Flea Market;
• and I went to a pizza joint where people were singing karaoke.

I’ve also been scouting for a new place to live, as I’m long past due to have a place of my own. I found a great (and spacious: 750 square feet) one-bedroom in North Hollywood for a reasonable price, so I’ll be moving in either this week or next. My biggest hope is that having a place of my own, and a place where my work area is separate from my sleeping area, will help me to become more productive on the homefront, as opposed to having to venture out to coffee shops or diners to get some writing done.On that note, this week I’ll be trying to get some more work done on my thesis. The work has been coming along fairly well this summer, for the most part, but I really need to buckle down in July and August and get this draft into good shape for the start of the fall semester. I have been invited to read some of my work at a local literary event, and am planning to read a portion of the thesis there. Perhaps that will help motivate me to get a move on!Anyway, I suppose that’s about all for now. Happy Solstice! (Oh, yeah, and I’m celebrating five years nicotine free! Yay me!)