Shawna’s Whimsical Weblog

Sunday was a good day for hockey for my Winter team “The other other White Meat”. It was history in the making as no team had ever come from the loser’s bracket (which we had been cast into by Green previously) to come back and beat the team in the winner’s bracket twice to take the championship. I have to give everyone on my team super props, because everyone played their best on Sunday and you could tell that we really wanted to win. So I present to you the Pope Cup Champs:

(L-R top: Alfred Wallner, Greg Willis, Stephanie Palomo-Schmidt, Paul Kingston, Tim Helmbrecht, Bryan Szeliga, Corrie Woolcott, Mahru An. (bottom): Keely Walker, Don Tran, Shawna Hamon

Plant Pattern 1 (not so successful)

Plant Pattern 2 (better)

Although our bathroom tiling project is still unfinished after many bumps in the road, Tim and I still took the time to head to Art Walk to pick up some items to hang on our walls (eventually). Art Walk was exhausting. We walked around for 3 hours and found only a few artists we liked. Some pieces we thought were too expensive, but in the end we walked away with two lovely photographs (one framed, one not). Looking at the art I noticed that many of the photographers looked for patterns in nature. I guess there must be something appealing about patterns. I decided to snap a few photos of some plants with patterns (partially because i had not taken any photos of plants on Earth Day).

The gang heads to Sushi Itto in Hillcrest (L-R): Keith, Angela, Brian, Michelle, Ryan, Wendy, Jeannine

In Celebration for Earth Day this year I have started the process that will make me a lifetime member with the Sierra Club. I’m even going to sign Tim up with me on a joint account (only $250 more). I’m also looking to head to the Sierra Summit Conference put on by the Sierra Club in September in San Francisco. Even though it’s pretty pricey, I think it will do this jaded environmentalist some good to mingle with the people who are doing their darndest to preserve our planet.

xoxo Earth xoxo.

Things seem to have returned to normal after our website was hacked on the 7th of this month. Doug pointed me to a replacement for the ee exhibition database I had been using to publically post my photos. Flickr. I get 10 MB of upload a month. I have maxed out my uploading with photos from Christmas of 2004 to March 12th 2005. I will finish backloading those photos on May 1. I should be able to upload about 67 photos a month so that works out well. You can see the ones I have done so far here. I really like the ability to search a picture in the database by tags. The date-taken calender is also very cool. However, I’m not thrilled by the resolution. If anyone ever wants a photo from this database let me know and I will send you the original. I will still be posting pictures I particularily like on here. Below we see the 300th image taken with my camera.

“Dominoes Motherfucker”

Last year my brother mentioned to me that there were a number of restaurants that we would like to hit around town. My schedule has cleared up a bit and last night marked the first official meeting of “Dinner Club”. The first rule of Dinner Club is to leave room for dessert. Ayal and Jeannine joined us and we went to a restaurant on Ayal’s list, since he may not be in town for much longer. If Tim can review movies, I figure I can review restaurants.


Venue: Buon Appetito in Little Italy.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this restaurant as the reviews given by the SD Reader and San Diego magazine weren’t too favorable. They complained that the restaurant was too noisy; they complained about the food. However there was no techno music blaring, just a little Pavarotti. Almost every table was occupied creating a warm and lively atmosphere. We started with a lovely mozarella antipasti, followed with the braised rabbit, sea scallops over a bed of spinach and a shrimp ravioli with creamy asparagus. All agreed that the ravioli dish was tip-top. We were not so thrilled with rabbit. The pastas were fresh, the veggies were well seasoned. If I were to return to the restaurant I would probably lean towards the pasta dishes. Accompanying dinner was a “super tuscan”. The restaurant is supposed to have a very nice selection of wines from smaller Italian wineries. The tuscan had a nice vanilla nose, and was well-suited for our meal. Abiding by rule #1 to dinner club, we ordered up three desserts: creme brule, a strawberry napolean and tiramisu. Wow, they don’t skimp on dessert portions. I thought all three desserts were very good, but Brian and Ayal had misgivings about the creme brule.

Rating: Owm Owm

Parker and I have been discussing taking a digital photography class. I think the current frontrunner is the course offered at MiraCosta college in Encinitas. Most of the places I have looked at either cost an arm and a leg or are too far of a drive. Their online schedule for summer classes becomes available tomorrow, so I guess I will find out then if that will work out for us. If anyone knows of any other college/location that offers a decent digital photography class (or regular photography that we can bring our digital cameras to), please let me know. Speaking of awesome digital pictures, Brian gave me his CD of flower pictures he took while we were out in Anza Borrego. They totally blow my pictures out of the water, and they can be seen here. I’m so jealous of his artistic eye for a picture’s composition.